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rock music news welcome to the frontline: what’s goin’ on around town...with Therese Watson, Olivia Kadir, Mina Kitsos

speed date WITH

GREG RIETWYK FROM TULLY ON TULLY What Do You Look For In A Band?

We look for talent, songwriting ability and 1. style in other bands. We especially love when a band is slightly unusual or has an interesting stage presence. And us? We are Tully On Tully, an indie-pop band from Melbourne. We sound like five mates doing what they love, experimenting with different sonic sound scapes, and creating unique and inspiring music together.

When we’re not making music we like watching local bands, going to the drive-ins, travelling the world and getting loose with mates.

Keeping Busy We have been working hard preparing 2. for the launch of our debut EP, Weightless. We will be heading up the east coast of Australia in support of the EP, with shows in Adelaide, Canberra, Sydney, Brisbane, Byron Bay, and finally a hometown show in Melbourne. We have also been writing and demoing new songs that we hope to debut while we’re on the road. Earlier this year we played some shows in South East Asia and we were invited to play Wanderland Festival in Manila, which was awesome.

Best Gig Ever The best gig we have ever played was at 3.

Wanderland in Manila, the Philippines. It was such a surreal feeling to be playing to such a

large and attentive crowd, and to be playing alongside The Temper Trap, Neon Trees and Nada Surf. It was the first year for the nowannual Wanderland Festival, and the vibe on the day was really amazing.

Current Playlist I have been listening to the new Bonobo 4. album, The North Borders – the production is absolutely pristine and really inspiring, not to mention the incredible songwriting.

In a totally different vein, I have also been listening to the new Big Scary album Not Art. I’m in awe of the amount of talented bands that are in Melbourne at the moment.

I recently saw Purity Ring at Meredith Music Festival, the sound and the light show were something that must be experienced. Mindblowing stuff!

Your Ultimate Rider Every item from the 12 days of Christmas.

5.

Ten bottles of Hendrick’s Gin. Two bottles of Hennessy VSOP. Louis CK doing stand-up in the dressing room.

Where: Brighton Up Bar When: Saturday August 17 And: Weightless out Friday August 16

Geoffrey Gurrumul Yunupingu

EDITOR: Chris Martin chris@thebrag.com 02 9212 4322 ARTS EDITOR: Lisa Omagari lisa@thebrag.com 02 9212 4322 STAFF WRITERS: Benjamin Cooper, Alasdair Duncan, Jody Macgregor, Krissi Weiss NEWS: Chris Honnery, Mina Kitsos, Therese Watson, Olivia Kadir ART DIRECTOR: Sarah Bryant GRAPHIC DESIGN: Alan Parry SENIOR PHOTOGRAPHER: Tim Levy SNAP PHOTOGRAPHERS: Capital H AKA Henry Leung, Katrina Clarke, Ashley Mar, David Rouse ADVERTISING: Kylie Finlay - 0412 008 363 / (02) 9212 4322 kylie@thebrag.com ADVERTISING: Les White - 0405 581 125 / (02) 9212 4322 les@thebrag.com PUBLISHER: Rob Furst GENERAL MANAGER, FURST MEDIA: Patrick Carr patrick@furstmedia.com.au, (03) 9428 3600, 0402 821 122 DIGITAL DIRECTOR/ADVERTISING: Kris Furst kris@furstmedia.com.au (03) 9428 3600

GURRUMUL TO BIGSOUND

GIG & CLUB GUIDE CO-ORDINATOR: Blake Gallagher, Charli Hutchison, Mina Kitsos, Therese Watson - gigguide@thebrag.com (rock) clubguide@thebrag.com (dance, hip hop & parties) AWESOME INTERNS: Mina Kitsos, Rachel Eddie, Therese Watson, Charli Hutchison, Olivia Kadir REGULAR CONTRIBUTORS: Nat Amat, Shannon Connellan, Marissa Demetriou, Christie Eliezer, Chris Honnery, Lachlan Kanoniuk, Jody Macgregor, Alicia Malone, Hugh Robertson, Jonno Seidler, Rach Seneviratne, Simon Topper, Rick Warner, Krissi Weiss, David Wild Please send mail NOT ACCOUNTS direct to this NEW address 100 Albion Street, Surry Hills NSW 2010 ph - (02) 9212 4322 fax - (02) 9319 2227

Paramore

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GROUND CONTROL TO MAJOR TOM

PARAMORE

American alternative rockers Paramore are hitting our shores early next year and bringing their energetic and electric live show with them. After their wild appearance at Soundwave the band released their fourth studio album Paramore in April. It’s the first without the band’s co-founding brothers Josh and Zac Farro. But they’re ripe and ready to bring on the new era. They are set to take on the massive Allphones Arena on Saturday January 11.

Joining the pop punk party will be You Me At Six and Twenty One Pilots. Tickets on sale Thursday August 22 at 9am.

AU REVIEW BIRTHDAY BASH

Five years on, the AU review have established themselves as leading tastemakers on the local scene. If that’s not worth a party, nothing is. So they’re throwing one at Oxford Art Factory on Thursday August 22 featuring Cogel, Fanny Lumsden, Maples, Richard Cuthbert and more, with further announcements to come.

Any volunteers to jump out of the giant novelty birthday cake on the night? We pick Cuthbert.

music from all angles. A saxophone will come from one corner while the lead guitar rages from another. Sounds like hard work… the tour stops in at the Metro Theatre on Thursday October 3.

STEVEN WILSON

Prog-rocker and metal man Steven Wilson is headed down to Oz. The frontman and founder of British progressive metal band Porcupine Tree, Wilson is touring his latest solo album The Raven That Refused To Sing (And Other Stories). But this won’t be your usual, run-of-themill album launch – he’ll be delivering the show through a four-channel surround sound system.

Instruments will be isolated to fill the room with

Major Tom & The Atoms are just about ready to combust. They think. ‘Confusion’ is the first single from their debut album Heroes, Villains, Boom Boom Boom!, due for release this October. Frontman Tom Hartney (formerly of Little Red fame) heads his five Atoms as they belt out hearty and foot-stomping rhythm and blues with a live show to boot. Catch them when they launch ‘Confusion’ at The Backroom on Friday September 6.

PSYCH FEST

Psychedelia lives on. Bad Vibrations have hooked up with the Tokyo Psych Fest to put together the inaugural Sydney Psych Fest, set down for Petersham Bowling Club on Friday September 13 and Saturday September 14. Heading the bill are Kikagaku Moyo, Dreamtime, Ride Into The Sun and Dead China Doll.

Gurrumul by Adrian Cook

Already boasting a program of over 80 live artists including Megan Washington, The John Steel Singers, The Trouble With Templeton, Stonefield and Xavier Rudd, industry showcase BIGSOUND has announced Gurrumul as a keynote speaker at the September event. He’ll join Amanda Palmer, Billy Bragg, Regurgitator and Nick Cave (beamed in via satellite like the omnipotent overlord he is) at the lectern to share a few pearls of his immense wisdom. The Fortitude Valley conference takes place Tuesday September 10 until Friday September 13.

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rock music news

free stuff

welcome to the frontline: what’s goin’ on around town...with Therese Watson, Olivia Kadir, Mina Kitsos

five things WITH

Growing Up My earliest music memory 1. is my Mama taking me to a kids’ percussion group at the Conservatorium of Music… I would have been about four at the time. When we’d get home we would play percussion on the pots and pans in the kitchen to the radio. There was also a lot of

THE MELODIES

SWEETIE OF BLOODS

classical music around the house growing up and I learnt violin from when I was four or five years old.

There was also lots of Fleetwood Mac, Dire Straits, Nat King Cole and Traveling Wilburys too.

There was always a Fleetwood Mac CD around the house… they’ve been there since the beginning. I can’t really remember a time without them.

I used to go and see the Australian Chamber Orchestra and Sydney Symphony Orchestra at the Sunday matinees with my Mama. She started taking me when I was really small, about five. I used to fall asleep to the classical music, but as I got a little older I started to enjoy it more.

Richard Tognetti is an amazing violinist and conductor – but Aiko Goto was always my favourite!

release, Golden Fang, was recorded in a warehouse in Marrickville and a house up in the Hunter Valley. We worked with producer Liam Judson (Cloud Control/The Laurels) and he’s got this amazing recording set-up that he packs into the boot of his car and can set up anywhere. We spent a weekend up in the Hunter getting a bit boozy and recorded two tracks.

When we got back to Sydney, we knuckled down and spent an intense 14 hours in a rented warehouse space recording four tracks back to back.

3.

5. Music, Right Here, Right Now I think Sydney has a brilliant scene – crazy diverse with the likes of Movement, Palms, Rainbow Chan, Fishing, Gang of Youths, Naughty Rappers Collective. Plus so many amazing people who support those local bands, put on great nights, run ace live music venues and generally foster the music scene.

Your Band I met MC through a brilliant case of mistaken identity. She was already in a band with Dirk and when their bass player left I ended up joining them. I didn’t actually know how to play bass back then – but they kept me around and I played violin instead.

When that band wrapped up few years ago we decided we wanted to keep playing together, so the three of us started Bloods. The three of us are family now.

Inspirations Music You Make Stevie Nicks – I could listen 2.

The EP we’re about to 4. The to her sing and tell stories all day.

CRAWFORDS FOR THE WIN

Last weekend seventeen hopeful bands were flown to Sydney from across Australia and New Zealand to compete in the Australasian Final of the Global Battle of the Bands. The pick of the bunch were Newcastle alt-rockers the Crawford Brothers, who’ve taken out the 2013 title and will be flown to Bangkok in December.

