Click here to view the embedded video.

Many flashbacks here to childhood in surburbia sitting with my face pressed against the TV. Sydney director Alex Ryan created the distortions in this video for Bon Chat, Bon Rat by treating 16mm film and running it through a projector. Cool stuff.

soundcloud.com/bon-chat-bon-rat

bonchatbonrat.com

Jonti - ‘Nightshift In Waltz’ (RAJA Rearrangement)

(mp3)

NY native RAJA recently put Jonti’s ‘Nightshift in Blue’ on the slow burner. This looser version plays out like an astral projection on a Sunday afternoon. Worth a listen.

soundcloud.com/lordraja

lordraja.tumblr.com

jontidanimals.tumblr.com

Click here to view the embedded video.

SPOILER ALERT:

Curious Indian boy discovers golden ticket. Said ticket opens up magic portal. Instead of being greeted by Aslan, David Tennant (or the stuff you usually get when you walk through magic portals) – boy finds Melbourne four piece who refuse to put their shirts back on.

Sodapop EP is available on bandcamp.

citizensex.bandcamp.com

www.facebook.com/citizensex

*Also worth checking out some of the other great work done by the guys from Betty Wants In who made this clip.

Horror My Friend - ‘Leave Me Alone’

(mp3)

The Sunshine State may have earnt its fair share of cultural schtick in the international music press as the place for scuzz and house parties courtesy of DZ and Bleeding Knees Club, but don’t count on these guys from Adelaide to keep suburbia quiet for too long. This track has enough hooks for havoc potential and the right dose of vocal precociousness to make the kids go crazy. A heads up if you dig DZ or Children Collide’s earlier material.

The band’s EP Shivers and Spines is available on bandcamp.

horrormyfriend.bandcamp.com

Facebook

]]> http://whothehell.net/archives/13993/feed 0 http://whothehell.net/archives/13989 http://whothehell.net/archives/13989#comments Mon, 14 May 2012 02:22:37 +0000 Melissa Tan http://whothehell.net/?p=13989

Click here to view the embedded video.

You don’t really need to find much beyond ‘Crave You’ and ‘Foreign Language’ to hear that production pair Flight Facilities have bestowed some unforgivingly catchy tracks on us all.

Here’s the brand new clip for their track ‘With You’ which features Grovesnor aka. former Hot Chip member Rob Smoughton.

This clip took animator Ben Drake and his team four months to complete. I’m frankly over watching band vids with pretty chicks running through forests, so these Daft Punk/Astroboy vibes are so up on my radar right now.

Producer: Samuel Beck
Production Manager: Ben Huxter
Character Designs, Story and Directed: Benjamin Drake
Guest Animators: Alexis Dean-Jones & Xin Li
Compositors: Steven Smith & Xue Sen Wong
Special thanks: Liam Hockins & Seera Rytkölä

www.flightfacilities.com

www.facebook.com/flightfacilities

Better…two months late than never. I’ve been absent from these parts because I’ve been busy doing important stuff, like eating beans for 60 days and getting mugged in rural Central America. Prior to dieting on mariachi and Mexican opera for a few months, I got along to the annual SXSW conference/festival in Austin, Texas.

I arrived at SXSW for the first time without an itinerary or a wristband for a week of music and merriment. College orientation shit really. I mean, all I had to do was dodge the kids in Goodwill sweaters handing out sample mixtapes and stomp through to the free kebabs and gigs right? Turns out 6th St was as easy as striding through a trojan warzone, with the addition of Willie Nelson clones riding over my feet with their god damn pedal tuks every two meters.

Everything is bigger in Texas, but Austin is just whack. Any fleeting hobby interest you might have had in people watching gets amplified here; everywhere is teeming with street performers, artists and their convoys, people in neon suits, morph suits, birthday suits, and unabashed locals flaunting rainbow tie dye tshirts with ‘KEEP AUSTIN WEIRD’ emblazoned across their chests. Finding some new obscure band that blows your brains isn’t difficult, as live music happens everywhere from 10am until the early hours of the morning.

