The Brag #510

MUMFORD & SONS (ONLY AUS SHOW) + THE NATIONAL (ONLY AUS SHOW) + FRANK OCEAN + OF MONSTERS & MEN + EMPIRE OF THE SUN BERNARD FANNING + THE PRESETS + TV ON THE RADIO (ONLY AUS SHOW) + KLAXONS + FLUME + BABYSHAMBLES + PASSION PIT BIRDS OF TOKYO + JAMES BLAKE + ARCHITECTURE IN HELSINKI + LAURA MARLING + MATT CORBY + DRAPHT + MYSTERY BAND + FLIGHT FACILITIES POLYPHONIC SPREE (PERFORMING ROCKY HORROR PICTURE SHOW) + BOY & BEAR + FAT FREDDY’S DROP + COLD WAR KIDS + THE RUBENS SARAH BLASKO + DARWIN DEEZ + YOU AM I (PERFORMING SOUND AS EVER & HI-FI WAY) + HERMITUDE + HAIM + AIRBOURNE + THE DRONES MS MR + GURRUMUL + EVERYTHING EVERYTHING + CLAIRY BROWNE & THE BANGIN’ RACKETTES + CLOUD CONTROL + PORTUGAL. THE MAN DAUGHTER + SOMETHING FOR KATE + WAVVES + CHET FAKER + SNAKADAKTAL + ROBERT DELONG + UNKNOWN MORTAL ORCHESTRA + WHITLEY FIDLAR + JAKE BUGG + THE BAMBOOS + SURFER BLOOD + DEAP VALLY + PALMA VIOLETS + ALPINE + LITTLE GREEN CARS + VANCE JOY + JAGWAR MA VILLAGERS + VIOLENT SOHO + DUNE RATS + PVT + THE JUNGLE GIANTS + CUB SCOUTS + ART OF SLEEPING + THE GROWL + TWINSY + THE CHEMIST SONGS + MITZI + TRIPLE J UNEARTHED WINNERS PLUS DJ’S YOLANDA BE COOL + ALISON WONDERLAND + WHAT SO NOT + XAPHOON JONES D-CUP + OTOLOGIC + PEKING DUK + TYLER TOUCHE + BAD EZZY

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rock music news welcome to the frontline: what’s goin’ on around town... with Lisa Omagari.

five things WITH

KATHRYN ROLLINS Growing Up My main musical 1. influence growing up was my dad. He’s a guitarist who has been playing since he was a teenager.

He would play a lot of jazz and soul music in the house and my two sisters and I would dance to it. I remember as a child being particularly enamoured by Disney princesses and 90s divas like Mariah Carey and Celine Dion. I wanted to sing epic ballads and put on huge concerts.

I had this sense from a young age that I would be a singer when I grew up, even though for a long time I was too shy to sing in front of anyone. It was a strange dichotomy for a while, but I pushed through my fear in the end.

Inspirations I’m pretty obsessed 2. with Thom Yorke, Fever Ray, Grimes, Bon Iver,

PJ Harvey, Lykke Li... They are all fairly recent obsessions but I listened to each of their albums over and over on repeat after I heard them the first time. I love that each of these artists is independent, unique and has a strong sense of their own inner creep that shows in their art. That’s something that inspires me a lot; I love the idea of the vulnerable monster within each of us.

Your Band My band at the moment is 3. a bunch of talented musicians: presently there’s Dan on drums; Lily on keys; Stella on lead guitar; and Jake on bass guitar. We all met when I moved to Melbourne and went searching for people to play with. It was actually a chance friendship with fellow singer Ainslie Wills that connected me with each of my band mates.

The Music You Make My music at the moment is 4. a very vocal heavy, guitar driven, dynamic collection of pop songs. I try to make every song very honest and real whilst also having some

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of affordable gear has meant that so many people are able to create music themselves. I love the blend of electronic and organic music that people are bringing to the table. This universality does also mean that everyone feels a sense of entitlement to music and can make it a little harder for the professional musician to produce work that people will invest in. On the other hand I think it’s great that we are able to create and share music on such a large scale.

What: EP launch at Brighton Up Bar When: Friday May 3 And: EP Reckless out now on ABC Music

We’ve waited with bated breath for the Splendour In The Grass 2013 (July 26-28) lineup announcement and it’s finally here! And just like Splendour’s new 660 acre home, North Byron Parklands, the lineup’s pretty damn big. 77 names have made the cut and include the likes of Mumford & Sons, Empire of the Sun, The National and Monsters & Men. Then there’s R&B hottie Frank Ocean, who joins the Splendour bill for his first ever visit Down Under. But Ocean’s not the only one who’ll be making the schlep.

Other international acts include LA sister act Haim, US producer Robert Delong, punk outfit FIDLAR and the UK’s Palma Violets and Everything Everything. Let the Splendour bender countdown begin!

EDITOR: Nick Jarvis nick@thebrag.com 02 9690 2731 ARTS EDITOR: Lisa Omagari lisa@thebrag.com 02 9552 6333 STAFF WRITERS: Benjamin Cooper, Alasdair Duncan NEWS: Lisa Omagari, Chris Honnery

REGULAR CONTRIBUTORS: Nat Amat, Ian Barr, Simon Binns, Katie Davern, Marissa Demetriou, Christie Eliezer, Chris Honnery, Kate Jinx, Nathan Jolly, Lachlan Kanoniuk, Jody Macgregor, Alicia Malone, Chris Martin, Jenny Noyes, Hugh Robertson, Rebecca Saffir, Jonno Seidler, Rach Seneviratne, Luke Telford, Simon Topper, Rick Warner, Krissi Weiss, Caitlin Welsh, David Wild

Music, Right Here, Right Now The music scene right now is 5. pretty amazing. The introduction

SPLENDOUR’S SPLENDID LINEUP

Frank Ocean

GIG & CLUB GUIDE CO-ORDINATOR: Conrad Richters - gigguide@thebrag.com (rock) clubguide@thebrag.com (dance, hip hop & parties) ONLINE & SOCIAL MEDIA: Tanydd Jaquet AWESOME INTERNS: Natalie Amat, Katie Davern, Tanydd Jaquet, Mina Kitsos

kind of groove and hook for the audience to get into. It’s like PJ Harvey meets Laura Marling meets Jeff Buckley with some rad beats. I recorded the Reckless EP with Kav Temperley – I learnt a great many things working with him.

FBI SOCIAL ROUND UP

The FBi Social kids never let us down and this week’s no exception. On Wednesday May 1, Eli Wolfe is launching his new EP Perfect Moment in Sydney as the final show of his national tour. Thursday May 2 we’ll see The Pieter Van Den Hoogenband with friends All My Alien Sex Friends, Box Of F*ck and Los Tones. Next on the bill is Sydney-based duo Fabels who will take to the stage on Friday May 3 to celebrate their debut album Zimmer.

Support acts include We are the Brave, The Longest Day and Charles Buddy Daaboul.

And to keep you kickin’ in between, dig your heels into FBi’s second free monthly

mixtape The Rip II available at fbiradio.com/ downloadthings/the-rip-mixtape.

BONDI MUSIC CONFERENCE

The Bondi Wave Music Industry Conference 2013 (Friday May 17, 10am-4pm) is a free event designed to provide an overview of everything you need to know about working in the industry. And y’all know how competitive it is out there, so no need to reiterate that.

Speakers include Kirsty Medynski from Eleven A Music Company, triple j’s Zan Rowe, Sticky Fingers manager Neal Hunt, Oxford Art Factory’s boss man Mark Gerber and GM of Music Modular Karen Tinman among others.

Should be a cracking day of information, discussion, advice and inspiration. To register for the event email bondipav@waverley.nsw. gov.au

ZIGGY POP TUESDAYS

Brighton Up Bar is adding a new (excellently named) night of rock, pop and other junk to their repertoire. Every Tuesday, Sydney-based rockers The Lockhearts will head up the residency to deliver all our favourite rock tracks, punk anthems, old school ‘60s pop and ‘70s glam. No bullshit, just good original music and live DJs. First Ziggy Pop Tuesday is April 30 from 8pm.

HAPPY MONDAYS POSTPONED

Manchester’s Happy Mondays – Bez, Gary Whelan, Mark Day, Paul Ryder, Rowetta and Shaun Ryder – have announced that their Australian tour, originally planned for May, has been rescheduled. The Mondays have issued an apology and will now play Fremantle on Wednesday June 5, Melbourne on Thursday June 6, Brisbane on Friday June 7 and Sydney on Monday June 10. Despite the date changes, Happy Mondays’ euphoric acid house and psychedelic vibes will not go astray; punters can expect to hear just how successful The Mondays are at unifying the divide between dance music and rock‘n’roll. 808 State will also inject a dose of electronica into the tour and replace Peter Hook who is unable to make the rescheduled dates. Tickets on sale now. For more Happy Mondays news visit happymondaysonline.com

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HERITAGE ORCHESTR A M U S I C

F R O M

AN ORCHESTR AL TRIBUTE TO THE CL A SSIC S C I-F I N OIR S O U N D T R A C K

BY VA N G ELIS.

26 M AY

KARL HYDE [U N D E R W O R L D]

A C A R EER-SPA N NIN G SE T F R O M O N E OF T H E M O S T INFL U E N TI A L ELECTRO NIC ARTISTS OF ALL TIME. ‘A M B I E N T E X C E L L E N C E’ THE SCOTSMAN

27 M AY

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rock music news

free stuff

welcome to the frontline: what’s goin’ on around town... with Lisa Omagari.

FREESTUFF@THEBRAG.COM

five things WITH

The Rubens

OLIVER DUNCAN FROM GUNG HO rhythms and lyrics, where as Mike is definitely a bit smoother, more pop, with deeper harmonies. We try and get the best of both worlds when we’re writing together, but really as long as the music wins we’re both happy.

The Music You Make The best description I’ve heard of 4. our music is probably ‘stoner pop’. We

Growing Up My family got me into music before I can 1. even remember. I have an older brother and sister who were pretty deep into the heavier side of the 90s. I raided their CD collections from an early age and got a good introduction to Rammstein, Marilyn Manson, Tool, Rage Against the Machine and Nine Inch Nails. Dad just collected Miles Davis to look cool in front of the other dads.

Inspirations Favourite bands of all time at the 2. moment would be Talking Heads and The Beach Boys. I got into them around the same time when I was about 20. I dig the hell out of Talking Heads’ harsh mix of

Kim Wilde

styles, it’s the first real blend of black and white music that worked; also David Byrne’s other worldly lyrics are a bottomless pit of inspiration. As for The Beach Boys, Brian Wilson’s melodies and harmonies are face melting golden beams of pure light and joy from the heavens.

Your Band We love playing with our friends Jeremy 3.

Neale, Millions, Last Dinosaurs and Dune Rats. Makes the tour so much more fun when there’s a good crew. As for recording we usually do it all alone. It works for us to have as much control over the process as possible. We do all of the writing. I really like new wave music, with more progressive

KIM WILDE AUSTRALIAN TOUR

don’t really try to sound like anything too straightforward. There’s a pretty broad range of styles in our current live set, from psych to surf to dance to new wave, funk and power pop. It’s just the three of us up there so we pretty much just work our butts off and try and make it look easy. But we’re still quite young as far as releases go; we’ve just dropped our debut EP Anywhere Else.

We recorded in bedrooms and a Kennards storage room, and did some drums in a studio. Mike mixed and produced the whole thing himself.

Music, Right Here, Right Now 5.

It’s hard to find an authentic and honest new band. Last one I saw was probably Hunx and his Punx. Such a fun show. I see and hear most good music in Sydney at OAF or Berko’s house.

With: Triple Threat tour with Step-Panther and Bored Nothing (Melb) Where: Goodgod Small Club When: Saturday 4 May

THE RUBENS DELUXE ALBUM

The New York Times recently described The Rubens’ sound as “Coldplay sensibility and Radiohead edginess,” and who are you to question the opinion of such a venerable publication? If you missed the boat on their self-titled debut last year (which went gold and hit #1 on the iTunes chart) now’s your chance to rectify that – they’re putting out a deluxe edition with a new tune and seven live recordings from Melbourne’s Forum.

For a chance to win one, just tell us what type of meat goes on the Ruben sandwich.

SIGNED TEA PARTY DVDS

We’re not talking about DVDs of crackpot American libertarians signed by Sarah Palin – oh no, we’re talking about DVD recordings of heavy Canadian “Mor-roc-an Roll” (get it?) band The Tea Party playing live in Australia, signed by Jeff Martin, Stuart Chatwood and Jeff Burrows. Watch them get all Arabic-influenced on their Australian Reformation Tour – for a chance to win, just tell us whether the sandwiches at a tea party should have the crusts on or off.

Thundercat

Queen of ‘80s English pop Kim Wilde will be touring Australia in October.

Wilde fans will know the blonde glamour girl for her megahits ‘Kids In America’, ‘You Keep Me Hanging On’ and ‘If I Can’t Have You’. And to give you an idea of her success, the sassy dynamo’s sold 10 million albums and 20 million singles. Joining Wilde will be same generation heartthrob Nik Kershaw. It’ll be Kershaw’s first visit Down Under since 1985. So go on, head down to the Enmore Theatre on Saturday October 19 to help these guys enjoy some ‘80s nostalgia.

Tickets on sale now. *BYO lycra fluoros.

COME TOGETHER TURNS TEN

All-Aussie hip hop bash Come Together Festival is turning ten on June 8 and they’re throwing a hella massive party at Big Top Luna Park to celebrate. Who you’ll hear? Master wordsmith Drapht, Melbourne’s own Illy, Sydney hip hoppers The Herd and local inner westies Spit Syndicate. The seasoned Dialectrix, SA Hills boys Full Tote Odds, Adelaide youngster Allday and Sydney duo Jackie Onassis are also on the bill. Lest we forget to mention that former Butterfingers frontman Evil Eddie will help mark the occasion, as will Crochet Crooks. Come Together Festival is all-ages and tickets are on sale now. cometogether.com.au for more.

JEREMY NEALE

This kid’s been busy of late – besides fronting the 12-person musical party Velociraptor, he’s been pumping out catchy solo tracks like ‘A Love Affair To Keep You There’ and ‘Darlin’’.

Brisbane garage rock royalty Jeremy Neale is launching his new single ‘In Stranger Times’ at the Beresford Hotel this Friday May 3.

A collaboration between Neale and Brissy rockers Go Violets, the single sounds like a ‘60s pop party that reflects the energy of his live performances. Neale vibes on artists like Sam Cooke, The Monkees and Johnny Rivers and most recently nailed a gig as main support for Gung Ho on their EP tour. jeremyneale. com

THUNDERCAT IS COMING

Can you hear the thunder? ‘Cause it’s a comin’. Bassist/songwriter/vocalist extraordinaire, Stephen ‘Thundercat’ Bruner has music deeply rooted within. His father, Ronald Bruner Sr. is a renowned jazz drummer who played with icons Diana Ross, Gladys Knight, Gary Bartz and the Temptations. And guess what? He’s heading our way for his first ever headline tour.

The frenetic bassist, who has worked his magic for Erykah Badu and Suicidal Tendencies, is playing Oxford Art Factory on June 9 of the Queen’s Birthday long weekend and will be joined by wondercore virtuosos Hiatus Kaiyote. Thundercat’s influences range from rock and free jazz to metal and funk, and his sound often aligns with the deep house mannerisms of frequent collaborator Flying Lotus.

REGULAR JOHN

YACHT SAIL IN

YACHT fans at the ready, because the LA-via-Portland outfit is returning to Australia in May for a run of headline shows alongside Groovin’ The Moo. The group – frontman Jona Bechtolt with Claire L. Evans, Jeffrey Jerusalem and Bobby Birdman – utilises computers and electronica to create dreamy pop soundscapes. Australian audiences last caught the group back in 2009 when they played Meredith Music Festival. Outside the group’s popular current singles ‘Le Grudon’ and ‘Second Summer’, they’ve released five albums – the last two on LCD Soundsystem mastermind James Murphy’s DFA Records. YACHT plays Oxford Art Factory on Tuesday April 30. They’ll also appear at Groovin’ The Moo festival nationally. teamyacht.com

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YACHT

Ah, The Backroom – that hipster joint in Kings Cross full of beautiful people. And hey, we’re not complaining because that’s where you’ll catch Regular John! On Thursday May 9 punters can find the psychedelic babes sharing the floor with supports Chitticks and Siamese Amelda.

Coming down from the epic theatres the guys have found themselves in while touring with Birds of Tokyo, this is your chance to enjoy a more intimate Regular John experience. Do it.

For more details see mysydneyriot.bandcamp. com

ANDREW STOCKDALE IS BACK

What has Wolfmother frontman Andrew Stockdale been up to since scaring away his bandmates (or so the rumours would have us believe)? You’re about to find out – last week Stockdale released his debut self-produced EP under his own name and announced a national tour. The Keep Moving EP (there’s an LP due for release in June) is the result of three years

in and out of studios and hotel rooms, recording with a variety of musicians. The press release is calling it an “honest exposé of Stockdale’s poetic point of view within his day-to-day experiences and relationships with people” – considering Stockdale’s reputation, it should be an interesting insight. Wanna catch Stockdale live? Touring nationally in June, he plays Friday June 7 at The Metro. Ticketing details to be announced shortly.

HAILER TOUR

Hailer will tour throughout May and June to launch their new album Another Way. The band’s second album moves away from their previous psychedelic mellow soundscapes into rhythmic guitar-driven territory. The two years between Hailer’s two albums (2010 debut album Good Canyon) has seen the group grow into enigmatic live performers as well as refined songwriters. Another Way is expected to help audiences reach a new musical intensity, so why not experience it for yourself?

Hailer plays Brighton Up Bar on Friday June 7. hailer.com.au

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The Music Network

themusicnetwork.com

Music Industry News with Christie Eliezer

down many fans with a delayed set, but Wolfgang Van Halen was so excited he talked about the band returning some time. * Mötley Crüe are back in Oz next year as part of a farewell world tour. * Someone told Ke$ha that drinking her own urine was good for her. She tried it and thought it was so “gross” she’d never do it again. * Caitlin Park is heading to the UK to play Great Escape and seven club shows. * After announcing its line-up last week, Splendour in the Grass is working on addressing residents’ concerns about noise, traffic and security in its site before 25,000 descend in July. A five metre high underpass was finished last week. * Blue King Brown’s ranks have been joined by two freedom fighters. Joining on backing vocals are Lea and Petra Rumwaropen, daughters of the late Agosto Rumwaropen whose band The Black Brothers wrote popular songs about freedom, justice and oppression in West Papua under Indonesia.

They had to flee as a result and were granted asylum in Australia.

THINGS WE HEAR * High profile British manager Peter Mensch told British TV that the stupidest request he’s ever had from a client was from AC/DC drummer Phil Rudd. “I was in London. They were in Paris. Phil Rudd wanted hot water because his kettle was broken. He called at midnight to ask me to bring over hot water.

Wish I had told him I’d charter a flight to bring him a kettle, and billed it back. Needless to say, I didn’t go.” * Muse reshot the video for ‘Panic Station’ after controversy blew up in Asia with the inclusion of the Imperial Japanese Army Flag.