They’ll battle against winning bands from over 30 countries and try their luck at the prize of US$100,000. Go Crawford Brothers, go! Second place was given to Adelaide’s Pistenbroke and third place to Newcastle group New Black Shades.

email: freestuff@thebrag.com

What: Golden Fang out Friday August 16 through Shock Where: Brighton Up Bar When: Friday August 16

STARTING TO SHINE

Resurrect your denim fl ares and lace up your brogues – The Melodies are striding in with their era-transcending stage show, complete with 1940s swing classics and shamelessly groovy ’70s hits. After years of pining over girl groups of the past (who have since tragically drowned in glitter, or equally tragically joined a judging panel on a talent-search TV show), the trio melded their sass and soul to craft the ultimate setlist of dancefl oor-dominating tunes.

They boogie into Marrickville’s Red Rattler on August 23 and we have two double passes to give away. Tell us which girl group member (dead or alive and not Beyoncé) you’d choose to be reincarnated as to win. Email freestuff@ thebrag.com for the chance to be in the running.

MÉLODIE FRANÇAISE

We know how much you’re missing your ex-housemate Pierre, who was forced to move out because you made him sing all your favourite hits in smouldering French into a baguette microphone while wearing a beret. Friend, meet Mélodie Française, a sanity-salvaging compilation of Australia’s crème de la crop of musos performing famous French songs, from Edith Piaf’s ‘Les Feuilles Mortes’ to Sonny Bono’s ‘Bang Bang’. The record includes renditions by Gossling, Oh Mercy, Lisa Mitchell, The Jezabels, Jinja Safari, Big Scary, Thelma Plum and Deep Sea Arcade. Sacrebleu! We have four copies to spoil you with – email freestuff@thebrag.com and tell us the French word for snail.

wares, beginning with their tour of Australia.

Check them out at Spectrum on Friday September 20, supported by Self Is A Seed.

Contrary to their name, Rainy Day Women are five dudes all about bright indie pop. After their debut EP release, Friends, the band toured alongside the likes of Hungry Kids Of Hungary, Big Scary, San Cisco, Loon Lake and The Rubens.

Their latest single ‘Ain’t It Time?’ came out last week and to mark its release they’ll be hitting the road and spreading their sparkling riffs and melodious tunes near and far. After showcasing at BIGSOUND, Rainy Day Women will head back down south and stop in at the Beach Road Hotel alongside Peace (UK) and Millions on Wednesday September 18, and at Upstairs Beresford on Friday September 20.

LIKE A ROLLING STONE

What’s life like inside Rolling Stone magazine?

The Rolling Stone Live Lounge might be the closest you’ll get to living those Almost Famous fantasies this year. The pop-up newsprintplastered venue opens Wednesday August 21 and runs for three weeks, with appearances booked from Boy & Bear, The Preatures, Tonight Alive, Paul Dempsey’s Shotgun Karaoke and more.

DAVEY LANE

Katchafire

AIM HIGH

The Australian Institute of Music is set to hold its Open Day on Saturday August 17. Complete with live music, workshops, masterclasses and campus tours, Open Day is the perfect chance to find out about the entertainment management and dramatic arts degree and diploma courses, as well as AIM High School, Open AIM short courses and Young AIM music courses. For more information, see aim.edu.au.

SONS OF THE EAST

Homegrown indie-folksters Sons of the East are hitting stages in support of their debut, self-titled EP release. Catch the trio at The Steyne on Thursday August 29 and Thursday October 31 as well as Upstairs Beresford on Friday September 27.

VILLAINY

Fresh new rock quartet Villainy is set to grace Australian shores for the very first time this September. After the success of their first single ‘Alligator Skin’ in their home country, New Zealand, the band is looking to spread their

Ngaiire

KATCHAFIRE

New Zealand reggae heroes Katchafire have announced their return to Australian shores to celebrate the release of their new album Best So Far. Katchafire have just returned from another sold-out worldwide tour including an appearance at Glastonbury. The Kiwi luminaries will be accompanied by Hawaiian feel-good reggae outfit Common Kings. Save the date: Coogee Bay Hotel on Friday October 18.

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You Am I lead guitarist Davey Lane has gone solo with the release of his debut single, ‘You’re the Cops, I’m the Crime’. The electro-rock ditty is the very first taste of Lane’s solo debut EP, The Good Borne of Bad Tymes, due next month.

Accompanying the release of his debut single, Lane will embark on a headline tour throughout September, starting off at BIGSOUND and hitting Spectrum on Saturday September 28.

BEARS WITH GUNS

It’s a Bears With Guns double-up at FBi Social this week, with the community radio darlings lined up for Lunchbreak on Wednesday August 14, and a full night-time set on Friday August 16. In support on the Friday are Lepers and Crooks and UASCSC. Meanwhile, Saturday August 17 at the same venue features Melbourne shoegazers Pretty City, with Gnome, Gang Of Youths and She Rex along for the ride.

THE STANDARD

Plenty to see at The Standard this week, including Glass Towers’ appearance on their Halcyon Days tour (Friday August 16, with supports Sures and Jordan Lesser). On Thursday August 15 it’s local rock’n’rollers Scarlet Hearts playing material from their upcoming debut EP; and Newcastle four-piece The Owls headline on Saturday August 17.

NEW SHOWS FOR NGAIIRE With a name on everyone’s tongues (but with a pronunciation everyone panics over), Ngaiire has announced a string of shows to accompany the release of her debut album Lamentations. Ngaiire, pronounced ‘Nigh-re’ (like ‘diary’ but with an ‘N’), has received praises galore for the album and is ready to showcase the songs live. Combining dramatic costumes and a captivating soul sound, we hear her performances are enchanting. She’ll be gracing the stage at Oxford Art Factory on Thursday September 12.

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Industrial Strength Music Industry News with Christie Eliezer

THINGS WE HEAR • From this week, Channel [V]’s The Riff show goes daily, from 5pm weekdays and 10.30am on Saturdays. • Robin Thicke admits he’s spent more than £320,000 on marijuana. • Bluejuice member Stav Yiannoukas’ partner, heavily pregnant Fiona Stuart (30 weeks), is demanding an apology from Jetstar. She and two-year-old son Yiannis had taken their seats on a flight to the Gold Coast when a hostie asked if she had a medical certificate allowing her to fly, as required by anyone over 28 weeks. Stuart said the rule was not on the website, nor had staff brought it up when she checked in, and she’d had a check-up with the doctor the day before. They pulled her off

MICHAEL TAYLOR PROMOTED AT UNIVERSAL Michael Taylor has been appointed Executive VP of A&R at Universal Music and Island Records Australasia. The onetime drummer started out in New York with Madonna’s Maverick Recording Company and Epic Records. Taylor moved to Australia to head A&R for Sony Music, signing Delta Goodrem, Pete Murray, Something For Kate, Killing Heidi and Paulini. He moved to Universal Music to set up Island Records Australia in 2007, building a roster including Boy & Bear, Hilltop Hoods (through Golden Era Records), Havana Brown, The McClymonts, Gin Wigmore, Maxi Priest, Clare Bowditch, The Redcoats, Brian McFadden and The Naked And Famous.

JAGWAR MA UP FOR TWO WINS IN AIM INDIE AWARDS Jagwar Ma’s success abroad translated into two nominations at the AIM (Association of Independent Music) awards, to be held in London on September 3. ‘The Throw’ is up for Independent Track, against Passenger’s ‘Let Her Go’, Youth’s ‘Daughter’ and Palma Violets’ ‘Best Of Friends’. The Sydney duo’s Howlin battles Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds,

and got her doctor to fax an okey-dokey before she could take a later flight. No apology from the airline as yet, but they have shifted the policy announcement up front on their site. • Sony Australia (the electronics division, not the music label) was hit with $32 million in back taxes and $21 million in penalties after a tax office investigation. It’s already suffered a 23% decline in revenue.

Result: the financial and administration duties will be outsourced to Asia, and according to ChannelNews, the locals will be pink-slipped. Nicholas Foster, chief operating and finance officer, is a victim.

The 12-month ATO investigation related to tax returns for the years 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008 and 2010. • Publicity stunt #1: Dutch DJ TiÍsto ran

Vampire Weekend, The xx, David Byrne & St. Vincent, Daughter, Ghostpoet, John Grant, Jon Hopkins and Public Service Broadcasting for Independent Album honours.

OH SAY CAN YOU SCREAM: US ALBUMS DOWN 5.6% Total US album sales were down 5.6% in the first half of 2013 but digital albums were up 6.3%. CD sales declined 14.2% but vinyl LP sales were up 33.5%. Digital tracks were down 2.3%. Digital albums now comprise 43% of all album sales in the US, up from 38% at this time last year. Streaming was up 24% compared to the same period last year, to 50 billion audio and video.

