Monthly Archives For March 2013

LOOK: Sound Gallery @ CMW Toronto

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Presented by Sounds Australia, the folks behind the Aussie BBQ showcases. Featuring The Falls, Emma Louise and more great Aussie talent in snowy downtown Toronto. Sounds Australia are awesome peeps that raise the profile and visibility of our very fine contemporary music sector on the international stage. Y’know, get people hooked up and out there – like these lucky TTWT kids. Anyho, we’ll be heading along to the Canadian Music Week BBQ to have a beer. Maybe we’ll see Nick Cave (he’ll probably be drinking wine) and bring you more coverage. But for now, feast on these shots from the lovely Church of the Holy Trinity.

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LISTEN: Courtney Barnett

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courtney

Courtney Barnett is a genius poet. In case you didn’t know. This is her new track ‘Avant Gardener’. It’s amazing. It tells the story of a very hot sunny Monday. Like any other day. You wake up and decide to clean up your front yard because you realise your rental probably looks “like a meth lab”. You know what I’m talking about. A little gardening. It’s good for the soul. It makes every slacker feel productive. And slightly less guilty when the old lady across the road stares at your wheelie bin that you left out cause it’s almost bin day… again. So you pull some weeds. Plant some herbs. And girls plant sun flowers (which I think look creepy) and guys dig up shit and plant way too many tomato plants.

Anyway, all of a sudden our pal Courtney can’t breathe and calls 000 (yeah that’s the right number!) and gets a shot of adrenaline. Nice story. Humbly recounted like spoken word and soundtracked by her friends including Dan Luscombe who makes guitar scratching and squealing sound bloody beautiful. The harmony is great, the tune rolls along like a road trip and Courtney’s matter of fact dry lyrics have inspired this lengthy rant and probably a whole heap more reviews that will detail the story and how good she is. Everyone is getting a piece of her on support slots but get along to one of these single launches. It should be rad:

21 Mar – Black Bear Lodge w/ Grand Atlantic & Dom Miller – Bris, QLD.
23 Mar – Brighton Up Bar w/ Pear Shape & Bec and Ben – Syd, NSW.
28 Mar – Toff in Town w/ Money for Rope & Atolls – Mel, VIC

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NEWS: ATP – Release The Bats

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An All-Day Halloween Party Extravaganza!

That’s the tag line. I have always wanted to be excited about halloween. How could you go wrong with a night of dress-up and free candy (lollies). So it’s with much excitement, I tells ya – we are getting a true celebration of Halloween thanks to the folks at ATP. I mean why should American’s have all the fun! So yeah, those amazing peeps who put on a festival in the mountains – without the snow but with Nick Cave. And then made Altona the next Brunswick. That last gig went pretty well so they thought – why not keep it rolling? How bout having The Breeders come play at the Westgate Entertainment Centre and Grand Star reception in Altona, Melbourne. Bringing the classic lineup of Kim Deal, Kelley Deal, Josephine Wiggs, and Jim Macpherson to play a full lick of Last Splash. Seriously – Cannonball!

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As for the all important Aussie tilt – The UV Race, White Walls, Hoss, and Total Control sound pretty great but expect even more riot awesomeness tba. Now, let’s get real. And quote from the presser “This will be a dark journey, fellow traveller. The core of your very being will be assaulted by the audio maelstrom that is the Jesus Lizard – flying in for this very rare and exclusive appearance – their first Australian visit since 1998. They will summon five kinds of hell, and unleash raw, dark forces that will confront your psyche. They promise the sonic equivalent of staring at the sun. Hope that you are ready for the starkness that is reality when, like all things in this existence, it ends.” Nice eh.

I personally can’t wait for Fuck Buttons and Lightning Bolt on the same day – that shit is crazy!

Tickets are priced at $150 (+ booking fee) and go on sale today at 9am from www.atpfestival.com

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LOVE THY NEIGHBOUR: Popstrangers

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Last December, I went to New Zealand. Rode a horse, ate my weight in burgers, hung off the side of a cliff, had a good time.Really don’t know why any able minded Kiwi would bother moving here to live in a small suburban shack. Or bother refining their vowels for that reason either.

