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Greater Western Sydney Sing Loud After First Win

Pete — Wed, 16 May 2012 00:00:00 -0700

Image: Greater Western Sydney Giants

Earlier this year, composer and multi-instrumentalist Harry Angus composed the new theme song for Australian Football League expansion team Greater Western Sydney –– a rousing, rollicking, old-fashioned number that brought back memories of a bygone era where you could stand at the football and drink full strength beer.

The young GWS team have performed above expectation so far this season, and after some competitive efforts in the early rounds, last weekend saw the Giants fight out their first ever win as an AFL club against fellow new boys, Gold Coast.

The win gave the GWS team the chance to belt out Harry's theme for the first time, something they did with great gusto after the game, led by coach Kevin Sheedy. Check it out below:

Sync: Insurance TVC Feat. Holly Throsby

Pete — Fri, 20 Apr 2012 00:00:00 -0700

In 2010, Sydney indie folk songstress Holly Throsby released an album of original children's songs, the wonderful See!, following it up with a series of littlun-friendly shows around the country.

This month, Holly's beautiful 'Now I Love Someone', from her 2008 lp A Loud Call, is featuring in an Insurance Line spot that is, appropriately enough, centred around the joy and mystery of little ones, via our friends at Spunk. Check it out below:

Holly's latest lp, Team, is out now through Spunk.

The Black Keys To Tour Oz In October

Pete — Wed, 18 Apr 2012 00:00:00 -0700

Good news for all music loving humans: the mighty Black Keys will return to Australian shores this year, for a run of shows in October.

It'll be the duo's first shows on Australian soil in a couple of years, and will come in support of their massive 2011 lp El Camino, which has gone platinum here, and which has picked up glowing reviews from all corners of the globe.

The October tour will hit Melbourne, Adelaide, Perth, Brisbane and Sydney; get the full dates over at the band's official site. Tickets are on sale now.

Have a listen to a few tracks from El Camino below, and check out the special deluxe edition of the album the band are putting out on Record Store Day (April 21).

Bearhug Release Debut Album

Pete — Fri, 23 Mar 2012 00:00:00 -0700

After two very fine eps, 2009's Cartoon Islands and 2010's To Anything, Sydney indie rock quintet Bearhug have today gifted us with something we've been eagerly awaiting: their debut lp, Bill, Dance, Shiner.

To say it's been worth the wait would be an understatement of rather large proportions: Bill, Dance, Shiner is a deeply melodic, utterly wholesome slice of guitar-heavy indie rock, full of hooks and smarts and warmth. Clocking in at a succinct 35 minutes, there's not a moment wasted –– it's the kind of record that you find yourself compelled to put on repeat.

From the West Coast indie rock of first single Angeline –– 'written during an obsession with Springsteen and his canon of escapism,' the band says –– to the fuzzily melodic Be Fine, to the upbeat, Wowee Zowee-esque Home, Bill, Dance, Shiner is indebted to the band's indie rock heroes –– Pavement, Built to Spill, Broken Social Scene –– but remains firmly its own beast. And a fine one at that.

Have a listen to a couple of tracks in our player above, and watch the great clip for Angeline below:

We also highly recommend reading the band's song by song breakdown of the album. Bearhug will be launching the lp with a series of shows over the next couple of months. Get all the dates and details over at their Facebook.

Bill, Dance, Shiner is out now out now through Spunk.

Andrew Bird Returns With Break It Yourself

Pete — Fri, 02 Mar 2012 00:00:00 -0800

Ten years ago, renowned multi-instrumentalist and songwriter par excellence Andrew Bird fixed up an old barn outside Chicago, where he hoped to record an album.

The album never eventuated –– it was recorded, but scrapped –– but Bird kept the barn, which became, he said recently, 'a place to isolate myself, get some solitude and write, mess around with the looping stuff, and kind of just develop a new way of making music. In that sense it was hugely successful, but I could never seem to make a record there.'

That was until last year, when Bird holed up in the barn by himself and recorded Break It Yourself, his typically wonderful new lp.

Lyrically, Bird has said the new album, his tenth, is perhaps his most direct to date. 'I guess in the past I’ve felt I have to encode things a little more –– and maybe I had my reasons,' he told Drowned In Sound recently.

