New Music

EXPAT: Civil Civic

, , 1 Comment

Civil Civil’s music kinda sounds like Sonic Youth soundtracking a porno in space. Which is good if you like Sonic Youth.

The Aussie born, now London residing expats met in Barcelona. Aaron Cupples met Ben Green after a tip off from mutual friends The Drones. Emails were exchanged, Ben flew to Barcelona ‘blind-date’ style to meet Aaron, they made some tunes. Now the the duo spend their days on an indefinite working holiday with a flashing LED box for a drummer.

Upon their triumphant return to Oz for their upcoming tour, we asked guys to fill us in with some photos. They sent us some snaps of themselves near yachts and mountaineering topless in Italy.

Captions by Ben.

We visit monuments and ruins and go “Ooooooh, don’t have one those back in Melbs!”. So here we are at some historic spot near Verona with our our Italian handler, the magical Paolo Vizio. He was one of the only people in Italy who wasn’t ashamed to be photographed with us.

 

One of the most obvious but frequently overlooked things about touring is that it is a form of tourism. When me and my good buddy Aaron ‘Flopsie’ Cupples are actually setting up or soundchecking or playing we are a band. Total professionalism, no fucking around.  But the rest of the time we’re just a couple of dorky Australian tourists. I mean look at us.

We’re dickheads on a weird, boozy working holiday.

 

 Whenever we’re flogging our hire-car through the Maritime Alps we usually take time to climb a mountain and take some creepy, homo-erotic photos of ourselves.

 

We stare and point and laugh at anything we don’t understand. Here we see Aaron trying to figure out what to make of what appears to be a massive, overpowered scooter with a barrel-themed trailer at a German servo. I’m just out of shot pointing and laughing.

 

(more photos after the jump)

(more…)

Read Post →

LISTEN: Rainy Day Women – ‘Friends’

, , No Comment

Rainy Day Women are a four-piece from Fremantle, WA that knock out summer gems like SPF 50+ knocks out UV. Seriously, slip slop and slap kids. Their new EP Friends is happy times with production by Andy Lawson, the wizard that makes Eskimo Joe appear to actually sound good. I’ve posted the title track ‘Friends’ which is a cute tune that has the right mix of vintage fuzz with sweet melody to be perfectly on-trend with the current West Coast sound. Someone send them to the States.

Of course these guys have also sewn up the summer must-have festival slots at Southbound Festival, Big Day Out (Perth) and St Jerome’s Laneway Festivals in Perth. They continue on for an east coast tour that looks like this:

Fri, March 8: Amplifier Bar, PERTH w/ Bastian’s Happy Flight + Special Guests

Thurs, March 13: Black Bear Lodge, BRISBANE w/ Oceanics + Ben Fahey

Fri, March 15: FBI Social, SYDNEY Hot Spoke + Special Guests

Sat, March 16: The Workers Club, MELBOURNE w/ Split Seconds + The Red Lights + Hudson

 

_____

 

Website/Facebook

Read Post →

LISTEN: POND – ‘Giant Tortoise’

, , No Comment

If you feed seagulls Alka Seltzer or Diet Coke, they don’t wind up in purgatory floating past stained glass windows as this cover suggests.

They keel over and foam at the mouth. Feeling a little bit like that after listening to this new one.

Snag a free download of ‘Giant Tortoise’ here. New record Hobo Rocket will be out soon – but in the meantime, catch Paisley Adams taking his Vitamin C meds and the rest of the POND guys at Laneway this weekend.

_____

Facebook

 

Read Post →

LISTEN: Flamingo – ‘Watch It Blow Up’

, , No Comment

Flamingo are from Adelaide… no seriously they are from Adelaide. I don’t know why that seems crazy but it does when I listen to this stuff. Sure, guys making beats at home can draw from anywhere now and create a sound that doesn’t have to fit their scene or landscape or whatever but make no mistake – it is way harder. Mostly because it’s difficult to know what’s good. The feedback is on yourself which is why I’m impressed by the way these guys have worked up this sound. Check their soundcloud for an ‘EP’ of sorts. The first half of O.T.H.A.F.A sounds straight out of Brooklyn and the rest is all worth a spin too. Some dub step beats and sparse jamie xx bass as well. Yes, it’s a mish mash but the highs out way the missteps. ‘Watch It Blow Up’ is our choice cut. Enjoy.