We’ve got away with pillaging from our pals across the Tasman for a long while, so we’re settling years of bad-blood with some happy blog trading instead. For that reason, we’ve decided to team up with NZ mega-blog Under The Radar who’ll be filling that Kiwi shaped void in your life with an NZ band every week.

First up, UTR’s Courtney Sanders gets y’all reacquainted with one of our old favourites…Popstrangers!

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popstrangers

Popstrangers are a three piece band who have been kicking around Auckland for several years now. Drawing on The Dunedin Sound (they were also briefly signed to Flying Nun Records) for inspiration the trio – lead by understated frontman Joel Flyger – have gone about marrying The Verlaines and The 3D’s to heavier compatriots Bailterspace. Never derivative, these influences are stripped down and applied to Popstrangers contemporary observations; ones that suggest a lot of time hanging around listening to Bradford Cox and co. It’s slacker rock sans flannel shirts, and all the better for it.

Earlier this month Popstrangers released their debut full length album Antipodes on cult New York-based label Carpark Records and played a bunch of album release shows at home and in your fair country. The album’s title suggests endless days in idyllic locations, and while this is partly true, Flyger admits it was the darker side of isolation that he was concerned with while writing: It’s all about isolation and wanting to do something different. When we wrote these songs it was kind of a weird time: I’d been doing the same thing for like five years. I didn’t know what I wanted to do and I wasn’t happy with what I was doing”.

‘Roy Brown’ is the third single from Antipodes and combines the pop sensibilities of earlier singles ‘Heaven’ and ‘What Else Could They Do’ with the thematic palpability of the instrumental tracks on the album. A lot of conflicting emotions vie for attention here and considering this band are defining the ‘New Zealand Sound’ of this generation, that makes perfect sense.

 

Listen to

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www.undertheradar.co.nz

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LISTEN: Summer Flake – ‘Where Do I Go?’

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summer flake

Summer Flake has a new EP out called ‘Where Do I Go?’ on Stacey Wilson’s Heavy Lows label. It’s pretty fantastic. I think I played it about 4 times in a row while ‘working’ yesterday. These hooks are brilliant. Surging guitar, deep bass hits over her methodical drumming and then a change of pace here and there to tank you right into gazey bliss. Oh man, this is the real deal folks.

Catch her at SXSW or at least go see her play at one of these homecoming shows:

April 6 @ The Metro, Adelaide SA

April 12 @ The Gasometer, Melbourne VIC

April 24 @ Petersham Bowling Club, Sydney NSW

April 26 @ The Hideaway, Brisbane QLD

And you can buy the Cassette here.

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MAP March 2013

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Our monthly global playlist is back for March, get psyched (¡emocionarse! aufgeregt! منفعل! etc).

Jesse Davidson is our boy representing Oz this month with his gorgeous track ‘Winter’.

If you’re an Aus artist or band and would like to have your tune repped on the 40 blogs below for the next edition of MAP, drop us a line at editors@whothehell.net.

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Click the play button icon to listen to individual songs, right-click on the song title to download an mp3, or grab a zip file of the full 40-track compilation through Ge.tt here.
ARGENTINA: Zonaindie
Carmel – Tu Momento

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A musical project led by Alan Soifer and Pablo Antonietti aka Panto, young folks in their own right (they both just blew out 21 candles). El Buen Retiro (on Estamos Felices, one of our favorite independent labels) is Carmel’s first album, in which they manage to combine experimentation with electronica and melodies. Tu Momento is the first single from the record, available on iTunes.

AUSTRALIA: Who The Bloody Hell Are They?
Jesse Davidson – Winter

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Jesse Davidson is a 16-year-old songwriter from Adelaide. The track we’ve chosen may be called Winter, but we think it sounds more like Grizzly Bear recording a leisurely acoustic session somewhere off the Caribbean coast. Alongside muted drums and blissful guitar embellishments that resurface every so often, there’s something really pure about Jesse’s music. He manages to capture the beauty of isolation in a way that never seems forced. Honest, effortless indie-folk.