INERTIA BUYS INTO GAGA MUSIC Inertia has brought 50% of Grant Gillies’ Melbourne-based Gaga Music. Gaga is a music publisher, licensing agency and rights management business representing over 20,000 copyrights in Australia and New Zealand. Gaga’s full team will remain in Melbourne with Inertia directors Ashley Sellers and Colin Daniels joining the company’s board.

a competition where he’ll officiate at the marriage of two fans in Las Vegas this weekend. Fans had to email him and tell him why they should have the honour. • Publicity stunt #2: DJ Khaled proposed to Nicki Minaj via a video message, offering a $500,000 ring. Minaj, who at first was puzzled at the proposal (seeing as they’d never even dated), said she had a good chuckle once she realised the joke. • Dan Sultan will fly from Nashville, where he is recording, to Cairns to appear at the indigenous Big Talk One Fire concert on Friday August 16, and then return to the United States the next day, catching connections in Brisbane and Dallas. • A celebration of the life of folkie Gary Shearston is held this Sunday 18 August from 4pm at Petersham Bowling Club

IHEARTRADIO ARRIVES IN AUSTRALIA American digital music service iHeartRadio is available in Australia on the Australian Radio Network. “[It] offers access to hundreds of live radio stations and the ability to easily create your own customised radio stations based on your favourite artist, song or even what mood you are in,� said National Director Kate Beddoe.

Next month, Australians will also get 850 US stations and those from New Zealand, as well as its mobile service in time for the star-studded iHeartRadio Music Festival in Las Vegas (festival.iheart.com).

NEW SIGNINGS #1: JACKIE ONASSIS AT SONY MUSIC Sony Music Entertainment Australia signed Sydney hip hop duo Jackie Onassis, AKA MC Kai and beatmaker DJ Raph.

Uncovered by triple j, the track ‘Crystal Balling’ received UK airplay on BBC Radio 1. Meeting at school (also attended by Spit Syndicate and Horrorshow), they picked the name while studying about President John F. Kennedy at American History tutorials in college. They are managed by Myles Cooper for Phat Planet Music.

NEW SIGNINGS #2: MIND OVER MATTER AT PERMANENT/SHOCK

Build Your Music Empire Today

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This Week

Just Announced

Disclosure (UK)

Tue 1 Oct: All Ages

Tonight Alive

Thu 5 Sept: All Ages

Rap City 2013 feat.

Talib Kweli (USA)

Sun 6 Oct

Alexander Abreu

Blues & Grooves feat.

Phil Emmanuel

Fri 16 Aug

Anberlin (USA)

& Havana D’ Primera (CUB) Sat 7 Sep

Coming Soon

The Mavericks (USA) Fri 23 Aug

RĂźfĂźs

Fri 13 Sep

Fri 6 Sep

Supernova U18s Fest feat.

Wasted Penquinz, Toneshifterz + More Sun 15 Sep

Victor Essiet & The Mandators Sat 12 Oct

Stratovarius (FIN) Fri 25 Oct

For The Fallen Dreams (USA)

Fri 20 Sep: All Ages

Spit Syndicate

Sat 2 Nov: All Ages

Regurgitator Fri 4 Oct

Hits & Pits 2.0 feat Black Flag (USA ) Sun 17 Nov

NEW SIGNINGS #3: LOON LAKE TEAM WITH CAROLINE Melbourne’s Loon Lake are the first local act to join the new Caroline Label Services.

They release their debut album Gloamer (“the time after sunset and before dark�) in October, produced by Steven Schram with band drummer Nick Nolan. The second single lifted from the album is ‘Carolina’ out on August 16. Established in June, Caroline has already released albums by She and Him (Spunk), Laura Marling (Virgin) and City and Colour (Dine Alone).

NEW SIGNINGS #4: KOBALT RIGHTS PACTS HAVANA, CORBY

amount depending on the tier of the subs) on various programs popular with DJs like Serato Scratch Live, Traktor and djay, and which they can buy. Copyright owners get money when their work is streamed, “rented� (kept in locker) or bought.

FIRE AT LIZOTTE’S KINCUMBER Lizotte’s Kincumber had a fire in the kitchen during Abby Dobson’s show, which was contained by emergency services. “We were once again reminded what a wonderful community we are lucky enough to be a part of, with offers of help and support flooding in and we thank everyone for their well wishes.�

They’re contacting those who bought tickets for shows, or call 4368 2017. They hope to have the restaurant operational this week for Ian Moss (August 16, 17), Black Sorrows (18) and PCYC Bateau Bay showcase (20).

BIG NAMES FOR VANDA & YOUNG COMP The 35 finalists for the 2013 Vanda and Young Songwriting Competition include names such as Josh Pyke, Bertie Blackman, Thelma Plum, Mama Kin and Robert Conley. There were 3300 submissions. First prize is $50,000 from APRA and Alberts Music, second place $10,000 from AMPAL and third place $5,000 from UBISOFT. See vandayoungsongcomp. com.

Lifelines Injured: Beady Eye guitarist Gem Archer hospitalised with severe head trauma following a car accident.

Injured: Dead Daisies and Noiseworks frontman Jon Stevens finished with a broken leg, dislocated thumb and facial injuries after wrestling a giant marlin on a recent fishing trip in North Queensland.

Injured: Taylor Swift chipped her tooth after hitting her mic onstage.

Diagnosed: Bob Spencer, guitarist with The Angels, Skyhooks and Finch revealed a cancerous tumour had been discovered on his left kidney.

Ill: Orchestral Manoeuvres In The Dark drummer Malcolm Holmes suffered a cardiac arrest because of the heat at a Toronto show.

Kobalt Neighbouring Rights, a division of Kobalt Music Group, signed Australia’s Havana Brown and Matt Corby, as well as Thirty Seconds To Mars, Train and star A*M*E.

Recovering: Anthrax drummer Charlie Benante from hand surgery for carpal tunnel syndrome, a condition that could have left him unable to play.

NEW SIGNINGS #5: MODULAR PACTS SHINE 2009

Died: Bill Putt, bass player with iconic ’70s bands Spectrum and Ariel, of a heart attack while chopping wood at his home in Melbourne.

Modular Recordings picked up Finnish duo Shine 2009 for Australia, UK and Europe.

Sami Suova and Mikko Pykäri released their debut album Realism in 2011 through their own label. The first Australian release is the single ‘Eurozone’, followed by an album later this year.

Died: James Gray, keyboardist with Canada’s Blue Rodeo, 52, heart attack.

PULSELOCKER LAUNCHES FOR DJS

Died: ex-Pere Ubu and DNA bassist Tim Wright, suspected drug overdose.

After a soft launch last November, music streaming and locker subscription service for DJs, Pulselocker, has gone active with a new interface. It allows customers to use songs they’ve added to their “locker� (the

Died: Grammy-winning jazz and funk keyboardist and producer, George Duke, 67, from chronic lymphocytic leukemia.

Xxxx

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

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Shock Records signed Sydney hip hop duo Mind Over Matter to their imprint Permanent Records. Willow (Rowan Lockyer) and Smiles Again (Martin Brown) began freestyling together at St Pius X College. Currently working on their third album, lead off single ‘Real Life’ (with K.I.K.I) hit the iTunes Hip Hop charts.

They’re doing a national tour behind new single ‘Somebody’s Love’.

with Pat Drummond, Warren Fahey, Mic Conway, Jim Low, Jon Wolfe and Barbara Morison. • Sticky Fingers recap that on their 30-gig European tour, Jimmy lost his luggage, then had his passport, wallet and phone nicked from their van. The van broke down two kilometres out of Amsterdam and had to be pushed. They spent a day smoking hash with a guy called Truck. Dizza went a week without showering. ‘Caress Your Soul’ was added to rotation on Amsterdam’s 3FM and France’s RTL2, and the band picked up agents in France, Germany and England. • Pludo inked a sync deal with Southern Cross Austereo to use their current single/ video ‘Haywire’ in Southern Cross Ten TV’s promo which gives them exposure in 30 regional areas.

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time round, there was an urge to drive this ourselves, and in doing that, let’s remove all romanticism from this process and just get in there … enjoy recording, and do it in a way where we didn’t feel pressured, do it in a place – don’t get me wrong, Alberts Studio is amazing, it’s a fantastic space, but it’s not ostentatious, it’s not intimidating and I think that was a really healthy step for us going into this record.”

ave Hosking is a relieved man. At the time of our interview, it’s the first chance he’s had to discuss Boy & Bear’s second album, Harlequin Dream, outside his inner circle – label reps, family and flatmates – but at last the date has arrived to release another record unto an eager and ever-growing audience.

“If it was up to me I’d just want to release it yesterday and get on with it,” Hosking says cheerily, in spite of the recent bout of tonsillitis that’s temporarily rendered his voice husky and timid. “I love recording and I like writing, so the quicker this is out, the quicker I can emotionally move on and do something else.” Still, there’s a touch of apprehension – “probably healthy,” admits Hosking – over how Harlequin Dream might match the immense critical and popular goodwill afforded Moonfi re in 2011.

“There’s a minor shock factor [to Harlequin Dream] in that it’s a little bit different, probably not as high-energy as the last record; the production values are quite different,” says the singer and founding member of the Sydney five-piece. “But I think once people are getting their head around that and starting to understand what the record’s about, they seem to be really warming to it.”

‘Warm’ is the word for it, too: on Harlequin Dream, Boy & Bear present a comforting, upright brand of throwback pop, sketched around guitar, banjo and even saxophone.

Lead single ‘Southern Sun’ is the perfect gateway into the album – a rock-solid slice of hook and melody that revisits the sounds of the ’60s and ’70s; of Fleetwood Mac or Creedence.

“I started listening to a lot of old pop music again,” Hosking explains. “I had this realisation that so much of the groove on those old records and the accessibility of those songs is really fantastic, and it’s really great quality pop music – and at least

“I got a little bit fed up of turning on the radio and hearing indulgent, moody music”.

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At Home Under A Southern Sun

By Chris Martin personally I felt like there wasn’t a lot of people at the moment doing pop like that. I got a little bit fed up of turning on the radio and hearing indulgent, moody music, and I had a really strong urge to just go back and write stories in classic structures; in verse/ chorus. And knowing what those structures generally were, [to] have fun with that – do things that were musical and had grooves and hooks, just completely embrace that without any fear of what’s cool and what’s not.”

