Hey Geronimo – ‘Carbon Affair’ (mp3)

Hey Geronimo are a five piece from Brisbane made up of the offcuts from bands like Blame Ringo, Montpelier and The Boat People.

I haven’t heard a sad song come out of Brisbane in the last two years. If that’s any indication, I probably should be moving north, since ‘Carbon Affair’ is the pretty much the epitome of the sunshine state’s collective optimism in one song. Sounds like James Mercer fronting Hungry Kids of Hungry or something. All these punchy pop songs find their resting place in insurance ads somewhere down the line but in the meantime, I’m all for musical groups of the ‘TAKE ME TO A HAPPY PLACE!’ sort.

facebook.com/HeyGeronimo

heygeronimo.bandcamp.com

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Harts – ‘All Too Real’ (mp3)

Darren Harts is Harts, a one man show out of Melbourne. Lars Stalfors from the Mars Volta somehow got his hands on some demos and offered to mix his EP. This sound ain’t no gamechanger, but gamechanging is irrelevant when you can get down and BOOGIE. This kid WILL kick some serious goals overseas, just you wait. And when he does – I would love to see him bring out a full piece brass band Friendly Fires style. ‘All Too Real’ has that whole Streetparty era vibe right down – adequate synth hooks, bites of face melting guitar (post. 2:46) and a good dose of indie peacocking to keep all the kids happy.

Hart’s EP Offtime will be released soon. Keep in the loop here and here.

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Water Music – ‘Wayward’ (mp3)

Matthew Barker first dropped us a line about his other project, The Gypsy Curse, with NY born wife Beth. They’ve put out a great melodic country/folk record which they recorded over four days in a little log cabin in Sweden which you can hear over here. I did do some link surfing to his other project Water Music, and I was immediately taken by this track when I heard it.

If you’re Conor Oberst/Bright Eyes inclined, or sway towards a bit of alt-country and drawn out tales about life on the road, you’ll enjoy this. This is mega lo-fi, but all that distortion seems to stand stoic against Barker’s fragile vocals. A warning though, this is epic sad-time music. Not feeling suitably emo or probably just hormonal today, but the record feels like the post-breakup companion you need to console with greasy food, several wines and a few bouts of weeping your life story to. Enough about that though, there are a lot of good things to say about Mountains. Spend a little time with this release. Beautiful, honest music worth it’s weight.

Hear Mountains in full at Water Music’s soundcloud.

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