AUSTRIA: Walzerkönig
Kidcat Lo-Fi – Life Sucks

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A singer-songwriter with a feminist tendency, Kidcat Lo-Fi’s songs range from love to hate and from protest to irony. Her self-titled debut album, out in April, is consciously kept raw and will feature songs called I Will Not Marry Or Reproduce and I Want To Be A Cat. Don’t we all?

BRAZIL: Meio Desligado
Karina Zeviani – Update

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Everyone should learn Portuguese to get the true feeling of Update, a ballad about the end of a relationship. Karina Zeviani, the former singer of Nouvelle Vague and Thievery Corporation, released her first solo album last year.

CANADA: Quick Before It Melts
Eagle Lake Owls – Little Brittle Bones

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You can hear the world thawing from winter’s cold grip on Little Brittle Bones, from Winnipeg, Manitoba’s Eagle Lake Owls. The slow and steady vibration of spring echoes through the song’s opening moments, before it shakes the last shards of ice off and swells into life. Songs like this are what keep you going through the isolation of a prairie winter.

CHILE: Super 45
WatchOut! – Guayabita

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Although in the beginning WatchOut! stood out with a sound strongly influenced by Los Saicos’ primitive punk and North American psychedelic garage, they’ve now turned to Latin America. In Guayabita, the first preview of their forthcoming album Tribu, to be released by local label BYM Records, the spirit of tropicalia, fusion music and Chilean psychedelia come alive to shape the new sound of WatchOut!

COLOMBIA: El Parlante Amarillo
Dorado – Out Of Her Depth

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David Triana aka Dorado is an electronic music producer and DJ from Bogota. His style is a coalescence of UK bass, techno and house music, although in his early life he was greatly influenced by hardcore punk. Triana is currently working with Downpitch Recordings, a new label from his home city. Out Of Her Depth is taken from Tribute EP, his first release.

CUBA: suenacubano.com
Karamba – Vivir La Vida

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We are happy to begin our participation in MAP with a different approach to what is generally known of Cuban music. Vivir La Vida is an ode to self-esteem. It’s a song that invites reflection on our path to being and behaving in these troubled times. With his own particular stamp, Karamba uses cumbia, hip hop and rock ‘n’ roll, combining the freshness of his lyrics and refrains to recreate the impeccable taste that permeates Cuban music.

DENMARK: All Scandinavian
Bite The Bullet – I Feel Love

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The first five songs by Bite The Bullet are released in Germany this month, one being this MAP exclusive download. Comprising one half of one of my favorite Danish bands, the sadly defunct Highway Child, BTB rock in the same retro vein as HC (the abbreviations end here) and still seem a live force to reckoned with as this video shows. A full vinyl release is coming up this fall and I for one can’t wait.

DOMINICAN REPUBLIC: La Casetera
Ocean Lips – Submarine

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Ocean Lips take inspiration from Brit-rock, modern art and, of course, the ocean. Their first single Submarine evokes breezy feelings with the wavy sound of their guitars, taking us for a ride to the bottom of the sea.

ECUADOR: Plan Arteria
Munn – En La Obscuridad

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Munn is one of the country’s best new bands. Their first EP Espirales mixes an electronic rhythm section with different types of samples, analog and digital synthesizers, acoustic instruments, bass, electric guitar and layers of voices, generating atmospheres of trip hop and downtempo. En La Obscuridad is Munn’s second single and its video was directed by Lucia Romero.

ENGLAND: The Guardian Music Blog
YYZ – Into The Night

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Into The Night is a sublime blast of ravey pop from the synth prodder, DJ-cum-FX-whiz and perky chanteuse known as YYZ. Formerly members of Ting Tings surrogates Ghostcat, and with a CV that includes remixing a single by Nicola Roberts of Girls Aloud, YYZ are now purveying an even more commercial brand of mainstream nu disco and fizzily addictive technopop aimed at the shopping mall massive, not the Hoxton passive.

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