New. Australian. Music.    

Thanks to YouTube, I found out that Kisschasy once played a secret show under the moniker ‘Milky Joe & The Coconut Band’. They score massive brownie points for being Mighty Boosh fans.

http://www.kisschasy.com
http://www.myspace.com/kisschasy

Darren Cross goes DIY for the film clip to ‘Cockroaches’, the first offering from his solo project The E.L.F.

Hey, check it out… it’s our fourth “The” project in a row. Look down. Really. Wow.

http://www.myspace.com/theelff

The Hotel Charlie - ‘Rock Rock Dance’ (mp3)

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It’s been a while since I found a song that I could just put on repeat and listen to over and over without getting bored of it, but that’s exactly what I’ve found since I stumbled upon The Hotel Charlie - which highlights the benefit of MySpace and the whole friends-who-are-their-friends thing. You get to find some awesome shit!

Hailing from Sydney, this five-piece has been kicking around in some form since 2003, finally hitting the live scene last year, and in that time have developed a very solid sound. The vocals of Timothy Hay are spot-on, the rhythms are driving and infectious and the song grooves along at a great pace. ‘Rock Rock Dance’ is catchy without being gratuitously pop; rock enough to jump around your bedroom to; not heavy but not soft; perfect enough to make any band who tries to mix melody and rock green with envy.

More demos are up on their page, though ‘Rock Rock Dance’ is the best of the three. They’re planning an album for late this year so keep an ear out.

http://www.myspace.com/thehotelcharlie

The Veronicas - ‘Hook Me Up’

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Brisbane’s most famous twins, The Veronicas, are back with a brand new single and a new sound. (By the way, I think this may be an exclusive for music blogs… though the song itself has been on YouTube and radio already.) ‘Hook Me Up’ sees the Origliasso twins ditching the punky Avril Lavigne-style sound and writing a song aimed squarely at the kids on the dancefloor.

In fact, any semblance of a “real” instrument is absent in this track which is brimming with trance-inspired synth hooks which sound like Marty McFly’s pulled them from the 90s. But it’s catchy as hell, and that damn chorus is pretty sweet - it’s like dumping a whole bag of popalicious Whizz Fizz. To be honest, I’ve got no idea what they’re singing about in this song, and I really don’t care.

The song is co-written by two of the world’s premier songwriters: Greg Wells, who’s worked with everyone from Jesse McCartney to the Deftones (WTF!!!) and pop queen Shelly Peiken (Ashlee Simpson, NSYNC, Backstreet Boys, Ronan Keating, Joe Cocker, Brandy… the list goes on) and explains why it’s so infectious.

The filmclip for this song probably toes too close to the incestuous line to actually be sexy because, sure, twins can be hot, but incest really isn’t. I’m not sure how much sister-to-sister touching is too much…

http://www.theveronicas.com
http://www.myspace.com/theveronicas

The Cat Empire - ‘No Longer There’

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This song, which is in the very broad neighbourhood of a Coldplay ballad, speaks volumes about The Cat Empire’s confidence. Clearly, the ska hop kings feel their audience will follow them down any old path of musical whimsy they fancy having a stab at, no matter how random or self-indulgent. For cahones alone, they deserve a round of applause (but it’s hard to clap and block your ears at the same time).

www.myspace.com/thecatempire

DJ Waxmaster - ‘Mr. Ice Cream’

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We blogged this song in March, though it is finally getting an official release via on the Below Par label last Saturday. Included in the B side of this single are remixes by Japanther, Girl Talk and DJ Waxmaster, featured above.

Melbourne producer Miami Horror also had a go at remixing/covering this track:

Miami Horror - ‘Mr. Ice Cream’

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www.myspace.com/softtigers

I do believe this is the first blog to feature this video clip, an exclusive of some sort. The second signing from Levi’s Jeans Levity label, hypesters Mercy Arms dish out this rather fun take of the slightly over-used stop motion trick.

www.myspace.com/mercyarms

The Elana Stone Band - ‘Beautiful Sound’ (mp3)

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It’s time to bring the jazz and soul to Who The Bloody Hell Are They! The Elana Stone Band come to us as a fairly decorated band: best jazz artist at the 2004 MusicOz Awards, winner at the National Jazz Awards at the Wangaratta Jazz Festival in 2005 and a semi-finalist in the Montreaux Jazz Festival vocal competition.

