Castles Sunk Below The Sea – ‘1992’ (mp3)

Castles Sunk Below The Sea make music for thinking deep thoughts to. From the same school of sound as local post-rock bands Willows and The Paper and The Plane, they sound a bit like Appleseed Cast, a bit like Explosions in the Sky and a bit like Brand New. ‘1992’ is a short but powerful track (that’s what all the ladies say, eh? eh? eh?) based around  samples from Severn Suzuki’s speech at the UN Earth Summit in 1992. More thoughts than feelings at the moment, but that’s not a bad thing at all.

They have a show at Fat Louies in Brisbane on Saturday night, just sayin’.

www.myspace.com/castlessunkbelowthesea

King Cannons – ‘Teenage Dreams’ (mp3)

Imma level with you and confess that I don’t really “get” ska music. Yeah, The Specials are pretty sick and I can totally see why people dig this stuff, but it’s just not ever going to take up much room on my iPod. King Cannons are a newly Melbourne-based but NZ-bred ska band that, to my non-connoisseur ears, tick all the right boxes for ska bands. It’s upbeat, fast, has more than five members, and has appropriate “stick-it-to-the-man” lyrics. I haven’t exactly thrashed ‘Teenage Dreams,’ but this is still well catchy and has at least made me come back for a few repeat listens. Plus I can’t remember the last ska band featured on whothehell.net.

If you’re into ska then let me know what you think of this one.

www.myspace.com/kingcannons

Vorad Fils – ‘Temple Leak’ (mp3)

The Atlas Room – ‘Iris’ (mp3)

I’ve been seeing a number of people talking up the latest volume in New Weird Australia’s free download series, so it’s good to see it getting some decent traction. I’m a big fan of these compilations, and what I’ve found impressive is that they’ve managed to uphold the quality of those first couple of compilations, the point where Vol. 5 might actually be my favourite so far. If you’ve not downloaded it then you can so for free RIGHT HERE.

Above are a couple of rad tracks I’ve pulled from V5. Vorad Fils is the new solo project from Seekae member John Hassellm whose debut album will be released by upcoming eclectic label Feral Media (AFXJIM, Broken Chip, Cleptocleptics); while The Atlas Room is the solo laptop project of Newcastle resident Ezekiel Kigbo. There’s actually some more accessible and even borderline-acoustic tracks on the compilation if none of this floats your boat. Definitely worth checking out.

www.newweirdaustralia.com

(PS our blog bros Polaroids of Androids have posted one of the compilation highlights over on their site. Check it here – it’s probably the closest Australia has come to joining the glo-fi movement that I’ve yet heard).

I Heart Hiroshima – River from Paul W. Rankin on Vimeo.

(Cheers to @Niteshok for the tip)