'And now just, you know, it’s a new thing, a new outlook I suppose. I still enjoy making layers in my songs, lyrically, and having that density of layers and metaphors and what have you, and that keeps things interesting every night, to have many ways of looking at a song. And I still –– even songs that get close to the bone have twists in them, you know?'

Musically, Break It Yourself is full of subtle charms. It's a more brooding record than its predecessor, 2009's Noble Beast –– an album, as NPR wrote, for 'early mornings or late nights.' As with everything Bird has released, the playing is impeccable, and the songcraft peerless –– as incredible as it may seem, Bird is only getting better with age.

Have a listen to a couple of tracks in our player above, including lead single Eyeoneye, and check out a quick clip of the barn below. You can also stream the whole thing over at NPR.

Break It Yourself is out March 6.

Plants and Animals: The End of That

Pete — Thu, 23 Feb 2012 00:00:00 -0800

For their latest lp, Montreal indie-rock trio Plants and Animals decided to do things differently. Abandoning their usual process of writing in the studio, the band took their time writing and developing the material that would become The End of That, their third lp. Material in hand, the band headed to a studio located in a manor on the outskirts of Paris, where, with engineer Lionel Darenne (Feist), they laid down The End of That in two weeks, occasionally annoying the locals.

The result is the band's most immediate and intimate sounding record yet.

'On this record, our gear that we play is the gear we play live,' guitarist Warren Spicer told Paste. 'It has a more cohesive feeling to it. There’s some sounds where the drums are a little bigger. Picture a big French castle with doorways leading to hallways, which is a big huge spiral staircase going up four floors. It’s a big open place with tiled floors, so the drums from that come from that sound.'

The new album is full of the band's trademarks –– juicy, anthemic, wonderfully played songs; nimble switches between quiet and cathartically raucous –– but also harks back to the band's earlier days, with acoustic cuts like Before and Song For Love. Lyrically, the album deals with the difficulties of growing up –– breakups and loneliness, feeling stuck –– inspired by a tough patch Spicer endured in 2010.

'It was a difficult year. The writing, for the most part, was just pretty honest about what was going on. But at the same time there’s humour and jokes, it’s not a bummer of a record,' he told Hour recently. 'I think that was an attempt to not necessarily let the weight of that kind of thing distract from what the music is. You can have some depressing lyrics in a happy song; it makes for an interesting experience.'

To our ears, it's the biggest, most rounded Plants and Animals yet, the sound of a band getting better with age.

The album drops on February 28 via our friends at Secret City. In the meantime, you can wrap your ears around two tracks in our player above, including super first single Lightshow. To hear the whole album, head over to Paste Magazine, who are streaming it this week.

As anyone who's seen them will attest, Plants and Animals are a fearsomely good live band, and we're very much hoping this album will see them make their debut on these shores. To give you a sense of the lads' live mastery, check out their roaring cover of fellow Montreal band Wolf Parade's classic 'I'll Believe In Anything', filmed at last year's Pop Montreal festival:

Harry Angus Composes New Greater Western Sydney Theme Song

Pete — Fri, 17 Feb 2012 00:00:00 -0800

We love our footy, here at Gaga –– AFL football, that is. We're all certified tragics, going into hibernation over the summer months, and babbling ceaselessly from March through to October about our beloved, and usually perennially underperforming, teams.

Which makes us hugely excited to announce announce our involvement with the new Greater Western Sydney Giants theme song, which has been unveiled today.

The new theme, ‘The Mighty Giants’, was written and produced by acclaimed songwriter and multi-instrumentalist Harry Angus, of Cat Empire and Jackson Jackson fame. The track hearkens back to the grand old footy theme songs of yore, and, if we do say so ourselves, it’s an absolute cracker.

‘The Mighty Giants’ came about while we were researching 1920s music with Harry for Underbelly Razor and the ABC’s new 20s Crime drama, Miss Fisher’s Murder Mysteries. Our research led us to some classic 19th century football songs, and inspired Harry to try his hand at writing a theme for the AFL’s newest team.

Ditching the contemporary approach of other younger clubs, the new Greater Western Sydney theme song takes you back to the early days of football, where games were watched from wooden seats in the grandstand or atop empty beer cans in the outer, exclusively on a Saturday afternoon.