Actually, maybe Hosking was never cool in the first place. His first musical memory – apart from his father playing guitar around the house – is “James Taylor, on repeat through my entire childhood,” he laughs. But it was to Nashville, where Taylor joined Neil Young in 1971 to record the latter’s Harvest, that Boy & Bear travelled to cut Moonfi re – the debut that went on to net five ARIA awards including Album of the Year. Soon afterwards – amid an avalanche of tour dates and deafening praise for that record – Hosking started work on new material.

“Nashville was an interesting experience and at times was quite challenging… I think that in itself acted as motivation to make sure that next time we did it, we could really do it the way we wanted to do it. I figured the earlier I could start working on that, the better the record would be.”

‘Stranger’ was the first of these tunes that makes it to Harlequin Dream; a lilting ballad built on simple guitar arpeggios and vocal harmonies. ‘Three Headed Woman’ came next – the rhythm section taking charge this time, boosted by the addition of new bassist David Symes. Crucially, at no stage did the band feel undue pressure to reproduce Moonfi re, successful though it was.

“We were asked the same question off the back of the [With Emperor Antarctica] EP, going into the [first] record, and I think you want to just take that in your stride. If you’re going to do this as a career, that’s just part and parcel of the job, that there’s always pressure. This is our livelihood and this is what we do … if pressure is based upon the fact that your last record was successful, that’s a fairly good problem to have [laughs].”

Put together in a number of sessions over eight months at Sydney’s Alberts Studio, Harlequin Dream was as much about getting back to normality as anything else. “There was a lot of collaborative discussion around all this, and as a band we hit a great point where it all made sense to do it at home.

But on a personal level, one of the things I realised was, working overseas and working with an international producer is fantastic, [but] the danger is, you don’t want to lose the personality of the band,” says Hosking. “This

A poignant early passage on the album is ‘Old Town Blues’, in which Hosking sings: “I want to be an old man too / I want to be a role model to my kids”. He recalls a dark period on tour in Europe. “I think we had four or five days off and we went across to Prague in between shows … I was exhausted. I hit a point where I just didn’t want to be there – and you get used to that on the road, but it really just knocked me around, and that was the song I wrote at that moment. I had this overwhelming thought of: what happens if you feel like this and you’ve got kids and a family and you can’t just sit in a hotel room with a guitar and indulge in this?

So I think the end of that song, or that line, is a sense of pining … to be responsible and look after the people I need to look after.”

The album title itself, meanwhile, is lifted from the song of its same name. “The whole idea of ‘Harlequin Dream’ may have just fallen out of my mouth when I was writing that song – and I definitely had to Google ‘harlequin’ to find out what the fuck it was … but it seemed to make sense,” says Hosking. “That song is balanced between giving yourself over to what is an exciting, creative world to live in, in terms of what we do and being able to write and play music, but there’s also a slightly cynical side to it as well … and maybe the record is also a little bit about that. At times that has its highs and it’s a fantastic journey, and other times that means a lot of sacrifice and hurting people close to you because you’re never at home, or turning introverted for two weeks because you’re not talking to anyone, you’re playing guitar.”

And then you’re on stage, with thousands of people yelling your lyrics back to you – as is certain to happen on the band’s album launch tour this spring? “That’s it, yeah,” says Hosking, perking up at the thought. “It’s an interesting life we get to lead.”

What: Harlequin Dream out Friday August 16 through Island Records Where: Enmore Theatre When: Friday October 25

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The Preatures More Than a Feeling By Jody Macgregor

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sabella Manfredi is sitting in her backyard, drinking tea in her pyjamas. It’s early in the morning by musicians’ standards, which means normal people have been at work for an hour, but The Preatures’ singer has had plenty to do on this particular morning. The edits for their latest video, ‘Manic Baby’, have to be gone over, and they’ve just found out that previous single ‘Is This How You Feel?’ has been named Pitchfork’s Best New Track.

“Everything’s going a bit mental,” she says.

The new clip features a troupe of dancers performing moves inspired by Hot Gossip, the dancers from the kitsch classic TV series The Kenny Everett Video Show. Manfredi calls it “really dated, daggy, risqué dancing,” and although the band are present they don’t join in. “The boys were very interested in putting leotards on but we stopped them at the last minute.”

It sounds like it slots neatly into the aesthetic The Preatures have created for themselves; the 1970s Fleetwood-Mac-via-Bryan-Ferry vibe of their newer songs, and the way they pull such serious faces that you assume they

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must be joking at least a bit. “We’ve been watching a lot of old Prince videos and Roxy Music and there’s a bit of that in the ‘Is This How You Feel?’ video as well,” Manfredi says.

“That slight Young Talent Time awkwardness about it. It’s cool but there’s something slightly off and amateurish about it as well. It’s not really tightly edited and slick and ‘everything makes sense’. You’re looking at it going, ‘Really? Is this a joke? Is this for real?’”

In spite of the old-fashioned elements of the band’s look and sound, Manfredi says she spent a lot of time listening to newer music while they were working on their second EP. “It’s funny, I was listening to Chairlift, Metronomy, the new Cat Power record – Sun was a big infl uence on that record that we did – I suppose you can’t really call it a record, an EP. But Unknown Mortal Orchestra we really love as well. Who was the other person I was listening to a lot? Pretenders are always a big one. I listen to a lot of Pretenders. I grew up on Chrissie Hynde, and Chrissy Amphlett as well is a big infl uence on me.”

The band’s previous EP, Shaking Hands, was recorded in LA thanks to a strong Australian dollar letting them afford a producer and book a fancy studio to work in. After that, they felt like a change of pace. “When we came to do the next EP we kind of reacted against what we’d just done. We’d done this record, and we were very happy with it, but we wanted to do something completely different after that.

We’ve got our own space in Sydney, it’s just a little rehearsal studio space that the boys have turned into a semi-recordable space, and we did the EP there by ourselves. We wanted to work with a producer but we didn’t end up going that way because Jack [Moffitt, guitar] had particular views about the way he wanted to do it, so we got in the space and did it ourselves. It was a lot of trial and error but it was good.”

“It’s a very old warehouse space and it’s graffiti all over the walls – stinks like shit, there’s rats everywhere.”

Creating their own “semi-recordable space” wasn’t easy though, with the cheap warehouse room they rented needing more than just some egg cartons on the walls before it was useable.

“It’s a very old warehouse space and it’s graffiti all over the walls – stinks like shit, there’s rats everywhere – but you get into the individual spaces and it’s basically, ‘don’t ask don’t tell.’

You do whatever you want. You don’t have any protection if something goes wrong, but we got in there and sanded the fl oors and coated the fl oors; painted the walls, cleaned it, washed the windows. Jack got a console desk sent down from Brisbane and he’s got a couple of microphones and it’s a lovely little space.

We’ve got fairy lights and stuff in there. It’s good, it’s our little place.”

That was where they came up with ‘Is This How You Feel?’ which began with a groove provided by the rhythm section and a chorus that appeared spontaneously, though the rest was written four days later. “If something comes naturally you know that it’s got something good, but then the rest of it was just structuring it and editing it. I love that part of the process. For me structuring and having all your defi nite parts really makes me quite turned on – it’s my favourite part of the whole thing.”

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What makes the editing tricky is being a band with two very different lead vocalists, whose contrast adds variety but can also pull a song in multiple directions. “We’ve got two singers so we’re already in the shit because we’ve got to make it all work, but Gideon [Benson] and I are very different songwriters. When we approach songs in the band we got very used to just accepting songs for what they are and treating each song individually, and not so much as part of a bigger picture. I think for the album we’ll have to get to the stage where we’re looking for an album as a complete story, but at the moment it’s great to have this freedom to treat every song as its own entity, its own little world, and I love that. I really love that about the band – that we’re open to doing that.”

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Glass Towers Stone-Free Zone By Krissi Weiss

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he mythical ‘halcyon days’ – derived from the ancient tale of Alcyone and the seven days in winter when storms never occur – have a long and illustrious place in pop culture. Countless books, songs, albums and orchestral movements have embraced the concept and the latest to take ownership of the title are local indie rock four-piece Glass Towers.

Frontman Ben Hannam wrote most of the songs for Halcyon Days, his band’s debut album, while still in high school. The album captures his adolescence and in doing so captures a moment in time that we’re all so familiar with – the reckless abandon of youth that couples so earnestly with a wide-eyed enthusiasm for the future.

“I came across the writer Jack Kerouac when I was a teenager and started writing like he does – from experience – so most of the songs are really about my life during high school,” Hannam says. “I grew up in Alstonville and although it’s near Byron Bay, there wasn’t a very large arts faculty or anything at my school; it was all about sports and water polo, stuff like that. That’s probably why I found music, because I needed to find something that I could prove myself at and be comfortable in that wasn’t sport or academic.”

While the tunes are primarily written by Hannam, Glass Towers is certainly not just his project, and he genuinely gushes over the skills of his bandmates. “We were all in the same music class in high school and I’ve been friends with them since primary school, so it just made sense for us to do this together. They’re all such amazing players and basically, yeah, the first album was me writing the songs in my bedroom but moving forward it’s going to be a lot more collaborative. We’re definitely a band in this together.”

With the help of producer Jean-Paul Fung (Silverchair, Last Dinosaurs, Snakadaktal)

Glass Towers slowly crafted Halcyon Days in between an impressive touring schedule.