It represents Japan’s militarism in World War II and struck a raw nerve in China and Korea. * The owners of live music venues The Belvedere Hotel, Cohibar and The Watershed Hotel are in receivership but it’s business as usual for the venues. * Attendance for Stone Music Festival with Van Halen, Aerosmith and Billy Joel was well down, but backers say it’ll be back next year. Heavy rain didn’t help. Van Halen let

(GoodGod Small Club / Radiant), Emily York (Penny Drop), Nicci Reid (Wing & Gill), Greg Carey (Umbrella Music), Jonno Seidler (The Vine), DJ Joyride and reps from APRA, the Association of Artist Managers and Unearthed.

See indent.net.au or vividsydney.com/ideas.

NEW MUSIC CONFERENCE FEEDBACK IN JUNE Indent, the peak network for all-ages entertainment in NSW, has organised a new music conference called Feedback as part of Vivid LIVE. Set up for those aged 12 to 25 looking for a career in the music biz, it’ll be held on Monday June 10 (Queen’s Birthday long weekend) at the Museum of Contemporary Art. Cost: $20. Said Chris Zajko, MusicNSW project manager, “We really do have some of the best in the biz coming along to share their knowledge. The day will feature speakers, panel discussions and industry speed dating dealing with some of the most pressing issues in Australia’s music climate.”

NEW SIGNINGS #1: AUSSIE IGGY LANDS MAJOR US DEAL Aussie rapper Iggy Azalea has signed to Universal Music’s Island Def Jam for the US. She’s already with Universal’s Mercury Records in the UK. Island Records US president David Massey said of her, “She’s focused, driven, and has great creative tastes and instincts. She is nothing short of an international star.” Iggy, who was to have played in Australia in April at the axed Movement festival, got 8 million YouTube views for her latest single ‘Work’.

Dom Alessio of triple j’s Home & Hosed will MC the day, while speakers include MC Urthboy, Jay Whalley (Frenzal Rhomb) Nick Yates (We Are Unified), Graham Nixon (Resist Records), Bec Reato (Deathproof PR), Joey McGahey (Hysteria), Stu Harvey (triple j, Shock), Spod (musician / video director), Nic Warnock (RIP Society), Adam Lewis

NEW SIGNINGS #2: DEAD LETTER CIRCUS JOIN UNFD UNFD, home to charters The Amity Affliction and Northlane, has upped its hard rock

* Urban Guerillas’ Ken Stewart has returned from a six-week stint in Mexico, Cuba, Peru and Argentina. On his first night in Havana, he asked a taxi driver to take him to a club that played Buena Vista Social Club music. He ended up in a joint where the real BVSC were playing (“I thought they were all dead!”). He had to listen from outside as it was packed, but one member came out and danced with fans in the street. After performing in Buenos Aires, Stewart returns to play at the band’s free annual May Day! (Mod’s Mayday Recovery) gig on Sunday May 5 at Newtown’s Union Hotel with Yours Truly, Mayday Dreamers, Rocket to Russia and High Learys. * An American woman was arrested for assaulting her boyfriend for singing Macklemore’s ‘Thrift Shop’ 25 times in a row. * Photographers hoping for drunken antics from Ozzy Osbourne in New Zealand were disappointed. He spent most of his time in his hotel room and only ventured out to an art gallery.

quotient by signed Dead Letter Circus. Their second album, produced by Forrester Savell, is out in August. In the meantime, DLC’s 2010 debut album This Is The Warning went gold last month; on its release it went to #2 on the ARIA chart. UNFD’s founder Jaddan Comerford and A&R chief Luke Logemann had been angling to get DLC since their days running Boomtown Records.

STAFFORDS GET OWN RADIO SHOW In addition to their Fox8 reality music series, Gold Coast DJs The Stafford Brothers now have their own radio show. Fridays at 2pm they’ll play exclusive mixes on 2Day FM Sydney, Fox Melbourne and B105 Brisbane.

VENUES #1: NEWTOWN SOCIAL CLUB LAUNCHING The Newtown Social Club is off and running at 387 King St, Newtown. The promoters are throwing an industry-only party this week to celebrate the opening of the downstairs room.

The upstairs band room is still to come.

VENUES #2: RED RATTLER NEEDS YOUR HELP Marrickville’s DIY warehouse venue The Red Rattler Theatre needs your help to stay open. Two of the five original members are leaving for new projects. The others must raise $40,000 to buy 40% of the building to remain a self-sustained, community owned venue showcasing a wide range of talent. You can help out by donating to their Pozible campaign, at http://www.pozible.com/ project/20998.

E HIFI 1300 THO M.AU THEHIFI.C

Just Announced

Mono (JPN) Thu 27 Jun

This Week

Frightened Rabbit (UK)

Norma Jean (USA)

Bilal (USA)

Fri 3 May

Sat 4 May

SE LL IN G

FA ST

Coming Soon

Opiuo + Spoonbill

Cradle of Filth (UK)

Born Of Osiris (USA)

HTC & Speaker TV Presents

Fri 10 May

Sat 11 May

Sat 18 May

Birds of Tokyo Thu 23 May

Moved from Roudnhouse

The Red Paintings

Municipal Waste (USA)

HTC & Speaker TV Presents

HTC & Speaker TV Presents

Dappled Cities

Hungry Kids of Hungary

Sun 16 Jun

Thu 20 Jun

Sat 6 Jul

Hardcore 2013 Feat.

Youth of Today (USA) + More

Saint Vitus (USA) & Monarch! (FRA)

Nejo Y Dalmata (PUR) Fri 26 Jul

Sat 13 Jul 18+ | Sun 14 Jul All Ages

Fri 19 Jul

Fri 14 Jun

ENTERTAINMENT QUARTER, BUILDING 220, 122 LANG RD, MOORE PARK, SYDNEY

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RIHANNA SETS NEW RECORD IN US…

Rihanna is the first artist in Billboard’s radio airplay chart to have ten #1s. She notched it up with ‘Stay’ featuring Mikky Ekko. She previously tied with Katy Perry with nine. ‘Stay’ is the second chart topper featuring just piano and vocals. The last was Bruno Mars’ ‘When I Was Your Man’, which ‘Stay’ toppled to get to #1.

…AND CALVIN HARRIS DOES IT IN THE UK Calvin Harris set a new record in the UK with eight Top 10 singles from one album. ‘I Need Your Love’ featuring Ellie Goulding is the eighth hit from 18 Months. Official Charts Company called this “absolutely remarkable.”

SURG FM RELAUNCHES FOR YEAR Sydney University Radio Group’s student run SURG FM has a more permanent online presence. Over the years it went from a permanent broadcaster to operating just four weeks per semester on a Temporary Broadcast License. Last year SURG launched online, attracting 3135 listeners from 38 countries in its first month. It relaunched in 2013 to represent the student community and broadcast to greater Sydney. See surgfm.org/listen.

ROWLAND S. HOWARD LANEWAY APPROVED Port Phillip Council in Melbourne approved naming a thoroughfare in St. Kilda Rowland S Howard Laneway. The Birthday Party guitarist and songwriter lived in the area for 10 years before his death in 2009. The Council now has to get special permission to allow the use of the S in his name, so there are no errors with postal and emergency services. The city’s ACDC Lane, for instance, has no slash as per the name. The campaign was launched by promoter Nick Haines, who got 2,069 signatures from the likes of Henry Rollins and Shane MacGowan, and a letter from Nick Cave.

Lifelines Split: Kasey Chambers and Shane Nicholson, after getting married in 2005. They had been living apart for some time now, and have two children.

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Hospitalised: Nathan Sykes of The Wanted, throat surgery in Los Angeles.

The King St Brewhouse at The Promenade, King Street Wharf in Darling Harbour has launched itself as a new venue. Country performers Tori Darke, Aleyce Simmonds, Roo Arcus and Ben Ransom played last Sunday.

Hospitalised: Biffy Clyro cancelled half their US tour due to Simon Neil’s serious respiratory problem.

NEW BASS LABEL DRUMB LAUNCHES

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than Suze DeMarchi and Baby Animals learning ‘Boys In Town’ and getting fellow rock chick Sarah McLeod to help sing it at their gig at the Standard in Surry Hills. The final word goes to her long time collaborator and feuding partner Mark McEntee. He told Today, “It took two (diseases). She was too tough for one.”

Xelon Entertainment, which is behind the house-electro stable Velcro and the trance label 405 Recordings, has launched a new label Drumb. It’ll focus on releasing Australian and international bass music in all its forms – DnB, trap, dubstep, moombah and glitch. First release is Vato Gonzalez vs Lethal Bizzle & Donae’o’s ‘Not A Saint’.

CHRISSY REMEMBERED IN CHARTS Some Divinyls records will return to the ARIA charts this week following the passing of Chrissy Amphlett. Within days of her death in New York, their ‘best of’ Essential was topping the Australian iTunes chart, while The Divinyls reached #20. So did ‘I Touch Myself’, ‘Pleasure and Pain’, ‘Boys In Town’ and ‘Science Fiction’. Everyone had Chrissy stories. From the Lismore security guard who once refused to let her into his nightclub because she arrived in her schoolgirl uniform stage gear, to this columnist recalling how she psyched up for shows by listening to Indian snake charming music. Their Australian manager Andrew McManus told the Herald Sun that Madonna’s manager Freddy DeMann had co-managed the band in America, but once they took off in the charts DeMann dropped the band in case it upset Madge. Across Australia bands paid tribute to her at their gigs, with none more poignant

Hospitalised: Texas singer Sharleen Spiteri with concussion, two black eyes and a split lip after falling on her face while shooting a video in Paris.

In Court: Lauryn Hill was told that unless she paid $504,000 in back taxes before her next court appearance on May 6, she faces 24-30 months in jail.

Suing: Katy Perry has launched a $6.5 million action against the hairstyling company who paid her $4.5 million to endorse their product.

The deal is over but the firm kept using her image, the singer claims.

Died: US protest folk singer Richie Havens, one of the stars of 1969’s legendary Woodstock, aged 72.

“I never had a bad day on stage,” he said.

Died: Canada’s “first lady of song”, folk-country troubadour Rita MacNeil, 68, from post-surgical complications. ‘Flying On Your Own’ and ‘Working Man’ were her biggest hits; three albums charted in Australia.

Died: Dani Crivelli, former drummer with the Swiss metal band Krokus.

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BRAG :: 510 :: 29:04:13 :: 9

OWL EYES

Sound with Vision

By Zoë Radas

“I

t’s very layered, and very lush … I love layering, just different pads and synths over the top of each other!”

Owl Eyes is 20-year-old Brook Addamo, Melbourne’s answer to Bat For Lashes, with a taste for the fantastical and an ear for a catchy indie-pop tune.

With three EPs under her belt in three years, Addamo has been busy, and she’s just about to release her first fulllength record – an incredible offering.

Addamo has used synths fat and thin, percussion that sounds like it’s been squeezed through a bunch of rubber tubes or bashed by a gorilla, and all manner of little electronic details to provide the backdrop for her sweet and simple melodies.

“I think sometimes you just get carried away; you’re just like layering and layering,” Addamo laughs. “I love layering! Just different pads and synths over the top of each other.

Sometimes it can get too crowded and then you have to listen to the final cut and go, ‘Hmm, let’s just take a few things out!’”

The tracks that comprise Nightswim are each their own rich little lasagne, a mix of careful construction and spontaneity. “Sometimes I find, for me – I don’t know if it’s the same for every singer – but the first take that I do, it’s so fresh and so emotive, I mean you just wrote those words!”

Addamo says. “And you go and sing it, and usually you’re like, ‘Oh I can re-record that later.’ But on this album we ended up just keeping [those takes], because they sounded great the first time around.”

The album’s titular track demonstrates Addamo’s talent for meshing electronic and acoustic elements; it’s a pretty love song garnished with heavenly (real) strings.

“Sometimes it’s hard to tell, now that you can emulate everything, but all the string elements on ‘Nightswim’, ‘Love Run Dry’, and ‘Hurricane’ were live.”

‘Hurricane’ is compelling, with thumping drums, plenty of synth and a chorus of Addamo’s airy harmonies. “That one came from just a beat and a few synth sounds, like a little demo, and then it flourished into this massive percussion piece,” Addamo says.

“We recorded some live drums and also some sample drums, and then I got some strings, and it turned into this massive song. It’s funny how some songs work. Sometimes you write the demo and they end up being pretty much the same, but that song was very different by the end of it.”

With such dense layering of sweeping synths and orchestral string arrangements - especially on stand out track Diamonds In Her Eyes – performing the album live could prove tricky.

“I had the idea that [Diamonds In Her Eyes] was going to be very layered, and very lush,” says Addamo. “And it’s very hard sometimes to play that live; it always sounds a bit different.

“Before I recorded this album I didn’t really think about the live aspect

because I think it will limit you with the sounds that you’re using,” she says. “If you’re in the studio thinking, ‘Oh, I can’t do that live’, then it’s going to limit you. And I think now there are so many things you can buy, new technologies coming out every month, that you can always find a way to reproduce sounds live.”

Addamo’s experience as a performer belies her age – she was a finalist on Australian Idol aged just 17, and has been recording and performing live ever since, crafting her own distinctive sound and a lyric style that embraces escapism and fantastical creatures.

As she grows more confident in her sound and studio skills – she’s landed three songs in the triple j Hottest 100 already – she’s also picking up useful tips for live performance.

“Now that I’m practising the songs and putting together the live show, I’m thinking about things like what reactions the songs get and where to put them in the set. I think I’m a lot smarter now writing set lists, whereas before I was just like, ‘Oh, I’ll chuck any song here, it doesn’t really matter.’

But it has to have a build; I’m more aware of the dynamics of live shows now.”

Alongside musicians like Lior, Sia, 360 and Missy Higgins, Addamo is a passionate supporter of the Oscar’s Law campaign, a movement started by activist Debra Tranter to end the factory production of companion pets.

The campaign wants legislation against ‘puppy factories’, industrial farms where dogs are bred to supply pet shops with cute puppies, and to raise awareness about where pet store puppies come from.

“They’re trying to stamp out puppy mills, where they treat their dogs really badly for the mass production of puppies,” Addamo says. “I thought it was a great cause. I just wanted to put it out there, you know – make sure you always adopt, look where your pet is coming from. They have feelings! It’s so sad.”

The next step for Addamo is to take her sound overseas, but at the moment, she says, “I’m just trying to get this tour together one step at a time. My label went over to SXSW and there were a few things that came out of that, so maybe this year there’ll be plans to head overseas, I hope, but if not I really just want to focus on nurturing my existing fans here. Then I’ll think about going and playing some shows in the States or maybe the UK.” Joining Addamo on her current tour is a percussionist playing acoustic and electronic drums, a bass player, a synth player and “a few other things”, but sadly, no back-up singers just yet.

“I think [back-up singers are] a cool vibe. A lot of people haven’t been doing it, I think just because it is so expensive, but I really hope I can find some. I think it would just be the cherry on top.”

Where: Owl Eyes plays The Standard When: Saturday May 11 And: Nightswim out now through Wunderkind/Illusive

“I think I’m a lot smarter now writing set lists... But it has to have a build; I’m more aware of the dynamics of live shows now.”

10 :: BRAG :: 510 :: 29:04:13

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BRAG :: 510 :: 29:04:13 :: 11

Melbourne Ska Orchestra The Brass Tax By Garry Westmore

F

ew people in the recent Golden Plains crowd would have known much about the Melbourne Ska Orchestra or its conductor Nicky Bomba. But as the masses danced and a dust cloud rose from the bowels of the Supernatural Amphitheatre, that lack of knowledge didn’t seem to matter, people were just happy to dance.

Despite being around for a decade, the Melbourne Ska Orchestra have only recently started making a splash, as was evident at Golden Plains when the crowd seemed to be taken by surprise by the 26-piece ensemble.

Whipping up a crowd is something that Nicky Bomba has been doing for the better part of twenty years, and with the MSO for ten. But why the sudden prevalence of MSO in the last year, when most outside the ska scene had perhaps not ever heard of them?

“I used to own the MSO with a friend of mine, with whom I started the business. We were the guys that put the band together. Then a couple of years ago he got quite busy with his work so I bought the name from him, and that’s pretty

“And because I could take control of it, and drive it where I wanted to drive it, I started writing more songs for it and realised it could be quite a strong musical force. And apart from doing the whole original ska vibes, I wanted to offer a new sound, a fresh approach to the genre.

That’s what spurred things on.”

“I don’t try to plan things too much, there are a couple of things that you usually do that connect, but generally I like to get a feel from the audience, whether they’re cheeky or they’re raucous or they just want to dance, and I try to pick up on that. It’s a little like having a conversation with the audience. You have an hour on stage and it’s like, ‘OK, we have an hour together. What’s the best way for us to get to know each other?’”

A fixture on the ska scene and the blues and roots scene, Nicky plays in Bomba (infamous for their interactive live shows where drum circles in the crowd and conga lines are common occurrences) and Bustamento (his Calypso and Mento inspired band), as well as his solo project, and somehow he also manages to play drums for John Butler Trio.

At times he’s the frontman, other times he’s the conductor or the drummer, but the one thing that never changes between each band is that he’s always an entertainer, a conduit between band and audience.

Kieran Ryan Kid Solo By Benjamin Cooper

Where: : Metro Theatre When: Friday May 3 And: Melbourne Ska Orchestra out now on FOUR | FOUR/Universal

Shaun Kirk Travelling Troubadour By Dorian Gray

K

ieran Ryan’s debut album is an exquisite piece of work. The eponymous release differs in purpose and aesthetics when compared to his earlier work alongside cousin Kishore as Kid Sam. The ambition of the work has not changed, but the Taree-born artist’s scope now encompasses the minutiae of life with a notable absence of his earlier restlessness.

“I suppose things have changed,” he says, down the line from his home in Melbourne’s Fitzroy.

“It’s always hard to have any kind of useful perspective on your own work. What I do know is that I’m probably a bit different now, and maybe a little more settled.”

Much of the focus on Ryan’s oeuvre has been on his supposed obsession with mortality and brushes with religion. Early songs even went so far as to explicitly refer to the darker bits of life via titles such as Kid Sam’s ‘Down To The Cemetery’ and ‘Close Your Eyes and It All Goes Black’. To some extent those kinds of readings can be applied to his most recent work. There is violence and suffering on songs like the twin-narrative ‘The Stage’ and album closer ‘The World Is Ending’, yet there is ease in his wandering and wondering. Of course, it also helps that the songs are incredibly accomplished and, as on early single ‘Cannibal Club’, even rear up as unlikely anthems.

“I don’t know why all the death keeps popping up in my writing,” Ryan says. “I’ve never been particularly well considered in the way I write – I don’t want to write about the big ideas in life.

I guess that when you’re trying to find a solid anchor those kinds of ideas have a way of emerging.”

The album was recorded over an extended period with The Panics’ drummer Myles Wootton

throughout 2011 and 2012. “It’s satisfying to have cobbled it all together. It’s even better to be able to involve so many different people when I play it live. We manage to pack a lot of people onto the stage sometimes.”

Recent live performances are a natural extension of the bustling guest list on the album. Annabel Grigg (Oh Mercy) and Kelly Lane (Skipping Girl Vinegar) contribute vocals, while Jessica Venables (Jessica Says) plays haunting cello on opener ‘Out of Africa’.

“There’s a little more security to having so many other people around me on stage,” Ryan says.

“We’ve been doing things as a four piece, and sometimes as a seven piece; I remember looking across at a recent show and seeing all these different instruments lined up and being pretty impressed.”