The sound of ‘The Mighty Giants’ is the sound of a simpler era of football –– a time before replay and nose-bleed grandstands, when you’d all head out onto the newspaper-strewn ground after the final siren, regardless of the result, for a game of kick to kick.

'I started to become interested in this idea that there exists an entirely different genre of music that is the old classic football song,' Angus says. 'It got me thinking about how easy it could be to make a new song sound old.'

'I began to research where some of these old classic songs had come from, to understand the mindset of the old captains and players who created these pieces of music. It became clear that the beauty of these great songs is their simplicity.'

‘The Mighty Giants’ gives heritage to the AFL’s freshest club, and more than holds its own against the league’s other grand old songs. Wrap your ears around the new song in our player above, and listen out for it tomorrow night, when the GWS players run onto the ground for their opening NAB match at Blacktown International Sports Park.

Our Top Five Songs For Lovers

Pete — Mon, 13 Feb 2012 00:00:00 -0800

Love goes better with music. This much we know for sure. But what to do if, faced with a moment full of romantic possibility, you can't find the right song?

Never fear: we have you covered. With Valentine's Day almost upon us, we've chosen five of our favourite love songs from our catalogue.

From the earnest and heartfelt to the wild and warped, here are five numbers guaranteed to sweep that special someone off his/her feet:

Donny Benet: 'Sophisticated Lover'

Miracle Fortress: 'This Thing About You'

Dent May: 'Love Song 2009'

Holly Throsby: 'Now I Love Someone'

Best Coast: 'Crazy For You'

On the Roof: Kate Martin

Pete — Thu, 09 Feb 2012 00:00:00 -0800

Next month, Townsville pop chanteuse Kate Martin will release her much awaited second album, Hand Me My Bow And Arrow.

The new album, Kate says, was a long time in the making, and was her first album recorded with a band, The Shallowsea Choir. The genesis of the album came with a chance visit to a garage sale, where Kate found a beautiful old Stratocaster. The new/old guitar inspired a new way of writing and playing, and its rich, warm tones are all over the record.

Hand Me My Bow and Arrow is a rewarding, diverse listen, the sound of a great with Kate showing increasing confidence

Kate recently stopped by our office to record a wonderful version of Apples, the gorgeous first single from the new album. Check it out below:

The second single from the album, Candle Burnin', Wax Drippin', is out next week. Hand Me My Bow and Arrow is out on March 23 through Shock in Australia and NZ, and through Gaga Digi for the rest of the world.

Watch: Little Barrie 'Surf Hell'

Pete — Fri, 03 Feb 2012 00:00:00 -0800

English blues pop trio Little Barrie took their time creating their third album, King of the Waves –– five years in fact, during which time singer/guitarist Barrie Cadogan rendered his services to the likes of Paul Weller and Primal Scream.

King of the Waves finally arrived in the middle of 2011, and it was entirely worth the wait –– twelve tracks of tightly coiled, gritty pop that The Times, in a four star review, called 'a string of hard, fast and strikingly inventive songs, confirm[ing] that Little Barrie is a band with a much bigger future.'

NME wrote that the lp 'rekindles the band’s effervescent spirit but injects a fiery determination into Barrie’s blueprint.' It's well worth a listen. Wrap your ears around a couple of tracks in our player above, and check out the great new video for the album's first single, 'Surf Hell', below.

Little Barrie are on Gaga Pub via Touch Tones Music.

Bec Sandridge

Thu, 17 May 2012 00:00:00 -0700

Not too long ago, young Australian singer-songwriter Bec Sandridge was too shy to sing publicly. With some coaxing from her friends and family, Bec was eventually convinced to share her gifts with the world, emerging from her small, seaside New South Wales town to begin performing her stately brand of folk, first in Australia and then beyond.

Bec's debut ep What was Left, released in early 2011, belied its creator's tender years, its three songs showcasing the effortless intimacy of her songs and her unique voice –– an instrument at once fragile and strong. The ep found Bec a growing following, charting high on both the iTunes singer-songwriter and Triple J Unearthed Indie Charts. Before long, Bec deferred university and set off on a well received two month tour of the UK. In early 2012, Bec released her second ep, Lyons and Bees, another rich, gorgeous clutch of folk-pop. Watch this space.