“It all took about a year actually,” Hannam says. “We started recording in January last year and we were doing it on and off because we were touring so much. The single ‘Halcyon’ was probably the only song that was really changed in production. It started off as a seven-minute song that eventually got refined down to three minutes. Other than that, things stayed fairly similar to the initial ideas.”

Despite the fact these songs have been hanging around for the best part of five years, and considering the band have already begun

work on their second album, Hannam says he’s still just as excited (perhaps even more so) at the prospect of playing these songs live on the forthcoming tour. “I think last year we had been touring so much that we were fatigued, and fatigued by the songs we were playing,” he says. “Now we’re just so excited by the album coming out that the songs somehow have become fresh again.”

For such a young band, things seem to be moving quickly, and Glass Towers are tackling local and international audiences at the same time. “We played The Great Escape festival and got signed by a Japanese label so we’ll

be releasing it there as well,” he says. “We’re hoping to head back to the UK this year; Japan and America as well. We toured with The Kooks here last year so it was great to play with them again in the UK. We don’t have anything locked in with any bands overseas just yet; we’ll just kinda latch onto some support slots when they come up.”

Where: The Standard When: Friday August 16 More: Halcyon Days is out now through HUB The Label/Inertia

Beasts of Bourbon Survival Of The Fittest By Jody Macgregor projects and gaps along the way. “We didn’t [continuously] exist for any long period of time.

When we got together and played, it was always very briefly and that’s kept it all interesting for everybody. Each time we got together there’d be fresh ideas, new material; that kind of thing.”

To celebrate their 30th birthday, three different incarnations of Beasts of Bourbon will play songs from different eras over three nights – the original crew, the version of the band who recorded The Low Road in 1991, and the current lineup. That original version got together earlier this year for their re-formation gig at All Tomorrow’s Parties, a well-received set overall though it did include one surprise in the middle. Their thudding, discordant ‘Playground’ had people “cringing and whiteknuckle gripping the chairs,” as Jones relates with glee. “It’s our big industrial number. People were like, ‘That was a really great set but there was one song in the middle I really hated,’” he says, barely able to keep himself from laughing at the memory. “And I’m thinking, ‘This is great, this one tune that has this effect on people.’

They really dislike it! We’ve always enjoyed confronting people like that, so that song stays in. I’m looking forward to playing that one in fact; looking forward to seeing the disappointment and annoyance on people’s faces.”

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Beasts had their debut album The Axeman’s Jazz in the can by October the same year; a swampy Australian take on American blues and country that’s still among the best records ever to come out of this land. Although they’ve been through plenty of changes in the years since, two things have remained constant: Tex Perkins growling the words and Spencer P. Jones making his guitar churn.

“We’ve had our ups and downs over the years, like everyone else,” Jones says with a little

understatement. “I think I was gonna quit the band one time, and then I thought about it and I rang everyone up a few days later [and] said, ‘Look, uh, I’m not gonna quit the band.’ I had my moment but I didn’t stick to my guns, I decided to go back to the group, and I’m glad I did because there were more adventures to be had.”

Jones puts the band’s longevity down to the fact that though many years have passed since their formation, there were plenty of side

Where: Factory Theatre When: Thursday August 22 (original lineup), Friday August 23 (Low Road lineup), Saturday August 24 (current lineup) And: Three-disc live album 30 Years Of Borrowed Time will be available at the concerts

Xxx photo by Xxxx

his year, Beasts of Bourbon turn 30.

However, as guitarist Spencer P. Jones is quick to remind me, “half the band are over 50 now.” It all started back in August 1983, when their frontman Tex Perkins had booked a run of shows for his then-band, Tex Deadly & The Dum-Dums, but was left high and dry. Forced to find replacements at the last minute, he did pretty well – rounding up Jones as well as James Baker from the Hoodoo Gurus and two members of The Scientists, Kim Salmon and Boris Sudjovic. That version of the

The ATP gig was originally slated as a one-off reunion, but the Beasts are still together seven months later. Jones says there’s no plan to stop now, although it’s just the current lineup that will carry on. But whether or not they’ll record again is another matter. “That depends how creative everyone gets, you know? I’ve always been able to pull a couple of new songs out of the hat. If you give me a date that the Beasts are supposed to be in the recording studio, I assure you that I will turn up with six songs, no problem.”

Dead Letter Circus The Revolution Will Be Televised By Tom Valcanis

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risbane’s Dead Letter Circus attained altprog titan status after releasing their debut, This Is The Warning, certified Gold by ARIA and named one of triple j’s Hottest 100 Albums of All Time. The Catalyst Fire is its follow-up – and the story begins in the Amazon rainforest, as vocalist Kim Benzie recounts.

“Once we got a hint of where the album was going, we were just the vessels for it arriving in people’s ears,” Benzie explains. “At the end of 2010, the band and our producer Forrester Savell travelled to the Amazon and Peru. We went to a jungle city called Iquitos. We went right up the river and trekked into the jungle and we stayed at this retreat there with this tribe. I had this incredible experience there drinking ayahuasca.”

In tribal lore, ayahuasca is a psychedelic ‘healing medicine’, discovered and used by Peruvian Amazon tribes. It ‘breaks down the ego’, giving insights into consciousness and beyond.

“I met the most incredible woman there, Klara,” Benzie continues. “She’s a shamanic artist there and an apprentice shaman. She made this symbolic artwork and it has these lines and patterns that don’t repeat; it was the most intricate artwork I’ve ever seen. It was like seeing the language of an alien race. I told her what we sing about, and it was one of those ‘meant to be’ moments.”

the NSA, it turns out our inner Oliver Stone was right.

“I don’t think anyone trusts the government – I think we have to get over the thought that nothing can be done,” Benzie says. “Have you ever seen that movie, [Antz]? All these ants are controlled by a small group of grasshoppers. One of the ants is an awakened individual and he has a go of putting some positive thoughts into these programmed minds. He shows them there’s so much more to life.” Benzie pauses to collect his thoughts.

“Everyone’s waking up to the fact we’re not separate. Right now, if you hear someone screaming, you’d lock the door. In the old days, you’d come roaring out there to help. We’re becoming more of a community. As soon as that community spirit can happen again, we can all walk out on to your front lawn and stand together.”

What: The Catalyst Fire out now through UNFD With: Closure in Moscow, Sleep Parade Where: The Metro Theatre When: Thursday September 5

Klara agreed to tattoo Benzie’s chest with one of her unique mandala artworks. Benzie, joining ranks of philosophers and psychologists, believes mandalas are expressions of a collective consciousness.

“I came back and showed the guys. We asked her to do our artwork for us. We started with Cameron Gray, our artist on the last album, to create the DLC mandala. We wanted to tie it into the theme of the album. We wanted people from any walk of life, from the yoga guru to the bricklayer, to stand in front of it and have some kind of experience.

That way everyone can know what our album’s about.”

“I don’t think anyone trusts the government – I think we have to get over the thought that nothing can be done.

Have you seen [Antz]?”

The Catalyst Fire took three years to spark and catch flame. Taking swathes of time off to explore the jungle and themselves, the band dangled scraps of the record on their website throughout 2012. Ever the community process builders, DLC kept fans in touch with their meticulous writing and recording. By record’s end, they had layered countless instruments atop an undulating ocean of sound. Did they cling to a raft of deadlines? Not likely. Making The Catalyst Fire took as long as DLC saw fit.

“We are of the persuasion that you don’t get through a shit bit [of a song] to get to a good bit,” Benzie says. “If you’re trying to be deep and meaningful within the boundaries of rhyme and rhythm and a limited word set, it’s a mega challenge. We couldn’t force it; we just had to let it happen.”

Dead Letter Circus proudly wear their hearts on their guitar strings and keyboards. Their last album shot to number one on the ARIA charts in 2010. This Is The Warning was Benzie and the band’s awakening; a realisation an anti-nature, anti-human structure traps our world underneath its soulless veil. Benzie thinks we should reject the roles society dictates for us.

“Three years ago, we tried to plant signposts,” Benzie says. “We tried to say, ‘Look around you, there’s definitely some kind of construct at work here.’ There’s something guiding us on a way to live. Bricklayers around a barbecue are even talking about it. They see what’s wrong but think, ‘What could I possibly do about it?’”

If Warning tore blinkers off, The Catalyst Fire is DLC’s call to arms. It affirms that change is possible. “It’s not a Malcolm X, standing on the podiums, screaming at the masses kind of thing,” Benzie says, putting the album into context. “It’s more like you’re the guy in the crowd, listening to someone speak or having that little revelation within yourself. That’s the way this album comes across. I’m not well-spoken enough to do political rants between songs on stage,” he laughs.

In our most paranoid delusions, we think the government spies on us. We have nightmares of earpiece-wearing stuffed shirts tuning into our phone calls while they’re reading our emails. With Edward Snowden’s revelations about Prism and BRAG :: 525 :: 12:08:13 :: 17

Sleep Nightmares Of Noise By Denver Maxx And Jess Willoughby

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ince stoner rock’s inception in the 1980s as the USA’s response to the British metal of the 1970s – namely Black Sabbath – it has achieved a timeliness in which the proponents of the genre always pay tribute to what has come before. This continuity of the stoner rock sound has resulted in longevity as per Orange Goblin, but also the fertile grounding for a rebirth in genre monoliths like Kyuss and Sleep.