While SXSW has a rep for being a goldmine for unsigned acts, I learnt that it WILL quickly turn into a wasteland of terrible free prog-rock gigs if you scribble down 3 out of the 48 free events you’ve RSVP-ed to on a piece of scrap paper that’s covered in boob-sweat. Yes, SXSW is do-able without a $750 pass, and yes, you still can bask in the glory of plenty of new bands, have lots of fun and consume superfluous amounts of free Doritos to your hearts content (see here), but stuff gets tricky when you queue for three hours, then end up climbing iron bars for a scenic view of the back of Doug Martsch’s head.

After a few days of plodding, I was welcomed into the arms of Maggie Mae’s on Saturday for the annual Aussie BBQ. Highlights included free food, familiar accents, chummy people in green attire (it was St Patrick’s Day) and resident Peter Pan aka Nick ‘Paisley Adams’ Allbrook of POND catapulting into the crowd and nearly taking out Brit TV host Alexa Chung’s glory box with his pan flute. Go ’straya.

Here’s some photos from the Aussie BBQ:

Alpine

Voltaire Twins

Pond

(click below for more photos)

Lanie Lane

Twerps

]]> http://whothehell.net/archives/13948/feed 0 http://whothehell.net/archives/13881 http://whothehell.net/archives/13881#comments Fri, 11 May 2012 02:53:00 +0000 David Payne http://whothehell.net/?p=13881

Lyyar – ‘Afterall’ – mp3

Lyyar, pronounced ‘lee-ar’ have released their debut ep Outside, Elsewhere. This is the first track off what is a post prog rocky, dark winding, wave of dirty guitars with heavy bass and solid drumming. It gets darker and heavier, then takes a slight pych detour and back again. They really step it up in the last minute of the ep but overall I prefer the loose mish-mash of the first track. These guys would def be worth seeing play live.

You can check it out on their bandcamp and mail away for vinyl too – http://whothehell.net/U2U

Click here to view the embedded video.

The once humble music video is never so these days.  You might recall Phondupe two producers out of Sydney whose track ‘Aviary West’ we featured last year. They’ve teamed up with local director/producer Benjamin Zadig, who’s made a pretty spectacular clip, featuring a few colonial dudes getting terrorized by the resident forest ‘bunyip’.

The guys put out their latest release, Dinner Melts yesterday and it’s been on rotation here all day. The four track release is teeming with some interesting ideas, cut and paste beats and all the downtempo quirks you’d find in a Tokyo backalley bar.  It’s available as a free download on their bandcamp, so you’ll probably get to that faster than you can attempt to count the syllables in track four: ‘Hideyoshi’s Seven Skillful Spearmen of Shizugatake’. Yeah, that.

phondupe.bandcamp.com

facebook.com/phondupe

Summer Flake – ‘On the River’ – mp3

Stephanie Crase’s first solo release and self-titled ep is ‘Summer Flake’. I’ve posted ‘On the River’ from this release, which you can download for free here. ‘The Summer Flake’ is a straight forward DIY (shudder at that term, but it’s accurate) recording of lo-fi indie rock tunes. So if your feeling like getting blue with some downer fuzz, this might be your bag. I’m rarely in that mood being that I left my angst in high school, despite what my mum says, but there is something catchy about this ep and it’s crept up on me a few times following Sui Zhen in my library. A real slow burner that is def worth a listen.

Facebook for Steph here – http://whothehell.net/hGA

Emma Louise – ‘Boy’

Listen up boy! If Emma Louise believes in you then best you pick yourself up, live up to your potential and stop disappointing this girl. OK. Good. Now that that’s outta the way, ‘Boy’ is the new single by Emma Louise. Another fine example of her incredible voice and intimate song writing ability. This is a rather restrained track that is as catchy as ‘Jungle’ but deploys more smokey vocals with subtle instrumental hooks and beats that compliment her melody. ‘Boy’ speaks of youth, love, hope and distance and will no doubt feature on a lot of winter soundtracks.

Emma Louise has also announced a string of East Coast tour dates – sure to sell out so check it fast – http://whothehell.net/TH4

Click here to view the embedded video.

