Little Vegas and The Fuzz Parade - ‘Only Say It Once’

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I guess it’s not inconceivable that some people might dismiss Brisbane’s Little Vegas and The Fuzz Parade as part of the cesspool of noughties retro rockers. Based on their name alone, I certainly used to.

Hokey name aside, their music is set apart from the fecal matter floating around in said cesspool by the vocal delivery of front woman Sabrina Lawrie. Equal parts Suzi Quatro, PJ Harvey and Janis Joplin, Lawrie’s slightly husky alto will keep you interested if the riffage behind her doesn’t.
This is no-bullshit garage rock that is sexy, a little scary and fun.

www.myspace.com/littlevegasandthefuzzparade

The Woods Themselves - ‘Groove Wind’ (mp3)

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Sydney’s The Woods Themselves released their sophomore album, (C’Mon) Do The Beach Thing, earlier this year. Nestled toward the end of the tracklist is Groove Wind, a song that’s sparse in accompaniment but dense in atmosphere. It’s three minutes of dark pop bliss that washes over you in what feels like an instant due to its meditative feel.

An organic, percussive beat drives the song forward over lilting piano chords and splashes of minimalist guitar before shifting into an outro that chants the mantra, “this is not a scene/ we don’t exist.” It’s the kind of song that grabs you in a slow, subtle way - so that you don’t even realise until you’re pressing repeat for the fourth consecutive time.

A standout on what is a very solid release. For proof of their versatility, check out the rest of the album to hear a proficiency in warm, sunshine pop as well.

www.myspace.com/thewoodsthemselves

Little Scout - Dead Loss

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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.

www.myspace.com/littlescoutmusic

The Hungry Kids of Hungary - ‘Set It Right’ (mp3)

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Little more than a year old, Brisbane’s Hungry Kids of Hungary are winning hearts with their unique blend of soul, blues and sweet vocal harmony.

If The Shins had formed in London circa 1968, this is what they would have sounded like.

The Kids’ self-titled debut EP bounces from the sparkling pop of ‘Arrest This Heart’ to the loping swagger of ‘One By One’.  The highlight though is ‘Set It Right’ which leaps from from its bed of handclaps and electric strums transforming into a foot-stomping sing-a-long replete with falsetto chorus and shimmering keys.

www.myspace.com/hungrykidsofhungary

The Maple Trail - ‘New York’

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I’m pretty excited to blog about The Maple Trail, the solo guise for Aidan Roberts, the Blue Mountains songsmith who’s more known for his work up the front of psych-indie troupe Belles Will Ring. Roberts has just released his debut record entitled Dirty Echo Spark, a beautifully well-worn piece of music that evokes images of 1960s Americana and pastoral folk in the vein of The Byrds and Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young while simultaneously tipping its hat to recent players Grizzly Bear and Broken Social Scene.

‘New York’ is engaging without being overly complicated. It’s a simple, cyclical tune built around the mantra “here comes the winter pretty baby, let’s go to New York.” Which is kinda where I’d like to be, too. Dirty Echo Spark is replete with myriad instruments which create a luscious garden of textured, melodic music that you could easily wander through all day. A real gem of an album.

http://www.myspace.com/themapletrail

Charge Group - ‘Lullaby for the Apocalypse’

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Only on a rare occasion does an album affect you so profoundly you’re spouting its credentials to all and sundry, including that crazy lady on the street who claims she’s a Nazi and should have “punched her fucking teeth out.”

Whoops, I digress.

What I’m trying to say is relatively simple: Charge Group’s debut record, Escaping Mankind, is brilliant. No two ways about it. From the ashes of the much-loved Newcastle outfit Purplene, Matt Blackman and co. have taken their time, slowly fashioning an album of 10 gorgeous tracks that hark back to the guitar rock of ’90s indie music, evoking images of Swervedriver, June of 44, Sonic Youth in their mellower moments and Fugazi. The inclusion of Jason Tampake on violin - who plays in the wonderful Firekites - lends the music a distinct colonial feel, which fits somewhere between The Drones’ instinctively Australian poetic incantations and The Dirty Three’s brooding indie-noir.

