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PREMIERE: Meg Mac – ‘Known Better’ Video

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Meg Mac

Look at Meg Mac go. Wading in the Murray River with an efficiently taped dress, then having to chase off some dick who thinks he’s the fifth member of Mumford and Sons. Other than picking up some Hypem credits (#8) and serious national radio play along the way, Meg Mac is earning some decent brownie points from the general collective. She has a great vocal too, so here’s hoping jazz hands/horn section makes a cameo at some stage. (Also, if you haven’t already stumbled upon this Beyonce cover - make your move.)

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INTRODUCING: The Sunbirds

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The Sunbirds

Here’s another rimshot of an excellent band who sound like they were made for better days. Adelaide’s The Sunbirds are probably the first ‘rock ‘n’ roll’ band I’ve actually been excited about in what feels like eternity. The word provokes as much dry wrenching as it does enthusiasm. No one wants to be the neo-goth, the barre chord bitch or that band still wearing driver hats shitting lyrics on top of Black Rebel Motorcycle Club chords when clearly, we’ve all moved on.

Leaving the great divide behind though, The Sunbirds are just so fucking great. These guys have only been going for just under two years, but I feel dutifully ashamed that I didn’t really give their first EP Emergency Christmas more love to begin with. 

Post-humous Name Change is the second release from the Adelaide five piece. This record is wayward and gutsy and somewhat generous with distortion levels. The first half of this release sounds like the band locked themselves in a large room with nothing but My Bloody Valentine‘s Loveless and something potent, then sat back to see what would ensue. I really hope warm, fuzzy 90s throwback stays on as flavour of the year. As for many other local bands who do what they do: bless your snark Oz accent, bless putting it on tape. Maybe it’s just me, but I’m really getting bored of everyone whining about how much Australian suburbia really sucks. We get it, hey. These guys have the shoegaze thing going for them, but it’s been a while since apathy has sounded this sincere. Tracks like ‘One’s I’ve Finally Met’ and ‘Car Crash’ are straight up MBV, but the second half verges closer to golden Lucksmiths territory (‘I Will Scream’).

In short, The Sunbirds have made a record that sounds like Thurston+Kim getting rough, the fading memory of your adolescence AND whatever haze headed goodness you’d like this collection of songs to be. Whether you dig this as much as I do, or get fidgety about shoegaze – what a strong record. Someone needs to hear this.

 

 

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PREMIERE: Hollow Everdaze – ‘Ships’ Video

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Glad to present to y’all the first look at the new video from the excellent Hollow Everdaze.

I caught these kids playing a dim, hole-in-the-wall warehouse party a few weeks ago. Cop searches at most parties I’ve been to have ended in drunk guys throwing lemons at police, people leaving and a general deflation of the mood, but props to Hollow Everdaze for playing right through. The guys were as chill as they are in this clip.

If you haven’t heard much material from these guys, this video is a decent introduction. Sitting on an empty wharf at mid night seems to be a fitting place to pen a lazy psych waltz anyway. Hollow Everdaze are releasing a mini album on July 28th which you should definitely get excited about. The guys don’t really look too happy about anything in this clip, but we promise they’re hyped about the album release too.

 

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Film/Editing: Jason Galea

Additional Filming: Michael Avery and James Thomson

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LISTEN: Jenny Broke The Window

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Jenny Broke The Window

Jenny Broke The Window is definitely one of the more interesting and unconventional band names I’ve come across.

Hailing from the South Coast of NSW, the indie-pop outfit’s new single ‘Ravel’ is feverishly catchy – from the bouncy string sample intro to the track’s anthemic hook, there’s an energy present throughout the entire duration of the song that compels you with giddy desire to skip, dance or do something!

The five-piece have crafted a single that continually shifts and evolves. It’s a mash-up of musical ideas sewn together ever-so-smoothly, while the production on this is slick.

‘Ravel’ is the first of two new songs Jenny Broke The Window has recorded this year with a video also currently in the works. They’ll be launching ‘Ravel’ at The Standard in Sydney on the 23rd of May, with support from The Preatures DJs, Gang Of Youths and Rockets.

In the meantime, highly recommend giving their previous EP Another Summer a spin.

 

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LOVE THY NEIGHBOUR: Joe Blossom

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Courtney from Under The Radar has selected a track from Wellington based musician Joe Blossom this week.

This guy epitomizes the modern man half of Fitzroy will never be. He writes lyrics about the cosmos, Dylan Thomas and has a strong aversion to vowels. He also sounds like David Byrne on sedatives if you’re vaguely drunk or trying to write about music on 2 hours sleep (wouldn’t advise it). Plus, the origins of that lush, grain-fed moustache can only be traced back to NZ anyway.