Sui Zhen – ‘Cupboards and Sand’ Video Premiere

This ephemeral video was lovingly filmed and directed by Imogen Heath and Sam Icklow of NowMomentNow. Becky Freeman is the artist Sui Zhen and she studied with Imogen and Sam who have founded NMN, the Berlin based arts collective. Becky contributed with some of the drawings used in the animation and the live action was captured in Berlin at Teufelsberg, an abandoned spy tower. The shaky cam would surely upset David Stratton but I like the shots and the natural light plus the contrast of the green forest and ghetto look of the spy tower.

Her very sweet record ‘Two Seas’ is available now from suizhen.bandcamp.com/

‘This Thing’ launched a bunch of artist releases at the Phoenix Public House to a pumped up crowd of excited punters. A night of cool beats by a diverse group of producers floggin their wares and ripping up the house with five live sets. I caught four and they were very good.

Naps – http://whothehell.net/zVU

Crumbs – http://whothehell.net/X8l

Wooshie – http://whothehell.net/0at

Andras Fox – http://whothehell.net/66a

More pictures after the jump.

The Ruminaters – ‘Timmy’ – mp3

These guys caught Mel’s attention with their first single ‘Deadstuff’ and this is their new one called ‘Timmy’. It’s a cabaret slacker-rock affair that’ll get you up doing the polka with your friends. Surfer guitar licks and a little story telling go along way when you add some back ground yelps and a damn catchy hook. Good times Ruminaters.

Go drink in their youth here – http://whothehell.net/CmZ

Sui Zhen – LP ‘Two Seas’ – sampler mp3

This track is a sampler of songs from the new record by Sui Zhen called ‘Two Seas’. It’s a nice ADHD taste of what you’ll find on the record which sounds pretty sweet. Sui Zhen has a lovely and delicate sensibility that she expresses through her indie-folk-pop melody. I like the comparison others make to Joanna Newsom because Zhen does seem to do her own thing and isn’t afraid to experiment with her sound. This record is out now so check out her page for details here – http://whothehell.net/Zkr

Click here to view the embedded video.

We are back to regular programming after yesterday’s special mix diversion. This is Danger Beach’s ‘Sioux’ and it’s the first single from their upcoming long player titled ‘Pacific’.

Check out their Facebook  here – http://whothehell.net/7Nf

Wizard Oz – ‘Pull Out Slow’ mp3

Whilst Wizard Oz’s stuff is a bit hit and miss for me – especially the computer game sounds on the last ep, I don’t mind this one. Lo-Fi will only last so long in my playlist as it mostly starts to blend but there are a few stand out tracks in here and I recommend downloading the free ep ‘Flashing Lights’. There is a bit of an Ariel Pink vibe going on and it’s kinda sweet. The ‘tape’ version will be released on the 5th May (Yeah tapes? seriously what is going on… are kids gonna raid vinnies stores to find Sony Walkman’s and old foam covered headphones… probably, yes.) at The Grace Darling in Melbourne for a lazy $8. You’ll also get to see ‘Pop Singles‘ supporting.

Grab the digital ep here – http://whothehell.net/1QJ

Gonzo – ‘Love Vibrations’ mp3

Looks like we have a new contender for music to make sweet lovin to. Step aside D’Angelo, Melbourne beats guy Gonzo, has released a new ep titled ‘For You’ and ‘Love Vibrations’ is one of his little gems. Crackling vinyl, dope soul and porno guitar light up this ep that you can just wind back and feel the bliss beats wash over you.

Download the EP for freezies here – http://whothehell.net/dF7

Mildlife is currently working on a new record and whilst their creative juices are flowing they have been playing around with cool 70/80’s afro, funk, disco soul tracks. Y’know, cool tunes to dance around and keep up the right vibe for laying down their sweet melodies. Naturally enough they thought it would be nice to share with friends. So they mixed a 45 minute jam of obscure vinyl slices for your listening pleasure with artwork designed by Joy Studio who art direct for Spook mag. It’s a pretty neat gift, so plug in your stereo and get your friends together to get down with Mildlife’s ‘Very Fantastic Mix Vol #1′.

Mildlife’s Very Fantastic Mix Vol #1 by Mildlife
http://whothehell.net/us8

Click here to view the embedded video.

Lowlakes – ‘Buffalo’ – with animation by Lacey Whelan