australia
Album Review: The Underground Lovers – Staring at you Staring at Me
In 2013, after a nine year hiatus, Melbourne’s legendary The Underground Lovers returned triumphantly with the album “Weekend” – listed as one of Backseat Mafia’s favourite releases for that year. Luckily, this time round we have not been kept waiting so long – four years later and they are back in business with the release …
EP: The Clouds – Zaffre
Along with bands like The Underground Lovers, The Falling Joys and Ratcat, The Clouds held the banner for classic indie pop in Australia in the late eighties, early nineties.The sweet duel vocal harmonies of Jody Phillis and Patricia Young were underpinned by a muscular rhythm section and jangling guitars. Their album, Penny Century, is often …
News: Midnight Oil announce World Tour, includes first UK date since 1996
One of Australia’s most passionate, articulate and socially committed bands, Midnight Oil, have just announced they are reforming and undertaking a world tour in 2017. The enigmatic lead singer, Peter Garrett, spent some time as a Labor politician in 2002, causing the band to go into a hiatus and no end of cynicism amongst those …
Say Psych: Album Review, Mantra Music by Megaritual
One of the comments that I often make in this blog is something along the lines of “I can’t believe that only 2/3 people are making all this great noise”. With Megaritual I need to go a stage further because this album is the work of just one man, Australian multi-instrumentalist Dale Walker (also member of …
Track: Why We Run – A Moment to Return
One of my favourite local Sydney bands, Why We Run, is back with no sign of a waning of their incredible talent. In fact, quite the opposite. I reviewed the debut single, ‘Comfortable Lie’, last year and follow-up release, ‘Ignites’ from with great enthusiasm, and they just keep getting better. Their atmospheric, enigmatic songs fuse …
Album Review: Ben Abraham – Sirens
There have been several moments in reviewing this album where I have wanted to give it a ‘6’. ‘Sirens’ has a warm, lush sound, and the straightforwardness of his delivery and songs suggest a singer-songwriter that believes in his material. You feel like this guy’s alright. Surely he’s better than a ‘5’ ? But that’s not …
Track: Human Movement – Robots have a voice
Australian duo Human Movement, aka Blake Gilray and Edward MacDonald have unveiled a second track from their debut EP, following on from title track Dancing Girl, which dropped last week. The track, Robot have a Voice, is this pulsating house tune that fuses these sizzling percussive sounds along with the kick drums, and moulds shards …
Track: Copywrite – Philophobia
Australian alt-indie four piece Copywrite are preparing for the release of their debut single, Philophobia. The band started to record when they were just 16 at high school, and it was completed a year later. They describe Philophobia saying (it is) “a taboo but common fear of love. I found it interesting that it was …
Track: Touch Sensitive – Pizza Guy / Show Me
You might recognise the title of the song Pizza Guy. Released by Touch Sensitive aka multi-instrumentalist / producer / synth freak Michael Di Francesco back in 2013 in his native Australia -the track became the 3rd most played track on Triple J (the countries no.1 radio station) and has currently racked up over 2 million …
Track: The Outdoor Type – When the Sun Goes Down
I certainly answwered in the affirmative when I reviewed the debut single from The Outdoor Type, ‘Are You Happy?’ at the beginning of this year. I went out on a limb as well, seeing a great future for this solo act working under the name The Outdoor Type. Well, The Outdoor Type has come up …