Tiger Choir

Wed, 22 Feb 2012 00:00:00 -0800

Hobart trio Tiger Choir came together a few years ago, when three friends began experimenting with pop amid tangles of instrument cables, furniture and musical equipment in cramped sharehouses. Together, the three –– Sam Nicholson, Hamish Cruickshank and Elliot Taylor –– lit upon a precise, dynamic, inventive brand of pop that quickly brought the band to wider notice, first in their hometown, and then on the mainland and beyond.

Shows around Australia soon followed, with fellow free spirits Rat vs Possum and Richard In Your Mind, with the band finding time in between to drop their debut ep. Tiger Choir's self-titled ep amply showcased the trio's unpredictable, combustible sound, which manages the feat of being at once experimental and otherworldly while remaining completely immediate –– inspired dream pop played with math-rock precision.

2011 has seen the band come to wider and wider notice and acclaim, with attention-grabbing slots at the Falls and A Campus A Low Hum festivals, and shows with the likes of Deerhunter and The Drums, with whom they've just completed a national tour, drawing a steady stream of superlatives from all who saw them.

In April, Tiger Choir released their keenly awaited debut lp, Unicycles. To record Unicycles, the band headed down to the wilds of Bruny Island, south east of Hobart, where, in between bouts of recording, the three holed up at an isolated shack and tried their hand, variously, at foraging for food, rowing back to the mainland on a boat with broken oars, and drinking.

'It was an invaluable experience in pop survivalism,' Nicholson told The Mercury. 'We forgot a bag of studio gear and had to make several compromises in the recording setup. We went foraging for food and got a bunch of mussels and made delicious shellfish pasta.'

Eventually the trio returned to Hobart, where they completed the album. Featuring the gloriously woozy dreamhop single 'Dancer', Unicycles is a remarkable slice of energetic, mercurial, intelligent pop –– bright and nimble and alive, informed by the luminaries of experimental pop while remaining entirely its own beast.

'Layering lazily half yelled group vocals above rolling, satisfyingly punchy live drums and surrounding the lot with loose guitars and electronics, Tiger Choir's Unicycles is another consistently solid step into dreamy, cotton wool pop,' Who The Hell wrote of the lp.

What happens next is anyone's guess. 'For our next album we're definitely thinking of doing a similar thing,' Taylor says. 'Maybe we'll go somewhere in Tasmania; we're somewhat interested in going to the West Coast to see what sounds that brings out. Or maybe go overseas to Papua New Guinea or New Zealand or maybe even India. You need to be nomadic and adaptable to be a pop survivalist.'

Bree Tranter

Wed, 22 Feb 2012 00:00:00 -0800

Bree Tranter is originally from Townsville, where she grew up and started playing music. While studying music at university, Bree and a few friends decided to form a band; that group was The Middle East, a critically acclaimed experimental folk pop outfit who burned brightly until disbanding in 2011.

After the break up of The Middle East, Bree began writing solo material. Winter, out now through Gaga Digi, is one of her first solo singles. An immediately arresting, haunting track, Winter features Tranter's beautifully fragile vocals atop a simple guitar figure, and shows Tranter as a seriously talented artist in her own right.

Bree now lives in Sydney and works with other such artists such as Matt Corby, Passenger and Emma Louise.

Aleks and the Ramps

Wed, 22 Feb 2012 00:00:00 -0800

Way back in 2005, Aleks Badham took a year off studying film to record an EP of meandering and blippy psych folk. 'There should be a band to play these songs live', someone remarked. This advice was heeded and the Ramps were formed, ostensibly to perform only one 'launch' show. For whatever reason, further shows were booked and more songs were written, like what a proper band does.

In 2006 they set up a temporary studio in a far-flung Scout hall on the Victorian coast and returned with an album called Pisces vs. Aquarius. This debut long player was 9, 10 or 11 (depending on how you count them) songs ranging from stoner jams, indie spaz-outs to morose country singalongs. It was released in 2007 and audiences were delighted and/or confused. Later that year their drummer left the band and moved to Perth to get married and write dense and long-winded fantasy novels. Fair 'nuff. Jon swiftly replaced him, and in 2008 they ventured out of the country for a DIY tour of Canada, with a showcase performance at NxNE in Toronto.