The change in direction from the often harsh and slashing DIY style of Kid Sam was a conscious decision. “I really didn’t want these songs to sound like what I’d done before,” Ryan says.

“There was an intention for these songs not to sound like I was just plugging in my guitar and jamming out. I’ve done that, and there’s a place for it, but this time I wanted to do something else.”

After such a protracted birth, is Ryan content with those songs that remain? “I’m as happy as I can be,” he laughs. “I guess you end up making your own bed, when it comes to your work. And this is a pretty good bed. Hopefully now I can just tour the shit out it.”

What: Album launch with Shining Bird at the Green Room / 2ser’s Live at the Loft (UTS Loft) When: Thursday May 2 / Friday May 3 And: What Matters out now through Spunk

Y

ou’ve got an insane tour schedule right now – almost three months playing in a different Australian town each night; how do you deal with constantly being on the move?

I love it! I’ve always been someone who likes to be on the move and socialise. Even in high school I was friends with all the different groups – the smokers, the footy jocks, the skateboarders, etc. and I used to dedicate periods of time during our lunch break to move from group to group and hang out.

Do you have a road crew, or is it just you and a car? Do things ever go drastically wrong en route to the next gig? For three years I toured mainly on my own in an old 1990 Volkswagen Transporter Kombi Van called Tracey. We had a love/hate relationship as she would often break down on me whilst on the road to the next show. But for this tour I have a sound engineer travelling with me in a new Toyota HiAce called Helga so things are running nice and smoothly!

Does the lifestyle help with songwriting when you’re working in the blues? I truly believe that ‘blues’ is a lifestyle and not just a genre. It’s all about feeling the music and you’re not gonna feel it if you’re not living it.

When was the first time you heard the blues, and what effect did it have on you?

My first recollection of blues is at the open mic/jam nights around Melbourne. Most of it was pretty average as a lot of the players were only amateurs. There was one that I used to go to, though, where Dutch Tilders would occasionally pop in and play! I didn’t really appreciate blues until my mum took me to an Eric Clapton concert when I was 21 and from there my perspective on the genre totally changed.

12 :: BRAG :: 510 :: 29:04:13

You’re working on a new studio album this year – lots of new original material in the works? I have a bag full of half to three-quarter written songs which I’m itching to get into the studio and finish writing and record! I’m really excited about them and think they’re a step up from what I produced previously, both lyrically and musically.

Out of all the towns you’ve played in Australia, what’s your favourite to go back to? I have a real soft spot for Airlie Beach. It’s not really one of the main stops on the touring circuit but there’s something about the people and the atmosphere there that I really enjoy. It’s one of those towns that just makes me smile from ear to ear.

Lastly, tell us about your latest album and live DVD, The Wick Sessions – what material does the set cover, and any surprises in store in the live show? The concept was inspired by a Freddie King DVD that friend showed me a few months ago where he plays a live set in a studio and the only claps you hear at the end of each song are those from the camera crew members. Apparently they used to stream these gigs live to air on late night television back then and after watching it I thought I could do something similar.

It’s got some songs from my previous releases, some old blues covers I’ve been doing for a while that always get a great crowd response in my shows, as well as a new original song called ‘Every Dog Will Have its Day’, which is about the trials and tribulations of a travelling musician like myself.

Where: The Cat & Fiddle When: Saturday 4 May And: The Wick Sessions CD/DVD out now

Melbourne Ska Orchestra photo by Kane Hibberd Push

“Aw man,” says Nicky as he recalls the set.

“Something’s happened. The penny’s dropped.

The crowd really connected with us, by the time we were into the fourth song it was massive – packed – and finding out later there was about nine and a half thousand people (watching) was pretty amazing.”

“I feel obligated as a musician and entertainer to make sure the crowd and the band are connected. As far as all the roles are concerned I think the conductor, ring leader, master of ceremonies of the MSO is one of the most powerful I’ve ever experienced, especially when you play music you love.

much when it started happening, I started taking it seriously. I managed to get Bluesfest (2012), I suppose that was a big one and it all blossomed from there.

But getting that one was a bit of a coup you know?

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BRAG :: 510 :: 29:04:13 :: 13

YACHT Art For Sail By Krissi Weiss

J

ona Bechtolt and Claire L. Evans of Los Angeles-based electro-pop/dance punk band YACHT are never able to keep still.

They’re enjoying a rare day off when we chat, but that’s truly something of a rarity. Apart from producing a steady stream of hypnotic and invigorating music, YACHT are a creative force not bound by one medium and even take YACHT into the realm of philosophy (check out their manifesto on their website or read their book The Secret Teachings of the Mystery Lights: A Handbook on Overcoming Humanity and Becoming Your Own God). The YACHT project just keeps growing and if you only know them for their music, you might be waiting a while to hear another album.

Bechtolt begins by revealing where their unbridled creative focus has been directed of late. “Our main focus right now is our TV show.

The four of us in the touring band wrote a comedy pilot together; we’ve sold it, and now we’re going to be producing a comedy show over the next three months. We’re actually putting music on the backburner to focus on this new area that we know nothing about.”

Evans chimes in with more detail. “It’s the weirdest story of ‘moving to L.A. and happening to meet a person that might be interested in a project’ that we’ve always been joking and talking about,” she laughs. “It’s based on our experiences but it’s in no way a documentary – everyone seems to assume that. We’re not going to be in it, we’re just writing it.”

Evans and Bechtolt are a delight to talk to, and as excited and energetic as their resume would suggest. Although we’re chatting about their upcoming tour to Australia, their new TV show (currently titled Support) will take them

“It will be an exercise in ego sacrifice” away from the stage, at least for a while. “This is the last booked big tour for the foreseeable future,” Evans says.

“After this we’ll do single shows but we won’t be doing consecutive tours for at least a year, if not longer,” Bechtolt says. “There’s never been any pressure for us to make anything consistently. We won’t be able to stop making music, we’ll do that in some way forever, but we won’t be focusing on making records.

Although we do have a new song that’s coming out soon and we like the idea of just putting songs out as soon as they’re done.”

With a project so steeped in the DIY ethos, how is YACHT going to handle a large-scale

TV production, with scores of fingers prodding the creative pie? “It will be an exercise in ego sacrifice,” Evans says. “We’ve always been in control of everything we do and that’s the operating principle of this project, but by becoming involved in this and selling our story and point of view it’s going to be interesting to see how we handle that. I think we’re lucky because the team that we’re stepping into understand that we’re bringing to the table experience in a realm that not a lot of people are able to articulate. We have the upper hand of truth I guess.”

They’re looking forward to heading out to Australia and doing their last big tour for a while; their need to be forever in a state of flux

doesn’t come from any musical frustration.

“Jona and I are both in the same state of mind,” Evans says.

“We lie in the present and we only focus on what will be rewarding for us in the moment because you never know when that moment will end. Whether that’s in a pragmatic way – we could die in a car accident tomorrow – and also, as artists, we don’t know when the offers will stop. We have a tendency to call everything we do creatively YACHT and that allows us a lot of freedom and we can continue to diversify what we do. It keeps us from becoming complacent; I think if we were just a rock band, we would be bored to tears by now.”

Where: Oxford Art Factory When: Tuesday April 30

Camperdown & Out Livin’ The Dream By Edward Sharp-Paul

“The record probably sounds like it wants to be Australiana, but that wasn’t the intention.” let someone else do it’.”

Marf Loth’s lo-fi sound, he explains, was not so much an aesthetic choice as sheer apathy. “I was just a bit too lazy, I wasn’t really invested in it. The only exciting thing for me is when the song is written for the first time, I don’t actually care too much about the rest of it. Recording?

Well, you’ve gotta do something with the songs, I guess.”

The Sydney place-names, the broad accent, the jangle – in a lot of respects, Camperdown & Out’s debut is as reminiscent of the venerable likes of Paul Kelly and The Go-Betweens as of garage-rocking contemporaries like the Straight Arrows and Palms.

C

amperdown & Out don’t seem to mind playing the underdog. From their scrappy take on the jangle pop of luminaries such as The Go-Betweens to the relentless, hilarious pessimism of Alex Kiers and Nathan John Roche’s lyrics, the Sydney four-piece celebrate the low life. Hell, even their name is a nod to deadbeats. Nathan John Roche took some time out from pulling beers to discuss the charms of Manly and debut album Couldn’t Be Better.

“I knew Alex [Kiers, of Raw Prawn] through

14 :: BRAG :: 510 :: 29:04:13

Camperdown & Out share their lyrical preoccupations and colloquial style with their members’ other bands. Sonically though, the loose, jangly Couldn’t Be Better is something of a departure from the heaviness of Dead Farmers and the scrappy punk energy of Raw Prawn and Royal Headache.

So, we’re not talking about the new Seattle?

“Nah, it doesn’t really feel like a scene. We just go to the same parties, and like the same music, and some of us play in bands together, but it’s no different to Melbourne, and The UV Race, Dick Diver, Lower Plenty, all those bands – I think those Melbourne bands are better, actually.”

“Yeah, I feel like I’m doing the same thing, but with Alex singing half the songs. That’s why I’m not really worried about whether the band will last, or fail, you always find new people, do something else.”

As for the name, the band isn’t representing its home suburb, they just know a good pun when they see one. “I’m actually living in Woolloomooloo at the moment, in the derelict housing commission area,” Roche says. “Camperdown’s nice, though.”

The logical conclusion to be drawn is that Roche is steering the ship, but he disagrees.

“I’m probably the least prominent member of the band – I taught everyone the songs, and let them do whatever they wanted with the recording [process]. Mixing, mastering, I didn’t want anything to do with that, it just takes too long. I always produced the Marf Loth stuff, and it always sounded like shit, so I thought, ‘Maybe

A serious question, though: what do you do in Manly? “Ah, the great gimmick song of 2013! Look, I regret it, that’s all I’m gonna say,” Roche says ruefully of Couldn’t Be Better’s opening track, ‘Manly’. So it’s not a diss track?

“No, Manly’s great,” Roche explains. “They’ve got this second-hand bookstore there, with Peter Van Greenaway and John Fante and stuff…Desire Books, it’s called.” A bookstore so wonderful that it inspired a song? “Hey, sometimes it just happens. A lot of the time, songwriting’s just about what rhymes with the chords.”

Wheat: Couldn’t Be Better is out now on Popfrenzy

xxx photo by xxx

From the outside, it may appear that Camperdown & Out is a fairly typical example of Sydney’s heavily crosspollinated DIY scene, with members of Royal Headache, Dead Farmers, Raw Prawn and Marf Loth all bobbing up. Roche, in his laconic, thoughtful way, observes that this is more down to circumstance than anything else.

the art scene, and he started playing a few years ago. I knew David [Ackerman, Dead Farmers] and Chris [Shortt, Royal Headache] from going to shows together, going to the same parties – y’know, shootin’ the shit. We were all friends, we played instruments – simple as that.”

Roche has heard it all before; he appreciates the similarities, but is dismissive of any direct link. “I understand that all that Australiana, and the New Zealand Flying Nun stuff is big at the moment, and it’s probably cool to be associated with all that. I love The Go-Betweens and Spencer P Jones, but I’m more inspired by Lou Reed, John Cale, Kevin Coyne, Beat Happening, stuff like that. The record probably sounds like it wants to be Australiana, but that wasn’t the intention – my idea for the artwork was actually a photo of fat people on a beach in Greece, something totally un-Australiana…that idea didn’t make the final cut.”

Shout Out Louds Into The Light By Alasdair Duncan

A

dam Olenius is feeling philosophical. The Shout Out Louds singer has just returned to Stockholm after a three-week tour of Europe and Scandinavia; generally busy with recording and touring, on his rare breaks he struggles with the concept of doing nothing.

“It’s hard,” he says. “I’m sitting around my apartment, not doing much, trying to get over the post-tour depression and get some rest, but I’m really bad at doing nothing. If I rest, I feel edgy.”

He plans to spend the time off seeing friends and writing songs, but if that doesn’t work, he may try an escape to the country. “I like to go out in nature,” he says. “We have a family country house an hour and a half outside of Stockholm, and I like to go there sometimes to cook and take walks. I sound like a senior citizen,” he laughs, “just walking around and cooking and being out in nature, but that’s what I do.”

The older Olenius gets, the more leisurely he becomes, and the same seems to hold true of his band. The most recent Shout Out Louds album, last year’s Optica, was a lithe and luxurious affair, and the band were happy to take as much time as they needed to get its finely wrought sound just right.

While The Cure may be a sore spot, Olenius has loved ‘80s music since his teens, when a friend gave him a box set featuring such hallowed indie bands as Television Personalities, Sonic Youth and The Go-Betweens.

“Before that, I spent most of my time listening to my sister’s George Michael records,” he says. “I discovered those other acts right when we were trying to find ourselves as a band, and they sounded new and exciting to me. That, more than anything, influenced the sound of the band.”

As for the immediate future, Olenius tells me that he wants to record new material for the band as soon as possible. “We’ve noticed that it takes three years to write, record and tour an album,” he says, “and we’d like to do it faster this time. I have some songs I would like to record, and whether they will end up on an EP or a new album, I’m not sure. We have some nice songs. We might release something this year and add it on to this record, or we might start a new one. There are a lot of ideas right now. It feels comforting.”

What: Optica is out now on Inertia

“We spent more time on this album than we ever have before,” he says. “We booked one week in the studio and did three songs, which worked really well, so we booked more and more time, until we had something like a hundred days in the studio.”

Their engineer was frequently away on tour, travelling with the likes of Lykke Li and Miike Snow, and the long breaks in-between sessions meant even more time to play.

“We made guitars sound like keyboards, and the other way around,” Olenius laughs. “We tried numerous different microphone setups for vocals.

We spent a lot of time working on individual sounds.”

“My curse is that my voice sounds a lot like Robert Smith’s! I can’t help it, that’s just the way I sing, but a lot of people make the comparison for that reason.”

The songs themselves are spacious, several of them featuring lengthy intro sections that build over a minute or more. The closing track, ‘Destroy’, is an example of this, building slowly but surely to a state of near-euphoria. I tell Olenius that it’s my favourite track on the album, and he seems pleased.

Shout Out Louds photo by Frode & Marcus

“Most of the songs were written quite early,” he says, “so we went back and changed a lot. With that song, we redid the drums four or five times before going back to the original one. We decided that we liked that first take the best, because it was very controlled. There are even some heavy metal-inspired drum sounds in there, on the hi-hats, which are influenced by my early, early Metallica years,” he laughs. “The long intro gives the song a very cinematic sound. It’s actually one of my favourite tracks on the record, too, and I like that it’s there at the end – it closes the album off with something very epic.”

The concept of light is central to Optica, and the band considered some aspect of it on every song.

“Early on, when we were talking about this record, we decided that we wanted each song to come at you like a great wave of light,” he says. “We wanted the songs to be very light and bright – like a light at the end of a tunnel, or even a religious light.

We were thinking about comets and lights in the sky – we went to the library and borrowed a whole lot of books on these subjects, and we thought a lot about how to portray them in musical terms.”

He pauses. “We talked earlier about ‘Destroy’. We wanted to have a long intro because we wanted the listener to have time to really approach the song.

With music, you create a world – you have to think about the little details.”

A lot of people mention specific ‘80s bands when talking about Shout Out Louds, The Cure being a popular reference point. Olenius has been hearing this comparison for a long time, and it used to annoy him, but these days, he accepts it as an amusing fact of life.

“My curse is that my voice sounds a lot like Robert Smith’s!” he chuckles. “I can’t help it, that’s just the way I sing, but a lot of people make the comparison for that reason.”

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arts frontline

free stuff email: freestuff@thebrag.com

arts, theatre and film news... what's goin' on around town and more...

five minutes WITH

I

Tell me about your background as a dancer/ choreographer. What informs your practice and what inspires your creativity? I have been dancing since I was about three years old. I moved from Sydney to Melbourne when I was 18 to study at the Victorian College of the Arts. I decided I wanted to make my own work when I was at university and began experimenting with ideas there. I have been playing with choreography in various forms since. My practice is heavily influenced by cinema and visual arts. I am interested in creating an experience for my audience.

SAM LEACH

The humanist trope of man vs nature has regained prominence in the context of contemporary art and we’re about to see new work from an artist who regularly explores said trope. The work of Sam Leach, whose paintings investigate how science and technology produce and shape human perceptions of environments, will be on show in his latest exhibition Dymaxion at Sullivan + Strumpf from May 7. Dymaxion will confront us with intriguing images of primates, birds and other creatures to challenge the relationship between humans and non-human animals. sullivanstrumpf.com for more.

THE NOW NOW

Noise-based and musically radical, experimental, other, unpopular and improvised are all words we could use to describe The NOW now artist run initiative. And we just did, because these are the words that make the most sense out of what the initiative does.

The NOW now are presenting their latest

What themes does Physical Fractals explore? Physical Fractals was created with the intention of seducing the audience into a state of hypnosis. It uses repetition to establish patterns in space and subtly shifts movements to bend the perception of time and the experience of performance. I really wanted to create something that invoked a visceral experience from the audience that almost carries them off into a familiar place, before jolting them back in another direction.

Can you describe what the work looks like?

Minimal, virtuosic and uncompromising. I like to test ideas in live performance and challenge the known or expected form of dance. The work doesn’t strictly identify with dance, although the process and training is inherently in this form. Physical Fractals is more a sound installation or moving image in real time. It is an intense physical experience – for the audience and the performers. We enter this shared hypnotic zone together and the impact lingers long after the show is over.

And the work sounds like? The sound is mixed live during the performance. It is a series of loops taken from the sound of the dancers moving in space. This came about in the later stages of the work, once the choreography had already been developed. I really wanted something simple, lo-fi and essential to complement the movement. The sound designer, Daniel Arnott developed the concept of mic-ing the floor, looping and repeating the sounds back into the stage space. The sound

changes every night and it is always exciting to perform to a live score.

Talk us through the choreography process for the work. Physical Fractals was created with support from the Next Wave Festival Kickstart program and developed over a period of two years. The research was intense and rigorous and involved a great deal of experimenting with sound and movement. To develop movement, I work with video as a choreographic tool. I film everything I do, watch it back and learn chunks of movement or I cut sections together that are incongruent and then learn these sequences back. I have utilised video in this way to break habitual movement patterns and expand my choreographic vocabulary.

You perform alongside Rebecca Jensen.

What’s that like and what does she bring to the work? Rebecca and I work collaboratively on movement-based tasks and work with images and videos on You Tube that we reappropriate or recontextualise into human/movement form. Rebecca is a dream collaborator. She brings her experience of performing and sensitivity in this regard to the work.

What: Physical Fractals by Natalie Abbott When: May 1-10 Where: PACT Centre for Emerging Artists More: pact.net.au

LENNY BRUCE: 13 DAZE UN-DUG IN SYDNEY 1962 In 1962, American stand-up comedian Lenny Bruce tried to tour Sydney.

Unfortunately, he managed to perform just one show before being crucified by the media for the extreme obscenity of his material. And so goes the story that Bruce spent his 13-day stint in Australia around the Kings Cross traps in search of jazz, drugs, companionship and a stage.

