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WATCH: Tralala Blip – ‘Pub Talk’

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Photographer Kate Holmes

Tralala Blip have been treating audiences around Brisbane and their hometown of Lismore/ The Northern Rivers of NSW for almost a decade. In that time, they’ve continuously developed and refined their sound, and are now one of the most exciting, fun and thoughtful electronic bands in the country. Their first full-length record in five years is Eat My Codes If Your Light Falls, and now they’re inviting the rest of the country into their world of experimental music through the gaze of musicians with disabilities.

Their latest single ‘Pub Talk’ is spare and moody. The bare electronic backing leaves room for the understated tenderness of Lydian Dunbar’s vocal performance to shine – drawing you in to an easy intimacy. The repetitive, almost robotic backing beats slowly ramps up; there’s a feeling of urgency in Dunbar’s message ‘I am same but different/ my heart is full of sounds and light’. The video, directed by Jake Taylor from In Hearts Wake, is appropriately melancholy, glitchy slow-motion accentuate the feeling of alienation, while lingering close ups on the sensory experiences of the world outside Dunbar’s, making a personal longing to connect feel universal. ‘Pub Talk’ takes its time opening up, but then seems to be over all too soon, lingering bitter sweet.

‘Pub Talk’ shows a different side to the band after new-wave disco-dancey first single ‘Facing Monsters’ earlier this year, and it’s clear Eat My Codes… will have plenty to interest all kinds of electronic and experimental music fans. It’s also clear that we’ve been missing out on some amazing music from differently-abled musicians, and there’s a lot more work to be done in making Australia’s music scene open to everyone with something to say.

Eat My Codes If Your Light Falls is out on Laurence English’s Someone Good label today! Buy it here.

If you’re lucky enough to live in Brisbane, Tralala Blip will launch Eat My Codes… at The Foundry on August 1

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WATCH: All the Weathers – ‘Jobs for Dogs’

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All The Weathers

I’m such a dumbshit it took moving to Tasmania for me to discover what, apparently, all my friends already knew and were keeping from me as some kind of sick joke: All The Weathers are one of the most exciting bands in Australia. It’s true, before this year I had absolutely no idea that just one band could be fun, arty, weird, funny, catchy, smart, brutal and beautiful all at once. Must be that mountain air.

It’s been a while since the band have released anything, but a few days ago we finally got a taste of their third record, called For the Worms’, out on January 21st. This first track  ‘Jobs for Dogs’ does the quiet-loud things with a frantic hysterical energy, dirty growling guitars and a video that combines a serious comment about animal exploitation with dressing up in broken wetsuits, dog masks and op-shop suits. There’s a lot going. You notice some new funny detail on every re-watch. Georgia Lucy’s voice is so good it wouldn’t really matter if she wasn’t that charismatic, but whether it’s on stage or on video (in this one she embodies a theatrical, mistreated greyhound or a villainous race-goer) she’s endlessly watchable.

The whole things brims with personality, charm, force and passion. It’s a breath of fresh air, especially for those times when it starts to feel like there’s not enough weird stuff happening in Australian music, when it’s all getting a bit too cool. Oh god I’m starting to sound like those Triple J dads asking why no one makes music like TISM anymore. Ignore/kill me.

All the Weathers are a band who write great songs which lets them be as wacky as they like and you always want to see where it’s gonna go. Hopefully the record brings a tour cuz their live shows are anything and everything but boring. Lucy, and bandmates Callumn Cusick and Gigi Lynn are all hectic multi-instrumentalists and make kind of a mix between the tightest band you’ve ever seen and wonderful chaos.

A second video, ‘Fast Lane’ was released on the same day but I didn’t find out about that until I’d finished writing this post. Ah-whoops.

Pre-order ‘For the Worms’  from good Tasmania record label Rough Skies here

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WATCH: Ultra Material – ‘Borderline’ Video

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ultra material

Yes, pure is the most overused word of all time, but there’s something just solidly, reliably, pure about Ultra Material. They’re terrific musicians and good people. They also have lots of other shit going on, so they can make consistently interesting and beautiful music and play the occasional great show around Brisbane without burning out or getting bored.

