Posts By Melissa Tan

PREMIERE: Hollow Everdaze – ‘Ominous’ video

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Hollow Everdaze

Adding a string section to your lineup might make you Warren Ellis – or a damp Celtic jam band. Hollow Everdaze recently added violinist Myles Anderson to the bill. Spiccato never hurt nobody, but I went along to a gig last week with doubt cloud looming. Watching a garage band with a string section is like running IRL with 3D glasses – many dimensions, cinematic feelings, general anxiety. As it goes, the violin did end up being a decent match for the the band’s starry-eyed psych laments, and even the slight jazzy breaks they’ve been spotting lately.

Below is Hollow Everdaze’s new clip for ‘Ominous’, a new track off their upcoming EP. There’s a church jam session and minor participation in other brooding activities the track title commands, like patting farm animals and wheelbarrowing down slopes.

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Hollow Everdaze are launching ‘Ominous’ on Saturday, 4th of October at Boney with supports from Contrast and Peter Bibby and His Bottles of Confidence.

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LOOK: Sunbeam Sound Machine

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Sunbeam Sound Machine did the Melbourne to Sydney run last week, playing a show and stopping over at FBi Radio on the way. Lachlan, their drummer is handy with a cam and took some snaps for us. The band have been busy working on their debut album which lead vocalist Nick Sowersby received an Australia Council recording grant for.

Sunbeam Sound Machine are playing their first headline show in a year tonight at Shebeen in Melbourne, with supports from I, A Man, Hollow Everdaze & Chips Callipso. Tickets are available here.

The band’s debut LP Wonderer is out in November through Dot Dash / Remote Control.

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MAPCAST: South of the Border

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Following our podcast on new Indonesian tunes last month, Mexico is our feature country in this month’s MAPCAST. Robbie takes you through what he describes as “twenty minutes of terrifying Mexican underground”, covering everything from new cumbia to afro-pacific beats. The whole affair sounds like Gael Garcia Bernal and Drake doing drinking out of a shoe in a dank, dark club somewhere on the Yucatan. Thanks to our fellow MAP compatriot Uliel from Mexico music blog RedBull Panamerika for your help this month.

This month’s episode, along with previous podcasts are available for free download over at our Soundcloud.

Check out more international tunes in the September edition of the Music Alliance Pact.

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MAP September 2014

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Another month, another round of MAP! September’s submission for Aus is ‘Life Tourist’ from Foreign/National; proof that this country still wrings a good guitar hook out every once in a while. If you’re local and like what you hear – Foreign/National rounds up a wonderfully curated lineup for Paradise Music Festival in Victoria in November. In its second year, the festival also features Oscar Key Sung, Kirin J. Callinan, Banoffee and Lucianblomkamp on the bill. Tickets are available here.

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Click the play button icon to listen to individual songs, right-click on the song title to download an mp3, or grab a zip file of the full 21-track compilation through Dropbox here.

ARGENTINA: Zonaindie
Los Gongs – Suicidas

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Suicidas is a brand new track from Los Gongs’ sophomore album, Volumen 2. This young, promising band from Buenos Aires takes us back to the folk-rock, kraut and psychedelic sounds of the 60s and 70s. It was recorded at Ion, one of the few studios in Argentina that still offers a completely analog recording environment.

AUSTRALIA: Who The Bloody Hell Are They?
Foreign/National – Life Tourist

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Five-piece Foreign/National was formed by brothers Mark and Sean Gage in their hometown on the Mornington Peninsula, a short drive south of Melbourne. The band has released three singles since November last year, attracting their fair share of attention from the music blogosphere. On latest offering Life Tourist, the lyrics offer a harsh counterpoint (“What’s your motherfuckin’ problem?”) to the band’s signature blend of psych-pop and tropicalia. It’s a cheerful, off-kilter sound that falls somewhere on the spectrum between Django Django and Os Mutantes. Foreign/National’s debut EP will be out on Downtime later this month.

BRAZIL: Meio Desligado
Moreno Veloso – Um Passo À Frente

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Moreno Veloso, the eldest son of Caetano Veloso, released his first studio album this year, Coisa Boa. Um Passo À Frente, the first single from it, is an indie-samba song that reflects the easygoing mood of the record.

CANADA: Ride The Tempo
D-Sisive – Jonah Hill

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Toronto rapper D-Sisive describes his own biopic and reveals who would be the ideal person to play him. Despite being seemingly ridiculous, this track may be his best yet.

CHILE: Super 45
Bernardita – Hojas

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Bernardita (Martínez) took some songs that her friend and fellow musician Felipe Cadenasso had kept for years and included them in her self-titled debut album. Hojas (“Leaves”) is a melancholic song that allows the listener to experience the intimacy of the recording. It’s fresh, warm and sweet. Just as the leaves fall to the ground during autumn you will fall for this track.

(Keep scrolling for the full list of tracks.)

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GUEST: Ben Montero

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Yeah, yeah. Ben Montero’s good with his hands. You might already know him as one half of Early Woman or from eponymous pop outfit Montero, the TM Band or the forever excellent Treetops (RIP).

Outside of music, Montero’s an artist. His work has appeared in the Huffington Post, VICE, Desktop Magazine and the Australian Book Review among others. Ariel Pink, Beaches and Pond have even recruited his stuff to sell their wares. Well, he’s just opened his first solo exhibition, ‘SKETCHES’ – featuring over 148 posters, sketches and various lampoonings of the local music scene which Montero’s been a part of for twenty years.

Montero recently worked up a comic for us which covers all the hard hitting issues like free beer, Fred Negro and ‘normcore’ – which should be enough of an incentive for you to get along to the show.

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SKETCHBOOK is showing at Lamington Drive, Collingwood until the 30th of August.

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PREMIERE: The Townhouses – ‘Magpie’ (Video)

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Leigh Hannah has been making tracks under the Townhouses moniker for over five years. ‘Magpie’ is the first single from his new record Ill-Fitting, which will also be the third – and last – full-length Townhouses’ release. While his previous LP Diaspora was slated with themes about displacement,  ’Magpie’ sees a return to the touchpoints of introspection seen on his earlier releases.

Featuring footage of Gippsland’s Corner Inlet, the southernmost occurrence of mangroves on earth, cut against scenes from Apichatpong Weerasethaku’s 2002 Thai romance Blissfully Yours, ‘Magpie’ is an “intimate representation” of Hannah’s “personal anxieties”.

‘Magpie’ might be about restlessness, yet each stagnant phrase and repetitive arpeggio seems to resolve itself – in the same way that closing time music does. I think a younger, suburbia-scrubbed Bill Callahan armed with a vibraphone would have been pleased.

 

Ill-Fitting will be released on cassette and photo zine format on the 23rd of September via Healthy Tapes.

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PREMIERE: MKO – ‘Puddles’

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Brisbane’s MKO sent this song to us a few days ago, describing it as a “sub-aquatic, other-wordly plea”. I don’t know what that means, but it’s probably no coincidence that all your wild ideas and short moments of genius come to fruition when you’re mid shower.

Lathering aside. The arrangement begins sparse. It’s the same way MKO (Hannah Macklin) makes her foray into previous songs – lulling your ears along with that coy vocal, backlit by giddy tryptich beats. Soft R&B twists and turns hold this track by the shoulders, but it’s MKO’s subtle delivery that wins here.

‘Puddles’ is available to purchase via MKO’s Bandcamp from tomorrow.

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