Desaparecidos Lost And Found By Lachlan Kanoniuk

A

fter emerging in 2001 with a distinct brand of politically-charged garage rock, Nebraskan outfi t Desaparecidos made like the Spanish translation of their title and disappeared for the good part of a decade. Following on from what could well have been a one-off reunion in 2010, the band have built their momentum to become a vitalised touring and recording outfi t once again. As such, lead singer Conor Oberst will once again perform at Harvest Festival – last time was with a revived Bright Eyes, this time it’s with Desaparecidos. Speaking ahead of the band’s Australian debut, songwriterguitarist Denver Dalley runs us through Desaparecidos’ return.

“We’d been talking about getting together and playing again for years, then that show came up in 2010. Everything went so well,” he recalls. “We really felt like we picked up where we left off and had a lot of fun in the band room. We’re back to just cracking jokes and it didn’t feel forced or anything. So after that show in 2010, we were really determined to be a band again.”

Last year’s fully-fledged reunion saw the release of the double A-side ‘MariKKKopa’ / ‘Backsell’, backed up by this year’s seven-inch ‘Anonymous’ / ‘The Left Is Right’. Even in the space of a year, says Dalley, the band have refined their songwriting focus. “In 2012, it was a little bit more general in making commentary about how people were living their lives and how areas and neighbourhoods were changing, and what the expectations of a person in life are. But now we’re pinpointing specific issues and going after them. It’s more directed and not as general.”

“I just had knee surgery, so I’m chilling out at home at the moment. So I’ve been sitting on my arse for the last week,” says a predictably laconic Pike. “We did our last Sleep show in France, and then did a couple of High On Fire shows – just to make a little bit of money for me to sit around on my butt,” he laughs warmly.

It would be fair to infer that after thirtyplus years on the road plus his current knee recovery, Pike may have had second thoughts about committing to this year’s Australian tour – but even the crustiest of rock’n’rollers gets a bit sentimental now and again. “Our fans in Australia kind of deserve to see Sleep, finally. Obviously I’ve been over in Australia with High On Fire quite a bit and Al [Cisneros – singer and bassist] came with OM recently, but it is really important to us that Sleep plays in Oz.”

“What we were doing at the time, which was in the early ‘90s, was really not that popular,” Pike adds. “We were doing Sabbath-y, doom sounds; a few people kind of got it, but it wasn’t popular. Not like the death metal thing at the time. Like Napalm Death and Carcass; they were doing the popular thing. We were this weird Sabbath band out of the punk scene. We went from Asbestosdeath to Sleep and transitioned musically. It made an impact on people but it seemed like it took a long time to sink in. Almost to the point where at the end, just before we first broke up [1998], people started catching on to it. We only just started getting some fans then.”

It is refreshing now that Pike is willing to grapple with why Sleep’s material is so cool nowadays but struggled to make a commercial impact when it was released.

“I think nowadays Sleep’s music is kind of something different [to what’s on offer]. A lot of kids these days are smarter thinkers. If something is really underground, outspoken or different – they all want to have an identity that’s not so MTV. I know what used to be underground hip hop in my day has now turned into a big corporate smear. I’m happy there’s kids out there that aren’t so attached to this corporate spew and know about something that’s a bit better, in the musical context.”

What: Manning Bar, Sydney University When: Sunday October 27

Though the material is politically charged, the band manage to avoid any semblance of heavyhanded, overly preachy hubris. “There are some times at a show where Conor will get on the mic and say something, and we all get behind it, but then after it he will say he doesn’t want to talk so much or sound preachy. We never feel like it comes across that way – maybe he’s just overanalysing it. Maybe it’s the dream to have a song that people enjoy musically, but then the lyrics get someone to go home and look something up online or in a book. Starting a conversation – that’s the dream.”

What: Harvest Festival With: Massive Attack, Franz Ferdinand, The Drones, Black Rebel Motorcycle Club, Goldfrapp and more Where: The Domain When: Saturday November 16

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With all band members enjoying a diverse range of projects since the initial 2002 Desaparecidos break up, they still managed to settle into an equilibrium in the ranks. “As far as our dynamic and chemistry, we all just jumped right back in. Three of us live primarily in New York, but we all have another place.

The band is based in Omaha, we’re all from Omaha, and two of the guys live in Omaha full time. There was some scheduling we had to work out – we’re all still involved in other things, so there was some ironing out of the schedule. So when we got together for band practice or a little tour here and there, it was like summer camp,” Dalley enthuses. “It’s become a little bit more of a band procedure … Just throwing in and contributing a little more equally than before. [A song] definitely still starts off as one person’s idea, but we’re building the songs more as a band now.”

Despite the long time between drinks, Dalley still sees OG fans out in the crowd at each performance – as well as a new generation of followers. “It’s a pretty big mix; it’s about half-and-half between fans that were there at the beginning and newer fans. Sometimes on message boards or Facebook there will be people saying, ‘I can’t get in the show, it’s 18 and up.’ You kind of do the math and realise they were six when the first album came out.”

Evolving out of sludge doom metal band Asbestosdeath, Sleep released its first album Volume One in 1991. This release has developed over the years into an underground phenomenon, with bands from all genres crediting it as an inspiration.

Sleep guitarist Matt Pike took time out from rehab (but not the rehab you’re thinking), preparations for the band’s new album and his work as frontman for stoner rockers High On Fire to chat to the BRAG.

“We’ve had some hard times in the past, you know. We made some really youthful albums, with probably the most wellknown being Holy Mountain – it was really full of piss and vinegar. We really became good at playing right around Holy Mountain. It had a big impact, but not until a little later.”

Drenge The Humble Bundle By Jody Macgregor

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renge didn’t have a very auspicious beginning. The band – two brothers from a tiny English village called Castleton – played their first gig in nearby Sheffield, at what was essentially an openmic night. “All my friends who said they were coming didn’t turn up,” says frontman Eoin Loveless. “We were just playing in this quite small pub called the Red House.

No-one was there apart from this spacemetal wizard who sat in the corner waiting to go on the stage and then we played for half an hour and then left. And we missed our bus back home so we had to go and get this train which took ages. It was a pretty disastrous first show, really.”

Loveless doesn’t sound too traumatised by the memory. Things have obviously improved, and Drenge have moved on from opening for a “space-metal wizard” to bands like The Cribs and Deap Vally, as well as signing to Infectious for their debut album.

They’ve played Glastonbury, where they impressed British politician Tom Watson so much he bizarrely name-checked them in his resignation letter; and Roskilde, where they confused locals by not being Danish in spite of being named after the Danish word for ‘boys’. The name was chosen more for 18 :: BRAG :: 525 :: 12:08:13

the way it sounded than anything else. “It’s quite nice to have a band name that doesn’t mean anything,” says Loveless, “that doesn’t have any imagery or connotations or anything. Like, it implies something, but it’s not a band name that is really obvious [about] what the band’s gonna sound like.”

That said, if ‘drengey’ were an adjective, you could see it fi tting the fuzzed-out, punky garage rock Drenge play. Imagine Japandroids crossed with Tumbleweed: being a guitar-and-drums duo, you don’t have much choice but to play garage rock.

The songs themselves don’t matter to Loveless so much as the opportunity to play them. “I get really excited before shows because we’ve got week-long gaps in between them, so I really want to get back to being on stage and playing music again.”

He’s impatient for their album to come out, mainly because it’ll give them an excuse to tour again and an audience that knows the songs better. “They’re hearing these songs for the first time if they come and see us live, but they’re kind of, like, dancing along, and there’s this strained expression on their face while they try and understand what’s going on and see if there’s any lyrics they can pick out that get repeated. I’m just

excited about when there’s this common ground between the crowd and us. I’m really looking forward to doing shows after people know the album a bit.”

The fi nale of this album is very different for Drenge – entitled ‘Fuckabout’, it’s a morbid slice-of-life that’s a bit slower and could easily be an Arctic Monkeys album track, with witty observational lyrics like, “When I put the kettle on / You put heavy metal on”.

Loveless is looking forward to trying the song out more often. “We don’t play that much because it doesn’t make sense in what we do as a band at the moment but when the album’s out that’ll hopefully make a bit more sense.” Even in the lyrics of the song, he’s self-deprecating about the worth of his music: “This song is a fuckabout / Not one to write home about”. But Loveless isn’t particularly interested in the popularity of his songs beyond giving Drenge more audiences to play for. “I just like doing it because I get to hang out with my brother,” he admits. “I’m not too fussed about taking my own songs out there.”

What: Drenge out Friday August 16 through Liberator/Infectious Music

THE AU REVIEW TURNS COME AND CELEBRATE THE LAST FIVE YEARS OF AUSTRALIAN MUSIC, WITH:

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arts frontline

free stuff email: freestuff@thebrag.com

arts news...what's goin' on around town...with Therese Watson and Lily White

five minutes WITH Emma Coulter, Folding Out, 2013

T

his week Janet Clayton Gallery opens Abstractions, an exhibition showcasing emerging painters united by a desire to explore elusive states of being. Featuring works by Emma Coulter, Seann Brackin, Sam Holt, Susan Foster and Rowan E Robertson viewers can expect to explore how each artist grapples with colour, form and composition in diverse ways. BRAG caught five with one of the featured artists Emma Coulter to learn more.

Tell us about your background in painting.

While I have experimented with many genres, painting has always been my preferred

EMMA COULTER

medium. I discovered this early on in at art school, where painting was discouraged.

Despite this teaching method I continued to pursue it and taught myself much of what I know today.

to be more disciplined in my approach.

Tessellations, the series of work showing at Jane Clayton Gallery, explores the concepts of spatial interrelationships within an ongoing autobiographical narrative.