‘Borderline’, off their latest EP II, is about the poppiest song they’ve released to date. It’s less meandering and abstract, with more catchy vocal melodies and forward motion. They’ve embraced that ‘dream pop’ label bands have to take on so they can lose the ‘shoegaze’ baggage and made something that’s … dreamy and poppy. Vocalist / bassist Sarah Deasy is letting her vocals come through, without being drowned in effects. It’s a great move; while having a classically ‘good’ voice can sometimes be seen as a detriment to this kind of music, her singing is darkly lovely and resonant, elevating the whole song.

Almost everyone in this band is some kind of accomplished artist or designer in their real life, so you know they’re not going to slack off on a walking down Brunswick street eating a pie music video. Enter the queen of green screen Helena Papageorgiou, the Brisbane director who made, among others, this delightful video for Dag late last year (go watch it if you haven’t already, I’ll wait).

While the look for that clip was weird and ramshackle, this one is all moody cool, moving fast to keep up with Matt Deasy’s impeccable drumming. Patterns and silhouettes, neon colours and constellations fly by the surface of the moon and anime-style waves. Though Papageorgiou knows where to linger – like on the X-Files-y ending and the coolest use of dogs in space since 1986.

Ultra Material – Borderline from Helena Papageorgiou on Vimeo.

You can find this song and lots of other winners on II. If you buy a physical copy of the cassette if comes in a beautiful case with a fold-out poster design by keyboard player Zuzana Kovar, printed by Matt Deasy at his screenprinting company no. 7 Print House (I told you they were arty). People come and go, but objects are forever.

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WATCH: Pillow Pro – ‘Beyond the Rave’

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Pillow Pro

Melbourne two-piece Pillow Pro pull a kind of bait and switch with their new video, stunningly directed by Lara Kose. At first it’s a couple of cool girls in hoodies walking down monochrome Melbourne streets – sitting at the laundromat, looking at derro stuff etc. But then it fades into a kind of dream-sequence sun-dappled and soaked in colour.

Though the down-tempo beats and chorus of ‘Pick up your phone / been waiting / I’ve been down too long’ suggest a romantic kind of longing, it doesn’t seem much like they need anyone else. This video seems to posit that maybe all the shit you do with your best friend killing time until your lover calls you back is actually the interesting part. Especially if that shit involves dressing up in the cutest fucking cowgirl outfits I’ve ever seen (will pay any money to cop btw – madeleine@whothehell.net) and lounging on li-los with umbrella drinks and curly straws.

It’s girly, embracing all the loading bullshit that comes with that term. Its pastel-toned and pretty, wistful and sassy in equal parts. It feels luxurious, from the pristine quality of the production to the beautiful costuming and the languid slow-mo. Pillow Pro have said they were inspired by ‘90s pop videos, and this definitely comes through – though updated with all the fun and none of the daggy-ness. It’s a pure and confident statement of intent from a band who seem to have a huge year ahead.

Pillow Pro are playing at Rack Off in Melbourne on March 4th. That’s DEFINITELY where I’d be if I didn’t have to be somewhere else.

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WATCH: Forevr – ‘Petrichor’ Video

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forevr

Making a video for Petrichor’, Brisbane band Forevr’s first single as a four-piece, must have been a bit intimidating. The song itself has all the unpredictably energy of an electrical storm – how do you match those drums pulsing up from a thousand miles under the earth, then attacking skittishly from all sides? How do you make images that stand up to the precision and detail of the sound, the weirdness and the deep grounding emotion?

Using moody wafts of slow-moving smoke, deeply unsettling Claymation, and 3D diamonds shattering across the matrix,video director/editor/clay enthusiast Josh Watson (responsible for Blank Realm’s ‘Reach You On The Phone’ video, among others) has gone with vibe over plot. Though there’s still an overriding theme – a sense of being out of place, of trying to get back to the familiar, but every way you turn there’s something more strange and frightening. With fleshy molded flower petals opening and closing like mouths in silent desperation as Sam George-Allen coos ‘make your bed / where you call home’, the animation turns the natural into the perverse, but in a way that draws you in.