The team behind cult hit The Chronic Ills of Robert Zimmerman AKA Bob Dylan (A Lie) reckons his story is too good to be left untold so they’ve produced a vaudevillian mash-up of stand-up, documentary and jazz to bring Bruce’s story to life. Their homage to Bruce, Lenny Bruce: 13 Daze Un-Dug in Sydney 1962, is currently showing at Bondi Pavilion Theatre and we’ve got two double passes to give away. To snag your tix just email admin@rocksurfers.org with FREETHINKER in the subject line. Show closes May 4, so best not dawdle!

Physical Fractals photo by Pia Johnson

magine sitting in a theatre being hypnotised by obscure movement, sound and light.

Sound appealing? To us too, so we’re here to give you the low down on independent choreographer Natalie Abbott’s Physical Fractals. Debuting in Sydney at PACT on May 1, Abbott’s work invites audiences to expand their perception of performance and dance by attempting to pull viewers into a visceral realm of spatial patterns and live sound loops. We took five with the Melbourne-based choreographer to find out what to expect.

NATALIE ABBOTT

noise offerings this Thursday May 2 at EXIT Warehouse Space in Marrickville. So what to expect? Basque noise artist and provocateur Mattin will join Sydney noise experimentalists Brendan Walls and Rizili for a night of interrogation – an interrogation of the rules and standards to which improvisational music adheres. We’re hella keen to check out what it’s all about and reckon you should be too. Oh, and the event is BYO. Yes, BYO! More details at thenownow.net

HRAFF

The sixth Human Rights Arts & Film Festival launches on Tuesday May 28 with the highly anticipated documentary In The Shadow Of The Sun at the cornerstone of festivities. The documentary, which looks at the harrowing reality of ritual albino killings in Tanzania, joins a lineup of films including Informant, Alias Ruby Blade, William And The Windmill, Words Of Witness and Requiem. HRAFF runs from May 28-30 at the Chauvel Cinema. More information at hraff.org.au

Garry Stewart's G

Jeff Wall, After Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison, 1999-2000

JEFF WALL

MCA is brining the first Australian survey of works by Canadian photographer Jeff Wall to Sydney. The exhibition Jeff Wall Photographs will feature 27 major works produced between 1978 and 2010 ranging from illuminated colour transparencies in light boxes, black and white prints, colour prints and small-scale photographic observations. Wall enthusiasts will recognise the artist’s early work The Destroyed Room, which refers to a seminal Eugene Delacroix painting as well as his After ‘Invisible Man’ by Ralph Ellison. And don’t forget to get down to MCA for a Curators’ Insight session on May 3 with Judith Blackall and Gary Dufour who will talk you through all things Wall. For more details see mca.com.au

BURLESQUE FESTIVAL

G STANDS FOR GISELLE

Any bona fide ballet aficionado will get the chills when we mention the letter G; for most, Giselle, one of the most stunning ballets in the history of dance, will spring to mind. The ballet, first performed in the 1800s, tells the story of a lovelorn young peasant girl who joins the spirit world to dance out her grief after discovering the man she loves is engaged to someone else. Fast-forward to 2013, and we’ve artistic director Garry Stewart’s contemporary take on the classic, G. Stewart’s version is a 60-minute deconstruction of Giselle featuring witty and provocative choreography. Set to an electronic score, G is sweated out in front of hovering panorama LED screens to re-present the original ballet and its themes of sex, death, hysteria and gender. G’s Sydney season runs from May 16-18 at Sydney Theatre and is performed by the Australian Dance Theatre. sydneytheatre.org.au for more.

YOU ARE HERE

Milk Crate Theatre have been around for a while – they’re a community-based theatre company working across the arts and welfare sectors. Milk Crate’s latest show You Are Here, directed by Maree Freeman, is a collection of stories inspired and told by people who have experienced homelessness or social

marginalisation. The show is all about pioneering social amend by encouraging audiences to look around, take notice and recognise the potential in us all to change the world around us. Showing at Wayside Chapel on Wednesday May 1, Thursday May 2 and Tuesday May 7, all performances are free so you’ve got no excuse! Get down there to support the people who need us most! More at milkcratetheatre.com

VIVID IDEAS COMPLETE

New additions to the Vivid Ideas program have been announced including the full lineup for the marquee event series – The Ten Commandments of Creative Practice, the secrets behind THE MAKING OF major projects and themed Evenings in the Lounge.

Keynote talks will be given by IDEO bigwig Paul Bennett, Superflux founder Anab Jain, founder of Embrace, Jane Chen and Intel anthropologist Genevieve Bell. And with tickets going strong for the first half of the program, best get in quick folks. Tickets on sale now. For more details see vividsydney.com

Xxxx

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Burlesque fans at the ready, because the Australian Burlesque Festival 2013 National Tour has been announced. Produced by Melbourne-based burlesque bombshells Dolores Daiquiri and Rosy Rabbit, the festival will run from June 6-22 and aims to celebrate the theatricality, glamour and avant-garde prowess of its performers. Brining together both international and local artists, audiences can anticipate a lineup including Indigo Blue, Roxi D’lite, Perle Noire as well as Tasia, Lola The Vamp, Frankie Valentine and Kelly Ann Doll.

So y’all ready to get your tease, seduction, sparkle and sizzle on? For more details see australianburlesquefest.com

The Nerd All-Star Comedy Gala

Birds With Skymirrors [DANCE] Relating To Human Existence By Emma McManus

[COMEDY] Learn By Laughing By Alasdair Duncan Rogers has assembled a varied cast for the evening – a mixture of academics doing stand-up, and comedians trying their hand at higher learning. “The overall thing is that, while it’s fun, it has an agenda of being quite educational and nerdy,” Rogers says. “They’re not just entertaining you, they’re trying to educate you and impart knowledge. There’s a culture around learning that can make people tense, make them wary of being wrong. This is a fun and laid-back event – people are more open to things when they’re relaxed.”

Justine Rogers

A

t first glance, the worlds of stand-up comedy and academia don’t appear to have a lot in common, but as Dr Justine Rogers discovered, they’re more alike than you think. The UNSW Law graduate was in the UK working on her thesis when she became hooked on comedy.

“I was doing a bit of it around the colleges, just informally – my friends kept telling me I should do more, and fi nally, it got to the point where the shame of not doing it outweighed the fear of getting on stage!”

Since then, it’s been a dream run. “You know you read those terrible self-help books that tell you things will happen if they’re meant to be?” Rogers asks. “Comedy has felt a bit like that. I’ve been writing and getting gigs and it seems to be moving quite naturally.

It’s still a weird thing, living these two lives,” she says. “Comedy and academia are both demanding, and both require similar skills, but they’re both emotionally-draining. They’re all-encompassing pursuits.”

On returning to Sydney, Rogers started a monthly event called Nerd Nite. The idea behind the evening is to get a group of academics together in order to present their ideas in a relaxed, fun way – with the benefi t of a few laughs thrown in. The combination of laughs and learning has proved so popular that Rogers and her fellow nerds earned themselves a place in this year’s Sydney Comedy Festival, performing in the Nerd AllStar Comedy Gala.

Academics Rob Brooks, Nalini Joshi and Tom Denson Will perform, along with Nerd Nite newcomer and astronomer Simon O’Toole. “I picked the most popular ones from the monthly nights,” Rogers says, “the ones that combined interesting content with style. I went for the warm, fresh, fun and funny ones.

Then you have Simon, who’s never done a Nerd Nite before – I thought he’d be something new for the regulars. Nerdy types have a reputation for being introverted and weird, but in reality, most of them are pretty cool, curious, approachable people.”

Needless to say, there will be a wide range of topics on the agenda. The night opens with Joshi, who studies patterns in nature. It then moves to Denson, whose work revolves around human psychology – specifi cally, ways to manage anger and aggression – and then the biology of the human male, with Brooks. The night ends with a big bang – literally, perhaps – with O’Toole discussing his search for life on other planets. You don’t need to take notes, but there will be a PowerPoint presentation.

If that all sounds a bit heavy-going, don’t worry – comedians Dan Ilic, Alice Fraser and Jazz Twemlow will be there to break up the academic talk with their observations on topics such as climate change and the anthropology of Kings Cross. “It’s going to be a fun and fast-paced night, and we’ve organised it so that each topic builds on the last, meaning that you’ll be able to expand on your knowledge as you go!” Comedy has never been so informative – prepare to have your mind blown.

What: The Nerd All-Star Comedy Gala Where: The Factory Theatre When: Tuesday May 7, 7.30pm

C

ritically acclaimed contemporary dance group MAU are bringing their new work Birds With Skymirrors to Sydney as part of a large-scale international tour. MAU are one of New Zealand’s most prolific dance and theatre groups led by Samoan choreographer, Lemi Ponifasio, who is known for his radical staging and innovative approach to theatre, dance and activism. Birds With Skymirrors has been performed at major festivals and venues around the world including in Edinburgh, France, Greece, Germany, Mexico, Sweden, Netherlands and New Zealand.

The title of the work comes from an image Ponifasio saw while on the remote pacific island of Tarawa; seven birds flying overhead were carrying strips of videotape in their mouths, which reflected the sun like liquid mirrors. For the choreographer it was a powerful image evoking both great beauty and a picture of pollution and death. Ponifasio explains that the work is not really about the environment but more about how human beings relate to their own existence, especially poignant in light of the massive and largely unaddressed problem of climate change.

“It seems like we are busy all the time creating a life, or architecture, machines, or technology to make us move away from nature – the environment outside. And so the further we get away, [the more we lose our sense of empathy],” says Ponifasio. “We don’t have an empathy for the world outside the window and I think in the end it’s the same thing we are doing to other human beings. [For example, when people pollute a river this is due to] the lack of empathy, not just for the river, but also thinking about other people who are going to come after you using the river. That is for me the most important part.”

The production incorporates dance, video, chant, ceremony and poetry. On the subject of dance as a form of expression, Ponifasio says that dance is not used as an alternative

The Bull, The Moon And The Coronet Of Stars

way of expressing language. “It’s not to express something I want to say to you, because I can pick up the phone and talk to you,” he says. For Ponifasio, dance and theatre present another dimension of ‘being’ to activate a realisation or a heightened sense of consciousness. “I’m not so interested in language because language is only understood by a certain group of people,” he says.

The choreographer started working on Birds With Skymirrors in 2009, but rehearsals had to be postponed when a tsunami hit Samoa.

When rehearsals recommenced, the Gulf of Mexico was being poisoned and animals were dying due to the BP oil spill and since then there have been numerous natural disasters including two major earthquakes in New Zealand. Natural disasters like these reiterate the message Ponifasio’s performers are conveying: climate change is not an apocalypse about to happen, but one that it is happening right now.

And speaking about the now, the choreographer sheds light on how his upbringing has affected his practice. “We tend to assume that you are a product of your culture or from some place you come from.

The point of creation is you’re trying to create a whole new sense of where that was so if I have a bad life would I define myself as bad?

No … the whole point of creation is to break that cycle and make you more present rather than historical,” says Ponifasio, “I don’t think where I was born or where I went to school, while it has something to do with it, really matters. It’s about what we’re trying to do.”

What: Birds With Skymirrors Where: Carriageworks When: Wednesday May 1 – Saturday May 4 More: carriageworks.com.au

Silvia Colloca and Matt Zeremes

The Bull, The Moon And The Coronet Of Stars photo by Brett Boardman

[THEATRE] Shooting The Moon By Alasdair Duncan

T

he Bull, The Moon And The Coronet Of Stars is a bold and brilliant new theatrical work – a story of love, lust and good red wine, it’s a comedic two-hander and one of the freshest plays to hit Sydney stages in years. For lead actress Silvia Colloca, the appeal of the play was simple. “The first thing that drew me to the work was that Van Badham wrote it,” she tells me. “I just love her! She’s one of those people whose energy and love for life is so contagious that you can’t help but be overwhelmed. When I found out that Griffin was doing one of her plays, I managed to get my hands on the script, and talked them into giving me a part.”

Colloca’s character, an artist named Marion, is a woman in a time of crisis. “When we meet her, she’s working in a museum,” she explains.

“She meets a man named Michael, who works there too. He’s married, but they’re deeply attracted to one-another, so they engage in an innocent flirtation that turns less innocent as time moves on.” The situation leads to heartbreak for Marion, so she flees with her broken heart, and becomes an art tutor at a resort on the coast. “When she arrives there, she meets a sommelier named Mark,” Colloca says, “although it’s hardly love at first sight.

Being a romantic comedy, though, you can imagine that things come together.”

Matt Zeremes plays the dual roles of Mark and Michael, the two different men who vie for Marion’s affection. “Performers love to play multiple characters – it’s always an extra good excuse to do something new and try something silly!” Colloca says with a laugh.

“The challenge in this play is to try and not be too silly. It’s been a very fun creative process, exploring those things and stripping them back. It’s been very full-on – our brains have been very engaged, getting through all the words and concepts of the play. Matt and I never leave the stage, which is also a challenge, but that’s why we do this. We want to be on stage – that’s what makes us happy!”

While the play is a romantic comedy set in contemporary times, its roots stretch back to the classics – Marion’s story is very loosely based on the Greek myth of Ariadne of Naxos, and how she helped Theseus slay the Minotaur. “Being Italian, I grew up with that,” Colloca says. “It was a bedtime story for me. I love that about the play, although if you don’t know the story, you won’t get lost. It’s a very loose interpretation, but for me, it’s a nice

reference to go back to. I was really attracted to that, and by how cleverly Van combined something so ancient with something so modern and set in an ordinary world.”

Colloca’s enthusiasm for the play is obvious and infectious. “I love the fact that it’s a romantic comedy,” she says. “People can come to the theatre and have a great time and laugh for an hour and a half – that’s rare in this day and age.” According to Colloca, The Bull, The Moon And The Coronet Of Stars might even have the power to mend a broken heart – it’s a big call, but she sounds reasonably confident nonetheless. “I really hope people come along and see it for that reason!” she says. “If you’re suffering a broken heart, then you should get yourself a ticket to the play – you’ll come along, you’ll laugh, and you’ll realise that it will mend! Heartbreak is horrible, but it goes away – it doesn’t last forever!”

What: The Bull, The Moon And The Coronet Of Stars Where: Griffin Theatre Company When: From 2 May – June 8 More: griffintheatre.com.au

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Arts Snap

Film & Theatre Reviews

At the heart of the arts Where you went last week...

Hits and misses on the silver screen and the bareboards around town.

16:04:13 :: Australian Museum :: 6 College St East Sydney 93206000

Fury photo by Lisa Tomasetti.

jurassic lounge season finale

PICS :: KL

Robert Menzies and Harry Greenwood in Fury.

■ Theatre

enough for ideas surrounding middle-class comfort to be not too far from home.

Until June 8

This confrontation between the play’s central themes and the audience is immediate, but two thirds through there’s a major plot shift. I won’t mention the shift for spoilers sake, but I will tell you that it directs Fury’s narrative out of familiar and murky territory into a clear-cut moral moment.

FURY

locust jones

PICS :: TL

Written by Australia’s most produced playwright Joanna Murray-Smith, Fury takes us into the loving family home of award winning neuro-scientist Alice (Sarah Peirse) and her writer husband Patrick (Robert Menzies). Connecting the dots is Rebecca – played with equal parts innocence and grit by Geraldine Hakewill – who is profiling Alice’s career in light of her recent ‘major humanitarian prize’.

20:04:13 :: Dominik Mersch Gallery :: 11/2-6 Danks St Waterloo

Then there’s the inevitable spanner in the works (Murray-Smith wouldn’t have been meeting her commission requirement to write a ‘family drama’ without one) – Alice and Patrick’s son Joe (Harry Greenwood) who pulls the whole family down when he graffitis a mosque. This starts a debate about how it's possible that well-meaning, well-off progressives might produce racist kids.

Watching Fury, the room feels alive and while it’s unlikely that there are too many Nobel Prize winning scientists in the audience, Murray-Smith knows that the play’s $90-a-ticket audience is privileged

As often happens, bit parts threaten to steal the show, with Tahki Saul bringing his charming comedic skills to the fore as Joe’s teacher and Yure Covich’s utter earnestness turning his one scene into a laugh riot.

But Fury’s really Peirse and Menzies’ show.

It seems that if there’s a strong, intelligent female role, you give it to Sarah Peirse. And if her dominance of the stage is anything to go by it’s easy to see why. Menzies has managed to avoid his usual brooding casting; as Patrick he is passionate and energetic, with a cynical edge.

Fury is a memorable play that in dealing with gender, racism and responsibility, is on the pulse of our lives.

Simon Binns

■ Film

THE HUNT

paper works

PICS :: TL

In cinemas May 2

20:04:13 :: Brenda May Gallery :: 2 Danks St Waterloo

Arts Exposed What's in our diary...

Art Battles Finals Weekend May 4-5/ 11am, 1pm and 3pm Overseas Passenger Terminal forecourt, Circular Quay

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Mads Mikkelsen in The Hunt In this unmercifully powerful tale of the strength in the cornerstone of the film, classic ‘little white lie gone horribly the leading man Mads Mikkelsen. The wrong’ paradigm, Vinterberg (The 47-year-old Dane is subtly superb as the Celebration) puts doubt centre screen, a wrongfully-accused Lucas. Painted with powerful seed sown early in the film by a loving brush as the Casino Royale Bad a naïve young mind. Under the weight of Guy, this time Mikkelsen is established a crippling snowball effect, the accused as your all-round Nice Guy; a dedicated stands to endure the Crucible-like trial kindergarten teacher, wounded divorcee of hysteria, seeing tranquility and loyalty and pivotal member of his local friend shattered with a damning nod. group.

The Hunt is borne of a quest to tell stories through basic means. Vinterberg and his reel buddy Lars Von Trier (Dancer In the Dark, Melancholia, Antichrist) put their disgruntlement with special effect-heavy, big budget Hollywood filmmaking into founding the Dogme 95 Collective almost 20 years ago. The movement called for a back to basics purification of filmmaking, propelled by out-of-the-ballpark acting, stunning cinematography and a damn good script.

And it seems the Dogme 95 flame is still flickering – The Hunt sees Vinterberg call on the oldest and purest form of story telling by respecting the power of acting to tell the story unbridled. It’s here we find

Honest, heartfelt performances in The Hunt are laid bare by Vinterberg, with the handheld camerawork kept in claustrophobic close-up for most of the film, another Dogme rule: “filming must take place where the action takes place.”

The Hunt is a simple tale with complicated repercussions, leaving audiences blindly scrambling for a scrap of innocence to pin.

While we champion our accused hero, we start to wonder whether we’ve missed something offscreen, quickly finding ourselves caught in Vinterberg’s wellcrafted web of uncertainty.

Shannon Connellan

See www.thebrag.com for more arts reviews

The Hunt still by Charlotte Bruus Christensen

The Art Battles that have been taking place at Name This Bar over the course of March and April are about to wrap up with the last heat happening this Thursday May 2. And be hella sure to add this one to the diary because we’re plundering towards a weekend of semi and grand finals down at Circular Quay on Saturday May 4 and Sunday May 5. The 12 artists who have stenciled, mashed-up and graffitied all over the walls of booze den extraordinaire Name This Bar during the heats will go head to head over three sessions each day with the ultimate winner crowned on Sunday.

There’ll also be music and booze.

Artwork will be available for sale after each session on Saturday and after the grand final on Sunday. Get down there to support street art talent. For more details see artbattles.com.au

When we can’t find anything to pin on the donkey, we search for a tale. Danish director Thomas Vinterberg hurtles down the slippery slope of doubt and accusation in his Cannes award-winner The Hunt.

