Tagged By melbourne

MAP October 2013

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MAP (Music Alliance Pact) – the global new music initiative we’re lucky to be a part of is back for October! It’s easy to get caught up in our little ‘scene’ happening here, but it’s really exciting to hear all the other wonderful music pursuits happening around the world.

While you’re there, make sure you check out MAPCAST,  a free podcast of Robbie’s favourite picks from this month’s list! Robbie’s whipped up this month’s podcast at a ridiculous pace – listen/download/update your playlist pronto HERE.

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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 29-track compilation through Ge.tt here.

ARGENTINA: Zonaindie
Juani – Déjame Entrar

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Juani’s involvement with music began during his teenage years and it hasn’t stopped since. Songwriter, singer, musician, producer, cultural manager… you name it. In between his multiple projects (one of them being involved with Rosario’s biggest independent label Planeta X), Juani managed to pull out a new solo album called La Paz Ciencia (a pun between the words “peace” and “science”), with songs that range from Argentine folk to pop and acoustic rock. Déjame Entrar is our favorite track but you can download the whole thing from the website.

AUSTRALIA: Who The Bloody Hell Are They?
White Caves – I’ve Lost

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White Caves is the new venture from Melbourne songwriter Darren Cordeux. The former Kisschasy frontman has completely left behind the acoustic teen psyche of 2006 for a much looser sound. I’ve Lost carves a completely uplifting vibe out of sombre song content. Thanks to some clear-cut production, soaring vocals and a vibe that sounds like MGMT’s Andrew VanWyngarden fronting a slacker-pop band, White Caves is lending a new dimension of fun to typical ‘pop-jams’ right here.

AUSTRIA: Walzerkönig
Amere Meander – Something I Am Not

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Three kindergarten friends form a band and make pop music. Viennese Amere Meander appeared out of nowhere with songs that are sometimes dreamy and sweet, sometimes mysterious and noisy, drawing inspiration from anything from shoegaze to Fleetwood Mac. Always catchy but never unpredictable, Something I Am Not is taken from their debut album To Lead Astray.

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LISTEN: Nimble Animal – ‘Back n Forth’

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Brisbane guy Dom Stephens has a lot on the go. Eccentric indie band Oh Ye Denver Birds is on the back burner since he moved to Melbourne to study sound design, but he’s also got solo beats outfit Outerwaves (which is responsible for gorgeous tunes like this one) and a more introspective project called Nimble Animal.

About a week ago Stephens released the Bleak Moments EP as Nimble Animal. It’s basically drone, with distressed analogue sounds looping alongside percussive taps and clicks, layers of lush synths and Stephens’ voice, which is mostly buried in echo. There’s a lot of tape hiss and weirdly circumvented instruments, but overall the EP has a warm, gently soporific feel.

Bleak Moments is a patient and engrossing record as it leads up to the cathartic closing piece, ‘Back n Forth’. With its repetitive, uplifting motifs and homemade vibe, it reminds me of the best tracks from Youth Lagoon’s breakout debut, The Year of Hibernation. Though it comes right at the end, ‘Back n Forth’ sounds like the EP’s pop heart, its circular melody spiralling upwards to take you home.

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LISTEN: Boomgates – ‘Widow Maker’

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Australia, you may have noticed, is really flipping big. There’s a lot of distance between our urban capitals, and we’re a heck of a long way from most of the so-called ‘Western world’. We sometimes feel a bit isolated, on our own all the way down here, and we get a bit defensive of our cultural exports – not to mention fiercely supportive of their creators.

These factors tend to make our music scene kind of incestuous. Enthusiastic music journos toss the word ‘supergroup’ around with gay abandon, but when every drummer plays in about five different bands the term doesn’t always mean that much. Boomgates, however, have one of the most drool-worthy line-ups upon this vast continent, featuring Eddy Current Suppression Ring frontman, Brendan Huntley, Dick Diver‘s Steph Hughes and Rick Milovanovic from the Twerps.