_____

 

Facebook/Soundcloud

Read Post →

PREMIERE: PVT – ‘Evolution’

, , 2 Comments

PVT have spent the last two years working on their new record, Homosapien. Starting today, one track from their new album will be released through 9 different blogs around the world. We’re super excited to be the first blog chosen to premiere the first taste of their new track, ‘Evolution’.

Church With No Magic (2010) was the last we heard from the experimental Sydney/London trio. The first track off the new record begins where the last track of the last album left off. Listening to ‘Only The Wind Can Hear You’, the final track on their last record, it seems that PVT never fully ‘resolved’ the album. Like most PVT tracks, this last track on Church With No Magic ended in one giant comma, a slight refrain and a soaring fleck of noise that strays out into the ether.

PVT seem to front questions rather than solve them. As for new track ‘Evolution’, it’s as the name suggests. While it’s not a radical change that’s happened between albums, there’s been a slight shift in their sound – a kind of spatial awareness if you like. This track was written early on, and encompasses some of the themes Richard Pike was exploring at the time.

He notes:

“I watched a documentary called ‘All Watched Over By Machines Of Loving Grace’ by this guy Adam Curtis. It talks a lot about the development of the internet, Ayn Rand, Silicon Valley, JFK and the cult of celebrity – you name it, it’s all in there. The ebb and flow of influence, cause and effect in society, and what makes us who we are. As individuals and as humanity on the whole. Big ideas.”

‘Evolution’ explores all these “big ideas”. From the burgeoning warble of Roland synth in the intro, to Laurence Pike’s steady drum hand feeding the machine, the track is playful galactica one moment, subtle catharsis the next. These elements have always crafted the bulk of PVT’s work, but listening to the new track and comparing it to the band’s older material (2008’s O Soundtrack My Heart), the previous atmospheric tweaks-for-the-hell-of-it have been traded in for a sense of greater clarity.

I’ve always found PVT’s work interesting. But if this track is anything to go by, it seems PVT have again proved that they don’t revel in resolving ideas, but creating them.

Homosapien is out Feb 8th through Create/Control

_____

 

Listen to the rest of the album over the next 9 days on these blogs:

‘Electric’ premiering on One A Day on Thursday, January 31
‘Cold Romance’ premiering on Pigeons And Planes on Friday, February 1
‘Love & Defeat’ premiering on Your Music Radar on Saturday, February 2
“Homosapien” premiering on The Line Of Best Fit on Sunday, February 3
‘Vertigo’ premiering on Indie Shuffle on Monday, February 4
‘New Morning’ premiering on Music From Go To Woah on Tuesday, February 5
‘Casual Success’ premiering on Circle.Square.Triangle on Wednesday, February 6
‘Ziggurat’ premiering on IS050 on Thursday, February 7

Facebook / Soundcloud

 

Read Post →

WATCH: ‘Mind Mischief’

, , No Comment

It’s nice to see some corporate dollars get behind an Australian band’s music video. Hawt production value. Directed by David Wilson and based around his (and every other boys) English school-boy fantasy. It’s an amazing video that peaks with mind blowing drawings, complementing a track off what we should now start calling, one of the great Australian records, Lonerism. For Tame Impala, it’s just another day making crazy shit happen. Check the money blog for interviews and BTS fluff.

_____

 

YouTube Preview Image

 

Website / Facebook

Read Post →

WATCH: Strange Talk – ‘Falling In Love’

, , No Comment

This new track from Strange Talk was directed, produced and edited by Costa Vakas. Yeah he goes alright… he’s a ‘doing what you never dreamed possible’ kinda guy. And for this ‘banga’, he has taken us into a Faithless (circa 98) type club vibe, complete with glow sticks, lasers, and leo’s. I. Think. I’m. Falling. In. Love.

_____

 

Website/Facebook

Read Post →