The 3D adds a more lighthearted future-from-the-90s tone – shit, there’s a lot going on here. Impeccably timed fast cuts fusing together the sound and image, and making sure there’s always something new to see.

Forevr are currently working on two releases, which will be out later in the year.

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WATCH: Dag – ‘Staying Up at Night’

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Autosave-File vom d-lab2/3 der AgfaPhoto GmbH

Photo by Helena Papageorgiou

The first single from Dag’s debut LP The Benefits of Solitude, ‘Staying up at Night’ came out last month. I wanted to write it up then but, honestly, I liked it too much. It’s too breezy and, despite the uneasy melancholy of the lyrics and Dusty Anastassiou’s naturally doleful voice, rolls by so easily. It’s is a pop song from the jaunty acoustic guitar to the warmth and fullness of the chorus to the bow ba-bow bow bow bass line. To try and stop and think about like, ‘why do I like this so much? How can I explain what’s good about it?’ felt like it would ruin something, so I let it pass by.

But here’s a second chance, cause we got the very lucky scoop of premiering the video. It’s the work of Brisbane director and musician Helena Papageorgiou, who’s been responsible for many of the best clips you’ve been seeing coming out of Bris lately. This is a (deceptively) simple but imaginative and lovable version of the ‘we’ll have the band play their song, with green screen stuff also happening’ kind of video.

In it Anastassiou, Sky McNichol (Bent), Josh Watson (Sewers; also mixed and co-produced the record) and Matthew Ford (Thigh Master), who make up the Brisbane contingent of the band (Anastassiou now lives in Melbourne and plays with different members there), play their instruments in a dingy share house-looking room, while out the windows animated illustrations spin and swirl.

The drawings are by Anastassiou himself: colourful fun and freaky pictures of UFOs and weird misshapen people and anthropomorphic houses. There’s a wild world going on outside the concrete walls the band are contained by – though they break out at the end, with some cool shots of those walking down some animated streets and losing their heads in the big city.

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This clip doesn’t rest on a cute idea or one-watch novelty – you see something new and interesting in Anastassiou’s drawings and Papageorgiou’s animation with every repeat watch.

Benefits of Solitude will be out in February on Bedroom Suck

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WATCH: Obscura Hail – ‘Little Web’

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obscura hail

As Obscura Hail, multi-instrumentalist Sean Conran focuses on the intricate details on life, revelling in the minute facets of a minimalist folk sound and playing in the infinitesimal spaces between lingering notes. Throughout his songs, which are commonly described as ‘basement pop’ or ‘baroque folk’, Sean handles each delicate moment as if it were dangerously fragile – each experience or thought a priceless treasure to take care of. For his latest single, ‘Little Web’, Sean has taken inspiration from the lives of fictional video game characters. The song narrows its focus to Sean’s self-imposed isolation from others in favour of a virtual world and how his preference towards actions of non-existent figures created a disconnect from reality ­– choosing to dictate his own narrative with the only limitations being the ones imposed by the game itself.

‘Little Web’ opens with a soothing and melancholic guitar melody, before Sean’s wispy vocals interject with the opening lines “Moving pictures on the silver screen / living their lives in a 2D scene / I’m glued, I’m glued / to the seat in this room”, setting the scene of Sean seated in front of the illuminated screen, immersed in a world of his own creation. The accompanying video offers a series of recorded moments, most seemingly insignificant but weaving together into a tableau of introspection. Frames of outdoor scenery offer a glimpse into a world beyond the computer screen – natural sunlight and stars instead of the harsh artificial lighting of the virtual world. The song carries a stark beauty, minimalist in nature but impressive in impact.

Obscura Hail is on the cusp of releasing an album entitled Leaves, Earth, which follows on from the Thrown Into The Sea EP. Leaves, Earth will be out in August through No Safe Place Records.

You can see him supporting Jules Sheldon at the Old Bar in Melbourne on 25 July.

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