Tagged By Sydney

INTRODUCING: Prints

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There are three things that dogs leave behind: poo, good times, and little prints that will lead you to both the poo and the good times. If you have access to the Internet and enter in the search terms “Sydney” and “band”, you’ll be led to another source of good times: the superbly pleasant foursome of Prints.

Having just released their debut EP Some People Will Listen to Anything, Prints have delivered a casual brand of power-pop garage that recalls the spritely likes of the Strokes having a delightful evening at home with Deep Sea Arcade. It’s well put together music for lovers of guitar and break-up songs.

Although Prints have been around for over three years, this EP is the first real taste of material from the band. They don’t have a heap of live shows under their belt either – which is a shame, because from their driving hooks to their preppy lyrics (“If you’re gonna let me go, I think you oughtta know, I’m gonna take it pers-onally”), Prints are looking to be Sydney’s own little Vampire Weekend.

Whilst we bop our heads to these sincere, torn tunes from Prints and wait for more material, we can at least comfort ourselves knowing that out there somewhere, Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Zach Braff are staging a cage-fight to the death to see who gets to use “Lady Penelope” in their upcoming indie film.

GIGS:

27 November – The Public Bar, Melbourne

13 December – Oxford Art Factory (Gallery Bar), Sydney

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LISTEN: Cull – Nasty Drought

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It’s here – the first taste from Sydney shoegazing wunderlords Cull’s debut album. They’ve been floating into our earholes with streamlined Deeerhunter-via-interdimension-travel-through-the-cosmos since early 2013, when their track ‘Good People Disappear’ first surfaced on the WTH waves.  Since then, they’ve dropped their gorgeous Ba Noi EP, and a fantastically ethereal cover of Pavement’s ‘Shady Lane’.

But not simply content with ruling our hearts with mere singles, Cull have decided upon an album release for early 2015, simply titled Aloft. The name rings surely with their sound, simple pop music that’s held mightily high upon swirling masses of pedal effects and distortion.

‘Nasty Drought’ is the first taste of the album, and it indicates the record will be a colourful and engaging one indeed. Sticky vocals ensue, before unfurling into the kind of unfurling shimmer that we all <3 Cull for.

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INTRODUCING: Weak Boys

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There’s nothing quite as manly and striking as a bunch of blokes in a band called Weak Boys. I mean, that’s a name that instantly assumes a Bon Scott-like confidence, a title worthy of a king. ‘Hello, we are Weak Boys’, is all one has to bellow in order to send all the other blokes running in terror, and for every girl in the vicinity to swoon.

Weak Boys are a Sydney trio made up of Matt Banham, Craig Lyons, and Chris Yates. Some of the other bands these guys have played in include Dollar Bar, Disgusting People, Little Lovers and Summer Flake‘s Sydney band. (You’re not a success until you have a band ready to go in every state, so congrats Summer Flake). So it comes as no surprise that their own lil’ supergroup is something you’ll want to spend all your hard-earned cash on.

After making every drongo on a Sunday do a collective ‘Oath!’ with the release of their single ‘Hangovers’ earlier this year, they’ve gone and released their first LP, Weekdays/Weekends. It’s a soulful ode to living in modern day Sydney and being, in the eternal words of Lethal Weapons’ Murtaugh, ‘too old for this shit’.

Besides ‘Hangovers’, Weekdays/Weekends is crammed with beautiful slices of mope-pop, and every track abounds with happily depressed Yo La Tengo-isms. ‘Dog Farm’ is a track that should get all the Cool Dog Group participants excited, and ‘Deal With It’ is like if Bart Simpson discovered The Ocean Party. Weak Boys – they’re probably one of the most underrated bands in Australia right now.

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PREMIERE: Gordi – ‘Nothing’s As It Seems’

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Gordi is vocalist Sophie Payten. ‘Nothing’s As It Seems’ is the new track from the Sydney based musician / medicine student. ‘Nothing’s As It Seems’ might appear polished, but if not for the hushed instrumental, it could easily carry on just entirely carried by Gordi’s vocal. Lyrically, it’s not overly ambitious – but Gordi’s pastoral nuances don’t call for it. The low-key arrangement keeps the folktronica twee-preening to a minimum. The track is still ethereal without being flail-your-guts-out emotive. (PS. I’ll be waiting for the Enya mash-up.)