Upon their return they went into an actual real recording studio to commit songs to hard disk with Chicago-bred ex-pat Casey Rice. Additional tinkerings were undertaken in a Brunswick shed and voilá! Midnight Believer was born, a critically lauded 40 minutes of strange and addictive pop. The album's first single, Antique Limb, was played on the radio extensively, and its psychedelic video clip was seen on TVs in Australia and YouTube far beyond.

2009 was spent touring the country a few times (plus one trip across the Tasman) in support of the album. In 2010 the band started work on a new record, creating 'demos' that slowly morphed into 'the actual songs' in their studio space in a Fairfield. One of the fruits of this labour was Bummer, a single they released on the cusp of a Japan tour. Shortly thereafter, Janita left the band to concentrate on Denim Owl and her knitwear collection. A new Ramps membership card was made with 'Sez Wilks' printed in 24pt Helvetica and promptly put through the laminator.

Jon also left the band in 2011 to attend to his other bands, ii and Speedpainters, the online radio show Paper Radio and the billion other things that he manages to occupy himself with. The bedroom pop wunderkind Pascal Babare high-fived Jon in the lobby of ramps HQ, and thus his status as 'drummer' was solidified.

The Ramps' incredible third album, Facts, was finished in late 2011, and released on Valentine's Day 2012. Facts is the band's most rounded, immediate and satisfying lp to date, a shimmering pop gem full of sudden hooks and strange charms, all of it presided over by frontman Aleks' wonderfully dry, dark wit.

It's strange, wonderful, addictive stuff; a true album's album in an age of throwaway singles, full of deep cuts and hidden treasures. Have a listen here, pick up a copy here, and watch the wonderfully warped video for second single Middle Aged Unicorn on Beach With Sunset below.

Rohin Jones

Thu, 02 Feb 2012 00:00:00 -0800

Singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist Rohin Jones is best known for his work in Townsville indie folk outfit The Middle East, which he co-founded with Jordan Ireland in 2005. After two acclaimed albums and a couple of EPs, The Middle East disbanded in 2011. That same year, Rohin won an APRA Professional Development Award in the Popular Contemporary category, which has allowed him to focus on his solo work.

Rohin is a prolific writer, and is involved in various recording projects in Townsville; he also performs in Joseph Liddy and The Skeleton Horse. In the summer of 2011/12, one of Rohin's solo compositions appeared in a Dulux commercial, which you can watch below.

Jess Ribeiro

Thu, 12 Jan 2012 00:00:00 -0800

In 2008, Darwin singer-songwriter Jess Ribeiro formed an acoustic duo with Rob Law; before long, the two had picked up more more players, and had become Jess Ribeiro and the Bone Collectors.

Ribeiro and Law's sound has a distinct, raw energy, the duo's dark and dusty ballads drawing comparison to the likes of Karen Dalton, Cat Power, Neil Young and Johnny Cash.

Since forming, Jess and her band have traveled the country supporting esteemed country-folk artists including the Waifs, Mama Kin, Charlie Parr and Darren Hanlon. In early 2008, the pair released their debut EP, Pilgrimage, and were subsequently Unearthed by triple J as one of the new crop of artists to watch in Australian Music Month.

The band has been acclaimed by the Australian press, featuring in the Australian Rolling Stone magazine, and getting glowing reviews from triple J Music Director Richard Kingsmill, who wrote, 'Jess is a great singer. I really love the way she delivers a song, and she never overdoes it.' Radio National's Tim Ritchie, meanwhile, reviewing a live performance, wrote that Jess sings 'like someone who had been on the stage forever, but with a delicate and intimate tone. Her lyrics were simple and honest, but much more than that, she put words together in fantastic ways and then delivered them effortlessly.'

In 2011, Jess and Rob released their much awaited debut album, My Little River. The duo and band continue to tour heavily around the country, where they've gathered a steady and loyal following.

Coby Grant

Thu, 12 Jan 2012 00:00:00 -0800

Coby Grant is a fiercely independent Australian pop singer-songwriter. Originally from Perth, the past few years have seen Coby do a stint in Melbourne, tour extensively in both Australia and overseas, and eventually move to Europe, where she currently resides.