These guys have actually crossed the ditch for their latest release (in a sense – no one actually had to leave their hometown, let’s not get crazy), a split single with Kiwi group the Bats from that country’s own great export and singular pride, the Flying Nun roster. Boomgates’ contribution to the 7″, ‘Widow Maker’, is a jangly existential ode to the mundane. It opens with a great riff, open strings singing, then clicks into a bright, guitar-led groove with a steady forward momentum. Huntley memorialises a few moment-to-moment pleasures (‘I wear my diamond necklace just to show it off / I tie my shoes just to tie the knot’) – the take-home message being don’t take this stuff for granted, because at any old time that eponymous widow maker could snap off and wipe you out. Like most Boomgates tracks, ‘Widow Maker’ turns on the counterpoint between Huntley’s roughshod, half-sung, half-spoken delivery and Hughes’ soothing harmonies, as well as the loose interplay of the two guitars.

 

The Bat’s contribution to the split, ‘December Ice’, is an outtake from their sessions at Seacliff Asylum, a 19th century psychiatric institution located at a village on the country’s South Island. The singles were released digitally yesterday, with vinyl coming on 1 November. You can preorder the 7″ from Bedroom Sucks or Mistletone. Both bands will be playing a huge show for Melbourne Music Week’s opening night, on 15 November, alongside Montero and San Francisco’s Sonny and the Sunsets. Get your tickets here!

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LISTEN: Martin King – ‘Fitness Vol 1’ EP

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If there’s one thing that’ll keep creative enclaves around Australia up all night, it’ll be this EP. From Northcote to Newtown, rest assured that those dripping in cultural cool will have their ears tuned to this latest offering from indie/art powerhouse, Two Bright Lakes.

If you’re familiar with Oscar + Martin or The Harpoons then there’s no doubt you’re familiar with Martin King. One half of the former, and a staple of the wider community of Two Bright Lakes, King has finally given us something of his own. Renowned for his production skills on a series of releases on top of 2011’s For You, he’s a man that’s well seasoned in the art of production.

So, you’d be excused for assuming that this EP has a lot to answer for. And while that may be a trap, there’s no escaping the lineage that it stems from. On the face of it, you’ve got the elements that TBL’s been renowned for over the past few years: a performer who collaborates with a series of other ‘hip’, ‘up and coming’ acts, on top of an aesthetic that seems to tap into the cultural zeitgeist (or whatever buys cultural capital from TBL’s audiences).

But, trying to place King on a spectrum of sorts, this is something that gets tricky very quickly. The retro-soul of The Harpoons differs greatly in style in comparison to the urban minimalism of Oscar + Martin. Speaking to Melbourne-based photo-editorial website, Grilling Me Softly, King spoke of his admiration for Iggy Azealea. And if you think that’s something that bred consternation for those reading that, then you wouldn’t be the first. But then King went on to say this:

“I’m not really sure why (I like her) because some of the stuff she does is really atrociously bad, and her rapping is not very good, but I just like that she’s representing Australia”

So, looking to what Fitness Vol 1 does for local music is maybe not the right question. Make no mistake, this is a release that’s bound to make an impact – to the right people – but this may not be the definitive release that Oscar + Martin fans might have been hoping for. Be patient.

When describing this EP to Grilling Me Softly, Fitness was designed with 80s synths and Euro-trap in mind and that comes across in parts. ‘I’ll be’ nods to the 80s, but soon descends into a bass line reserved for contemporary RnB. On the whole, there’s no clear single that leaps from the stables, or a ‘banger’ – for a lack of a better term. Intended or not, the EP has this restraint that’s refrains from tying itself to an overt genre. I mean, on face value, and with the lineage that King has, you could easy mistake of pigeon holding this into RnB – which it sometimes steps into, but not entirely. Here, the tracks are short, tight, and sweet, straddling a musical aesthetic that’s eponymous of King’s past work. The only thing that sprung to mind was Collarbones‘ mix for Oyster Magazine, but even then there’s elements to this EP that belong solely to King himself.

