Tagged By Oh Mercy

FIRST IMPRESSIONS: Oh Mercy – ‘Sandy’

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first-impressions_2

The amount of music floating around on the internet right now is verging on the incredible. About 12 hours of audio are uploaded to Soundcloud every minute. For the consumer, this is a pretty neat deal – there really does seem to be something out there for everyone these days. Plus we’re seeing unprecedented opportunities for collaboration and cross-fertilisation.

For musicians trying to pursue a career in pop music, however, there’s a serious problem: namely, how to get the attention of bloggers, DJs and other industry types who are, more often than not, clique-y and fatigued from sifting through reams of one-sheets for bands they don’t really care about.

Marketing, I’d like to think, can only get you so far. More importantly, you’ve gotta be able to write and produce a track that cuts through pretty much immediately. Of course, this approach is kind of a blunt instrument. There are always going to be songs that deepen significantly over repeated listens, and bands with more experimental or cerebral aims. For music like that, isolating a core audience is probably the most important first step. To really break through, though, something more dramatic is going to be required.

In this new series, ‘First Impressions’, we’re going to subject a bunch of songs to the immediacy test – getting our contributors to review a track they’ve heard only once. Kicking things off is Jackson Rumble (in a step up from his last attempt to review a track without having listened to it at all), with his take on ‘Sandy’, the latest release from Melbourne band Oh Mercy.

………

Straight outta the blocks you can tell this comes from a place that worships at the altar of respectable modern rock tropes. Driving kraut rhythms, tremolo’d guitar, analog strings, girl’s name for a title. And whatshisname of Oh Mercy has a timbre to his voice and a way with a lyric that actually makes you listen to what he’s saying. Two lines in and I kind of want to know what’s going on, and why this chap is so terrified of being alone.

There’s tension here, as we wait for the War on Drugs-style, head-out-the-car-window, flying-down-the-highway payoff. As he beckons her to “come closer”, begs her not to leave – the rhythm motoring along – I’m waiting for the payoff: in which Sandy either walks out the door or crumples into his arms.

But I feel like the song takes a mis-step in the bridge, applying the brakes rather than launching into the stratosphere, as the best Springsteen-esque guitar chuggers tend to. Nevertheless, it kept me hanging on, eager to know how it would end. And in fairness, the song resolves like most things in life probably do – with a wheeze rather than a bang.

You can catch Oh Mercy playing the Newtown Social Club in Sydney this Wednesday, 22 April, and Melbourne’s Gasometer Hotel on Saturday 25 April.

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LISTEN: Kins – ‘Aimless’

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kins

 

Bittersweet how this band skipped off to the UK before their debut EP Dancing Back and Forth In Whipped Cream even got the chance to warm up around the press or get anywhere near close to the radio play that it deserved here.

The Australian masses are reasonably facilitating about local stuff. Doesn’t mean I didn’t feel like slitting my wrists at major festival I recently attended while everyone fapped off to vanilla flavoured Scandinavian bands, dudes with triangles in their artwork and imported teenage ‘wunderkinds‘ who need to focus on the stuff teenagers should be into; like haiku and growing pubes.

There are a number of extremely supportive outlets which support local music and upcoming artists (hi fellow Oz music blogs, hi community radio, hi hardworking label start-ups, hi fReeZA, you know who you are etc..). Too often though, we’re quick to claim support when it should have been given in the first place. For artists hoping to achieve some level of ‘success’, Europe and the US has always, and will always be the land of milk and honey (+ legal weed, +crowds who actually dance). I know a few artists from overseas who’ve moved here in their plight to develop in a tighter ‘scene’, but in general those of the sort are few and far between.

While that might be the eternal case, let it be known, Australian bands…that somewhere, out there in the abyss of suburban Sydney – on a stained mattress in the Valley – or in a decrepit hole of a band room; SOMEONE LOVES YOUR MUSIC. Think about our feelings when you leave.

