Yacuna – ‘Bogota’ (mp3)

Yucuna are super fresssh. There’s little information about them floating about, no shows or release dates on the horizon and a Myspace less than a month old at the time of posting. That said, they clearly haven’t just materialised from nowhere – the quality and production of the above track suggests that these guys (how many I don’t know) have been quietly working together for some time.

Beginning with a lush bed of what I suspect are sampled or at least looped harp/guitar/piano/plucked string figures, the track soon introduces a distorted hip hop beat and floating, icy vocals that could be lifted from a restrained Sigur Ros track. Despite the obvious effort that went into the track’s production – replete with a shitload of digital reverb – the track sounds surprisingly organic, like it should be soundtracking a montage of landscape pics shot by some indie kid took on his vintage polaroid camera. This is fucking impressive. Look forward to some shows/releases one day.

www.myspace.com/yucunamusic

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Kite Club – ‘Royal Gums’ (mp3)

Like Jonathan Boulet, Kite Club (aka Nicholas Futcher) is a 21-year-old Sydney based solo artist with a penchant for large-scale production.’Royal Gums’ is one of those tracks that grabs you straight away and drags you along for three minutes without stopping to ask your permission. It opens with a beat lifted from Psychocandy and an explosion of layered vocals similar to Ernest Ellis or Boulet but with an extra twist of ‘crazy’ a la Yeasayer. After that, it stays relatively the same, letting the melody and harmonies carry the song. Where such an intense production can sometimes be detracting, Futcher marries the sound and the track perfectly. Kudos.

This will obviously be difficult to translate live but I’d definitely be keen to see him give it a shot. Not that he appears to have many live slots in the near future – I get the impression that this is a fairly new project. Looking forward to seeing where he takes it.

www.myspace.com/kiteclubclub

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Peon & Stuttah – ‘Doodoo’ (mp3)

Peon & Stuttah are a new beat-making production duo (I assume) from Sydney. Above is their short track, ‘Doodoo,’ which sounds less like a self-contained song and more like one part of a flowing mixtape/album. It’s very much in the vein of J Dilla et al and, despite its brevity, it’s still worth checking out and bodes well for future releases.

The pair have just formed the Blind Boy collective along with members of Seekae, Ghoul and Cleptocleptics amongst others. Some great names from Sydney’s electronica/production scene there so it’s no surprise that their first mixtape is pretty fucking great, which you can get via their SoundCloud account below. And by “you can” I mean “you should.”

Click here to download the rad mixtape.

www.myspace.com/peonstuttah

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Richard In Your Mind – ‘Sumertime Boogie’ (Do The) (mp3)

Richard In Your Mind’s latest digital-only EP is full of the oddball, scatterbrain sounds we fell in love with on their debut and is their first offering on rad new label Rice Is Nice (Seekae, Talons, Spod, Traps et al).

This sounds like someone’s cool summer mixtape since it covers such broad sylistic territory. A lot of the tracks  fluctuate between entirely live performances and entirely sample based compositions, while vocals range from early-Beck slacker rap to the tender, folkier pastures. The above track is the opening instrumental number and features a sped up drum break over cut up brass, a dude shouting ‘woo’ a lot, and a whole bunch of other stuff. It’s intentionally hard to tell what’s been found and looped and what’s been recorded live since the track sounds like someone just mic’d up a turntable, but that unified aesthetic is the beauty of this release. It gives the whole thing a warmth that is reason other more-typically ‘chill-wave’/’glo-fi’ etc releases have become associated with summer.

Summertime EP is what happens when you take such an inventive band to the beach; it sounds like the best summer from the 60s mixed with the best summer of the 90s. Make sure you grab it and enjoy it in its appropriate seasonal context.

www.myspace.com/richardinyourmind

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Svelt – ‘Ghost In Suede’ (mp3)

Self-described as a “hard-luck tale with a hard beat,” Svelt’s track ‘Ghost In Suede’ doesn’t disappoint on either front. It’s driven by a loud funk/hip-hop beat over some scratchy blues guitar, squelchy synth bass, and gravely vocals. It sounds more than a little Waits-ish (a good thing) but with some added muscle from the drum kit (also a good thing). Just when the main refrain, ‘baby, you did me real good’ starts to drag they inject some haunted-house backing vox to reinvigorate the tune.

‘Ghost In Suede’ is the better half of a recently-released, super-limited hand-crafted double A-Side that you can only obtain by contacting the band directly. Check their Myspace below for deets etc.

www.myspace.com/sveltband

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Jerry Soer

Local: Sarah Blasko – As Day Follows Night (‘All I Want’)

I’m a long time fan of Sarah Blasko, so for her third effort I didn’t just hope for a good follow up to 2006’s What The Sea, Wants The Sea Will Have, I expected her to deliver. And of course she did not disappoint. Teaming up with the right producer has brought the best in Sarah, her singing at its most confident and compelling. It’s the right sound with the right songs for the 2009, As Day Follows Night is blessed the perfect flow and rhythm from start to finish. I truly hope that this album will be the vehicle that proves to the world that Blasko belongs in the best class of modern singer songwriters with Feist, Emilliana Torrini, and Regina Spektor. Hard to believe but when I saw her perform this album in July this year she made these songs sound even better, she was in full command of her stage and the audience. Sarah has come a long way from the once shy and reluctant singer on guitar I once saw at the Annandale Hotel just before her Prelusive EP came out. Congratulations to Sarah on this wonderful album.