And that’s exactly why I for one, prize the impact that TBL’s had on Australian music over the past few years. With Collarbones unabashed avowal of pop, to Brothers Hand Mirror’s re-imagining of Australian hip-hop, it’d be strange to imagine a musical landscape without TBL. And I’m glad it’s the likes of King who’s the next in line to do this.

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LISTEN: Mouth Tooth – ‘Red Belly Roadhouse Blues’

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I came across this curio by Melbourne band Mouth Tooth while doing some research on Smile. Both bands consist of former members of the sprawling Red Berry Plum and share a guitarist in Max Turner. Mouth Tooth is definitely the weirder of the two projects, which is why you’ve probably heard a bit less about them.

‘Red Belly Roadhouse Blues’ is off the duo’s Group Therapy EP. There’s something very unsettling, if undeniably pretty, about this tune; the effect’s kind of like one of Bill Henson’s nocturnal vignettes. An eerie western number, ‘Roadhouse Blues’ is led by Rhys Mitchell’s creepy falsetto, with a slide guitar weeping quietly in the background. Mouth Tooth describe their style as ‘psychedelic ward’, and the lyrics here seem like an exercise in Freudian free association. ‘Heaven is a roadhouse / and you are the waitress,’ Mitchell croons, ‘I want to dissolve you into my coffee’. The video has a grainy, VHS ambiance. Mitchell and Turner’s disembodied heads float over scenes that could have been taken from Twin Peaks, smiling as they deliver lines like ‘I want to stir you through the darkness / Have you with my breakfast / Girl, you make my heart race…’. Check it out below.

 

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EXPAT: Lower Spectrum – ‘Little Appeal’

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Moving from one place to another inspires something much more than ordinary. For Ned Beckley (Lower Spectrum), it was an opportunity to document everything. Beckley booked an around the world ticket, packed his gear and a laptop and spent six months collecting ‘field recordings’. The end result is his latest release, Little Appeal.

It’s very much a concept recording; a reflection of place and sound. Each track is beset with rich atmospherics and muted conversations in foreign tongues. This album stands out for it’s subtlety – transient both in subject matter and it’s depth of sound. The album begins in a dimly lit cellar in a French village, and ends sprawled across the horizon line of the American dream.

Read Ned’s photo diary and have a track-by-track wander of the album in full below.

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FRANCE

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Track 1: ‘Invocation’

We did a lot of WWOOFing. Wine is a big part of my family so hunting down the best wineries was our aim. We stayed with a beautiful couple who lived in a tiny village called Caux, in the Launguedoc region. Peter, the wine maker was a closet saxophone player obsessed with jazz and Chet Baker. At night he would sneak down into the cellar and play his sax. The acoustics sounded beautiful. He traded in his corporate lifestyle as an accountant to work on the land and I truly respected this.

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JORDAN

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Track 2: ‘Erasing Form’

Jordan was the ultimate. People would stop us in the street and say “Welcome to Jordan!”. Probably because no one goes there. 5 times a day from different mosques that surround Amman, you can hear the ‘call to prayer’. The felafels and hummus were the best I have ever eaten and the desert landscape was endless.

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GERMANY

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Track 3: ‘Isometric’

I found a lot of inspiration in Berlin, like most people do. My BPM kept creeping up.  I managed to find a room in an old nunnery right in the heart of Kreuzberg. It rained a lot so I set up studio and managed to get mighty productive.

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INDIA

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Track 4 : ‘Hollow’

India was intense. It burnt itself into my memory, in a good way. Every day was a blur of car horns, street faeces and mind-altering curries. Rickshaw rides were always the best because the drivers would play killer obscure Bollywood songs from the 70’s that have the most epic string arrangements. I love that.