T JUNE SOLD OU TUESDAY 18 SECOND AND FINAL SHOW

WEDNESDAY 19 JUNE THE STAR EVENT CENTRE ON SALE NOW W W W.C H R I S T U C K E R .C O M BRAG :: 510 :: 29:04:13 :: 19

Album Reviews What's been crossing our ears this week...

ALBUM OF THE WEEK XXX JOHNNY MARR Cosmogramma The Messenger Warp Warner x

Xxxx Johnny Marr still has what it takes.

That The Smiths’ legacy is regularly defined

by Morrissey’s stylish, and sometimes poncy, affectations and provocative lyrics is unfortunate.

Without Johnny Marr’s gilded guitar licks, The Smiths may well have been just another foppish ‘80s pop band.

The Messenger is Marr’s debut solo record (putting aside the album released under Johnny Marr and The Healers some years ago). Like the perennially boyish Marr, The Messenger bristles with youthful charm. Tracks like ‘The Right Thing Right’ are the missing link between the excitement of Swinging London and the anti-Thatcher resistance of Red

CHARLI XCX

THE POSTAL SERVICE

True Romance Atlantic

It’s likely you’ll recognise the voice without knowing the name. 20-yearold Charlotte Aitchison, AKA Charli XCX, wrote and sang on Icona Pop’s late 2012 monster hit ‘I Love It’. Yet even if you somehow managed to avoid that track (where the hell have you been?!) the voice might seem familiar anyway, because she sounds a lot like any number of female pop stars making similar angsty electro, including Robyn, Ellie Goulding and Marina & the Diamonds.

If you can get past that, though, many of the songs on True Romance are actually very good. With ‘Nuclear Seasons’, the album starts in fine fashion. It sets the tone for a polished, upbeat collection of songs that disguise the heartbreak of the subject matter, in a manner and quality similar to Robyn’s ‘Dancing On My Own’. ‘Take My Hand’ is catchy club pop at its best. Driven by a fuzzy kick line, you can picture older teens singing “Don’t Go To Sleep / Let’s Go Out” into their hairbrushes between sips from their bottle of Lambrini and saying “like” a lot.

But as the album progresses, the songcraft diminishes. ‘So Far Away’ is among the misfires. The softspoken words over layered synths immediately reminded me of P.M. Dawn’s ‘Set Adrift On Memory Bliss’ and that cringey bit at the start of All Saints’ ‘Never Ever’. (Well, as Charli exclaimed on ‘I Love It’, she is a ‘90s bitch). Perhaps True Romance is best consumed as a 20-year-old themselves might do – just download the first four songs and add them to your iPod playlist.

Like a polished Grimes, Miss Aitchison has made an entertaining debut, but one that only occasionally raises its head above the competition in the crowded emo electro-pop marketplace.

Ten years later, we have this re-release of their incredible debut – a scattering of crumbs to appease starving Postal Service fans – celebrating a decade of electropop feels with every officially released Postal Service song, a couple of new tracks, a live track, some remixes nobody cares about, and covers by fellow alternative feel-goodsometimes-feel-bad bands The Shins and Iron & Wine.

Approaching the Deluxe Edition as a new body of work is a mistake; however, there are two new tracks to pour into your ears, the fantastic ‘A Tattered Line of String’ and ‘Turn Around’, which are of the same genetic stuff as their 2003 material, navigating such topics as sticking by down-andout friends (awww) and one night stands after getting boozed on NY’s Lower East Side.

Disc 1 is The Postal Service in all their unfussy glory - some seriously well written lyrics against a wall of anxiety blasting “computer music”. Disc 2 is like wearing a crash helmet and hanging out with angsty Zach Braff in Garden State – needlessly sad and depressing. You can’t improve on the combination of Tamborello’s infectious synth with Gibbard saying whatever the hell he wants over the top.

Somehow Tamborello’s electro beats always save the mood from Gibbard’s hard-hitting insights, and BAM! You get beautiful electropop.

The new material is glorious and long awaited, but the remixes and covers are soundly disappointing – why try to improve on brilliance?

Sarah Little

David Wild

Yet there are moments when it doesn’t all come together. The Messenger wants to tell an engaging story but falls forlornly into a chair and labours over tired old musical ground, and ‘Lockdown’ waves a subtle flag of resignation while pretending to incite a moment of passion.

However, these lulls are the exception, and never the rule. ‘Generate! Generate!’ packs a punchy beat, and offers a metaphor for confronting the ever-brutal English music media. ‘Sun And Moon’ is a modern English garage-pop track for the ages,

The title track is an old school distortion-soaked rocker and the swampy groover ‘Can’t Win Em All’ is intoxicating. Deceptively simple toe-tapper ‘Pay No Mind’ and the funkadelic ‘Low’ keep Dirt from a second half lull. Scorcher ‘Sinking In The Sand’ descends into a murky soup of feedback and distortion before ‘House On Fire’ makes Khatib’s gravelly vocals the focus to round out the record. Strangely, two of the weaker tracks have been released as lead singles (the indie-bright/lyric-lite ‘Penny’ and the instructional ‘Family’) over musically stronger, possibly less radio-catchy tracks like ‘Pay No Mind’, which has similarly cyclic lyrics but a much more interesting bridge.

Khatib’s not re-inventing the garagerawk wheel, though he’s clearly comfortable in his groove and knows his way around guitar pedals. At times the songs do veer into Black Keys-lite territory (the repetitive ‘Skinny Little Girl’ could be an El Camino B-Side).

The album plays very slick, but without much of the rough and tumble charm of his first effort Will The Guns Come Out. No doubt Khatib will bring his trademark howling energy to the live performances of this new material, but on record they play a little flat.

Head In The Dirt is a rollicking effort and a solid album, but it lacks the spark and soul we heard on his debut.

Natalie Amat

You can’t help but feel Peter Garrett made the wrong choice when he quit music for a career in politics. While Garrett’s political star began falling almost as soon as it rose, the talented rump of Midnight Oil – the mad scientist (and architect) Jim Moginie, drummer Rob Hirst and Martin Rotsey – have managed to throw off the shackles of political agitation and, through The Break, rediscover the surf sounds that inspired them originally way back in the early ’70s.

The Break’s first album Church Of The Open Sky drew a direct line from The Atlantics; follow-up Space Farm is more of an eclectic, psychedelic creature, bookended by chanting from the Gyuto Monks of Tibet (and presumably courtesy of Brian Ritchie).

From there, The Break explore the psychedelic edges of the surf genre.

The title track is all thumping tom attack and wired melody; ‘Day 300’ is Ennio Morricone on a journey of selfdiscovery on the northern beaches of Sydney. ‘Tumbling For Eons Through Turbid Atoms’ defies its pretentious title to create a sugar-sweet post-pop psychedelic trip, while ‘Majestic Kelp’ takes you out on the glassy waters and exposes you to the tranquil beauty of nature, and the romance of ‘Sky, I Use You Like A Mirror’ is so palpable it’s got its tongue down your throat before you’ve had a chance to introduce yourself.

But the strangest moment on Space Farm comes with ‘Ten Guitars’, a slick lounge track featuring the vocal talents of Engelbert Humperdinck. While Humperdinck remains the subject of occasional ridicule, he was more popular than Jimi Hendrix – whatever that means. But The Break don’t care about being cool. They’re in it for the music, and that music is pretty damn good.

Silver Wilkinson Warp Bibio is the guy who you feel could write pop anthems and sell them to Coldplay as easily as what he’s doing now. He makes effortless pop that’s at once amiable and innovative, creating delightful patchwork quilts of electronica, folk, and foreign things.

Silver Wilkinson is his seventh studio release, and it’s an album with more consistency and structure than the eclecticism of Mind Bokeh and Ambivalence Avenue.

20 :: BRAG :: 510 :: 29:04:13

Great North Hobbledehoy Records / MGM Fourteen Nights At Sea are a band out of time. This may sound like a criticism, but it’s not. Like their selftitled debut, second album Great North is an immersive experience in an age of tie-ins and highly leveraged content delivery. The band makes no attempt to work around your schedule. They simply do what they do, at their own pace.

What they do is post-rock – great floating drifts of the stuff. Gently picked guitar arpeggios through to sweeping crescendos, with stately minor-key progressions throughout.

Familiar? Yes. A tad predictable?

Probably, yes. Thing is, just because Great North sticks to the script doesn’t mean that it’s not an effective album.

The arpeggios glimmer, great sheets of reverb spread across the sound field, and bass and drums swell up from below as required – all the elements are familiar, but more significantly, those elements are good. Fourteen Nights At Sea fill their songs with the right arpeggios, and build to the right crescendos. Most importantly, the band doesn’t overplay its hand. They shy away from the “let’s all hit our distortion pedals at once and go crazy!” approach of bands like Explosions In The Sky and Mono, aware that such histrionics would diminish the hypnotic, tidal flow of songs like centrepiece ‘Tired Hands’ (post-rock rule of thumb: the ten-minute song is always the centrepiece).

Call it Surf ‘n’ Space from the minds behind Midnight Oil. Patrick Emery

Edward Sharp-Paul

The first three tracks melt into one another as Bibio’s melancholy vocals waft into your ears from the other side of a field, while guitars and pads swell with pure clarity. It’s a sombre, slow commencement with ocean shore samples; a real continuity and conceptual focus we’re not used to from Bibio.

‘You’ is the album highlight, a Dillaesque cut with a wet, raindrop beat that dissolves as a choppy soul sample enters the mix with glitchy, wavy strings.

It’s almost as if he’s reminding us how much of a magician he is, because the production on this track is so prominent and different to the acoustic aesthetic of the rest of the album.

The lead single ‘À tout à l’heure’ brightens the mood; Bibio’s aesthetic of futuristic-nostalgia is aided by the rollicking guitar and lo-fi percussion.

Like ‘Lover’s Carvings’ and ‘K is for Kelson’, ‘À tout à l’heure’ shows off his ability to create music that sounds incredibly familiar upon hearing it for the first time.

It won’t demand your ears’ devotion like ‘Lover’s Carvings’ or ‘K is for Kelson’ did, but listen to this a couple times through and it becomes apparent that this is more brilliant genre-flitting mastery from Bibio.

Rachitha Seneviratne

FOURTEEN NIGHTS AT SEA

Great North won’t make sense on shitty laptop speakers while you’re doing a spot of cheeky Facebook stalking, and if you think that postrock is a daggy stylistic ghetto, then Fourteen Nights At Sea won’t be able to bring you round. You get the sense that this doesn’t bother them in the slightest, though.

INDIE ALBUM OF THE WEEK BIBIO

Patrick Emery

Space Farm Sony

Head In The Dirt POD/Inertia Rip-roaring, footstomping rebel rocker Hanni El Khatib returns with his second album Head In The Dirt, which doesn’t stray far from the dirty blues and garage rock he’s known for. However this time around the sound is much more refined, with organ and filmy distortion peppering the tracks, which were produced and recorded by Dan Auerbach (The Black Keys) in his Nashville studio.

the delicate but dangerous pop of ‘New Town Velocity’ could tear down the marketing facade of any flaccid new suburban housing development and ‘Word Starts Attack’ is The Smiths’ inverted take on Revolver-era Beatles.

THE BREAK

HANNI EL KHATIB

Give Up (10th Anniversary Deluxe Edition) Sub Pop When Ben Gibbard of Death Cab for Cutie and “computer music” maestro Jimmy Tamborello released Give Up in 2003, they had no intention of recording a follow-up.

Wedge (complete with classic wailing Marr guitar echo); ‘European Me’ should be the soundtrack to England delivering demands to Brussels bureaucracy, and the irony of a 50-year-old punter writing a song like ‘Upstarts’ shouldn’t be lost on anyone.

OFFICE MIXTAPE And here are the albums that have helped BRAG HQ get through the week...

DIVYNLS - Desperate FLYING LOTUS - Cosmogramma THE KOOKS - Inside In / Inside Out

TWO DOOR CINEMA CLUB - Beacon DIAFRIX - Easy Come Easy Go

live reviews What we've been to see...

T H I S

W E E K

A T

T H E

FRESH HIP HOP & REGGAE PARTY

FRIDAYS 3rd may 8pm free

RKE PHOTOGRAPHER :: KATRINA CLA

DIG IT UP!

Enmore Theatre / The Sly Fox / The Green Room / Midnight Special Sunday 21 April For the second outing of Dig It Up!, Hoodoo Gurus brought together a collection of classic names from the heavy rock, powerpop and punk worlds.

One of the early standout sets came from The Stems, whose cult legend grew as they injected brilliance into basic rock’n’roll with guest guitarist Ash Naylor.

Ray Ahn, better known as bassist for The Hard-Ons, tried his hand at stand-up for the first time, with rambling anecdotes about dickheads in record stores and Dave Navarro’s toilet habits, it was loose, undisciplined and hilarious.

Buzzcocks bashed out their pop songs with punk abandon, with guitarist Steve Diggle a mischievous show-off compared to peculiarly stagnant frontman Pete Shelley. Meanwhile, Flamin’ Groovies sounded like they’d been transported directly from San Francisco in 1972, demanding dancing from a willing audience.

In front of a gigantic drumkit, Blue Öyster Cult lead singer Eric Bloom gravely told us how millions of years ago, giant monsters walked the earth; then a line of four vocalists, each with a guitar, screamed “Godzilla”. It was incredible, ridiculous and so excessive, you have to question whether Spinal Tap was shooting fish in a barrel.

Hoodoo Gurus played their second album, Mars Needs Guitars!, in full.

Filled with classics like ‘Bittersweet’, ‘Death Defy’ and ‘Like Wow! (Wipeout)’, it’s silly to hear Dave Faulkner apologise for a supposedly slow second half. With guitarist Brad Shepherd occasionally growling lead vocals, the show confirmed why the Gurus have a reputation as one of Australia’s most reliably fun live bands, as they turned the album recital into a greatest hits set including a chaotic ‘Miss Freelove ’69’, while a couple of Flamin’ Groovies joined them for ‘Teenage Head’.

Chasm FEATURING

Skryptcha and Rachael Berry

PRESENTS

SAT 4 MAY + F.R.I.E.N.D/s DJS + STONEY ROAD’S DJS + BERNIE DINGO

At the end of it all, fans left with ringing ears, smiling faces, and for those of us a little younger, a ton of homework.

Simon Topper

FREE 8PM

midnight juggernauts

PICS :: KC

3pm 20:04:13 :: Oxford Art Factory :: 38-46 Oxford St, Darlinghurst 9332 3711 S : TIM LEVY (HEAD HONCHO)

OUR LOVELY PHOTOGRAPHER

DJS OMAR VARTS & Richie Ryan F A C E B O O K . C O M / B E A C H R O A D H O T E L

:: KATRINA CLARKE ::

BRAG :: 510 :: 29:04:13 :: 21

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doc holliday takes the shotgun

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up all night out all week . . .

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coheed and cambria

20:04:13 :: The Metro :: 624 George St Sydney 9550 3666 22 :: BRAG :: 510 :: 29:04:13

PICS :: RK

20:04:13 :: FBi Social :: Kings Cross Hotel 248 William St 9331 9900

PICS :: HL

20:04:13 :: The Standard :: 3/383 Bourke St Darlinghurst 9331 3100

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stonefest

PICS :: AM

up all night out all week . . .

lawson

PICS :: AM

20:04:13 :: ANZ Stadium :: Sydney Olympic Park 87652000

epica

PICS :: AM

18:04:13 :: The Metro :: 624 George St Sydney 9550 3666

19:04:13 :: The Metro :: 624 George St Sydney 9550 3666

:: KATRINA CLARKE :: RYAN S : TIM LEVY (HEAD HONCHO) OUR LOVELY PHOTOGRAPHER MAR :: LEY ASH :: IS LEW KATE :: NG KITCHING :: HENRY LEU

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send your listings to : gigguide@thebrag.com

pick of the week Tool

SATURDAY MAY 4

Allphones Arena, Olympic Park, Homebush Bay

Tool (USA) $108.35-$135.85 8pm

MONDAY APRIL 29 ROCK & POP

Broadway Unplugged The Vanguard, Newtown $10 7pm Liverpool Idol: Truth Or Tragedy Collingwood Hotel, Liverpool $15 7pm Ron Barry – A Tribute Blue Beat, Double Bay $10 (+ bf) 8pm

JAZZ

Latin Jazz Open Mic The World Bar, Kings Cross free 7pm

ACOUSTIC & FOLK

Daniel Allars, Salta Venue 505, Surry Hills free 8pm Helmut Uhlmann, Chris Brookes, Massimo Presti, Chich, Frankie Francis Kellys On King, Newtown free 7pm

TUESDAY APRIL 30 ROCK & POP

At Last – The Etta James 24 :: BRAG :: 510 : 29:04:13

Story: Vika Bull Playhouse, Sydney Opera House, Circular Quay $59 (conc)-$89 8pm Frightened Rabbit (UK) The Hi-Fi Sydney, Moore Park $46.20 7.30pm The Goon Squad Scruffy Murphy’s, Haymarket free 10.30pm The Kooks (UK), Van Hoorn Enmore Theatre sold out 7pm The Lockhearts, Raindrop, Because They Can Brighton Up Bar, Darlinghurst $5 8pm Rocket To Memphis, Two Timin’ Playboys Café Lounge, Surry Hills free 5.30pm Yacht (USA) Oxford Art Factory, Darlinghurst $42 (+ bf) 8pm

JAZZ

Old School Funk and Groove Night Venue 505, Surry Hills free 8pm

ACOUSTIC & FOLK Darren Bennett George IV Inn, Picton free 7.30pm Greg Sita, Sean Renford, Sam Higginson, David White, Gabriella Brown, Ryan McClenahan, Cielo Miranda Dee Why Hotel free 7pm

Peach Montgomery Newington Inn, Petersham free 7pm TAOS, Roland Blackman, Lily Fisher, Dan Cochrane, Danilo Reyes, Annelise Johnson Tea Gardens Hotel, Bondi Junction free 7pm

WEDNESDAY MAY 1 ROCK & POP

At Last – The Etta James Story: Vika Bull Playhouse, Sydney Opera House, Circular Quay $59 (conc)-$89 8pm Eli Wolfe, Jake Nauta FBi Social @ Kings Cross Hotel $10 8pm Hue Williams Atom Bar, Gosford free 8pm Live & Local: Matt Cavanagh Trio, Tobias Moldenhaur, Daniel Allars, The Conversations Lizotte’s Restaurant, Dee Why $10 7.30pm liveArt X liveMusic: She Rex, Teenage Hand Models, Firesaint, Quantum Force, Lepers And Crooks, Beef Jerk, The Dark Hands, Rigasaurus, Chicks Who Love Guns (DJ set) Upstairs Beresford, Surry Hills

free 6.30pm Lunch Break: Achoo! Bless You FBi Social @ Kings Cross Hotel free 1pm Matt & Kim (USA), Jackie Onassis Oxford Art Factory, Darlinghurst $39.60 (+ bf) 8pm Musos Club Jam Night Bald Faced Stag Hotel, Leichhardt free 8pm Raindrop, Bad Valley, Letter To Lion Brass Monkey, Cronulla $12.25 7pm Reckless Scruffy Murphy’s, Haymarket free 10pm Rocket To Memphis, The Booze Bombs (GER), The Pat Capocci Combo The Vanguard, Newtown $18.80 7.30pm Rufus, All The Colours, Cassian Beach Road Hotel, Bondi free 8pm Sotalia (Austria), Deathcage, Unknown To God, Oily Boys The Square, Haymarket $10 8pm Stew Party: The Spitfires, Place Of Indigo, Slumberhaze, The Waterboard Brighton Up Bar, Darlinghurst $10 (+ bf) 8pm The Temper Trap, Alpine, MT Warning Enmore Theatre sold out 6.30pm Vibrations: Flick The Bean, Angharad Yeo, Raw Idiocy, Eden’s March, Kevin Lynn Blues Project, November’s Oath Valve Bar & Venue, Tempe $15 7pm