Coby's intimate, sweetly confessional acoustic pop combines heartfelt lyrics with immediate, winsome melodies to great effect. In the past three years, Coby has self released two EPs, a live lp and a digital-only acoustic lp, and has won herself a growing fanbase both at home, where she's toured nationally four times, selling out venues in most major cities, and abroad, where her focus currently lies.

In 2010, Coby's track 'A Song About Me' featured in a Scandinavian TVC, which eventually led her to tour through northern Europe. (Watch the spot below.) The great response to Coby's tour saw her pack her bags and move to Europe in 2011, where she's since played over 200 shows. Coby currently lives in Germany, where she is hard at work on a debut album for release in Europe.

Baptism of Uzi

Fri, 06 Jan 2012 00:00:00 -0800

Starting as a two-guitar and drums acid-garage prog-punk riff jamboree with a sound lying somewhere between Neu!, Devo and Black Sabbath, Melbourne psych-rock outfit Baptism Of Uzi found their genesis in 2010 in an unrenovated shack beneath the Westgate Bridge. The band have since added synth and bass to the mesh, creating a space-rock juggernaut founded on driving motorik beats, twin lead guitarmonies and rich analog synth-scapes.

The band have quickly become renowned for their fierce, fevered live shows, led by dynamic frontman Bojan Stojanov. In 2011, the band performed at iconic New Zealand festival Camp A Low Hum, and the St. Jeromes Laneway Festival in Melbourne; they also helped relaunch their hometown's iconic Tote Hotel.

In March of 2011, Baptism of Uzi released their great Cassette ep through Gaga Digi, launching it, as they did their first ep, to a sold out, sweaty crowd. A more sonically rich affair than their debut tape, the Cassette EP provides another glimpse into the vision of experimentation and progression that BoU doggedly pursue.

After a solid year of touring, Baptism of Uzi were voted one of the country's 'best new-ish' acts in the 2011 year-end Mess & Noise Readers Poll.

The band are currently hard at work on their much awaited debut album, which is due for release in 2012. Stay tuned.

The Little Stevies

Thu, 08 Dec 2011 00:00:00 -0800

Rarely do you see a band with such an ability to connect with their audience as Melbourne's The Little Stevies. The trio's unique blend of emotive and honest songwriting, catchy pop melodies and beautiful three-part harmonies actually do what so many others claim to: give their audience license to really identify with them, and to feel that they're sharing something of themselves.

The Little Stevies are made up of sisters Sibylla and Beth, and their childhood friend Robin. They descend from a long line of great Australian acts that includes the likes of Frente, The Waifs and Paul Kelly –– acts whose music retains a sense of fun while maintaining an emotional depth and maturity. It's not uncommon to see people standing in a Little Stevies' audience with a smile on their face and tears on their cheeks.

The band's approach to songwriting and storytelling is uniquely Australian, but also universal, as evidenced by the great response the band has received on their overseas tours. Indeed, the band's charming lyrics, luscious harmonies and uplifting aura are winning hearts throughout the world.

Kikuyu

Thu, 08 Dec 2011 00:00:00 -0800

Kikuyu is a micropop project by Melbourne artist Sez Wilks. Building on five years as a vocalist and synth player for The Surly Mermaids, Kikuyu sees Wilks establish her own small-scale, lo-fi style, looping warm vocals and wartime diva harmonies with the fuzzy built-in beats and bright tones of an Italian combo organ.

Kikuyu’s debut album, Hunter Gathered, came about after Wilks rescued a Baleani audiosonic organ from a secondhand shop and decided to make it the focus of a set’s worth of songs. 'I found it in the corner all clunky and unloved,' Wilks explains. 'I felt sorry for it. It reminded me of a dog we had when I was little, last in the litter with its front feet pointing in. Later someone taught it to shake hands. Hopefully I’ve helped this old organ do a similar thing, musically!

Hunter Gathered takes listeners on a pleasantly beguiling journey where minimal arrangements embrace heartfelt harmonies and combo organ kitsch.

The album’s two singles, Infodome and The Rescuing, were released in late 2011, both receiving deserved attention online and on national and community radio. Check out the clip for Infodome below.

Wilks is also a member of Aleks and the Ramps.