The voice of Elana Stone has graced the recordings from artists like The Cat Empire and Who the Hell faves Jackson Jackson, and her backing band consists of members from bands like King Curly, Bertie Blackman and others. Also, for you music trivia buffs, her brother is in bluejuice.

‘Beautiful Sound’ comes from an unreleased album she recorded in 2006. There’s a few more tracks on her MySpace to check out too.

http://www.myspace.com/elanastoneband

They’re hitting the road on their Minor War tour. Check the websites for deets, yo!

http://www.birdsoftokyo.com
http://www.myspace.com/birdsoftokyo

http://www.myspace.com/stevenchildsmusic

The Shake Up - ‘What Are You Worried About’

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Cranking the garage rock aesthetic up to eleven, The Shake Up rock hard for a three-piece. It’s raw and brimming with punk energy, but stuffed with infectious choruses. And radio fave, ‘What Are You Worried About’, is a perfect example. Short and fast, a quick burst of energy that hits you and before you know it, it’s over. Joe Strummer would be proud.

It comes from their debut EP, Socio-Political - four tracks of which only one actually gets over 3 minutes in length. Usually we shuffle readers off to a band’s MySpace page, but their website is so nicely constructed that I reckon you should check that out first, before heading over the Murdoch land and listening to the rest of this band’s material.

http://www.theshakeup.com
http://www.myspace.com/theshakeuprock

Cassette Kids - ‘Acrobat’

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Trendy kids from Sydney, this foursome play a lot of the Boom Boom Mega Boom  parties. Even before I read the bio I knew producer John Hardy was somehow involved, this features a lot of his distinct drum/guitar sound. Don’t really know much else about them except that I’ll be checking them out next week at the Sparkadia single launch.

www.myspace.com/cassettekids

The Laurels - ‘Turn On Your Mind’ (mp3)

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Last week Sydney University held the grand final for their prestigous band comp, a competition which has kick-started the careers of some of Australia’s best known bands like The Whitlams, Frenzal Rhomb and Youth Group. Last year’s winners were cool kids Cloud Control, and this year the honour of champion band has been bestowed upon The Laurels.

Lately there has been a resurgence in psychedlica inspired music (sans the copious amounts of LSD) propogated by Richard In Your Mind, The Morning After Girls, the redsunband and Belles Will Ring. The music of The Laurels definitely harks back to the sounds of Lennon-led Beatles, Velvet Underground when they were bed buddies with Andy Warhol and more recently, Black Rebel Motorcycle Club, the Pixies and Sonic Youth.

Ironically enough, I had their drummer Kate on my radio show the night before (along with a member of each band playing in the band comp final, bar The Jezebels) for a session of music trivia to find out who the brainiest band comp band was. Turns out Kate won. An omen, so it seems.

http://www.myspace.com/thelaurels

Devastations - ‘Mistakes’

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Melbourne’s lost sons the Devastations have released two albums from their adopted home of Berlin, and built a solid following from their sombre recordings. Their third album promises a new direction for the band, with a silvery lining around their dark cloud. More pop, less mood, so they claim, but you wouldn’t pick it from their single. Mistakes, despite running at a very different pace, evokes the memory of Morphine, complete with the image of haunted men in haunted bars, playing out their demons.

www.myspace.com/devastations

Steven Childs - ‘Red 4 U’ (mp3)

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Steven Childs is a man with some hidden talents. He’s better known as the frontman for Brisbane pop/punk outfit Repeat Offender (who we blogged about a little while back) but he also has some rather interesting solo material as well, which I found in a blind stumble through the whacky world of MySpace.

His profile - http://www.myspace.com/stevenchildsmusic - is filled with some home-made demos that definitely show potential if he ever wanted to ditch the distortion and chase the melody. The tunes have a blues and roots feel to them, more akin to acts like John Mayer and Lior, who utilise electric rather than acoustic guitars and drench their songs in vocal harmony. These harmonies Childs does exceptionally well, inflecting the song with a 90s R&B feel - come on, everyones liked at least one Babyface and/or Craig David song in their time!

There’s no word on whether an album or EP or cassingle will be released, so if you like the tunes you’ll have to be content with downloading it to your iPod.

http://www.myspace.com/stevenchildsmusic