I’ve been following Kins closely since coming across ‘Bold Frown’ back in 2010. Originally a solo project for frontman Thom Savage (ex-Oh Mercy guitarist), Kins made the move to Brighton in the UK two years ago. Spots at the The Great Escape Festival and regular airplay on BBC 1 is all real great – but their new LP is more so.

Kins never had twee intentions. I doubt they made the move to cement their status as a hype band. When you listen to these guys, there’s often no distinct hook or a blatant chorus that keeps you the whole way through. It’s Thom Savage’s vagueness.

Kin’s new track ‘Aimless’ is just that. It’s a dreamy saunter and an angular dance. The track sounds like the personification of that endearing person everyone knows; the socially awkward person with a closet desire to throw violently outlandish moves on the dancefloor. It’s probably not that’s what the song is about. I’m pointing the finger at that chiming main hook and the faux-mariachi floating around though. All I can see is a Lou Taylor-Pucci type, maybe Steve Buscemi, flailing lithe limbs around in an aquarium lobby or something.

Thom’s distinct voice is the subtle hero of this track. While this spares a close ear to the unconvention of Local Natives, bits Alt-J and early Dappled Cities, I reckon Kins are unique in their own league. If I met Severely Underrrated Band and could stomp all over it’s passport, I would.

Wish we could keep them, but a band like this deserves better ears.

_____

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Rewiggled Party feat. Dead Letter Chorus

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Murray, The Wiggle

Listen to
Dead Letter Chorus – Wiggle Bay

I went along to the Rewiggled party with a healthy dose of skepticism tucked firmly into my pocket. I mean, it’s a Wiggles cover album – those songs were cool when I was in diapers, but there’s no way they can transcend genre boundaries (as well as a couple of decades) – and the live performance wasn’t going to be any better. Boo to me, it turns out. Dead Letter Chorus pulled out one hell of a cover, and delivered their own track Run Wild with their usual style – and the album, well shit. It’s fantastic.

Dead Letter Chorus

Rewiggled has only just gone into final production, but the gentlemen and women at the ABC were kind enough to provide a preview CD, and I can assure you, it’s damn delightful. At points it’s bittersweet – listening to your reimagined childhood is an odd experience – but one full of grins and these ridiculously warm moments. It jumps across all kinds of musical boundaries – rolling folk from Dead Letter Chorus, hard-style rawk from Frenzal Rhomb, softly spoken awesome from Oh Mercy and almost heart-breaking stillness from Paul Greene (among so many others) – and really captures the heart of The Wiggles, as well as showcasing some of Australias best music.

Dead Letter Chorus

I really can’t wait for you all to listen to this, ‘coz it’s one hell of an experience. To say that The Wiggles have had an impact on Australian culture is a massive understatement – and Rewiggled truly does them justice. Stay tuned for more of this goodness – or head along to the ABC store and get your pre-order on. There’s also a Facebook page, where you can check out a few previews, and revel (wriggle?) in the musicy goodness. You can pick it up on November 4.

Oh, and check out Dead Letter Chorus. They’re real good. By the way, that guy at the top – that’s Murray. He’s a Wiggle.

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St Jerome’s Laneway Festival 2010 reviews

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Review by David Payne, Melbourne:

I really like St Jerome’s Laneway Festival, actually I love it. So to those that bitched about a blow out last year – well, nothing. There were only a small number of basement dwelling noisy dickwads and nobody actually cares about them. This year’s festival sold out of course and it was once again – awesome!

The immediate feeling of the Laneway Festival is that it’s put on by music lovers for people that actually dig music. This is not a festival to get trashed and throw cans at Lilly Allen before pushing smaller people out of the way to get a glimpse of some inflated rock opera. It is a diverse, well considered and quite manageable day of quality Australian and lesser known International Artists.

