New Music

Bearhug – 'Angeline'

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Bearhug – ‘Angeline’

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Procrastinate, and the better part of the blogosphere nabs the good tunes first. Either way, this gem from Sydney’s Bearhug is too much of a good track not to warrant a shout out here. Sounds like the guys are slowly parting from the low-fi aesthetic of their first demo Matt posted in 2009. But like all Bearhug tunes, there’s enough modest melodies and light headed guitar deeds here to keep everyone happy. Their last EP ‘To Anything’ shed glowy memories of earlier Broken Social Scene stuff, so quite stoked to see what they’ve done with the full record which will be out early 2012 through Spunk Records. Caaaaan’t wait.

www.facebook.com/bearhugtheband

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Expatriate – 'Miracle Mile'

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After Expatriate dropped In The Midst of This in 2007, they pissed off to Europe as most local bands do (Jack Ladder aka. Tim Rogers played bass on that record but left to do his solo thing). Most return with damaged gear, a few nice photos to share on social media and a collection of leftover Euro coins, but these guys stayed and have amassed a pretty big following. The band signed to PIAS International in Europe, toured with Placebo, played some huge festivals including Arras (France), Hard Rock Calling (London), iDays (Italy), Sziget (Hungary), Nova Rock (Austria), Werchter (Belgium) and Rockwave (Greece) as well as German mega festivals Rock am Ring and Rock im Park.

Spend too long in Europe stadiums and you eventually end up sounding like Interpol. Which kinda sums up new single ‘Miracle Mile’. Brooding muppet was always a good thing in my books anyway, but glad to see these guys returning for some shows.

We’ve got double passes to giveaway to Expatriate shows in Melbourne on the 15th Dec @ the East Brunswick Club and on 17th of Dec @ Kings Cross Hotel in Sydney. Send your name + contact details to rsvp@whothehell.net by the 14th of December to go in the running.

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www.expatriateband.com

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Dune Rats – 'Pogo' (video)

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How come everyone from the sunshine state makes the rest of us look like a bunch of miserable fools? Either way, I love these dudes. They’re supporting The Death Set in Sydney in December, playing Big Day Out 2012 and have just notched up rad support slots for two big internationals early next year (which haven’t been announced yet). Gonna be a hectic summer @ Dune Rats camp.

dunerats.bandcamp.com

Dune Rats FB

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Interview w/ Husky Gawenda

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husky

Following on from Mel T’s interview with Geoffrey O’ Connor. I spoke to Husky Gawenda of Husky, another Australian band set to play the Laneway Festival circuit this summer. Husky have had a lot of love on the site for their singles and live shows. In October they released their debut record ‘Forever So’ and have been touring the country playing to sold out crowds and very happy fans.

I started by asking about the release of ‘Forever So’.

We finished the record last year so we were sitting on it for a little while. We’d spent a lot of time and energy and love on the record so waiting to release it was a bit hard in a way cause we really wanted to get it out there and have people hear it. So to finally put it out and start to get feedback in all sorts of different ways – on Facebook and twitter and all the ways you get feedback these days – it’s been quite amazing. The fact that there are people out there connecting with it and enjoying it is an amazing feeling.

and having that direct connection with fans?

Yeah, its a beautiful thing because in the past the only feedback you get other then meeting people at shows, which is a great way to get feedback but other then that the only feedback you get is from critics. That’s all good but it’s a different sort of feedback I think. So to be able to just read people responses to the album on our Facebook wall is great. It’s a great way to gauge how people are feeling about it.

How has playing shows and the time since writing the record changed the way you feel about the record ‘Forever So’?

It’s interesting, I don’t listen to the record. I don’t think that much about the actual record. Obviously we’ve been playing and touring a lot so the record has become a live creature. It’s a thing we do live, we’ve had to work on translating the recordings to a live setting and we’ve had a great opportunity to do that this year because we’ve had so many support tours and now we’ve had our own tour. I’m still feeling really good about the songs, I still feel that most of the time I can connect with them while I’m playing them. Sometimes they mean something different to me while I play them to perhaps what they meant when I wrote them but there is nothing wrong with that, that’s the nature of songs and any sort of art. I’m really enjoying playing the songs and seeing how people respond and connect with them – it’s great fun.

The arrangements on the record are quite unique, have you had trouble translating that to a live set – you have a lot of scope to play around with? (more…)

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Tim Fitz – 'Beforetime' EP

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‘The Line’

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‘Live Like It’s a Free Giveaway’

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Tim Fitz is 21 year old producer/instrumentalist/singer out of Sydney. He put out his first EP Infinite Space in March, but his latest release Beforetime is definitely a rich picking. Some might hear genre spanning and others will hear indecisiveness, but there’s a great feel to this collection of tracks. ‘The Line’ is a good example of Fitz’ kaleido-instrumentals. Just as the flouncy percussion gets into the proper swing of things, we get bombarded by drive-high fuzz around the 1 min mark. It’s a little startling at first, but it suddenly breaks with a weird kind of comedic ease back into another crazy improv section.

Throwing about 6 different song ideas into three minutes, gives any tune the potential to get manic. And this does. However there’s something about the way it all comes together here that makes careful production sound like a casual afternoon jam sesh. From a production point of view, this guy has a lot of great ideas. Perhaps an 8 track EP just isn’t enough to fit all of them in. The chatty verse and loungey keyboards in ‘Hold Back a Second’ comes across as another general formula for those closing tracks on local ‘hip hop’ releases, while ‘Blanket of Love’ earns back redemption sounding like a dreamy Mesita remix. Then there’s title track, ‘Beforetime’ – oddly at contrast to the rest of the songs on the EP, but I guess a little introspective piano solo is good for making all of us a little less edgy.

Fitz sound is original, but the way he’s put his sounds together are still familiar enough to catch onto. One of the more enjoyable releases I’ve heard this year. More please.

You can hear the full EP at his bandcamp here.

Tim Fitz is playing with Telefonica and Atom Hawk (Daniel Cunningham of Parades) at The Gate on the 9th of December. It may well be the final send off for the portable music event that begun in the same humble backyard. I’m geographically frustrated that I’m in Melbs when this is happening, but there is every reason (outlined above) for you to get along if you’re in Sydney.

www.timfitz.bandcamp.com

www.thegatepresents.com

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Ali E – 'So It Goes'

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‘So It Goes’

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You’ve probably seen Ali Edmonds around most parts playing bass for Damn Terran and doing stuff for her other projects Little Athletics and Ferry Tails. She also runs a great zine called Death of a Scenester.

Many, many 90’s comforts about ‘So It Goes’. This is probably a little time machine for some of you to the earlier part of the last decade when JJJ didn’t playlist chicks trying to out-do each other’s best Kate Bush impression. More drums would give this a bigger backbone, but there’s something to be said for those pared back riffs which show off some great songwriting. It’s hard to shake those PJ pointers too (see here). If Ali tees up a tour with Adalita and Amaya, I will be a very happy soul.

Ali E FB

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