Kora – ‘Burning’

I’m not sure if Darwin could explain it, but for some reason Kiwis have an innate sense of dub and reggae – think Salmonella Dub, Fat Freddys Drop, Katchafire and The Black Seeds. It’s even got its own Wikipedia entry!

Kora stand out from the pack because they infuse their music with a heavy dose of rock and funk; they’re the support act for the upcoming Cog album launch tour, which demonstrates this band’s major crossover appeal. It’s a great album for someone like me, who has more of a rock background but has always enjoyed dub music. It’s a very diverse record, traversing dance, dub, hip-hop, rock, soul and funk landscapes, always maintaing a wicked, infectious groove.

‘Burning’ is the opening “song” (barring the Lord of the Rings-esque cinematic epic ‘Intro’ on track 1) and a tune which I think best represents this album. I was going to put up the tounge-in-cheek tune ‘The Delivery Man’ because it’s just so damn funky, but I think I’ll put that one up later. If you’ve never heard Kora before, that song might not give you the right impression of the band. ‘Burning’ however is just so naturally groovy that you can’t help but bop with it.

http://www.kora.co.nz
http://www.myspace.com/koraroots

Read Post →

Embarrassingly I’ve only got around to catching these guys a few weeks ago, they were really good and deserving of the top spot in the old school album charts.

Read Post →

And here’s the final clip for the week. I hoped you’ve enjoyed this week’s more visual Who the Bloody Hell Are They. I thought I’d leave you this week with everyone’s favourite heavy rockers, Cog, and the clip for their latest single ‘Bird of Feather’.

http://www.cog.com.au
http://www.myspace.com/cogrockmusic

Read Post →

Phase 2, part 2: Bertie Blackman and the clip for her new single, the rather infectious ‘Fast Bitch’. Who’s the fast bitch? Bertie, or someone else? I refuse to believe BB’s a bitch!

http://www.myspace.com/bertieblackman

Read Post →

Thus begins Plan B – posting film clips to mask the fact that we’re not uploading new blogs. First off the rank: Happenstance.

http://www.myspace.com/happenstanceband

Read Post →

CakeHole - ‘Stab You’ (mp3)

Before I get into this little writeup, I just wanted to say we might be a little scant on the postings this week. It’s busy days ahead, but please bear with us and we’ll be back to the usual programming in no time. Hell, we might just throw up a bunch of YouTube vids to pass the time.

It’s one of those songs that you hope is meant to be ironically bad. CakeHole is a bit of a mystery band: the vocals are immediately obvious as Jess Origliasso from The Veronicas, but the other characters I’m not too sure of. I think one of them may be Azaria, singer of The Follow (and Jess’ new beau) but the other dude… no idea. Any clues readers?

The aesthetic is amateur electronic J-pop, but with lyrics like “I will stab you here / don’t ask me why / I will stab you with / Stab you with my wife” I can only assume – and hope – that CakeHole are supposed to be tongue-in-cheek bad. Honestly, who would write crap like that and mean it to be serious? The problem, though, seems to lie in Jess’ incongruent vocal melody that doesn’t lock in with the music. This ain’t no Veronicas pop tune, honey.

In the end, it’s fairly vacuous but innocuous electronic dribblings that won’t amount to much. But somehow it’s irritatingly memorable.

http://www.myspace.com/cakeholemole

Read Post →

Ricki-Lee – ‘Can’t Sing A Different Song (Supermelody Remix)’

Yeah, yeah, so we’ve copped a bit of flack in the past for journeying into pop territory by posting one or two songs from former Aussie Idol contestant Ricki-Lee. Well, when a remix of one of her songs arrives in my inbox that’s this whacky and it’s been done by ex-Architecture in Helsinki member James Cecil (who goes by the pseudonym Supermelody)… then we have a duty, nah an obligation to the Australian music-loving folk of cyberspace, to post this!

Taking lead from Missy Elliot, this remix of ‘Can’t Sing A Different Song’ contains a rather awkward, non-syncopated beat, and a bridge that completely shifts the style of the song. Ricki-Lee’s never sounded so cool.

http://www.myspace.com/rickileeofficial

Read Post →

Plug-In City - ‘Blank Photo’

Modular’s newest wunder-kids, Plug-In City, bring us something, uhh, new… ‘Blank Photo’. I guess this is what Robert Palmer would sound like if they’d cryogenically frozen him, brought him into the 21st century and set him to work writing New Wave tunes. Just a lot blander. There’s a air of Joy Division we don’t care-edness and that ostenisbly cool exterior bands like Van She and The Lost Valentinos were perfecting in 2006. This sounds like Plug-In City missed the boat. They need to bring the rave synths back, pronto, and drop the ‘Old Man Sam’ bass.

http://www.myspace.com/plugincity

Read Post →

Scribe – ‘Say It Again’

From the man who reckons not many, if any, flow like him, comes the decidely Jay Z influenced ‘Say It Again’ from Scribe‘s album Rhymebook. It’s hard for Pacific rappers to simultaneously not sound too local, but not sound like an aping American gangster wannabe. Scribe manages to straddle that fine line incredibly well, so maybe he’s right – not many dudes I know flow like him.

http://www.myspace.com/scribedirtyrecords

Read Post →

Plastic Palace Alice – ‘The Girl Who Cried Wolf’

I always think of Plastic Palace Alice as being the Melbourne equivalent to Sydney’s The Seabellies, just with a grander love for Lou Reed. Plastic Palace Alice have always had such great potential, and the Arcade Fire-fronted-by-Bowie ’Empire Falls’ always did it for me.

But I feel as though they’ve taken a step backwards with their new song ‘The Girl Who Cried Wolf’. Rob McDowell’s vocals aren’t strong enough to lead a song that doesn’t have enough interesting instrumentation. It does its thing but doesn’t really leave you wanting to hit the play button again.

It’s the first single from The Great Depression, the band’s debut full-length album. While this song may not be the strongest, I still have faith in what’s to come.

http://www.myspace.com/plasticpalacealiceband

Read Post →