Dirty three were an obvious highlight for me, Oh Mercy were solid and the Philly Jay’s have well confirmed themselves as one of the most exciting live bands in the country. Bridezilla showed confidence on the larger stage but really need an evening slot to help the atmosphere of their sound. Sarah Blasko has played every festival I have been to over summer, so it’s fair to say I saw nothing new but it’ll take a while to tire of hearing her perform tracks from ‘As Day Follows Night’. Finally, a quick mention of XX as the most incredible international band of the day and definitely the sexiest bass player to grace our shores.

Review by Matt Hickey, Brisbane

I’ve been to a fair few music festivals. Which isn’t to say that I’m any more ‘hip’ than anyone – as if going to summer music festivals is any sort of exclusive activity these days. But I mention this because I’m all too well acquainted with dancing to filler line-ups while being pressed up against sweaty, shirtless ‘bro-gans’ and ‘sluzbots’ that decided bikinis were adequate clothing. It’s not an indictment on the quality of Laneway’s program in the slightest when I suggest that my favourite thing about the festival wasn’t the bands but the atmosphere. Held in a small, nifty seciton of the RNA Showround’s, Brisbane’s Laneway Fest 2010 was undoubtedly a success. There were trees, lot’s of cover from rain and/or sun, an indoor bar, bands that have good records AND can bring the shit live – and I only saw two southern cross tattoos all day. I know it’s an easy shot to target the universal emblem for bogan nationalism and one that will probably spark accusations of pretension and a sense of misplaced superiority. But hey, there was a definitely a civilised air about proceedings that is missing from, say, BDO’s Boiler Room; an appreciative atmosphere that allowed The Dirty Three’s long-from instrumental workouts to play second last on the main stage to an attentive, sizable crowd.

With that out of the way, Laneway – musically – was in fine form. While I thought the program did kind of lacked a big headliner this year, the high quality of acts from the outset alleviated any potential disappointment at the end of the night. Kid Sam were the first band that I caught proper and they were simply great. They were somehow left off my ‘best of 09’ list and also, I realised, have been criminally uncovered on whothehell.net. If anyone involved with Kid Sam reads this, you should send me everything that you put out from this point on. Their songs are moving with an anthemic quality to them, and the instrumentation is a perfect mix of technical flair and DIY sloppiness. If you’ve not seen them live, don’t hesitate when next they play your fair city.

Philly Jays were great and uber-energetic as usual. Sharing a slot with Mumford and Sons (the “poor man’s Frightened Rabbit” as my Twitter peep @albertinho calls them) meant that there was a small crowd at the start. But after those British nu-folksters ill-advisedly played ‘Little Lion Man’ about third song in, the crowd grew to an impressive size in time for a rousing rendition of ‘I Don’t Want to Party (Party)’ that devolved into a weirdly hypnotic drum freakout as per usual before leading into set-closer and Hottest 100-charting ‘The Good News.’

Highlight of the day probably went to Wild Beasts. That any band should have one singer with a falsetto like that is near unfathomable, let alone two singers! That’s just obscene. The moment when that second, almost bland looking bald singer stepped up to the mic only to shriek out the opening “watch me, watch me” from ‘All The Kinds Men’ was literally my favourite moment of the day. And there’s just something far more offputting but alluring about a booty call invitation being sung in that high, warbly male voice that kinda gives me the goosebumps. I thought these guys would be good, but I didn’t know how good.

I won’t ramble. The xx brought enough charisma (well, bass player Oliver Sims/Chuck Bass did anyway) to overcome the lull in energy that can result from not having a live drummer; The Dirty Three did as The Dirty Three do, which is generally quite enchanting; and Florence was mildly underwhelming just as she was when I saw her in Belgium last August. I was really kicking myself for not seeing ECRS again but thank fuck they’ve announced that album tour. I shan’t be missing that. Nor shall I be missing Laneway 2011.

I don’t think I spoke to anyone that didn’t enjoy the day. Although it’s grown in size, Laneway has managed to retain its boutique charm, curating line-ups of quality acts over big names for a crowd hungry to soak up every last note.

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