Tagged By New Music

INTRODUCING: Poncho

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poncho

PONCHO is little collaboration between Melbourne rapper Baro and his mate Mitch, aka Ancentric, who worked on Baro’s breakthrough mixtape HOWGOODISGOOD?. The pair have just released a three-track EP called Awkward Love Songs on Soundcloud, featuring previous single ‘grab me as i fall’.

Baro touchstones like Mos Def and Erykah Badu are still discernible here, but this stuff is more King Krule than Joey Bada$$ – minus the UK youngster’s weary, streetwise barbs. Poncho songs are all sweet and breezy, as exemplified by the major sevenths and scattered handclaps on EP opener and standout track, ‘the Summer’s Over So Where Do We Stand?’.

Awkward Love Songs is here to tide you over till Baro’s new EP drops sometime very soon.

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INTRODUCING: Porsches

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Sydney duo Porsches have the whole Australian summer electro pop thing down with their debut single ‘Horses’. In fact they nailed the brief so perfectly that Sweat It Out! Music took notice, signing the boys off the back of the single.

Carl Fox and Jesse Sewell produce taut, bouncing beats that bubble underneath spaced out, synth-washed vocals. The track is sprinkled with a calypso/steel drum-type effect to boot.

It’s your classic Sweat It Out! recipe for a smooth, sophisticated electronic act that’s more than just trite triple j fodder. Although it’s already pricked the ears of a few major commercial TV stations, ‘Horses’ doesn’t rely on those banger clichés that make summer pop so damn annoying.

With this much attention for their debut, Porsches are setting themselves up for a bright 2015 indeed.

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WATCH: Gunslingers – ‘I’ll Always Be Waiting’

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John Wayne, Clint Eastwood, Henry Fonda: gunslingers. Forty years since the last time anyone saw a Wild West movie, these guys live on in the cultural lexicon as idols –  chiselled, steel-gazed figures of masculine lore. The mere mention of the Good, the Bad and the Ugly is enough to turn anyone over the age of 50 into a mess of horny nostalgia.

Putting that gross imagery aside for just one moment, there is a new crop of youngsters looking to rip the title of ‘gunslinger’ from Clint’s bony, liver-spotted hands. Gunslingers are a Melbourne four piece that thrash with the fury and tension of a Mexican standoff and coat their tunes in a layer of fuzz thicker than the salt on the edge of the best Margarita in Tijuana.

They’ve just shared the new clip for ‘I’ll Always Be Waiting’, a tune that follows in the path of pop-soaked garage heroes Palms, Velociraptor and Dune Rats. The latter even gets a cheeky shout-out in the clip. Gunslingers continue their lo-fi garage approach in their videos, which feature patchy, VHS graphics. They keep the sun-soaked vibes rolling throughout, with gratuitous shots of beerz, poolz, and guitar soloz. Gunslingers? More like Funslingers, amirite? (please don’t hurt me).

Gunslingers will launch ‘I’ll Always Be Waiting’ at Melbourne’s John Curtin Hotel on 21 February, with support from Covers and Pretty City.

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PREMIERE: Mallee Songs – ‘Since the Kingdom’ video

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Michael Skinner hasn’t been to the Mallee. The region’s stately, arid plains, hidden beneath the ocean for most of the Earth’s history, are nevertheless a good analogue for his band, Mallee Songs. Their music is deeply influenced by the dark alt-country sounds of the 90s – particularly American artists like Jason Molina, Mark Linkous and Will Oldham. Those songwriters are present in Mallee Songs’ solemn lyricism, restrained feedback and vicious guitar solos.

Last year Mallee Songs released Gum Creek and Other Songs, a compilation of Skinner’s early home recordings. Cleaning out these scattered folk songs was a final step in his transition from bedroom to stage. He wrote the forthcoming album with a four-piece band, drummer Pascal Babare also producing.

‘Since the Kingdom’, a pretty, Silver Jews-like track, is the lead single from the new record. In the video – premiered here – Skinner wanders, jaded and sleep-deprived, through the Australian countryside, stalked by wordless strangers. Meanwhile, someone, somewhere is playing a lament: ‘All my brothers in a slow decline / I need a new feeling to describe / the arc of a mountain in a cloudless sky’.

