Album Review: Steve Kilbey and Gareth Koch – Chryse Planitia
Living legend Steve Kilbey, the powerhouse behind one of Australia’s greatest exports – The Church – has just released an intriguing and delightful collaboration with Viennese-trained classical musician Gareth Koch called ‘Chryse Planitia’. The result is a beautiful set of 10 tracks that mix Kilbey’s deep sonorous vocals and his mystical lyrics with delicate and …
Track: The Proper Ornaments – Purple Hearts plus album news
The Proper Ornaments are an unashamedly guitar-driven band and the low-fi single ‘Purple Hearts’ is an absolute delight: a melancholic ramble infused with a sleepy bohemian rhythmic quality: There’s a sparseness and a majesty in this song – simple yet loaded with feeling. The song is off The Proper Ornament’s forthcoming album ‘Mission Bells’ due …
Album Review: Courtney Barnett – MTV Unplugged Live in Melbourne plus tour news
Australia’s iconic balladeer Courtney Barnett has just released an MTV Unplugged Live in Melbourne on the eve of an announcement that she will be supporting fellow Melburnian Nick Cave with Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds UK and Ireland tour. Bringing together a host of music luminaries, with some covers, some golden oldies and a …
Track: A.Swayze and the Ghosts – Mess of Me plus tour news
A. Swayze and the Ghosts are undeniably one of Tasmanian’s finest exports (along with southern gothicism, unfiltered Gin and the Dark Mofo Festival). Building up quite a reputation across Australia, they have just released a fantastic new single and announced a tour of the US – treading the well worn path of Australian bands to …
Track: Luna Li – Trying
Toronto’s talented singer/songwriter and multi-instrumentalist Luna Li has just released a magical new single ‘Trying’ which showcases her creative instrumentation, floating vocals and whimsical lyrics. ‘Trying’ is infused with a psychedelic melancholia and an almost fairground sound washed through with delicate strings. Li says of the song: Writing this song was an exercise in vulnerability. …
Album Review: Bambara – Stray plus tour news
‘Stray’ by New York band Bambara is one of those albums that provides a delicious, vicarious thrill on first listen: it has all the brilliance of a coterie of bands stretching from Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds to Alabama 3, Wall of Voodoo, Sisters of Mercy to Tindersticks: swaggering, poised story-telling that is visceral …
Album Review: Tan Cologne – Cave Vaults on the Moon in New Mexico
Tan Cologne‘s debut album ‘Cave Vaults on the Moon in New Mexico’ is a thing of ethereal beauty. There’s something in the spaces between the echoes and the jangling guitars, the languid distant voices and the reverb-drenched waves of sound that evokes space and time: a mystical geography and the tyranny and joy of distance. …
Track: Eilish Gilligan – I Just Want To Look At You
Melburnian singer/songwriter Eilish Gilligan continues to make a significant splash on the Australian indie music scene with her haunting brand of synth pop. We have been highly impressed by her output (see our earlier review of S.M.F.Y.) and her new single ‘I Just Want To Look At You’ is gorgeously produced pure dream pop. Gilligan’s …
Track: Aubergine – Lonely Peak
A good thing done well is worth celebrating, and Aubergine‘s laid back instrumentals evoke a sense of place – smoky dimly lit caverns in the very early hours of the morning, cheroots and stripy t-shirts. It is certainly a change of pace, but a very satisfying expression by a group of highly talented musicians. Aubergine …
Video: Ash – Girl from Mars
Ash‘s release this Friday of ‘Teenage Wildlife: 25 years of Ash’ (previewed by me here) is being celebrated by an HD video release of their classic single ‘Girl From Mars’. Surely one of the best and purest hard rock/pop singles of the nineties: Utterly ridiculously good even after 25 years. You can get the album …