Gordi plays Spring St Social in Bondi tonight and Goodgod Small Club on Wednesday October 22. Head here for a full run of show dates.

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INTRODUCING: Yes I’m Leaving

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For those who are punk-inclined, I have found you a Fugazi. In a context where everything else resembles an actual fugazi (variously defined as a fake or a fucked up situation), Yes I’m Leaving is the brutal and efficient slap of sense that Australia has been missing. The new album is direct, punchy, cathartic and chaotic; it feels like a bandaid being ripped from the hairiest part of your skin, over and over again.

On their fourth LP, Slow Release (which is being released via Homeless Records), Sydney’s holy trinity sound dirtier, scummier and more savage than ever before. The production values have been extensively upgraded, with every scrape and bellow of their instruments being picked up and intensified. But rather than creating some sort of squeaky clean parody of themselves, the studio treatment has ensured that Yes I’m Leaving’s usual maelstrom is even more pronounced.

Opening track ‘One’ is especially fearsome. As all members link into a staccato pounding of the hooves, stampeding doom seems an impending reality. The finale is sheer ferocity, frontman Billy Burke screaming ‘One!’ in his banshee cry with enough force to rip the hair right off your head. Latest single “Fear” has a similar effect. It’s basically an expanded Drive Like Jehu track that’s been embellished with a particularly foreboding melody and a strong Australian accent.

Yes I’m Leaving may be more cynical than a Scrooge who’s been through the Vietnam War and create a more gnashing atmosphere than a Tasmanian Devil going through withdrawals, but that’s exactly what separates them from the rest and places them in a higher domain of punk music. Slow Release is an essential listen for anyone who likes to get their heads thumped in by carnivorous punk. And for those who haven’t had the pleasure of such an experience? The perfect introduction.

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LISTEN: North Arm – ‘Lately’

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North Arm are a Sydney-via-Newcastle-via-North Arm four piece who have been producing spaced-out folktronica since early 2013. The band’s new single, ‘Lately’, is an ethereal combination of front man Roderick Smith’s whispery vocals and a finely picked acoustic guitar, which floats atop a crescendo of percussion and synths.

‘Lately’ is decidedly more folk than the spread of lo-fi dream pop tunes on debut EP Thought Lines. I’m not sure which I prefer, but the production is ace all round – preventing the finely layered atmosphere of ‘Lately’ from turning into the ‘omg we get it’ overwrought boredom of some dream pop outfits.

The careful manipulation of traditional rock song structures gives North Arm an edge that I’m keen to hear more of on their next EP, Life Cycles, due out later this year.

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INTRODUCING: GL

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GL is a Melbourne-based synth-pop duo formed by Bamboos alumni Ella Thompson and Graeme Pogson. The pair is about to release the Love Hexagon EP via Plastic World, a Sydney imprint run by Vic Edirisinghe of Astral People and James McInnes of Future Classic.

With a focus on the kind of forward-thinking, club-oriented acts that don’t seem to have a natural home on existing local labels, Plastic World has, in its short life, dropped releases by Tuff Sherm, Cassius Select, Retiree and Alba. The label’s curatorial nous is reflected in the remixes they’ve scored for GL’s upcoming release, including work by Detroit house legend Terrence Parker and Gerd Janson of Running Back Records, which has released music from the likes of Todd Terje, Theo Parrish and Tensnake.

‘Won’t You See’, the first cut to surface from Love Hexagon, started doing the rounds back in July. Though it’s body music with a killer hook, overwhelmingly the track comes off as a 1980s genre exercise, its drum machines and tightly coiled synths zapping like lasers.

GL’s new single, the more sultry ‘What Happened to Us’, draws on a similar palette – but here Thompson’s vocal performance pushes the sound to a higher plane. Her voice flutters and cracks as she delivers the yearning lines, ‘Don’t push harder/You can push harder/But it’s not like before’. As it heats up, ‘What Happened to Us’ rivals the retro-pop grandeur of Solange’s Dev Hynes-produced tracks, equal parts strength and lightness of touch.

Love Hexagon  pre-orders will be available soon. Check out the video for ‘Won’t You See’ after the jump.

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