New Music

Who the Hell’s Guide to Sugar Mountain

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Sugar Mountain comes to us revamped this year, after a 12-month hiatus. It has a new location at the VCA Southbank campus, where the extra space has allowed for a bigger line up than ever before. The festival’s profile is also at its highest level, with a push from the promoters at Mushroom Group, Sugar Mountain’s new partner in crime. This good fortune is well overdue for Sugar Mountain, which for years has been curating the most exciting set of acts of any festival in Australia, whether blockbuster or boutique.

While the Big Day Out flailed around trying to please everyone from Metallica fans to the triple j set and Laneway slavishly booked every band with a ‘Best New Music’ accolade, the closest thing to a ‘white whale’ that Sugar Mountain has bothered with is ESG – a cult act from the no man’s land that was South Bronx in the 1980s. Instead, these guys have displayed an adventurousness and a consistency of vision that’s brought  acts like Sun Araw, Prince Rama and John Maus together on the one bill.

This year is no exception, despite the event now catering to a larger audience. As if the promise of Swans, Nas, iceage and a Boiler Room stage weren’t enough, there’s also a huge array of local talent on the bill. These are some of the artists we’ll be going to see.

NO ZU + Sal P (Liquid Liquid)

Melbourne septet NO ZU have been bringing together cowbell, saxophone and happy pants in a frenetic post-disco amalgam for quite a few years now. On Saturday they’ll be joined by spiritual forebear Sal P of no wave legends Liquid Liquid in what’s bound to be an interesting collaboration.

Terrible Love feat. Kirin J Callinan

Kirin J Callinan has already caused his fair share of trouble for Sugar Mountain. A set at the 2012 event saw audience members streaming from the auditorium in confusion and disgust as the boundaries between concert, performance and reality dissolved. It was probably the best thing I saw all day. This time Callinan’s teaming up with Terrible Records, a US imprint founded by Grizzly Bear’s Chris Taylor. I have no idea what’s going to happen here, but the teaser is promising:

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GIVEAWAY: Baro + Milwaukee Banks

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Baro and Milwaukee Banks are Melbourne acts that have performed the minor miracle of creating Australian hip hop that actually sounds contemporary. Milwaukee Bank’s gauzy, sputtering production calls to mind A$AP Rocky’s debut LP – if you substitute MC Dylan Thomas’ good humour for Rocky’s gaping vacuity – while 17-year-old Baro’s jazzy beats reflect the current preoccupation with boom bap shared by young rappers like Joey Bada$$ and Earl Sweatshirt.

Baro and MB are playing a double headline show tomorrow night at Melbourne’s John Curtin Hotel, with rising producer (and Grimes lookalike) Stax Osset supporting. We have two passes to give away – email editors@whothehell.net for your chance to win.

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WATCH: Total Giovanni – ‘Can’t Control My Love’

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The video for Total Giovanni‘s ‘Can’t Control My Love’ is a pitch perfect Gen Y nostalgia epic. A coming-of-age story shot through a VHS filter, it’s packed with the little details of a 90s childhood – Mambo tees, flannel shirts, Nintendo, BMX and Vans. Moreover, with its disco trappings, prepubescent hero and the band’s own appearance as benevolent boogie demi-gods, the video’s also a pretty clear rip off of a certain 1998 French house hit. But cheesy homage is precisely the stuff that Total Giovanni is trading in; it’s what makes the band so much fun. So check this little dude out as he liberates his masculinity, wins love and conquers his enemies, all through the power of dance.

Total Giovanni will be performing shamanistic rituals at the Workers Club on Australia Day eve alongside HTML Flowers and Douglas Fir.

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INTRODUCING: Slum Sociable

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Mordialloc’s a town that isn’t known for much. It’s got a funny name though: think about it—more-dee-al-oc, (weird hey?) Beyond that, it’s nothing but another blip on the radar of Melbourne’s sand belt. Until now, that is.

For a town which you’d think would induce a certain kind of suburban ennui—the kind where RM Williams reigns supreme—comes Slum Sociable, who have just released new track called ‘Anyway’. They’re certainly not like label mates, Husky, but both acts produce a certain kind of genteel indie-pop. Lush is a word you can’t help but to come back to on listening to ‘Anyway’, but unlike with Husky, you aren’t prompted to run through the woods toting a beard.

In Sociable’s case, lush means chopped-up harps, layered vocals, and a dub-inspired bass line. Together, this makes for an easy listen, to be placed on your lo-fi list somewhere between Toro y Moi’s ‘My Touch’ and Moby’s ‘Porcelain’.

Slum Sociable will be playing their very first show, and previewing their debut EP, at Sugar Mountain Festival on Saturday, 24 January.

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MAP January 2015

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The first MAP of 2015 is here, featuring tracks selected by 18 blogs from around the world. Sydney’s AFXJIM is representing Australia this month with ‘Distant’, the lead single from his second LP, out now through Feral Media.

All 18 tracks are available below, to stream or download at your leisure.

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 18-track compilation through Dropbox here.

ARGENTINA: Zonaindie
Mariana Päraway – Sirena

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Somewhere between Mendoza and the Andes, Mariana Päraway becomes a mountain siren who sings about entangled fates in her latest album, Hilario. Mariana’s music navigates through pop, folk and electronic landscapes resulting in a deep, refined sound exploration.

AUSTRALIA: Who The Bloody Hell Are They?
AFXJIM – Distant

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Sydneysider Travis Baird is a multi-instrumentalist who earns a living scoring video installations, playing as a session musician and performing on tour with the likes of Melodie Nelson and Sounds Like Sunset. AFXJIM is Baird’s solo project, which consists of home recordings pieced together from loops, drum machines and field recordings of everything from kindergarten classroom chatter to police radio transmissions. It’s a subtle fusion of experimental electronica and acoustic songwriting, falling somewhere between Tortoise-inspired post-rock and the folktronica of early Four Tet. Distant is the title track off AFXJIM’s second LP. Carried on a bed of slide guitar and rumbling percussion, the track’s centrepiece sample features singing “recorded to MiniDisc in a bus-top karaoke bar in the Costa Rican backwoods”.