JAZZ

The World According To James Venue 505, Surry Hills $10 8pm

ACOUSTIC & FOLK

Angelene Harris Cat & Fiddle Hotel, Balmain free 7pm Greg Sita, Gabriella Brown, Lost Trolleys, Yeri Hye, Chantal & Cesar, The Broods Avalon Beach RSL Club free 7pm Helmut Uhlmann, Adib Azahar, Chich, Frankie Francis, Ryan McClenahan, Brian Yoo UTS Loft, Broadway, Ultimo free 6pm The Sunset Sessions Sackville Hotel, Balmain free 7pm

THURSDAY MAY 2 ROCK & POP

2ser Live at the Loft: Kieran Ryan UTS Loft, Broadway, Ultimo free 5pm Achoo! Bless You, The Mountains, Galleri Gallery Bar, Oxford Art Factory, Darlinghurst free 8pm At Last – The Etta James Story: Vika Bull Playhouse, Sydney Opera House, Circular Quay $59 (conc)-$89 8pm Balmain Blitz: The Broken Line, Cipher, Karmas Relent, A Gentlemen’s Agreement, Aluminize, Driverside Airbag, Arse Eyes, Euryal, Culloden Bridge Hotel, Rozelle $15 7pm Darren Cross vs Jep & Dep Front Bar, Goodgod Small Club, Sydney free 8pm Finn Home Tavern, Wagga free

9pm The Griswolds, Panama, Oceanics Oxford Art Factory, Darlinghurst $10 (+ bf) 8pm Hot Damn!: Bane (USA), Hopeless, Boneless, 10 Paces, Hot Damn! DJs Exchange Hotel, Darlinghurst 8pm I Know Leopard Brighton Up Bar, Darlinghurst $10 8pm Jess Dunbar, Oxford & Co, UACSC, Hamish Anderson The Standard, Surry Hills $10 (+ bf) 8pm Katie Noonan, Brian Campeau Brass Monkey, Cronulla $39.80 7pm Kent Eastwood The Basement, Circular Quay $20 (+ bf) 7.30pm Musos Club Jam Night Carousel Hotel, Rooty Hill free 8pm Oxblvd, James Willing Moonshine @ Hotel Steyne, Manly free 9pm The Peter Van Den Hoogen Band, All Of My Alien Sex Friends, Box Of Fuck, Los Tones FBi Social @ Kings Cross Hotel $10 8pm The Plasmon Resonance Band, Trent Marsden, The Fontaynes Valve Bar & Venue, Tempe 7.30pm Richard Cuthbert & Band, Matt Banham, Little Little Lovers, The High Ceilings The Union Hotel, Newtown free 7pm Sandi Thom (UK), Little May The Vanguard, Newtown $25.80 8pm Sons Of Rico, Rockets, Round The Corner Goodgod Small Club, Sydney $12 (+ bf) 8pm Staff Picks: Nuns, Tom River & The Boatmen, Jonno Reed, Huckleberry Hastings Annandale Hotel $5 7pm Tame Impala, Midnight Juggernauts Hordern Pavilion, Moore Park $59 8pm all-ages Wildcatz Scruffy Murphy’s, Haymarket free 10pm

JAZZ

The Margaritas, The Acca Daiquiris Django Bar @ Camelot Lounge, Marrickville $15 6pm Peter Head Harbour View Hotel, The Rocks free 8pm The Translators Venue 505, Surry Hills $10 8pm

ACOUSTIC & FOLK

Daniel Hopkins, Starr Witness, No Illuminati Olympic Hotel, Paddington free 7.30pm Face The Music: Gavin Leach & Sammy H, Lost Trolleys, Yeri Hye Palm Beach RSL Club free 7pm Peach Montgomery, No Illuminati Forest Lodge Hotel, Glebe free 7.30pm The Songs Of Nick Drake: Leroy Lee, Dave Calandra, Louise Nutting, Nic Cassey, Michael Dorman Camelot Lounge, Marrickville $15 (+ bf) 7pm

LEARN HOW TO

FRIDAY MAY 3 ROCK & POP

At Last – The Etta James Story: Vika Bull Playhouse, Sydney Opera House, Circular Quay $59 (conc)-$89 8pm Blind Valley Annandale Hotel $10 8pm Darth Vegas, Smotherbox, Troldhaugen, On The Stoop The Wall @ Bald Faced Stag Hotel, Leichhardt $10 8pm Deathstars (SWE), Graveyard Rockers, The Mercy Kills Manning Bar, University of Sydney, Camperdown $59.90 8pm Eight By 8ight Mini Festival: B (UK), Men64, Mirella’s Inferno, Clulow Forester, Dyan Tai, Unicorn DJs, Ledesma, Joplin, Canecutter Spectrum, Darlinghurst $10 7pm Elevate Cock n Bull, Bondi Junction free 9pm Fabels, We Are The Brave, The Longest Day, Charles Buddy Daboul FBi Social @ Kings Cross Hotel $10 8pm Finn West Wyalong RL free 9pm Gang Of Brothers The Basement, Circular Quay $20 (+ bf) 7.30pm Hellbringer, Bastardizer, Pale Sage, Tyrannic Valve Bar & Venue, Tempe 7pm Hollow Bones Gallery Bar, Oxford Art Factory, Darlinghurst free 8pm Hue Williams Oasis Hotel, Campsie free 8.15pm Inslain, Atomesquad, Steel Swarm, Paralysis The Square, Haymarket $10 8pm Kathryn Rollins, R.L. Jones, Thieves, Little Bighorn Brighton Up Bar, Darlinghurst $10 8pm Katie Noonan, Playwrite Lizotte’s Restaurant, Dee Why $49 7.30pm King Tide, Penny And The Mystics Brass Monkey, Cronulla $25.50 7pm Laura Jackson 5 Scruffy Murphy’s, Haymarket free 10.30pm Matt Price, Red Cavalry, Briscoe, 6 White Horses The Standard, Surry Hills $10 (+ bf) 8pm Max Smidt Customs House Bar, Circular Quay free 7pm Melbourne Ska Orchestra, AuSkas, Mista Savona DJ Set Metro Theatre, Sydney $33.70 7.30pm MUM: Callithump, Disco Is Dead, Galleri, MUM DJs The World Bar, Kings Cross $10-$15 8pm Nathan Cole, Will Teague Vineyard Hotel free 9.30pm Norma Jean (USA), Vanna (USA), Safe Hands The Hi-Fi Sydney, Moore Park $42.90 6pm all-ages Rachel Eldon Chatswood RSL free 5.30pm Rats 5th Birthday Party: DJ Seymour Butz, Wife, Venus Vamp, Mojo Juju, Zahra Stardust, Black Vanilla,

SING

Are you interested in learning how to sing?

Becoming the next winner on the Voice? or just singing for the pure love of it?

Well its now your time to shine. How do I do this you may ask?

Just pick up the phone and book your first lesson today...

I am Hayley Milano, I have been performing and teaching professionally for over 10 years, I have toured Australia and have a lot of contacts in the industry from people, gigs and inside the studio. I enjoy nothing more then to share my love and passion for singing with others. I have two studios - City and Vaucluse. Im looking for dedicated, hard working students who are committed to reaching there goals. I have students ranging from 8 - 65 year old students. It is very important to have a connection with my student so i can unlock the performer within. Hayley 0422 963 373

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send your listings to : gigguide@thebrag.com

Bilal 8.30pm Musica Linda Camelot Lounge, Marrickville $25 7.30pm

Dickie and Dickie, DJ Adonis, MC KK The Red Rattler, Marrickville $15 (conc)-$20 8pm Riz Hallowes Berowra RSL free 8pm Starlight Fundraiser: The Hungry Mile, Age Of Menace, Mercury Sky The Roxbury Hotel, Glebe $15 8pm Ted Nash Figtree Hotel free 8pm Tinpan Orange, Miles & Simone The Vanguard, Newtown $21.80 8pm Tool (USA) Allphones Arena, Olympic Park, Homebush Bay $108.35-$135.85 8pm

JAZZ

ACOUSTIC & FOLK Men With Day Jobs, Ben Hardie, Joe Oppenheimer, The Wildbloods, Peach Montgomery Cat & Fiddle Hotel, Balmain $15 8pm

SATURDAY MAY 4 ROCK & POP

Feel Good Friday Jazz Venue 505, Surry Hills free 8pm The Moon Musik Ensemble (NZ) The Sound Lounge, Seymour Centre, Chippendale $15-$25

At Last – The Etta James Story: Vika Bull Playhouse, Sydney Opera House, Circular Quay $59 (conc)-$89 2pm, 8pm Attack Of The Last Lingering Naked Bat Dogs: Batfoot, Nudist Colonies Of The World, Strawdogs,

Nerdlinger, That’s The Last Straw Valve Bar & Venue, Tempe 7pm Bilal (USA) The Hi-Fi Sydney, Moore Park $55.50 7.30pm Blitz – A Live Tribute To Motown & Disco: The Kamis feat. Madam Parker, Mike Champion & Orget Sax Blue Beat, Double Bay $27 (+ bf) 8pm BNO Rockshow Crows Nest Hotel free 10pm Bump City Camelot Lounge, Marrickville $25 (+ bf) 7.30pm Colour Coding, Cull, Little Napier, Labyrinths FBi Social @ Kings Cross Hotel $10 8pm Dirty Deeds – The AC/DC Show Emu Plains Sports Club free 8pm Gap-Theory, Sonic Sunday, Tiger & The Rogues, Flick The Bean, Baby Lips & The Silhouettes, Lila Swain, Charlie Gradon, Van Sereno The Square, Haymarket $15 8pm Invisible Sun, Delta Edge And The Hounds Valve Bar & Venue, Tempe 12pm Iron Bark Rock Carousel Inn free 8pm Jeremy Neale, Go Violets Brighton Up Bar, Darlinghurst $10 7.30pm Kittens: Jenny Broke The Window, The Maze, Kittens DJs Spectrum, Darlinghurst $10 9pm Lord, As Silence Breaks, Darker Half, Kill Appeal, Skulldugory The Wall @ Bald Faced Stag

Hotel, Leichhardt $10 8pm Made In Japan, Louis London Annandale Hotel 8pm Marie Wilson Sydney Livehouse @ Lewisham Hotel $20 8pm Marshall Okell & The Pride, Luke Escombe & The Corporation, Them Dreamers The Vanguard, Newtown $20.80 8pm Mi-Sex The Basement, Circular Quay $25 (+ bf) 7.30pm Mods Mayday 2013: The Pop Guns, The Bad Reaction, The High Learys, The Crimplenes, Nicky Mod & Mick H The Sly Fox, Enmore $15 8pm Nathan Cole Abbots Hotel, Redfern free 7.30pm Nicky Kurta Scruffy Murphy’s, Haymarket free 10.30pm Obituary (USA), Daemon Foetal Harvest, Sanctium Manning Bar, University of Sydney, Camperdown $59 (+ bf) 8pm Rumours – A Tribute To Fleetwood Mac Lizotte’s Restaurant, Dee Why $34 7.30pm Shaun Kirk Cay & Fiddle Hotel, Balmain 8pm The Sphinxes Engadine Tavern free 9.30pm Step-Panther, Bored Nothing, Gung Ho Goodgod Small Club, Sydney $14 (+ bf) 8pm Ted Nash Ulladulla ExServos free 8pm Tool (USA) Allphones Arena, Olympic Park, Homebush Bay

$108.35-$135.85 8pm Urban Country Brass Monkey, Cronulla $23.50 7pm

JAZZ

Galapagos Duck Venue 505, Surry Hills $15$20 8pm Peter Head Harbour View Hotel, The Rocks free 5pm Trichotomy with Steve Magnusson The Sound Lounge, Seymour Centre, Chippendale $15-$25 8.30pm Yuki Kumagai, John Mackie Well Co. Café / Wine Bar, Leichhardt free 7.15pm

ACOUSTIC & FOLK Luchi, VCS The Newsagency, Enmore 8pm

SUNDAY MAY 5 ROCK & POP

At Last – The Etta James Story: Vika Bull Playhouse, Sydney Opera House, Circular Quay $59 (conc)-$89 3pm The Eve Schroder Band, Xater Bay, Oliver Smith Sydney Livehouse @ Lewisham Hotel $12 8pm Kunvuk, The Burn Card, Larry Leadfoot, Cryptic Scorn, Terrorential Valve Bar & Venue, Tempe 4pm Leadfinger Botany View Hotel, Newtown free 7pm

The Lyrical Moonshine @ Hotel Steyne, Manly free 5pm The Secret City, Taking Berlin, Gypsies of Pangaea, Snip Snap Dragon Annandale Hotel $12 2pm TJ Quinton, Matt Dewar The Vanguard, Newtown $18.80 7pm Urban Guerillas, High Learys, Yours Truly, Mayday Dreamers, Rocket To Russia Union Hotel, Newtown free 3.30

JAZZ

Galapagos Duck, Deni Hines Crane Bar Restaurant, Potts Point 7pm Horse & Wood, Bobby Singh & Kim Sanders Camelot Lounge, Marrickville $20 (+ bf) 6.30pm The Mark Barnley Quartet, Turramurra High School Stage Band Lizotte’s Restaurant, Dee Why $24 1pm Peter Head Band Harbour View Hotel, The Rocks free 4pm

ACOUSTIC & FOLK Angelene Harris, Gemma Collard, Solarflare North Manly Bowling & Recreation Club free 2pm Elevation U2 Acoustic Orient Hotel, The Rocks free 4.30pm Peach Montgomery Salisbury Hotel, Stanmore free 2pm Russell Neal, Gabriella Brow Evening Star Hotel, Surry Hills free 12pm

tue

30 Apr

(9:00PM - 12:00AM)

wed

thu

01

02

May

May

(9:00PM - 12:00AM)

(9:00PM - 12:30AM)

(4:30PM - 7:30PM)

fri

03 May

(9:30PM - 1:30AM)

SUNDAY AFTERNOON

SATURDAY AFTERNOON (4:30PM - 7:30PM)

sat

04

SATURDAY NIGHT

May

(4:30PM - 7:30PM)

sun

05 May

(9:00PM - 12:30AM)

SUNDAY NIGHT

(8:30PM - 12:00AM)

BRAG :: 510 :: 29:04:13 :: 25

gig picks

up all night out all week...

TUESDAY APRIL 29

Kathryn Rollins, R.L. Jones, Thieves, Little Bighorn Brighton Up Bar, Darlinghurst $10 8pm

Frightened Rabbit (UK) The Hi-Fi Sydney, Moore Park $46.20 7.30pm The Kooks (UK), Van Hoorn Enmore Theatre sold out 7pm

Melbourne Ska Orchestra, AuSkas, Mista Savona DJ Set Metro Theatre, Sydney $33.70 7.30pm

The Lockhearts, Raindrop, Because They Can Brighton Up Bar, Darlinghurst $5 8pm

MUM: Callithump, Disco Is Dead, Galleri, MUM DJs The World Bar, Kings Cross $10$15 8pm

Yacht (USA) Oxford Art Factory, Darlinghurst $42 (+ bf) 8pm

Norma Jean (USA), Vanna (USA), Safe Hands The Hi-Fi Sydney, Moore Park $42.90 6pm all-ages

WEDNESDAY MAY 1 Eli Wolfe, Jake Nauta FBi Social @ Kings Cross Hotel $10 8pm liveArt X liveMusic: She Rex, Teenage Hand Models, Firesaint, Quantum Force, Lepers And Crooks, Beef Jerk, The Dark Hands, Rigasaurus, Matt & Kim

Tame Impala

Frightened Rabbit Chicks Who Love Guns (DJ set) Upstairs Beresford, Surry Hills free 6.30pm

THURSDAY MAY 2

Matt & Kim (USA), Jackie Onassis Oxford Art Factory, Darlinghurst $39.60 (+ bf) 8pm

At Last – The Etta James Story: Vika Bull Playhouse, Sydney Opera House, Circular Quay $59 (conc)-$89 8pm

Rocket To Memphis, The Booze Bombs (GER), The Pat Capocci Combo The Vanguard, Newtown $18.80 7.30pm

Darren Cross vs Jep & Dep Front Bar, Goodgod Small Club, Sydney free 8pm

Rufus, All The Colours, Cassian Beach Road Hotel, Bondi free 8pm Stew Party: The Spitfires, Place Of Indigo, Slumberhaze, The Waterboard Brighton Up Bar, Darlinghurst $10 (+ bf) 8pm The Temper Trap, Alpine, MT Warning Enmore Theatre sold out 6.30pm

26 :: BRAG :: 510 : 29:04:13

Friends, Box Of Fuck, Los Tones FBi Social @ Kings Cross Hotel $10 8pm

The Griswolds, Panama, Oceanics Oxford Art Factory, Darlinghurst $10 (+ bf) 8pm Jess Dunbar, Oxford & Co, UACSC, Hamish Anderson The Standard, Surry Hills $10 (+ bf) 8pm The Pieter Van Den Hoogen Band, All Of My Alien Sex

Richard Cuthbert & Band, Matt Banham, Little Little Lovers, The High Ceilings The Union Hotel, Newtown free 7pm Sons Of Rico, Rockets, Round The Corner Goodgod Small Club, Sydney $12 (+ bf) 8pm Tame Impala, Midnight Juggernauts Hordern Pavilion, Moore Park $59 8pm all-ages

SATURDAY MAY 4 Bilal (USA) The Hi-Fi Sydney, Moore Park $55.50 7.30pm Jeremy Neale, Go Violets Brighton Up Bar, Darlinghurst $10 7.30pm Kittens: Jenny Broke The Window, The Maze, Kittens DJs Spectrum, Darlinghurst $10 9pm Made In Japan, Louis London Annandale Hotel 8pm

Blind Valley Annandale Hotel $10 8pm

Marshall Okell & The Pride, Luke Escombe & The Corporation, Them Dreamers The Vanguard, Newtown $20.80 8pm

Deathstars (SWE), Graveyard Rockers, The Mercy Kills Manning Bar, University of Sydney, Camperdown $59.90 8pm

Step-Panther, Bored Nothing, Gung Ho Goodgod Small Club, Sydney $14 (+ bf) 8pm

FRIDAY MAY 3

brag beats

BRAG’s guide to dance, hip hop and club culture

dance music news club, dance and hip hop in brief... with Chris Honnery

CLASSIXX

60 seconds

Local label Future Classic will release the debut LP from LA duo Classixx, Hanging Gardens in early June. The album’s lead-off single ‘All You’re Waiting For’ features vocals from Nancy Whang (she of The Juan Maclean and LCD Soundsystem fame) and offers a harmonic appetiser for the impending album, which includes further collaborations with Active Child and Superhumanoids singer Sarah Chernoff.