I believe that I have always had an intrinsic understanding of how to manipulate paint to convey my ideas. My method of painting affords a constant evolution to the work during the making, which is an essential part of my creative process. I experiment a lot before achieving a realised outcome.

My process involves hovering between spontaneity and discipline. I find the medium of paint to be quite forgiving in this process, where other mediums may require complete resolution prior to commencement.

How does your Tessellations series relate to other work on show?

Abstractions was curated by Jessica Holburn with the intention of making a statement about a combined theoretical approach to abstraction. While each of the artists’ physical outputs are quite varied, there is a relationship between our methods of exploring abstraction in the context of the self and engagement with our surroundings.

Who inspires and influences your style as an artist?

Interestingly, the artists who I admire mostly have a spatial-based practice.

These include, Louise Bourgeois, Yayoi Kusama and Eva Hesse. It’s the themes and concepts that underpin their work that interest me, and the distinct feminine and autobiographical connections in the work that I relate to.

Tell us about your work in Abstractions.

My new work engages colour and composition in a more resolved manner.

The simplification has evolved through a maturity of experience and a desire

Exciting future projects?

I’m very busy at the moment juggling a number of new bodies of work. My upcoming exhibition Transportation explores the boundaries between painting and the built environment, which will be on display at Pieces of Eight gallery in Melbourne from August 20 through September 28. My work will also be on display in the Art Month Finalists group show at Depot II Gallery, Danks St from September 3-7.

Moogahlin Performing Arts and cultural consultants Aboriginal Elders Aunty Christine Blakeney and Uncle Max Harrison are brining a new work to Carriageworks from September 4-7.This Fella, My Memory directed

by Frederick Copperwaite, looks at the lives of three older women to explore the tenuous relationships between friends, family and each other. Deep connections to people and place remain at the thematic centre of the work, recalling Aboriginal NSW’s past and present relationship to the land. This Fella, My Memory comprises a cast of Elaine Crombie, Linden Wilkinson, Lily Shearer, Matt Edgerton, Rosealee Pearson, Katherine Beckett and Guy Simon. carriageworks.com.au for more.

BODYTORQUE.TECHNIQUE

Bodytorque is a regular program on The Australian Ballet’s event calendar designed to showcase emerging choreographers. The deal?

Six choreographic stars in the making are selected to work alongside company dancers to push the boundaries of the artform further into imaginative territory while gaining valuable industry exposure. This edition’s theme? Technique. “The choreographers have really had to focus on reinvigorating the classical form and creating something innovative,” said Artistic Director David McAllister. Participating choreographers include Ty King-Wall, Joshua Consandine, Alice Topp, Halaina Hills, Richard House and Benjamin Stuart-Carberry. Bodytoruqe.Technique will run

from October 31 through November 3 at Sydney Theatre. Head to australianballet.com.au for more information.

TONY ALBERT

Law enforcement and racial discrimination – two very loaded discussions contemporary artist Tony Albert doesn’t shy away from exploring in his work. From August 15 to September 7, Sullivan + Strumpf will host Brothers, Albert’s latest series documenting 18 uniformly photographed young men with red target painted on their bare chests.

These men are defiant and strong, they stand resolute, bathed in a pool of warm light but surrounded by darkness. At the core of Albert’s artistic agenda are stark oppositions – his subjects are seen but unseen, understood but misunderstood. Had to sullivanstrumpf.com for more details.

20 :: BRAG :: 525 :: 12:08:13

DIDO & AENEAS FOR SYDNEY FESTIVAL 2014

BRAG’s got some exciting news for you and it involves an opera partially performed underwater. Yes, that’s right. Underwater!

Sydney Festival 2014, running from January 9-26, has made an early announcement: contemporary dance-theatre choreographer Sasha Waltz’s epic retelling of Henry Purcell’s Baroque opera Dido & Aeneas is coming to town for an Australian exclusive. In one of the most ambitious theatrical stagings, Waltz opens the show with an aquatic prologue where a giant water tank, raised several metres off the floor plays host to diving and weaving dancers who stay submerged for impossibly long times. The oldest love story in English opera will be brought to life by 60 dancers, singers and musicians at the Sydney Lyric from January 16-21. For upcoming announcements keep an eye on sydneyfestival.org.au. Tickets on sale now through ticketmaster.com.au

Dido & Aeneas

A Silk Road saga image: One of the eight seats of Yu Hong’s sarcophagus, Sui Dynasty (581-619), White Marble

THIS FELLA, MY MEMORY

ULTIMO SCIENCE FESTIVAL

Calling all scientists! Next month Ultimo will host a huge variety of exhibitions, shows and talks about all things science. The Ultimo Science Festival will spread itself across the Powerhouse Museum, ABC Centre, TAFE Ultimo and UTS Buildings from September 12-22 for eleven days of hypotheses and fascinating scientific spiels. Get interactive by freezing your shadow or dodging laser beams at Playing with Light at the Powerhouse Museum. Listen and learn about great white sharks and how police dogs are learning to detect cadavers at UTS Science in Focus talks. For program and event details head to ultimosciencefestival.com

Yu Hong was a Turkic-speaking central Asian man from China’s Shanxi province who was interred in 592 CE. Hong’s white marble sarcophagus was excavated in 1999 and marked a discovery unlike anything previous; it’s detailed carved scenes of hunting, entertaining and religious worship not traditionally associated with Chinese culture in the same period. Highlighting life along the province’s famous Silk Roads, the ancient marvel will be on display at the Art Gallery of New South Wales from August 22 through November 10 alongside 16 other sculptures, figurines and ceramics from the tomb or from burials of the same period and province. Visit artgallery. nsw.gov.au for more information.

Sydney Latin American Film Festival image by Sean Fine

Ready to see a string quartet bend boundaries and defy musical constraints? Look no further than JACK Quartet at Carriageworks on August 16-17. Hitting Aussie shores for the first time, the New York group perform with a traditional string quartet lineup, but are renowned for their experimental and daring live performances. With a two-night program they’ll first perform G.F. Haas’s String Quartet No. 3 in iij. Noct. in complete darkness before entertaining listeners with the works of Luigi Nono, Jason Eckhardt and emerging Sydney composer Jack Symonds. Visit carriageworks.com.au for further details.

For your chance to win one of 10 in-season double passes, just email freestuff@ thebrag.com with the name of one other film Tautou has starred in.

A SILK ROAD SAGA

Hola mis amigos! Get it? You pass. From September 4-11, the eighth Sydney Latin American Film Festival will span 12 days and two venues screening a slew of features, documentaries and short films from Argentina, Brazil, Cuba, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, Guatamala, Mexico, Panama, Peru, Uruguay, Venezuela, the United States and Australia. “Argentina and Mexico no longer have the monopoly on innovation in the Latin American film industry – right now some of the best new independent cinema is coming out of Brazil, Colombia, Peru and Venezuela,” said Festival Founder Mark Taylor. Cinematic inspiration will be dished out at Dendy Opera Quays and Bankstown Arts Centre. For more info, tickets and full program head to sydneylatinofilmfestival.org

JACK QUARTET

Finally! A chance to add another French film to the collection of name-droppable titles! Mood Indigo is Michel Gondry’s latest feature, known to those who speak the language of love as L’écume des jours. It tells the tale of Chloé (Audrey Tautou) and Colin’s (Romain Duris) idyllic marriage that falls on the way-side when a water-lily is discovered growing in Chloé’s lungs. This visual poetry hits the big screen on September 5, but all the more exciting is a chance to catch it for free.

What: Emma Coulter for Abstractions When: August 14-24 Where: Janet Clayton Gallery More: janetclaytongallery.com.au

SYDNEY LATIN AMERICAN FILM FESTIVAL

Tony Albert, Brothers (detail), 2013

MOOD INDIGO! TIX! WIN!

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he good-natured Stephen Lynch never really imagined a stand-up comedy career for himself – in the beginning, his ambitions stretched no further than making his college buddies laugh. “I was a theatre major at a state university,” he explains, “living in a house in Kalamazoo, Michigan, with about eight or nine of us. It was a big old place in what was insensitively referred to as the student ghetto. I lived with a mix of theatre people, like me, and dirty punk rock people.” Lynch found himself drawn to the punks – and to the guitars that they left lying around.

“I knew how to play the piano, but there’s not a whole lot of that in punk,” he says with a laugh. “Living there is where I first learned to play the guitar.”

Comedy soon followed.

ARTS FEATURE

Music And Lyrics By Alasdair Duncan

Stephen Lynch

There were many times, Lynch tells me, when the bong was being passed around, and everyone was trying to crack one another up – as, let’s face it, is an unbeatable form of entertainment at that age. “I’d pick up a guitar and start making up funny songs,” he says.

“I did it just to amuse myself and those around me, and never thought it would be anything but a hobby, then I woke up a decade later and realised it was my career, so I quit my job and decided to go for it full-time. It just happened – it was never my intention to get into the world of comedy. I don’t know much about comedy, to be honest with you, but I love playing music, so I got to sneak in the back door of a life where I get to play songs for people. No matter the subject matter, I’m happy.”

Lynch’s debut album A Little Bit Special was released in 2000 – it featured an array of comedy songs both affectionate and mocking, with subject matter ranging from testicular anxiety to Jim Henson. He has written songs about abortion, and about the Special Olympics, and I ask if, over the course of his career, he’s found any subject too touchy, or perhaps one that’s just plain off-limits. “I definitely have that feeling about songs I’ve written,” he says. “I mean, I wrote that song about the Special Olympics when I was 19 or 20. I would never write something like that today, but you’re a different person when you’re young.