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SLOVENIA

 

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Track 5: ‘Sanctity’

Ljubljana boasts medieval castles, snow tipped mountains and retrograde farming.  Experiencing the pristine countryside was always preferred over the hustle of big cities. Slovenia was all humble countryside and I found it a nice relief to explore.

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ITALY

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Track 6: ‘Estuary’

Tuscany was by far the highlight. We managed to hook up a 2 week stint of WWOOFing in a castle that dated back to 1042. It was incredible. We worked liked peasants, drank and ate like kings and slept like babies. The mother of the owner lived there also and was slightly losing her mind. She would often hide the key to the main entrance and we couldn’t get back in. Every morning she would ask us who we were and where we were from. They had a beautiful baby grand piano that I recorded that features in ‘Estuary’.

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TURKEY

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Track 7: ‘Heedless’

 

Istanbul is an amazing mix of colours and cultures. Full of cats, antiques and secret side streets. We stayed with a friend who is working as a journalist there. He had the low-down on all things good. He showed us an island 20 minutes ferry ride away that reveals views of Istanbul and it’s 16 million inhabitants.

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THAILAND

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Track 8: ‘Field of Glass’

Everywhere I went I took a Zoom mic with me. The field recording at the end of the track ‘Field Of Glass’ was a really peculiar experience and will be most likely misunderstood as the sound of rain. Walking through a small part of the jungle on an island in Koh Samed I kept hearing what sounded like the crackling of sherbet when it’s in your mouth. Taking a closer look at the ground under the trees you could see millions of earwigs crawling over and eating leaves and foliage. I put the mic on the ground and let them crawl all over it.

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AMERICA

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Track 9: ‘Vapours’

My bag got really heavy in America. Digging at record stores the size of supermarkets is overwhelming. I managed to find a lot of killer samples that found their way onto the album. I also saw a lot of incredible live music that inspired me. Particularly Nils Frahm in New York and Jon Hopkins in Williamsburg.

 

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More of Ned’s full travel photos can be viewed at his blog. Help fund more of Ned’s ventures and purchase Little Appeal on a name-your-price basis here.

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LISTEN: Bushwalking – ‘High Hogs’

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Bushwalking is yet another local supergroup, this time a Sydney-Melbourne cross-border operation. They originally got together to record some tracks for the solo project of Songs‘ Ela Stiles, but the combination of Stiles, Karl Scullin from Kes Trio and Fabulous Diamonds‘ Nisa Venerosa worked so well that they decided to just get it over with and form a band already.

At first they called themselves Zsa Zsa, after the serial monogamist (she had nine husbands) and one-time Miss Hungary Zsa Zsa Gabor, but I guess that didn’t quite sum it up, because they quickly switched to the more true blue Bushwalking. Their first album came out on US label Army of Bad Luck, which is run by none other than former Deerhunter bassist Josh Fauver. It featured a bunch of engrossing psych jams that were heavy on the innuendo, with names like ‘Natural Vagina’, ‘Bath Sex’ and ‘First Time’.

Now they’re back, with second album No Enter coming out on 6 September (this Friday!) through Chapter. ‘High Hogs’ is the lead single, and it’s off the flipping chain. Driven in equal measure by Stiles’ grubby bass line, Scullin’s angular, twisting guitar and the girls’ meditative harmonising, it’s got a wild, almost primitive feel – which is very much enhanced by Venerosa’s pensive drumming and the animal ‘whoop’ that punctuates the verses. ‘Verse’ isn’t really the right word though; ‘High Hogs’ unfolds in the spiralling structure of a drone, closer to the experiments of Fabulous Diamonds and Kes Trio than to any traditional rock song. But it’s still tight as hell – for all its proggy impulses, this track is visceral, direct and very loud.

 

You can catch Bushwalking in their respective home towns on these dates:

Friday, 11 Oct – Red Rattler, Sydney (tickets via Moshtix)

Saturday, 12 Oct – John Curtin Hotel, Melbourne (tickets available through the John Curtin website)

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