KIM – ‘Wet n Wild (Riot In Belgium Mix)’ (mp3)

La decadanse had blogged this early in February and if you’re an overseas club dj deeply interested in the Australian electro scene then this type of incestuous remixing is probably your dream mix that you’d drop in the next Ipod battle night or whatever. This track was taken off KIM‘s oh-so exclusive Japan only released album System Breakdown. Not entirely sure why he didn’t release this in Australia, must be some marketing strategy of some sort. I’ve just listened to the track a few times and I think I like the original version better, or at least the one that I hear in clubs here anyway. For all I know it could be some sort of Bang Gang Van She Tech dub mix or whatever.

www.myspace.com/kimberleyisaacmoyes

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Stature:Statue – ‘Make Haste Roman’

I used to live in a house of 6 people, 3 of which are big fans the prog rock/metal genre who think Omar from Mars Volta could be the second coming of the Christ. Of course I quickly got tired of it and just like the 1970s reaction to overbloated and self indulged ‘progressive’ music I turned to punk. It’s been a few years since I’ve given a serious listen to anything that can be roughly described as ‘prog’ but a few weeks ago I saw a band from Queensland called Stature:Statue. They’re definitely worth catching at least once even if you hate this kind of music as I did when I saw them. Very impressive live, I am only going to describe their sound as a cross between At The Drive-In and Blood Brothers. Anymore than that I’d be using overused and oft misunderstood adjectives that shouldn’t be used in music reviews, but common in bad label press releases. Anyway these recordings don’t do them justice, catch them live when they’re touring next in your town.

www.myspace.com/staturestatue

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Belles Will Ring – ‘Mad Love’ (Adam Baby! remix)

I like this remix even though it reminds me a lot of those INXS club remixes very common in the early 2000s (what are they calling this decade, noughties?). Adam Inglis’ been making music since 80s in various bands before switching to DJing and club remixes under the moniker adambaby, did plenty of bootleg type remixes of old artists one of which earned him a play with BBC Radio One’s Pete Tong. He seems to have a big catalog of music work on his website. For me these kind of remixes are real hit or miss, but if you find something you enjoy from his repertoire do link me up.

www.adambaby.com
http://www.myspace.com/pointysquared

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Soft Tigers – ‘Mr. Ice Cream’

This song came out more than a year ago as a demo rotated on FBi Radio and managed to get some spot plays on national broadcaster Triple J. Even though they got the attention then, it took Soft Tigers a long time before coming out with a finished album. They’ve signed to Below Par Records/OK!Relax an unlikely label to be interested more known for their punkish leaning roster of Kisschasy, Something With Numbers, Die!Die!Die! and The Scare. This song has a classic ageless summer anthem to it, that if it were to gain the favour of mainstream radio it probably will be played for years to come in classic fm stations. Wait out for the hilarious line in the bridge that suggests the Soft Tigers guys weren’t really thinking about ice cream when they wrote this song.

www.myspace.com/softtigers

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Since 1987 South by South West (SXSW) has been held as an annual Music and Media conference and Festival in Austin, Texas. Every year show casing hundreds of musical acts from all over the world, this year there are a number of Australian artists and bands taking the stage to represent this nook of the world from the 14-18^th March. I scraped together a list of the bands that are playing at one of the many venues across downtown Austin. Though I’m certain I might have missed a few, I’m predicting these performers would love to receive messages of support from friends and fans back home.

From Perth we have Andrew Winton Duo and The Panda Band, and from Brisbane The Zebras. From Sydney-town there is rocker’s Expatriate, Electro kids The Presets, SPOD, Josh Pyke, Macromantics, Brave Rader, and for all those O.C loving Americans, Youth Group. Plus representing the old school is Hoodoo Gurus and You Am I.

Then from Melbourne comes Children Collide, experimentalists Sunwrae, Ian Wedley, Architecture in Helsinki (who I have it on good account are also shooting a new film clip in Mexico at the moment) Airbourne, Dallas Crane, The Beasts of Bourbon, Borne, noisy pop artists Via Tania and The Gear.

Finally my favourites Wolf and Cub from Adelaide, who will be back in town with Wolfmother next month- yay! And finally a mention to the Kiwi kids, Die!Die!Die!  plus The Mint Chicks and heavy rockers Blindspott. Phew… It would be extremely cool to be there, though any stories which detail encounters with The Who’s Pete Townshend, one of the speakers at SXSW (about God knows what) would perhaps suffice, at least for this year.

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FourPlay – ‘Reptilia’

FourPlay describes themselves as a “Sydney, Australia based indie rock band who happen to be an electric string quartet”.  And I couldn’t put it much better myself.

This is not your average string quartet.  In a similar vein to other string quartets such as Kronos (the troupe who composed the score to Requiem for a Dream), their style and compositions are quite non-traditional and left of centre.  Also, a typical string quartet is made up of two violins, one viola and one cello, whereas FourPlay use two violas, one violin and one cello “to produce a thicker, deeper sound”.

They’ve also been known to do some amazing cover versions of popular songs, such as The Strokes’ ‘Reptilia’ which I’ve posted with this blog.  They also do a stunning version of Radiohead’s ‘2+2=5’, which is one of my fave Radiohead songs.  Their most recent album Now To The Future came out last year and you can hear a few tracks from that on their MySpace page. 

http://www.fourplay.com.au
http://www.myspace.com/fourplaystringquartet

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Photo by Melinda Comerford

Nina May – ‘The Feeling’ (mp3)

Wanna know what the kids are going crazy about at the moment? Then say hello to Brisbane four-piece Nina May and their new song ‘The Feeling’, which I think may be the demo version of a track that will make it onto their EP which is coming out at some stage during the Year of the Pig.

Aside from amassing around 1000 times more friends on MySpace than I, at the point of writing this blog, Nina May were the top-rated band on Australia’s premier music website Faster Louder.  Hell, they’ve even got a street team!  Talk about a lot of l-o-v-e.

Though it doesn’t look like the troupe have toured much outside their home state of Queensland, no doubt with their burgeoning success you’ll see their name around your state fairly soon.

http://www.myspace.com/ninamaymusic

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