International: Neko Case – Middle Cyclone
I was travelling through the United States and Europe for a few weeks in March and April, saw a lot of cool young bands in Austin during SXSW and throughout Los Angeles, New York, but none of them had quite the effect on me as Neko Case’s Middle Cyclone. I admit to not knowing much about Neko beyond this release, but it provided the perfect soundtrack for my journeys, and up until now I still listen to it whenever I hit the road. There’s something about her voice, full of wisdom, stories and characters that gives me a lot of distraction and escape from the boring parts of travelling. Whenever I hear these songs I feel like I’m in a bar somewhere in middle America, overhead fans, daytime heat, whisky on hand. Why that gives me comfort, I don’t really know, perhaps I should find out soon.

Matt Hickey

Local: Aleks and the Ramps – Midnight Believer (‘Circa 1992 Ideas’)

I was a bit hesitant about this album because the band had a bit a hype amongst the Melbourne set and I felt like the bandwagon had perhaps passed. But then I had to review it for The Vine and was greeted by what turned out to be my favourite Australian release in what was incredibly strong year for local releases. Midnight Believer is an album that charms you immediately with its pop hooks and then keeps you coming back for more thanks to an endearingly uncalculated wtf-factor. Each song covers multiple styles without feeling like superficial genre explorations, and the lyrics are similarly attention deficit and attention grabbing. From the awkward office romance segue in ‘Circa 1992 Ideas’ to the feisty male/female exchange in ‘Whiplash’ and that computerised spoken word break in ‘Weather Patterns,’ it’s comfortably quirky without keeping the listener at arms length. This is an album that’s both complex and easily digestible, fun but not stupid. Not entirely without it’s less successful moments, but even they have something interesting to note and are more than outweighed by album’s overall success. It was a tough call, but Midnight Believer was the one that has brought me back the most over the last seven or so months.
Hon. Mentions: Seekae (Reissue), The Mint Chicks (NZ), St Helens, Songs, Philly Jays, Batrider (NZ), The Rational Academy, No Through Road, The UV Race.

International: Fever Ray – Fever Ray
This was even harder to pick than best Australian album but I have to go with Fever Ray if for no other reason than because it was simply the album I listened to the most throughout the year. I actually prefer this project to Karen Anderrson’s more famous other band, The Knife, because of it’s minimalist approach and emphasis on atmosphere. I’ve never heard an organ used to such great effect, and the creepy vocal manipulations she’s been experimenting with on previous Knife albums have never sounded more appropriately haunting. This is an album that never peaks above mid-tempo yet never loses your attention, with its dark, brooding vibe clashing well with lyrics about having a green thumb and dishwasher tablets. I went to Europe over their northern summer and managed to chase down a Fever Ray live show twice and it was great – basically the exact same as the album but with added smoke and lighting + a Nick Cave cover. Totally worth it.
Hon. Mentions: Bibio, A Sunny Day In Glasgow, Animal Collective, Telepathe, Girls, The Horrors, The Sandwitches, Fuck Buttons, The xx.

Sophie Benjamin

It’s always tricky to choose an album of the year, even when my choices are limited to music from this little island at the arse-end of the world. So, these are the Australian releases of 2009 that I listened to ad nauseum:

Favourite: Eleventh He Reaches London – Hollow Be My Name (‘Hollow Be My Name’)

Hon. Mentions: The Gifthorse , Cam MacKellar, Skinny Jean, Hunz.

Mark Spillane

Favourite: Capital City – Keep It Stupid Sucker (‘I’ll Never Get Out of this Girl Alive’)

Capital City are one of WA’s least prolific bands, with Keep It Stupid Sucker being the second album they’ve recorded in their 9 years together, but it’s been well worth the wait. It’s snarling punk rock vitriol is best blasted into your auditory nerve at maximum volume. Cracker album, cracker band.
Hon. Mentions: The Sugar Army, Karnivool.

Dave Payne

Favourite: Crayon Fields – All The Pleasures of the World (‘Mirrorball’)

Hon. Mention: The Devoted Few

Johann Ponniah

Favourite: Jonathan Boulet – Jonathan Boulet (‘Community Service Announcement’)

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CharlieWhy – ‘Singing Nina’ (mp3)

Yello – Bostich (Rio Lobotomy ‘Yello Fever’ Remix)

Charlie Why is a modest bastard. Apart from putting in time as the bassist for one of our fav bands Comic Sans, I actually know this dude personally from a few years back when we studied electronic music production together (clearly he’s doing a bit better than me). And yet I had to find out about this rad remix job by his new project, Rio Lobotomy, through Waves At Night (cheers, by the way – head over there to check out the rad video for the track).

Rio Lobotomy is Charlie + Adam Hunter of Wolfgang DJs and above is their take on a track from Swedish act Yello’s debut album. It’s got an insanely pulsing bottom end to it and a lot of cool shit going on above it – but seriously, with decent speakers/headphones you’re most likely to remember those throbbing, side-chained beats.

Also above is one of CharlieWhy’s older solo tracks, which is a bit more of an electro number. Like a lot of good electronic music, its feels like he’s brought a punk attitude to the process rather than a refined, technical one. It’s also definitely worth checking out.

www.myspace.com/charliewhy1

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