It’s refreshing to hear such an anachronistic sound, reminiscent of days when Something for Kate was releasing albums like Beautiful Sharks and How Machines Work was one of the most exciting bands on the Australian musical landscape.

Even though CERN’s Large Hadron Collider particle accelerator didn’t eviscerate the world yesterday, ‘Lullaby for the Apocalypse’ still feels like a fitting choice.

If you’re in a reading mood, one of my favourite local music writers, Emmy Hennings, wrote a fantastic piece on Charge Group for Mess + Noise entitled ‘A Process In The Weather of the Heart’. (Where the hell did she get that title from??) Read it here.

http://www.myspace.com/chargegroupmusic

The E.L.F. - a.k.a Darren Cross - has been evoking the DIY spectre of the electro-indie zeitgeist ever since he dropped his lo-fi debut release Stevie Nicks Hearts last year. The filmclip for the disc’s first single, ‘Cockroaches’, was made for a measly throwaway ten bucks.

Now The E.L.F. is set to launch the follow-up to Stevie Nicks Hearts, and ‘Bounce Bounce Bounce’ is the first taste of the new material. And this filmclip was made for nothing. Nada. Zilch. Intimating rave nights with the help of garish sirens, cowbell, a skull-thumping beat and synths galore, ‘Bounce Bounce Bounce’ is pure hedonistic dance floor fodder. Cross overtly announces his intentions: “If you’re not gonna dance I’m gonna go home.”

“More DIY spirit than Thurston Moore on a shopping spree in Kmart,” is how The E.L.F. describes this one.

Indeed.

http://www.myspace.com/theelff

Hot Little Hands - Scene of the Crime

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A Melbourne based indie rock crew that has been so quiet I thought they gave up. Turns out they’re just getting ready to be released on Rubber Records.

www.myspace.com/hotlittlehands

The Seabellies - ‘Prairie’

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Has anyone else noticed the resurrgence in piano accordian use? First Holly Throsby, then Baseball and now the Seabellies on their new single ‘Prairie’, continuing their trend for ‘08 of releasing only digital singles. This follows on from ‘Heart Heart Heart Out’ and finds them returning to their Canadian music influences, building a bombastic tune not alike that of Arcade Fire but compressing their multilayered sound into more standard song structure fare. It’s build nicely, there’s plenty of textured harmonies, but at the time of writing this, the song hasn’t grabbed me just yet - and I’m a fan of these guys. Maybe I just have to give it time.

http://www.myspace.com/theseabellies

Ohana - ‘When Things Come Alive’

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Australia’s most combustible band, Ohana, return with a brand new track off their forthcoming record. Once again sounding like a band on the edge of completely losing the plot, the Wollongong four piece play their noise-pop with aplomb, echoing alienation with music that pushes and pulls you with visceral energy and infectious rhythms. I can’t wait to hear their new album, and ‘When Things Comes Alive’ is a fantastic teaser track. It’s a wandering progressive number that bookends a My Disco-esque shoegaze mid-section with a frenetic beginning and end, tearing their guitars apart. I think I can hear the blood on the strings.

http://www.myspace.com/ohanamusic

Empire of The Sun - ‘Walking On A Dream’ (mp3)

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As promised a few weeks ago, here is the first original track from Empire of the Sun. I do believe we are the first blog or even media outlet to have this but I’ll stop short of claiming exclusivity since I can’t really confirm it. I haven’t got any bio, website or even a photo so there isn’t much to write except to repeat that this is a new collaboration between Luke Steele of The Sleepy Jackson and current electro favourites Pnau. A few weeks ago we posted a remix of this song by Sam La More - Nick Littlemore’s brother - which was reviewed by pitchforkmedia.com . Luke’s melodies are so distinctive and unconventional that it works so well on Pnau’s structured beats - great combo. Very much looking forward to the album.

http://www.walkingonadream.com

Wowsers. The second video for this song, the first one came out about a year ago.

http://www.myspace.com/midnightjuggernauts