Classixx remain best know for their remixes, such as their take on Phoenix’s ‘Listomania’ on Kitsune, while reworks on DFA, Modular, Throne Of Blood and Stones Throw demonstrate their wide appeal and diverse production abilities, which augurs well for their transition from remixers to songwriters. The album’s press release likens Hanging Gardens to the popminded melodies of Fleetwood Mac and Prince, as well as the much-loved ‘French touch’ house acts Alan Braxe and Fred Falke.

WITH SOFTWAR

MODULAR’S FOR FESTIVAL

Any readers planning on escaping the dreary Sydney winter for some European sunshine, this one’s for you: Modular has announced details of FOR Festival on Hvar island in Croatia, which is being pushed as “a non-traditional music festival for a discerning music lover.”

Named after the island’s ancient moniker, FOR is limited to 2000 tickets, and is slotted to run from June 21 to 23. The daily programming will take attendees from an outdoor beach party hosted by a different party crew each day to Hvar’s premier performance area, with the party continuing deep into the night. The lineup comprises the likes of 2manyDJs, James Murphy, Nicolas Jaar, Jacques Greene, Bag Raiders, Tensnake, Kate Boy, Young Dreams, Horse Meat Disco and Canyons. Head to forfestival2013.com to register for tickets, which officially go on sale on Tuesday April 30, and head to your local travel agent to source flights.

Growing Up We’re both pretty 1. fortunate to come from musical families, with our parents constantly listening to music as we were growing up. We were born in the mid 80s so we were exposed to some fairly amazing sounds – think Pet Shop Boys and Hall & Oates, just to name a couple. In some weird way this rubbed off on us and inspired us to make electronic music that’s a little different. Can you spot the influences?

2.

Inspirations We’re currently obsessed with a whole bunch of artists, especially from the UK. To name a few, guys like Bicep, Mano Le Tough, and Julio Bashmore, but there are so many more we could name! They all have a really unique sound and are always pushing out really solid records.

We also draw a lot of inspiration from what is happening right here in Australia, as there are so many great producers that are all pushing each other which is super inspiring!

3.

Your Crew Not sure if we have a crew but we definitely have a solid group of friends that share the same passion for music and club culture. In saying this, if we had a crew it would be pretty rad, I mean totally powerful!

The Music You Make We mainly make dance 4. music, in particular house kinda stuff. In saying this, we’re now starting to make some different sounding tracks, which can be refreshing after making a club track. Our latest EP is out May 6 on Club Mod Records and has a garage vibe to it so we’re hoping people dig it! Remixes are by ‘Detroit

DIGWEED RETURNS

Revered veteran DJ John Digweed will headline a Garden Party at Ivy on Saturday June 8 in support of the release of his new live Bedrock album. Digweed has long been associated with his Bedrock brand – which depending on the context refers to either his record label, his promotional brand or his studio production partnership with Nick Muir. Digweed’s club

Swindle’ and our Melbourne friend ‘Francis Inferno Orchestra’.

Jeff Mills

LIEBING AND MILLS

Technophiles take note: CLR mainman Chris Liebing and Detroit pioneer Jeff Mills will be throwing down a formidable double-bill at Chinese Laundry on Saturday June 8. Liebing has been one of techno’s most visible representatives over the years, having a huge influence on the underground milieu through his CLR imprint and his frenetic DJing schedule, while consistently reaffirming his status as one of techno’s top dogs with his own productions and remixes for the likes of Planetary Assault Systems. With minimal techno titan Mills also playing, this event promises punters plenty of boom for their buck.

Battle-hardened clubbers should consider the combination tickets that offer entry into the night time Liebing and Mills doubleheader along with the daytime Garden Party headlined by Digweed at Ivy, which are available online for $85.

RiFF RAFF

The Last Record I Bought: 5.

‘Fun With Bad Boys’ by Screamin’ Rachel on Trax Records. It’s a nasty old record, definitely only to be played at nasty o’clock!

Music, Right Here, Right Now 6.

There’s a really good scene happening in Sydney at the moment with a solid push for people wanting to go to clubs and support touring artists.

Sydney is giving birth to a bunch of its own artists, which are all collectively pushing the scene – it’s great.

What: EP Launch at the Spice Cellar When: Friday May 10 And: Believe/OneDay EP out Thursday May 6 on Club Mod Records

pedigree includes his well-documented partnership with Sasha, his mix compilations for Global Underground, Northern Exposure and Renaissance and remixes of William Orbit, Underworld and New Order. The Garden Party is a daytime affair that will run from midday till 8pm, with local selectors Kerry Wallace, Rodskeez, Raulll and Whitecat also spinning. Tickets are available through chineselaundryclub.com.au

VIVID LIVE STUDIO PARTIES

Goodgod, Astral People, Future Classic and Club Kooky have been selected to curate Vivid LIVE’s series of Studio Parties – after-hours rave-ups in the Opera House Studio every weekend of Vivid. Future Classic are bringing the deep Italo-house, future R&B and indie-dance vibes with Lapalux, Cashmere Cat, Touch Sensitive and Charles Murdoch, while Goodgod deliver hyped rapper RiFF RAFF and his right-hand man DollaBillGates, alongside pimp rap prodigy 100s, Chicago’s The DJ Rashad & DJ Manny Show and locals Client Liaison, Pelvis and burger-slinging rap merchant Levins.

The taste-making Astral People team have scored Afrika Hitech, Omar S, Jon Convex, Dro Carey and others for a night of future beats, while Seymour Butz and DJ Gemma’s queer institution Club Kooky bring Aérea Negrot, New York’s Kim Ann Foxman and deep house siren Shaun J Wright. Get your tickets for all (except Club Kooky, which has already sold out!) at vividlive.sydneyoeprahouse.com.

NEW ANTI-SMOKING CLIP FROM

xxx photo by xx

“ALL I WANTED WAS TO BE ONE OF THE BLOKES, MY ARTERIES ARE BLOCKED, I’VE HAD TOO MANY STROKES” — The Coughin’ Nails, 2013

CHECK IT OUT AT facebook.com/smokescreenmusicfestival BRAG :: 510 :: 29:04:13 :: 27

dance music news

free stuff

club, dance and hip hop in brief... with Chris Honnery

FREESTUFF@THEBRAG.COM

60 seconds WITH

M4-CEMA What you love about making music…

2.

Making music gives me a chance to get things out of my system. It allows me to push my opinions out to the world, rather than bottle them up inside.

If you could travel back in time and show one of your 3. musical heroes your stuff, who would it be and why?

I would love to have the chance to play my music to Tupac.

His music’s always been a big influence on me – the way he was outspoken with his political messages and didn’t hide behind ignorance or play games when communicating his message; I try to achieve the same thing.

1.

Your sound…

I think I have my own sound, straight up telling it how it is with no clever symbolism

or innuendo. If I had to choose genres as a point of reference I would say hip hop with rock influences.

What does it take to succeed in music in 2013?

4.

You’ve just got to keep up a high rate of quality music – keep producing and releasing music

regularly so your fan base keeps growing and stays hungry for more of your material. You can see from the mixtape game in the US that this is the future – the most exciting artists in the world are the ones releasing huge amounts of material for free, building their reputation on quality music and staying away from fake gimmicks. .Tell us about the last song you wrote.

5 “Get You Out Of My System” is the last song I wrote. It’s all about the downside of smoking and how hard it is to deal with if it gets a hold of you. It’s a pretty scary and obvious message, but it’s also a pretty insidious thing for people to inflict on themselves for no good reason.

What: Smokescreen Music Festival More: facebook.com/ smokescreenmusicfestival

REMIXED IMPALA SPLENDOUR DANCE HIGHLIGHTS

This year’s Splendour In The Grass Festival (Friday July 26 to Sunday July 28 at North Byron Parklands, Yelgun) offers a number of noteworthy dance drawcards. Future Classic favourites Flume and Flight Facilities, Warp Records’ PVT, Empire of the Sun, Architecture In Helsinki, Drapht and The Presets will all be representing Australia as part of a stacked international lineup. In addition, DJs Alison Wonderland, Yolanda Be Cool, What So Not, Xaphoon Jones, D-Cup and Bad Ezzy will spin over the course of the weekend. Tickets go on sale this Thursday May 2 at 9am.

Flume

WEEKEND VINES

Weekend Vines is taking over the lush surroundings of Seplin Estate Winery, 1.5kms outside the suddenly-famous town of Wee Waa for a camping festival from Friday May 17 to Sunday 19. The two-night party begins on the Friday afternoon following the listening party for Daft Punk’s eagerly anticipated album Random Access Memories. After that, the weekend will belong to bands and DJs such as France’s Olibusta, who has released on French label Infine records, along with Marvin Roland, Mr Pyz, Crease, Pablo J and local outfit The Lobsterettes, who all feature in the first round artist lineup. The music will run well into each night (programming for Friday night runs through till 6am, while Saturday night will continue till 4am) while revellers can expect a fully licensed bar and food stalls. Join the Weekend Vines Facebook group to receive notification as to when festival tickets are released.

BILAL

American singer-songwriter Bilal appears at The Hi Fi this Friday May 3 as part of his maiden tour of Australia, arriving twelve years after his Dr Dre and J Dilla assisted debut album First Born 28 :: BRAG :: 510 :: 29:04:13

Still riding the wave of their second album, Fremantle rock group Tame Impala have ventured far and wide to recruit contributing producers for their Mind Mischief remix EP. Swedish techno proponent Axel Willner, best known for his output on Kompakt Records as The Field, and New Jersey-based producer Matt Mondanile, who plies his trade as Ducktails, have both contributed remixes. Willner has reworked tastemakers like Battles and Thom Yorke, so his latest cross-genre foray isn’t a complete surprise, but it is indicative of how far Tame Impala’s star has risen of late. Mondanile is a member of the band Real Estate who initially considered Ducktails as a side project, but that didn’t stop him from putting out over a dozen records under the moniker in a five-year period.

Both remixes of WA’s finest are out now through

Stanton Warriors

STANTON WARRIORS CDS

Everyone’s favourite West Country breakbeat and bass peddlers Stanton Warriors are back with another gurn-worthy collection of original tunes and carefully picked and reworked selections from Afrojack, Bingo Players, Fake Blood, Plump DJs, Sidney Samon, A1Bassline and more. For a chance to get your hands on a copy of Stanton Sessions Vol. 4, simple tell us what is made by either of the companies called Stanton (from which the duo take their name).

AFRIKA BAMBAATAA TICKETS

Block Party God, creator of the term ‘hip hop’, Rock and Roll Hall of Fame member and living legend Afrika Bambaataa is coming to Australia, bringing that Bronx party vibe straight from the Boogie Down. For the chance to win a double pass to see him at Oxford Art Factory on Thursday May 16, simply tell us, according to his 1982 electro-funk classic, what Planet does Bam live on?

Modular and well worth a listen, whether your preference is for electronica or psychedelic rock.

STRANGE SIGNALS FT. RROSE

The enigmatic and Marcel Duchamp-referencing techno producer Rrose will headline Strange Signals with a live set at Bar Underground, The Oxford Hotel on Friday May 10. The American producer launched his own experimental techno label Eaux last year and has recently released EPs such as Wedge of Chastity to an enthusiastic following. The support DJ lineup is headed by Jordan Peters, co-founder of the Anomaly party brand who has been steadily building his reputation around Sydney’s party scene over the past year. There’s also the tantalising prospect of a mystery guest performing live for those who need further incentive to get their dancing shoes on.

Second. Bilal has collaborated with some of the heavy hitters of the music milieu, including Jay-Z, The Game, Robert Glasper, Beyonce and Erykah Badu, honing his signature soulful beats along the way. Bilal’s tour follows the release of his third album A Love Surreal, which dropped earlier this year and was lauded in some quarters as “mandatory headphone listening.”

HAHA FT. AUNTIE FLO

Glaswegian DJ/Producer Brian d’Souza, who produces as Auntie Flo, will headline the next HAHA bash on Friday May 24 at Goodgod Small Club. Auntie Flo broke through with his debut EP Goan Highlife, which was supported by the likes of Ricardo Villalobos and the Australia-bound Tensnake. His next release, single ‘Oh My Days’ in 2012 was rinsed by tastemakers such as Jackmaster and Joy Orbison and remixed by Pearson Sound. Auntie Flo has since released on the Kompakt label, and has upcoming EPs for Innervisions, Matias Aguayo’s Comeme, and Huntleys & Palmers in the pipeline. As a DJ, dancers can expect Auntie Flo to play everything from Chicago house, Detroit techno and disco to Cumbia, Kwaito and Afrobeat. HAHA residents D&D (Dean Dixon & Dave Fernandes) will be peddling beats in support.

Afrika Bambaataa

AFRIKA BAMBAATAA

A bone fide pioneer and defining member of the first generation of hip hop artists, the genre-bender Afrika Bambaataa will headline Oxford Art Factory on Thursday May 16.

The founder of Zulu Nation, a collective of socially and politically charged emcees, DJs, artists and break dancers, Bambaataa is best known for his classic cut ‘Planet Rock,’ which samples the Australia-bound Kraftwerk’s ‘Trans-Europe Express’. Bambaataa has co-produced and performed with the likes of James Brown, George Clinton, UB40, Fort Knox Five, Leftfield, Jungle Brothers and A Tribe Called Quest among many others over the course of his long career. $40 presale tickets are available online.

ShockOne London Electricity By Pepper Scott

N

o one could be more relieved than Perth-born/UK-based DJ and producer ShockOne (Karl Thomas) is right now.

No one could be more delighted and surprised either, given that his debut album Universus not only came together after three long years in the making, but also managed to spawn two chart-topping singles with Crucify Me and Chaos Theory.

“In retrospect, really, the reason it took me three years to finish it is because when I started the album I didn’t really consider myself to be a good enough producer to attempt something like this,” Thomas says candidly.

“I wouldn’t settle for anything less than what would make me totally proud of myself. If I was going to release something, I wanted it to have some kind of significant impact on the world.

Altogether, I wrote something like 50 songs and I could have easily put out an album a year ago, but I didn’t feel that every single one of those tracks was something I would be completely proud of. I guess I just wanted to take my time and do the best job I could.”

And that he did. While Universus was released on April 28, a number of the album’s tracks have already hijacked the DnB and dubstep charts around the world. The first single, ‘Crucify Me’, hit number one on Beatport’s Drum & Bass Chart, number one on Drum & Bass Arena, and number one simultaneously for both the DnB and dubstep mixes on their respective Trackitdown charts (the first song to ever do so).

Additionally, the ‘Relapse’ remix reached the second spot on the Beatport charts, its video gaining over one million views on YouTube, while ‘Chaos Theory’ ranked number one on iTunes’ Dance Chart, with close to half a million views on YouTube. Thomas’ next single ‘Lazerbeam’ is destined for big things – it’s already getting love from Zane Lowe on BBC Radio One as well as here at home on triple j.

“I couldn’t bring myself to listen to it for about a

month after I finished it,” Thomas says. “At the best of times I am not very good at listening to my own music; I am my own worst critic to the point of being completely dysfunctional. In my entire career, I’ve never had a moment where I’ve written a song and gone, ‘Yep, this is it, I’ve got a number one on my hands’. Working on this album, one day I’d be like, ‘This could be alright’, then the next day I’d be like, ‘This is completely shit, I’m gonna start again’.

“I guess I had a weird moment where I just thought, ‘Okay, it’s been a while, I guess I’ll listen back to it...’ And it sounded different as I sat there listening to it with a friend and with a completely fresh mind and ears. At one point I actually thought, ‘Oh my god, this sounds pretty good...’ There were even some moments where the hairs on the back of my neck stood up! It’s unbelievable that I still have affection for it three years later. It’s unexpected. It’s refreshing.”

Thomas’s initial reaction once Universus was done and dusted was that he never wanted to undertake such a process again. Once the “final nail was in the coffin”, he was over the entire ordeal. But that kind of thinking didn’t last for very long.

“When I first finished it, all I knew was that I didn’t want to do this again for a long, long time!” he laughs. “A lot of the time while I worked on it, I felt like it would just never end.

I finished writing it back in January so at this stage I’m already thinking about what I want to do next and how to follow it up... I’ve got this big thing out of the way so now I’m really excited about thinking how I can push it even further next time. There is no way I’m going to rest on my laurels and, to tell you the truth, I’m already sketching new stuff.”

At times, Thomas claims making an album was a scary process simply because of people’s short attention spans. It could have been a nightmare, as the producer puts it, but instead it luckily turned out to be a dream

“My music it’s not about trends. I write songs, regardless of their genre. If it’s a good song, it doesn’t matter whether it’s dubstep or DnB – as long as it stands the test of time” come true.

“The electronic scene moves so fast that you just can’t predict where dance is going or where it’s going be in six months, let alone a whole year. All the time, you see new genres pop up, completely explode, and then just disappear – and then nobody wants to even touch it because it’s just not cool anymore. I did consider that, obviously, you have to, but I realised pretty much straight away that with my music it’s not about trends. I write songs, regardless of their genre. If it’s a good song, it doesn’t matter whether it’s dubstep or DnB – as long as it stands the test of time, that’s all that matters. That was the angle from which I approached this album. I had to have a good bunch of songs to work with, first and foremost, and the rest would all fall into place.”

What: Universus out now through OneLove/ Viper Recordings Where: Oxford Art Factory When: Friday May 3

Opiuo Funk ‘n’ Bass By Jo Campbell

O

scar Davey-Wraight is not your run-of-themill beat maker. Specialising in funkadelic melodica and glitch hop, this New Zealand-born, Melbourne-based producer is an old-fashioned artist, as his recent Butternut Slap EP series attests.

Davey-Wraight’s intricate and diverse production could be described as being a funky trip through The Matrix on smack, but there’s one element that’s ever-present, and that’s ‘the groove’.

His 2008 remix of Benny Tones’ ‘Fire Fly’ was his first experimentation with downtempo grooves, where he brought the BPMs down to 93 to create a chilled out vibe.

“That was the first time I’d slowed down my sound,” he explains. “I’d been more into making break beats and electro, four/four, a bit of DnB. But yeah, that’s the first time I experimented with groove. Emotion is also important to my work, but I think the groove for me is more resonating and if there’s no groove, it doesn’t work.”

The Butternut Slap series, a follow up to his critically acclaimed Slurp And Giggle LP of 2010, has been blitzing it on Beatport; as a result, Opiuo recently took out five categories in the UK Glitch Hop Awards. The series was released as three EPs over the last year; a dope remix version featuring seven producers, including Infected Mushroom, just dropped.

“At the time I was experimenting a lot, so I knew my sound was evolving. I was also going

“Emotion is also important to my work, but I think the groove for me is more resonating and if there’s no groove, it doesn’t work.”

through quite a traumatic time with one of my ears and having big operations just before that series,” Davey-Wraight says.

Disney’s Tron Uprising soundtrack, a DnB remix for NZ duo The Upbeats and a rerub of Infected Mushroom’s ‘U R So Fucked’.

“I knew I wanted to change things up and experiment, so if I’d decided to do an album, it would have taken me a year to write and during that time my sound would have changed a lot.

The EPs have given me the chance to do what I want.”

“At the moment, I’m getting asked to do remixes constantly, but I’m working on a new album and I think it’s really important to not become known as a remix producer and to keep some balance.

