Red Shoes Boy – ‘Swept The Floors’ (mp3)

I just got a copy of Red Shoes Boy’s Stagger EP and it blew my mind. They’re a relatively unknown act in Perth but the 19 minutes of dirty, distorted blues rock on the EP are all killer no filler.

They’re a combination of the Black Keys blues guitar riffery and Ian Ball from Gomez’s husky vocal chords. This isn’t ‘boring old man in an Eric Clapton t-shirt’ blues – Red Shoes Boy sound raw and raunchy as fuck.

The EP comes out on December 5^th and I highly recommend you pick up a copy, a six pack of coldies and settle in to listen to it on repeat.

www.myspace.com/redshoesboy

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Emma Russack - ‘By The Shore’ (mp3)

We’ve written about Emma Russack before under the guise of her previous band Lola Flash. She had some internet/youtube fame from her self taped home video recordings, but the now 22 year old Emma is back on her own with a matured and dare I say jazzy sound with the new single By The Shore. This short, pondering nostalgic number is a confident sounding follow up since we last heard her on Spunk’s Singles club released earlier this year. She is touring with another graduate of the Singles Club The Middle East this December before releasing her first official EP in January.

www.myspace.com/emmarussack

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The Verses - ‘Everything At Once’ (mp3)

I posted about The Verses last year, when the group was playing small shows around Melbourne and their MySpace had a collection of demos the Hooper siblings recorded with friends in a church in their hometown in regional Victoria.

They’re back on the major label ride and I’m a little bit disappointed with their first offering with Warner. I don’t think the songs are as strong as their older material and the shiny production robs them of character.

That said, Ella Hooper could sing the fine print of the Tax Pack over a Timbaland beat and I’d still fork over good money to see her do it live. The audiences of their Fleetwood Mac support slots in December are in for a treat and will enjoy ‘Forever More’, which sounds very heavily, um, influenced by the Mac.

www.myspace.com/theverses

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Here’s a new clip for an old song -  teenagersintokyo’s ‘Black Bones’ – by Australian Rhett Dashwood. I believe this isn’t an ‘official video’ but the band are endorsing it nonetheless – and as if you wouldn’t. This is definitely worth checking out.

And while on the topic of teenagersintokyo, here’s a remix by (personal album-of-the-year conenders) Seekae from earlier this year that never made it onto whothehell.net. In case you missed it…

teenagersintokyo – ‘End It Tonight’ (Seekae Remix) (mp3)

www.myspace.com/teenagersintokyo

www.myspace.com/seekaemusic

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Numbers Radio - ‘Automatic’ (mp3)

If you turn up the volume on your speakers, you can hear drummer Mark Henman counting Numbers Radio into the start of  the song, kicking off  their debut album Acquiring Satellites. By recording the bulk of the album “live” in an actual “garage”, NR have blitzed every other indie-pop band in town with the sheer quality that can only come with bashing out song after song until they are good.

In the two years since their inception, Numbers Radio have played Homebake, made a sweet film clip and released an EP and an album, all on independent label Valley Trash.

If you like the songs, buy the album – it has great fifties-style sci-fi artwork and with more play money behind them, they could overthrow Children Collide as Australia’s best power trio.

www.myspace.com/numbersradio

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Faux Pas – ‘Silver Line’ (mp3)

Melbourne’s Tim Shiel aka Faux Pas have always been sending us his tracks since this blog started. Recently I heard that he finished a new album and was trying to decide how to release it on his own blog. Just yesterday he sent this track and it sounds amaaazing. I can’t wait for the rest of the album!

www.iamfauxpas.com

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The Juan MacLean – ‘Happy House’ (Cut Copy ‘Space is the Place’ Remix) (Radio Edit)

Americans The Juan MacLean have ties with Cut Copy through NY uber-label DFA, and also toured Australia for the first time as support artists for our Modular poster boys. This remix draws heavily from the second half of the original ‘Happy House,’ which starts as a bongo-happy keys jam before shifting into the house music territory that Cut Copy have an affinity for. If their cheesy disco-house leanings weren’t apparent enough on the first EP and album, check out their DJ sets or, better yet, their release under the Fabric Live banner.

The ‘Space is the Place’ remix has a sequenced bassline, house piano, soaring female vocals, mini-break down, and the occasional arpeggiated synth – all the tropes you need to get a party started. Honestly, this track will likely make more sense when Dan and Tim are behind the decks, but it has enough legs on it’s own. Besides, Cut Copy have earned themselves a lifetime of coverage on account of the awesomeness of their output this decade.

The full version of this remix is an Aus/NZ iTunes exclusive.

www.myspace.com/cutcopy

www.myspace.com/thejuanmaclean

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Joysticks - ‘Leave Her Alone’ (mp3)

This is an odd track – if not for the distorted synth that dominates the mix during the verses, this could could have been pulled from the ’60s. It has that same Zombies-esque sound to it that’s creeping back into popular music consciousness… but just, you know, with a loud synthesizer. It’s a tad jarring – in a good way. In fact it’s the largely synth-less middle 8/outro, with its jump in pace, that doesn’t really for work for me. Still, a decent effort from a promising band.

Joysticks’ previous tracks have traded on repetitive instrumentation and simple refrains. This track seems a bit more complex but has that same intuitive-feeling groove to it. And the chorus, when it does land, is pretty repetitive as well and sounds almost like a lo-fi Franz Ferdinand.

Not as good as ‘Purple Berries‘ but I’ll still be keeping my eye on these guys.

www.myspace.com/joysticksmusic

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Cordrazine are making a comeback from the 90s.
What a great idea for a video. Directed by Luci Schroder.

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