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Joe Blossom

 

Sean O’Brien A.K.A Joe Blossom is a Wellington-based musician who released his debut album Nocturnes in 2011 and spent the next two years living out of a suitcase across the United States of America. It was all the things you imagine a trip like that would be: handkerchief rucksacks, cowboy boots on dusty, deserted roads and American muscle cars and derelict trains on endless highways. In actual fact, I have no idea what his travels were like (and have apparently been reading too much Steinbeck) but Blossom’s new single ‘Tyger Tyger’ evokes all of the aforementioned in the loveliest, most intellectual (true story: it’s about the poet William Blake) of ways.

‘Tyger Tyger’ is available as a free download on Joe Blossom’s bandcamp.

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LISTEN: Tiger Beams – ‘Beat It’

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 Tiger Beams

‘Beat It’ is the first thing we’ve heard from Brisbane duo Tiger Beams since their incredible (and criminally underexposed) debut album In Your Dreams, which came out in 2011. Plenty of other projects have kept singer/drummer Jesse Hawkins and guitarist Jeremy Neale busy, but it’s still massively exciting to see them back and in fighting form. ‘Beat It’ comes strutting out of your speakers, dark and tough (even while referencing Willow Smith), with Jesse Hawkins’s spikey, erratic beats starting out front and centre and staying there throughout the whole track.

The song builds up a great sense of rising suspense, Hawkins’ vocals are cool and snarky in the verse, the choruses exploding with that howling thing that these guys do so well. With ‘Beat It’, Tiger beams have found a sweet spot of music that’s both sparse and dangerous, and supremely danceable and catchy. Here’s hoping another album isn’t too far away…

The video is also very cool, and very creepy – watch it here.

Also, do yourself a favour if you haven’t already and snag a copy of In Your Dreams.

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LISTEN: Eddie Numbers – Let Me Breathe (S.F.T Remix)

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Don’t you just love it when Soundcloud suddenly cuts to a track that you actually really dig?

Enter this remix by S.F.T, a Kiwi producer signed to Auckland’s Renaissance Music. We all know that all NZ urban music puts its Australian equivalents to shame, and this is no different. This remix of fellow Auckland native, Eddie Numbers, is one thumping track that all urban/beat lovers should get on to, pronto (you can take a listen to Numbers’ original EP Try Before You Buy, here). The verses in this track are tight, not to mention the killer choruses. This definitely fits snugly with the current melodic flavour hitting Triple J at the moment – but it isn’t naff.

I strongly suggest that you stop what you’re doing and just take a listen the opener (plus his entire Soundcloud) to lap up all this Kiwi hawtness.

LOOK: Hand Games – 1st Birthday Party

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First birthday parties, hey? Usually reserved for seedy uncles, blow-up castles, and mediocre cameos that somehow entertain the lucky babe to be. Do you remember anything from the space between popping out and entering into 13 years of education at age five? Nope? Glad I’m not the only one.

Last weekend Sydney-based label Hand Games celebrated the big 365 in Melbourne, after parties in Sydney and Brisbane earlier this month. I was lucky enough to head down to The Liberty Social and catch a stellar line-up of acts that didn’t include Fesbo the Clown, sadly. Castlemaine’s own D.D Dumbo opened and I’m forever in debt to Mel for reminding me to get down early to check him out. He’s got one hell of a voice, and truly great musicianship to boot. Oliver Hugh Perry, wrote and recorded his self-titled EP in 2012, and when this transpired live, I must say that I was taken aback. Stop what you’re doing and take a listen to ‘Tropical Oceans’ now, just do it.

Speaking of veiled hype, let’s not forget Client Liaison and NO ZU. While you’ve probably heard of the latter with their brand of unquantifiable calypso-pop, you probably haven’t heard of the former. Go get familiar with their deal. Self described as ‘international in flavour, cosmopolitan in style’, these guys are unashamedly reclaiming the supposed glory days of post-bi centenary/Sydney 2000 Australiana.Don’t believe me? Head to their blog to check out their mood board. They’ve yet to release formal tracks as such, but the video for ‘End of the Earth‘ makes up for everything. Forget that Crowded House ever happened, think the best of old ‘Farnsy, concocting all those power-Casio elements into something that’s actually quite good. At times you stop and catch yourself legitimately enjoying this: because the line between satire and performance is quite thin.

Though, you wouldn’t question the that from the This Thing boys, Electric Sea Spider and Andras Fox. Both hot off the back of successful releases, and in Fox’s case, one half of the hype-riddled Fox + Sui (and rightly so), these guys were a perfect fit for the party. Mirroring the label’s recent success in signing Oisima and Nakagin, Hand Games seem to have caught on to a burgeoning Australian experimental beat scene.

Big love to Hand Games for booking innovative first birthday entertainment.

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