Being almost deaf in his left ear hasn’t affected the quality of his output, with artists from Daft Punk to Kimbra seeking out Davey-Wraight for his remix skills, not to mention his recent re-workings of a cinematic glitch hop track for

“People really like to hear your take on things but I think at the moment, there’s a lot of people just working on pre-existing songs and not putting much thought into it and trying to hype themselves up that way but there’s no real quality behind what they’re doing. I love it when people do a really good

remix and then put out an album that’s also really awesome.”

For his current East Coast tour, Davey-Wraight has transformed his already semi-live solo show into a six-piece outfit, blending the organic with the digital to bring his squelchy sound to life.

“I want it to have a really live feel,” he says. “It’s the exact same music with parts being played on trumpet or sax or on a drum, but it has a much more organic feel and has more raw energy. It becomes a bit more human.”

Where: The Hi Fi When: Friday May 10

BRAG :: 510 :: 29:04:13 :: 29

club guide send your listings to : clubguide@thebrag.com

club pick of the week

SATURDAY MAY 4

Nina Kraviz

Red Bull HQ, Alexandria

Spice Black

Nina Kraviz (RUS) $150 (+ bf) 4pm MONDAY APRIL 29 Hordern Pavilion, Moore Park Flume, Chet Faker sold out 7.30pm all-ages Scruffy Murphy’s, Haymarket Mother Of A Monday DJ Smokin’ Joe free 7pm The World Bar, Kings Cross SWIM Team DJs free 8.30pm

TUESDAY APRIL 30 Establishment, Sydney Rumba Motel Salsa DJ Willie Sabor free 8pm Hordern Pavilion, Moore Park Flume, Chet Faker sold out 7.30pm all-ages Scruffy Murphy’s, Haymarket I Love Goon Resident DJs free 7pm Trademark Hotel, Kings Cross Coyote Tuesday Resident DJs 9pm The World Bar, Kings Cross Chu Hands Down, Dollar Bear & Rees Hellmers, Andy & Mike free 7pm 30 :: BRAG :: 510 :: 29:04:13

WEDNESDAY MAY 1 Ivy Changeroom, Sydney Salsa Resident DJs free 8pm Kit & Kaboodle, Kings Cross KIT Wednesdays Resident DJs 10pm The Lewisham Hotel Garbage 90s Night Garbage DJs free 7pm Whaat Club, Potts Point Whip It Wednesdays Sherlock Bones, Camo, Peeping Tom free 9pm The World Bar, Kings Cross The Wall Wilkinson (UK), E-Cats, Bass Riot, Jack Bailey, Hatch, Zwelli, Mitch Lowe, Daniel Farley, Taylor Wolf $10 9pm

THURSDAY MAY 2 The Cool Room, The Australian Brewery, Rouse Hill Australia’s Biggest Club Model Comp – Heat 4 Troy T, DJ Big Will free (early bird) 9.30pm Exchange Hotel, Darlinghurst Hot Damn Hot Damn DJs $15-$20 8pm

Ivy Pool Club, Sydney Pool Club Thursdays Resident DJ free 5pm Kit & Kaboodle, Kings Cross Resident DJs 10pm Sapphire Lounge, Kings Cross Rewind Resident DJs 8pm Trademark Hotel, Kings Cross Take Over Thursday Resident DJs $10 9pm Whaat Club, Potts Point Chakra Robust, Brizz free 9.30pm The World Bar, Kings Cross Propaganda DJ Moody (UK), Urby, Gillex free (student)-$5 8pm

FRIDAY MAY 3 Beach Road Hotel, Bondi Chasm, Skryptcha, Rachel Berry free 8pm Candys Apartment, Kings Cross Something Wicked Robust, Prolifix, Audio Trash, Harper, Oh Dear Aydos free $10-$15 8pm Chinese Laundry, Sydney Flinch (USA), Blackmale, Ra Bazaar, Joe Barrs, Daigo, Turnt Up, Zonked $15-$25 10pm Gay Bar, Darlinghurst

DJ Alex Taylor free 5pm Goodgod Front Bar, Sydney Yo Grito! Yo Grito! DJs free 9pm Goodgod Small Club, Sydney True Vibenation, Hypercolour, Elemont, Cornerstore Superheroes, Meare, DJ Migz $15 (+ bf) 8pm Home Nightclub, Darling Harbour The Guestlist Peewee Ferris 9pm Jacksons On George, Sydney $5 @ 5 On Fridays Resident DJs free 5pm Kit & Kaboodle, Kings Cross Fridays Resident DJs 10pm Marquee, The Star, Pyrmont Mashup Fridays DJ Power $20 10pm Oatley Hotel We Luv Oatley Hotel Fridays Resident DJ free 8pm Omega Lounge, City Tattersalls Club, Sydney Unwind Fridays DJ Greg Summerfield free 5.30pm One22, Sydney Digital Therapy 7 Skies, BigJ, Pablo Anon, T-Bird, Adam Byrne, Zac Slade $25 9pm Oxford Art Factory, Darlinghurst ShockOne, Nick Thayer, Phetsa, Redial, MC Xsessiv $25 (+ bf) 9pm Phoenix Bar, Darlinghurst Pirates Of The Coven Go Freek, Coven DJs 10pm Q Bar, Darlinghurst Teen Spirit Teen Spirit DJs $10 9pm Secret Location, Sydney Off The Block Warehouse Party JC, Hodgie, Dale Stephen, Kool Ade, Klevaone & Jnr, Previous Experts, Bondi House DJs, MC Antic $25 9pm The Sly Fox, Enmore Pixel DJs free 9pm Spectrum, Darlinghurst Eight By 8ight B (UK), Mirella’s Inferno, Men64, Clulow Forester, Unicorn DJs, Canecutter $12-$15 7pm Trademark Hotel, Kings Cross TGIF Resident DJs 10pm Whaat Club, Potts Point Think Fridays Discobusy, Jaimie Lyn $10-$15 8pm The World Bar, Kings Cross MUM Callithump, Disco Is Dead, Galleri, MUM DJs $10-$15 8pm

SATURDAY MAY 4

SUNDAY JUNE 24

Beach Road Hotel, Bondi The Aston Shuffle, Bernie Dingo, Isbjorn free 8pm Brighton Up Bar, Darlinghurst Well Done Well Done DJs $10 11.30pm Burdekin Hotel, Darlinghurst La Famiglia Launch Party Franchi Bros, Gemma Van D, Simon Brayford, LeOCh, Shepz, Dave Stuart free (early bird)-$15 10pm Candys Apartment, Kings Cross Disco Disco Sherlock Bones, Stalker, Front To Back $20 8pm Chinese Laundry, Sydney Max Cooper (UK), Kid Kenobi, A-Tonez, Jace Disgrace, Fingers, King Lee, Damien Osbourne, Deckhead, Tim Galvin $15$25 9pm Club 77, Darlinghurst Starfuckers – May The Fourth Be With You Starfuckers DJs 10pm The Cool Room, The

True Vibenation Australian Brewery, Rouse Hill Saturday Party Night DJ Koffee free (early bird) 8pm FBi Social @ Kings Cross Hotel Hands Up! Clockwerk free 11.30pm Gay Bar, Darlinghurst DJ Kitty Glitter free 5pm Goldfish, Kings Cross Balearica Matt Caseli (Ibiza), Johnny Gleeson, Liam Sampras, The Doctor, Tom Kelly 9pm Goodgod Small Club, Sydney Love Bombs Present No Strings Yelo Magic, Resort Lyfe, Mike Who, First Touch, Jian Hans $10 11pm Holland St. Studios, Sydney A Night With… Andrew Wowk, Jay Smalls $15 10pm Home Nightclub, Darling Harbour Homemade Saturdays Resident DJs 9pm Ivy, Sydney Pacha The Potbelleez, Minx, John Glover, Baby Gee, Matt Nugent, Fingers, Devola, Pat Ward, Kato, Pablo Calamari, Adam Bozzetto, Backhanders, Kid Crookes, Stu Turner, Polina, Gmod $40 6.30pm Jacksons On George, Sydney Resident DJs free 9pm Kit & Kaboodle, Kings Cross Kitty Kitty Bang Bang Resident DJs 10pm Marquee, The Star, Pyrmont DJ Helena $30 9pm Phoenix Bar, Darlinghurst Halfway Crooks Levins, Franco, Elston $10 10pm Red Bull HQ, Alexandria Spice Black Nina Kraviz (RUS) $150 (+ bf) 4pm The Red Rattler, Marrickville Hunter Gatherer Label Launch Gardland, Cassius Select, Dave Fernandes, James Walsh, Jordan Peters, Gareth Psaltis $15 9pm Sapphire Lounge, Kings Cross The Suite Resident DJs 8pm Soho, Potts Point Usual Suspects DJs 9pm

The Spice Cellar, Sydney Official Spice Black After Party Robbie Lowe, Nic Scali, Morgan, Cassette $25 10pm The Watershed Hotel, Darling Harbour Skybar Saturdays Resident DJ $20 9.30pm Whaat Club, Potts Point After Dark Camo, Vespa, Sampy $10-$15 8pm The World Bar, Kings Cross Cakes Spenda C, Metro, Tomderson, Mitch Lowe, Hannah Gibbs, Thomas Lisse, Mike Hyper, Goodfella, Nanna Does Smack, Those III, Snillum, Solo, Skywalker $15-$20 9pm

SUNDAY MAY 5 Abercrombie Hotel, Broadway S.A.S.H Sundays – Rabbit Taxi, Lee M Kelsall, RifRaf, Jaded, Gerrit Oliver, Matt Weir, Kerry Wallace $10 2pm The Beresford Hotel, Surry Hills Beresford Sundays Resident DJs free 3pm Gay Bar, Darlinghurst Resident DJ free 3pm Kit & Kaboodle, Kings Cross Easy Sundays Resident DJs free 10pm Oatley Hotel Sunday Sessions DJ Tone free 7pm Sapphire Lounge, Kings Cross Sapphire Sundays Resident DJs 8pm Secret Disco Oasis, Sydney Spirit Of House Blockparty Phil Toke, James Scott, Cam Brown, Michael Zac, Eadie Ramia, Soul Of Sydney DJs $5-$15 1pm The Spice Cellar, Sydney Spice After Hours Nic Scali $20 4am The World Bar, Kings Cross Soup Kitchen Frames, Revilo, Kade Drury, Ollie, Soup Kitchen DJs free 7pm ShockOne

Deep Impressions

club picks

Underground Dance And Electronica with Chris Honnery

up all night out all week...

DJ Helena

Deepchild

R

TUESDAY APRIL 30 Hordern Pavilion, Moore Park Flume, Chet Faker sold out 7.30pm allages

WEDNESDAY MAY 1 The World Bar, Kings Cross The Wall Wilkinson (UK), E-Cats, Bass Riot, Jack Bailey, Hatch, Zwelli, Mitch Lowe, Daniel Farley, Taylor Wolf $10 9pm

FRIDAY MAY 3 Beach Road Hotel, Bondi Chasm, Skryptcha, Rachel Berry free 8pm Chinese Laundry, Sydney Flinch (USA), Blackmale, Ra Bazaar, Joe Barrs, Daigo, Turnt Up, Zonked $15-$25 10pm Goodgod Small Club, Sydney True Vibenation, Hypercolour, Elemont, Cornerstore Superheroes, Meare, DJ Migz $15 (+ bf) 8pm

Burdekin Hotel, Darlinghurst La Famiglia Launch Party Franchi Bros, Gemma Van D, Simon Brayford, LeOCh, Shepz, Dave Stuart free (early bird) $15 10pm Chinese Laundry, Sydney Max Cooper (UK), Kid Kenobi, A-Tonez, Jace Disgrace, Fingers, King Lee, Damien Osbourne, Deckhead, Tim Galvin $15-$25 9pm Goldfish, Kings Cross Balearica Matt Caseli (Ibiza), Johnny Gleeson, Liam Sampras, The Doctor, Tom Kelly 9pm Goodgod Small Club, Sydney Love Bombs Present No Strings Yelo Magic, Resort Lyfe, Mike Who, First Touch, Jian Hans $10 11pm Marquee, The Star, Pyrmont DJ Helena $30 9pm Phoenix Bar, Darlinghurst Halfway Crooks Levins, Franco, Elston $10 10pm

Oxford Art Factory, Darlinghurst ShockOne, Nick Thayer, Phetsa, Redial, MC Xsessiv $25 (+ bf) 9pm

The Red Rattler, Marrickville Hunter Gatherer Label Launch Gardland, Cassius Select, Dave Fernandes, James Walsh, Jordan Peters, Gareth Psaltis $15 9pm

SATURDAY MAY 4

SUNDAY MAY 5

Beach Road Hotel, Bondi The Aston Shuffle, Bernie Dingo, Isbjorn free 8pm

Abercrombie Hotel, Broadway S.A.S.H Sundays – Rabbit Taxi, Lee M Kelsall, RifRaf, Jaded, Gerrit Oliver, Matt Weir, Kerry Wallace $10 2pm The Ashton Shuffle

ick Bull, AKA Deepchild, one of Sydney’s most respected dance music exports, will return to Australia for a series of shows in July, including Mad Racket on Saturday July 6. Deepchild’s homecoming follows the release of his album Neukölln Burning in November of last year, his first LP in five years. Neukölln Burning was the first album Bull released since moving from Sydney to Berlin, where he has made himself a regular guest at exalted nightclubs such as Berghain.

Neukölln Burning was the product of an extremely personal backstory, as Bull used the recording process as a cathartic experience while he weaned himself off the anti-depression medication he had been taking since he was a child. The resulting album, a moody slow-burning release, cemented Bull’s standing at the forefront of the techno realm and attracted remixes from the likes of Deadbeat. Bull will be showcasing his new live show when he returns to Australia, and will be playing several gigs in the weeks following his spot at Mad Racket, so you’ll have several opportunities to catch him doing his thing.

Swedish duo Minilogue have just – I’m talking only last week – released a new album, Blomma, an eight-track double CD on Cocoon Records, the follow up to their excellent 2008 LP Animals, which was reworked by Dubfire and Luciano among others. Between the albums, Minilogue have dropped a string of EPs on labels like Mule, Wagon Repair and Traum Schallplatten, while releasing the jazzinfused album Bring Out The Imps under the alias IMPS. Blomma is comprised of lengthy compositions that range from 10 to a whopping 45 minutes long of minimal grooves and subtle layers of melody, with the second CD venturing into more ambient terrain. For anyone with a penchant for immersive minimal soundscapes with an improvisational flow, Blomma is compulsory listening.

Details have been revealed of the forthcoming Balance 023 compilation mixed by Matt Edwards, AKA Radio Slave. As the man behind the Rekids label, Edwards has a diverse discography that comprises his projects as Quiet Village and The Machine (which features on the Balance mix) in addition to classic remixes of UNKLE’s ‘Burn My Shadow’, Trentemøller‘s ‘Moan’ and the melancholic stonker that is Mlle Caro and Franck Garcia’s ‘Dead Souls’. Balance 023 offers a contrast to the stripped-back simplicity of Edwards’ Fabric 48 mix, blending 33 tracks across two CDs, collating material from a broad range of artists, including Delano Smith, Nina Kraviz,

LOOKING DEEPER SATURDAY MAY 4 Nina Kraviz The Grounds Alexandria

SATURDAY MAY 11 Vakula Marrickville Bowling Club

SATURDAY MAY 18 Radio Slave Chinese Laundry

FRIDAY MAY 24 HAHA ft Auntie Flo Goodgod Small Club Rhadoo, Theo Parrish and Jaydee. “I hear so many underground DJs who think they’re so cool but they don’t even scratch the surface, and it makes me crazy as these people make so much money out of the scene but don’t invest anything back,” Edwards said of his mix.

“With the Balance CD I wanted to bring something different to the mixing desk.”

And if Edwards’ remarks in pre-release interviews are any indicator, he’s happy with the results of Balance 023. “As with all mixes, with the limitations in time I wanted to take the listener through my record collection. I just wanted to include some of my classics, some unreleased secret weapons…it’s a mix that I’m sure would entertain my friends at an after party.” Edwards will be putting his words into practice and entertaining Sydney partygoers at Chinese Laundry on Saturday May 18 at the launch party of Balance 023, with the mix to hit shelves the following week.

Colin de la Plante, AKA The Mole, will release a new album, Caregiver, in June.

The Mole’s breakthrough occurred back in the sun-kissed spring of ’08, when his debut album, As High As the Sky, appeared. Since then, he has toured with Mathew Jonson’s avant-garde acid techno troupe Cobblestone Jazz, and released records across a plethora of different labels, including Prins Thomas’ Internasjonal imprint, Perlon and Ostgut Ton. Caregiver will be released through Maybe Tomorrow, the label de la Plante runs with Kompakt’s Jon Berry, and is described in its press release as “a psychedelic caravan roaming a disco laced cosmos that seeks to go beyond any specific niche or sound”.

Speaks for itself, really!

Deep Impressions: electronica manifesto and occasional club brand. Contact through deep.impressions@yahoo.com

NEW ANTI-SMOKING CLIP FROM

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SPRING BREAKERS! FILM TIX! WIN!

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ho can pull off gold dental prosthetics and still look hot? The genetically privileged James Franco can. In Spring Breakers he adopts the character of Alien and lures youngsters Faith (ex Disney darling Selena Gomez) and Candy (Vanessa Hudgens) into his underworld abyss of drugs, guns, sex and violence. After robbing a restaurant to fund their Spring break holiday, Faith and Candy owe Alien for bailing them outta jail and there’s some hella dirty work to be done for compensation. Yeah, this ain’t really your classic girls gone wild rom com – more like a feral ride on the wild side where all innocence is lost.

WIN!

Spring Breakers lands in cinemas on May 9 and we have ten in-season double passes to give away. To win one, email us at freestuff@thebrag. com with your postal address and tell us who directed the film. xxx

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HERO PRESENTS A MUSE RADAR PRODUCTION IN ASSOCIATION WITH POP FILMS MJZ ICONOCLAST O’SALVATION DIVISION RABBIT BANDINI A HARMONY KORINE FILM JAMES FRANCO VANESSA HUDGENS SELENA GOMEZ ASHLEY BENSON RACHEL KORINE GUCCI MANE CASTING BY LARAY MAYFIELD CO-PRODUCERS SUSAN KIRR MIKEWEBER MUSIC SUPERVISOR RANDALL POSTER COSTUME DESIGNER HEIDI BIVENS PRODUCTION DESIGNER ELLIOTT HOSTETTER EDITOR DOUGLAS CRISE ORIGINAL SCORE BY CLIFF MARTINEZ & SKRILLEX DIRECTOR OF PHOTOGRAPHY BENOÎT DEBIE EXECUTIVE PRODUCERS FERNANDO SULICHIN TED FIELD JANE HOLZER MEGAN ELLISON STELLA SCHNABEL AGNÈS B. VINCE JOLIVETTE MILES LEVY AEYSHAWALSH VIKRAM CHATWAL WICKSWALKER CHRIS CONTOGOURIS PRODUCERS CHRIS HANLEY JORDAN GERTNER DAVID ZANDER CHARLES-MARIEANTHONIOZ WRITTEN AND DIRECTED BY HARMONY KORINE © 2012 Spring Breakers, LLC. All Rights Reserved. © 2013 Layout & Design Icon Film Distribution.

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Album featuring new score by Skrillex and Cliff Martinez available on Big Beat Records/Atlantic Records/Warner Music.

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