BRAZIL: Meio Desligado
Duani – Aproveita

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Aproveita is the first single from Duani’s debut solo album, which will be released this year. He became famous in Brazil in the 90s, playing forró (a very danceable rhythm strongly related to the Northeast culture of the country) with the band Forroçacana. In this single, he plays all instruments and sings. The lyrics are a manifest about comprehension in love and its different ways of desire, packaged with black music and soul.

CANADA: Ride The Tempo
Morning Show – I’m Listening

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Alt-folk trio Morning Show features members of Bed Of Stars and The Archers. The multi-instrumentalists show a pallet that is heavily influenced by Canadian peers such as Dan Mangan, Hey Rosetta! and Wintersleep. I’m Listening is a beautiful, balanced single you will have on repeat.

CHILE: Super 45
Tus Amigos Nuevos – Paraná

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If we have to blame someone for why Chilean rock has been overshadowed by the pop scene, all darts would point to the extreme seriousness with which most of bands go on stage. Luckily, Tus Amigos Nuevos have been refreshing the idea that rock can be cathartic, danceable and, above all, very funny. This year they promise to be even more so thanks to their second album, from which Paraná is the first single.

More music after the jump
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LISTEN: Twerps – ‘I Don’t Mind’

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Twerps‘ second album is finally out next week. Its title, Range Anxiety, presumably refers to ‘second album syndrome’ – the fear, surely lurking in the heart of every buzz band, of not being able to live up to the promise of their debut record. This is something which Twerps frontman Martin Frawley openly admits to in interviews, and which he seems to be deflecting in the album trailers for Range Anxiety that depict him as some kind of crank auteur (and, later, a washed-up alcoholic).

The band’s made a few changes since their last LP. The talented Alex MacFarlane has been recruited on drums and has made his presence felt – the shift towards crisper tempos and a rather twee eccentricity on the Underlay EP and recent single ‘Back to You’ smacks of MacFarlane’s other band, the Stevens. Also, as has been evident in their live sets for a while now, Julia McFarlane is sharing more of the Twerps’ songwriting burden, having helmed two tracks on Underlay, as well as ‘Shoulders’, the second single from the forthcoming full-length.

Screwing with the formula is almost certainly a healthy thing for a band to do, but it’s a gamble. For Twerps, shared songwriting may have diffused some of the pressure of of making that difficult second album. Frawley has said he was left feeling exposed by the personal material on 2011’s Twerps, and he speculated last year that the new album would be ‘more of a joint record, less of one dude whinging about everything’. In fact, collaboration follows the shape the band’s life is now taking, with Frawley and McFarlane en route to getting hitched.

But while McFarlane is a decent lyricist, and her nimble guitar playing has provided the band with at least half its personality and pep since the beginning, her writing style feels unnaturally heavy alongside Frawley’s easygoing pop. She tends towards vocal melodies with a nursery-rhyme simplicity – albeit more of a nod to traditional folk than to Peter Combe – and with a sometimes grating circularity.

So after McFarlane’s anachronistic sounding ‘Shoulders’ (and the enjoyable but kind of dinky lead single, ‘Back to You’) it’s a relief to hear a track from Range Anxiety that genuinely lives up to the hype. ‘I Don’t Mind’ starts out lazily enough, swapping between Frawley’s slow drawl and McFarlane’s skipping guitar, with only the rumbling rhythm section and a hint of feedback to presage the thrill of the song’s frenetic final bars. As the tempo increases and layers build, the track culminates in a sense of urgency that utterly belies lines like ‘I don’t mind if you go / I don’t mind if you stay … let’s waste away … I don’t mind’.

Range Anxiety is out next Friday, 23 January, through Chapter. Twerps will play a backyard set at Polyester Records on the day, with limited tickets going to the first 40 people to preorder the album at the store or through the Polyester website.

They’ll be playing the new tracks for you again the very next day at the massive Sugar Mountain festival. Limited tickets are still available here.

Twerps’ Australian dates:

Jan 24 Melbourne­ – Sugar Mountain

Jan 28 Brisbane – The Tivoli *

Jan 29 Sydney -­ Enmore *

Feb 1 Melbourne -­ Palais *

Feb 3 Perth – Astor Theatre *

Feb 27 Melbourne -­ Melbourne Zoo #

March 7-9 Meredith – Golden Plains

* with Belle and Sebastian

# with Stephen Malkmus & the Jicks

You can see the band’s US tour dates here.

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INTRODUCING: Le Pie

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Le Pie

Who doesn’t love pie? Whether it be the home-cooked apple variety that spawned an infatuation with Sean William Scott, or the meat pie grub catcher that you can buy for $9 at the SCG, pie has thoroughly wormed its way into the collective conscience. Now, with the introduction of Le Pie, the world is about to get even friendlier with everyone’s favourite pastry delight.

Wrung from Newtown, Le Pie has only one single to her name, the heart-fluttering ‘Secrets’. But a few seconds in, you can already see that she’s going to be a star. She’s built on the same teen-crush pop panache that Go Violets, Meg Mac and Airling do so well. ‘Secrets’ is a surefire tearjerker, with an ability to evoke emotions we all didn’t even know that we had.

Maybe this is all a bit too flowery, but Le Pie makes a connection that most pop songwriters find unattainable. The fact she’s been able to do so on her first single is remarkable. Le Pie is sure gonna break hearts this year.

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