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INTRODUCING: GhostNoises

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Multi-instrumentalist Liam White (aka GhostNoises) crafts off-kilter bedroom pop of the above-average variety, presumably inspired by the intense boredom and existential angst resulting from, you know, living in Canberra. His debut album, Some Useful Songs, is an intriguing patchwork of musical ideas – with traces of country, hip-hop and chamber-pop all cropping up throughout the course of its nine tracks.

White comes closest to achieving his grand ambitions in the opening two tracks. ‘How They Sound’ mixes sonorous brass and woodwind with patchy, lo-fi drum machine sounds to intriguing effect (think a more-chilled out tUnE yArDs), and ‘The Procedure’ sounds like Sufjan Stevens being attacked by an impressive percussion ensemble.

While the album has its fair share of hits, a few tracks just miss the mark. ‘I Left A Champion’, is almost 10 minutes long and the pure 90’s R&B of ‘I’m Scared’ jarrs somewhat with the predominately organic sound of the rest of the release.

Overall, while Some Useful Songs has its share of flaws, it’s otherwise an intriguing and pleasingly schizophrenic introduction to an artist who has a lot to offer.

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PREMIERE: Gordi – ‘Taken Blame’

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Gordi

Gordi’s new track ‘Taken Blame’ does its best ‘keep calm’ impression (without the bad spin-offs and aggressive font). Her debut track ‘Nothing’s As It Seems’ made its first appearance here late last year, and her latest single ‘Taken Blame’ is just as gossamer as the first.

It could be nonchalance or just restraint, but Gordi’s delivery treads along in a way that lets in light to an otherwise insular space. Lyrically, the subject matter is a little grim, but she maintains a transformative outlook. ‘Taken Blame’ adopts a beautiful arrangement, with Gordi’s nuances interrupted by the occasional off-beat or elevated vocal harmonies that bookmark the verse.

Whirling production/echo FX in the mixing department are all nice aesthetic flourishes. It sounds like listening to a live performance in a small room with massive ceilings. You get the feeling that without all of it, Gordi’s pastoral vocal would still lend this track the same weight. In this way, she tends to the same patch as Felicity Groom and even Sharon Van Etten, who’ve groomed their alto to the tune of honest post-love songs. There’s many years to go before Gordi could pass with the chutzpah that SVE reveals when she sings about errands and bathroom habits, but she might get there.

I’ve never seen Gordi perform, but I feel like I have many times.

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Gordi is playing Mordialloc Festival on the 28th and touring with Winterbourne throughout March. See below for details.

 

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INTRODUCING: Fonz Whaler

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Fonz-Whaler

Snubbing out lyrics ain’t such a bad thing when you have bands penning medleys about religious icons and shrines to fruit. Tom Kakanis is Fonz Whaler, a Brisbane guy making instrumental music out of his “brain oven” – which I’m sure is how all this fiddly ambient loitering incubates in the first place.

Fonz Whaler’s debut EP is a smoggy recount of solitude – fuelled by playful melodies, bow-legged instrumentals and every weird conversation you’ve probably had with yourself after 2am. This EP reminds me of some of Lalic‘s more downtempo tunes. And like Lalic’s work, there’s something special about lo-fi recordings like this which still cut clean sounds without suffocating in distortion or crying about the suburbs ’cause it can. 

Kakanis does attempt vocals on a few tracks, but it’s his instrumental-only version of events that do best. ‘Milestones’ kicks off with a succession of peppy guitar pluckings, the sort Andrew Bird would mount in his trophy cabinet, maybe on a Christmas album. That glorious treble guitar continues to bubble away in ‘Projections’. ‘Life on the Mandoline’ could be the motion picture soundtrack for a ridiculous coming of age biopic set in Crete, but it’s most definitely a song about a glorified fruit slicer.

You know, whether this is a baked dribble for soundscapes or vita C for the imagination, it’s been a nice way to kick off my leisure time. It’s all yours for $3, right here.

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