Empire Of The Sun – ‘We are the people’
A ‘teaser’ single released on iTunes recently ahead of the October 4th album release, just over a week away. I have high expectations from this album and I know a lot of people do. This song starts off slow but the chorus triumphs thanks to Luke Steele’s unique voice and gift of melody. Have to say that I wasn’t expecting a sci fi themed artwork when I first heard of this project, but I guess it doesn’t really matter.
KillaQueenz – ‘Bitches’
Here’s an SMS I recently sent – “KillaQueenz are my favourite Sydney rap crew hands down. ‘Bitches’, produced by [Melbourne producer du jour] M-Phazes, bangs harder than anything out there. “Bitches don’t/ bitches don’t/ bitches don’t like me.” God, it’s just a ridiculously anthemic chorus, backed with supreme confidence in their abilities.”
I was perhaps being a bit hyperbolic (I was dancing at the time), but I stand by the core sentiment of the above text – that ‘Bitches’, the second KQ single following the Gameboy/Gamegirl-sampling ‘Sweaty Wet’, is an utter banger.
P.S. if you live in Sydney, you really need to see them live at some point.
Art Rush – ‘The Reasons I’ve Decided To Die’ (mp3)
I don’t think anybody is really expecting Sydney’s Art Rush to ever complete his ambitious (and blatantly Sufjan-cribbing) ‘50 albums inspired by 50 suburban shopping centres’ project. Yet it’s this same ambition that creates some intensely interesting music.
Take ‘The Reasons I’ve Decided To Die’, from his latest epic in this fifty-ilogy, Castle Towers. ‘The Reasons…’ is a surprisingly funky slice of stream-of-consciousness lo-fi R n’ B… except that usually in R n’ B, panting “I need some company” means “I want to fuck”, rather than “I’m feeling increasingly uneasy about the characters hanging out outside Castle Towers shopping centre as I make my way home from work, and some company would help me feel less of a target.”
Andy Bull – ‘We’re Too Young’
I believe this was going to be the first single off Andy’s upcoming album but this was changed at last minute by Small Town Girl. Andy is promoting the single on a short tour with the following dates, I’ll be catching him at the Toff.
Little Scout - Dead Loss
Brisbane is a small town and if I had a dollar for every time someone told me “oh, you should check out my brother’s/boyfriend’s/workmate’s/housemate’s/neighbour’s band”, I might be close to paying off my HECS debt. So when a friend told me to check out their friend’s ex-house mate’s band Little Scout, I wasn’t expecting anything special.
However, Little Scout are something special. Mixing indie pop with folk and tinny Casio drum beats, their songs are sweet and devastatingly beautiful without being self-conscious or twee.
Debut single ”Dead Loss” has recieved Triple J airplay and the band has support slots lined up with Yves Klein Blue, The Holidays and Cloud Control over the next couple of months.
The Ray Mann Three – ‘Smile’ (mp3 )
Whoa, now this is funky. Ray Mann, formerly of Sydney soulsters Kid Confucius, has decided to jump ship and focus on his own solo trio, and the results are pretty magnificent. Sounding like D’Angelo being backed by Stevie Ray Vaughn while jamming alongside Prince, his trio’s eponymous debut album is dripping with soul, funk and love – the Barry White kind. The vocal arrangements are beautiful and the song is built on nothing more than a simple, groovy bass line and a bouncy guitar line that cuts like a hot knife. One of the most accomplished acts doing the rounds at the moment. Awesome stuff.
The Herd - ‘The King Is Dead’
I’m clearing out the backlog of posts sitting in the back alley of Who the Bloody Hell Are They HQ and here’s a bit of an old one. Old, as in a couple of months. ‘The King Is Dead’, The Herd‘s obituary to former Australian prime minister John Howard, was the first single off their latest record Summerland which debuted at number seven on the ARIA Charts upon release in May. Nice work.
Kid Confucius – ‘Good Luck’
After their last album Stripes sent them traversing our continent, Kid Confucius took some downtime to start work on a new album. It’s still untitled, but we’ve got the first single here, the funky ‘Good Luck’, which is also the first song since the departure of guitarist Ray Mann (who is actually in that picture above, sorry guys!).
It’s got potential, though it feels a bit stilted and lacks some of that funky soul that oozed out of Stripes. Just check out some of the material on the KC MySpace page. ‘Last Straw’ is a particular favourite – one of my favourite songs of ’07.
The album’s due to hit stores October 18 so I’ll be interested to see what else is on the disc. Kid Confucius are never a band to write off.
Fire! Santa Rosa, Fire! – ‘War Coward’
One of the more obtuse bands coming out of RADelaide (that’s Adelaide by the way) is Fire! Santa Rosa, Fire! who sound like At The Drive-In, Circa Survive and The Mars Volta are wrapped up in a highly combustible package that, upon explosion, you can’t help but dance to.
A handful of self-released EPs have been committed to the annals of the Fire boys, and a new bun is cooking in the oven as we speak. The highly pitch-shifted first crumb from their forthcoming album is ‘War Coward’, a tasty offering that foregoes the usual verse-chorus-verse shtick and adapts a more cyclical format, ebbing and flowing rather than adhering to any set structure. Definitely a grower.
Triple J are looking for new broadcasting talent. Having included comedians, priests and liberals they now are looking for online friendly music fans ie. bloggers. I don’t know how effective this would be, I’m guessing most bloggers (like me) start their sites because writing is the preferred way of communication. Dom and I did discuss some podcasting for new music, and potentially starting a whothehell.net show in a community station somewhere, but we never got around to it because our schedules just don’t allow it. It would be very funny however to audition for Triple J so maybe we’ll give it a crack.
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