I’ve learned form that song, and as I’ve gotten older, my focus is more on directing the humour in the music at myself, or at least at someone deserving.”

Though comedy is his trade, Lynch sees himself as a musician first and a joke-teller second. “I have a stable of singer-songwriters who I’ve listened to since I was a kid, and I add to that periodically,” he tells me, of his direct musical influences. “When I was a kid, it was Paul Simon, and when I got a bit older, I added Bob Dylan and Joni Mitchell and Neil Young – great musicians with something to say, who can express emotions as well as ideas in songs. These days I listen to Patty Griffin and Iron And Wine and Ryan Adams and still Neil Young.” A few years ago, it occurred to Lynch that since he listened to and loved this kind of music, he might as well take a crack at writing it himself. Though it seems obvious in retrospect, Lynch was amazed at how much his new approach changed his song-writing technique.

In the past, Lynch would start a song

with a joke, or at least a lyrical idea, and would then build a song around it. After growing tired of this approach, he decided that instead, he’d start by writing music he loved and let the lyrics flow from there. His most recent album, Lion, is his first to be written this way. “It was a very difficult process,” he says, “and I don’t think I’ve perfected it yet, but I figured it out enough along the way to write 13 songs I feel are pretty good, or at least pretty representative of where I am in my life. That’s why it took three years between the last two records. I threw away the old template, which had become stale

and predictable and obvious, and challenged myself. I wanted to do something creatively satisfying.”

Lion was recorded in the country music capital of Nashville, and working there had been a dream of Lynch’s for some time. “I would drive to Nashville from where I live in Michigan,” he explains, “mostly because I wanted to take a big collection of instruments with me. It’s an eight-hour drive that I did probably three or four times, but I loved it, because I drove through some beautiful parts of the world.” He was drawn to the city to work with producer Doug Lancio,

whose credits include the likes of Patty Griffin and Steve Earle. “You can’t spit without hitting an incredible musician down there,” Lynch laughs. “I wanted to work with a producer I admired and trusted, someone who could add the textures and layers I wanted to my music, and Doug was the guy. It was a thrilling process, not just to work with him, but to hear my music in the bands of some of the players I so greatly admire.”

Lynch has visited Australia several times over the years, and I ask what exactly we can expect when from his

R

What: Stephen Lynch Live Where: Enmore Theatre When: Tuesday August 20 More: stephenlynch.com

WIN!

emember leaving the cinema after Kick-Ass feeling so incredibly relieved that you begged your mum to help with the final stitches in your mask and matching underwear? Well that was three years ago so maybe it’s time you moved on.

Or perhaps not, because guess what?

Kick-Ass 2 is here! Jim Carrey leads the new wave of self-made masked crusaders as Colonel Stars and Stripes who joins costumed high school hero Kick-Ass (Aaron Taylor-Johnson) and Hit Girl (Chloë Grace Moretz) in an epic battle against the Red Mist that is reborn as The Motherf%&*‏^r.

S AY W EA IV G

KICK-ASS 2! PRIZE PACKS! WIN!

show when he returns. “It’s been a while since I’ve been down there last,” he says, “so I’ll probably play a very healthy combination of songs from the new record, and old ones that I know people will want to hear. I’m bringing a big group of people with me – funny people and great musicians so it should be a really great show for everyone.”

To celebrate the return of the costumed high school crew, BRAG has 10 pretty kick-ass prize packs to give away which all include a Kick-Ass DVD, the KickAss 2 soundtrack and a double in-season pass to catch the latest flick.

Email freestuff@thebrag. com and tell us what your superhero name would be and why.

BRAG :: 525 :: 12:08:13 :: 21

[VISUAL ART] The Lego Cityscape By Lauren Carroll Harris Eliasson’s Cubic Structural Evolution Project tightropes the fields of architecture and art.

“This is the second iteration back by popular demand. The context is Sherman Contemporary Art Foundation, whose vision is visual culture.

Whether it’s film, fashion, contemporary art or design, we’re all about visual culture. For some years, I’ve wanted to do an architecture project and this is where Eliasson comes in.”

D

anish artist Olafur Eliasson’s Cubic Structural Evolution Project is a cunningly simple work. In essence, the work comprises an enormous table piled with white Lego pieces, which the audience use to construct an ever growing, breathing, miniature cityscape.

And the logistics of mounting an exhibition made from 130,000 pieces – a quarter of a tonne – of Lego are about as titanic and outlandish as you’d expect.

“We tried to get it as a loan, physically, to bring it from Queensland Art Gallery in its tens of thousands of pieces,” says Sherman Contemporary Art Foundation’s director and philanthroper Dr Gene Sherman, “but museums have a very strict – as they should do – and

structured approach to loans. One of the issues, and there are many, is that work has to be cleaned before it goes and cleaned when it comes back. What we discovered is that to polish each one of these Lego pieces, an army of people was going to be needed and it was going to cost $25,000. Can you imagine?

“Architecture is a very complex and essentially spatial thing. You have to experience it by walking in and being in the space.” The difficulty in expressing this, Sherman found, is that many exhibitions about architecture “feel more like an installation...my aim is to experience an actual building in the gallery space. I struggle to find a way into architecture.” Then came the idea of building something small scale within the confines of a gallery that could communicate the poetics of space. Sherman describes the energy of the The Cubic Structural Evolution Project as, “just beautiful – buzzy and wonderful and airy.”

“What they allowed us to do was to borrow it on a ‘notional basis’ – conceptually. We didn’t actually borrow the original work, we purchased the idea.

We then bought the pieces we needed via the only registered Lego brickmaster in Melborune.

Did we ever know there was such a thing?

Instead of costing us $25,000, it cost us $10,000.

So we own all of this Lego, but we’re not allowed to use it beyond this project.”

Eliasson’s project is presented in Sherman Contemporary Art Foundation’s inaugural Fugitive Structures program. Architect Andrew Burns’ Crescent House – a built structure on display in the Foundation’s garden – also straddles the unique relationship between art and architecture by iterating how the two aren’t mutually exclusive. While Crescent House is an architectural form that functions secondly as an

art object, Eliasson’s project is firstly and firmly rooted in art with influences from architecture.

The two works form a conversation as inverse incarnations of one another,. They also share the same sensibility of aesthetic purity.

Sherman credits the popularity of Eliasson’s work to its tactile and interactive nature. The work needs an audience’s touch to be brought to life – an unusual quality for a gallery work – and so it becomes about the people who make it.

While Eliasson is known for very large-scale, dramatic installations, this one is somewhat more grounded in size, hands-on and informal. “It is actually created by the public,” says Sherman.

“People poured in here. We must have had every architecture year come in three or four times, first as a group and then individually. We had children who returned every day after school, we just saw the same kids every day. People even had birthday parties here. They were playing inside the gallery! Then we had to pull apart the structures they made at the end, it broke my heart.”

What: The Cubic Structural Evolution Project by Olafur Eliasson Where: Sherman Contemporary Art Foundation When: August 23 – September 21 More: sherman-scaf.org.au

Double Think [THEATRE] Seeing Double By Alasdair Duncan

B

yron Perry’s newest dance work, Double Think, plays on the idea of opposites, and the notion that they’re not always as opposite as they might appear.

“I’m really interested in this idea of the illusion of opposition,” Perry says, telling me of the inspiration for the piece. “I’ve been reading about it, and essentially, the things that we refer to as opposites are usually a lot more similar than they are dissimilar. They fall at either end of a spectrum. In the show, I’m trying to investigate that the themes and concerns that fall around this idea, exploring them through the medium of dance.

The show features two dancers, one male and the other female, as a comment on the things we consider to be opposites. “It’s a man and a woman on stage, because that’s one of the most fundamental oppositions we know,” Perry says. “One’s tall, and the other’s short, because once again, we think of those things in opposition to each other.”

Perry has tried to apply that concept of opposition to every aspect of the piece – at times, in between the choreographed moves, the dancers even oppose each other in improvised contests

This improvised component is key to the show, and each night, the performers are given a different prompt, around which to work. The improvised component is not limited to movements – Perry also has his performers play games with language. “I’ve asked them to try and outwit each other with absurd word games,” he says. “That’s an interesting part of the show, because the audience will understand that a game is being played out, and the stakes are high, even if they don’t understand what the game is.”

The performers in Double Think manipulate the sets and lighting on the fly, an idea Perry has played with in his last few works. “I like the idea that what you’re observing on stage is a closed system,” he says. “The show is low-tech, in that you see the performers on stage manipulating their own light sources, operating their own sets, and playing their own sounds.” Seeing these things, Perry insists, does not undo the magic of theatre – it heightens that magic. “It gives a glimpse into how the illusions happen,” he says, “and yet they stay illusions.”

Perry views his dancers as just one part of a much larger process. “I don’t feel the need to make my works all about people,” he explains. “I like objects

and puppetry, I like exposing the function of the theatrical construct on stage. For me, dance and expression of dance, and what I draw from it, comes from objects moving on stage, just as much as from people. There’s inherent emotion, there are psychological triggers that can come from rhythm and timing and shape on stage. It doesn’t necessarily have to be people for me. This piece is more about that, in a way.”

Double Think is presented as part of a double bill with another of Perry’s pieces, Gogglebox. The two are very different in tone and content, but that’s exactly what he intended. “Double Think is such an abstract work that I wanted something short, sharp and entertaining to go alongside it,” he says. “I was reading that this year is the official end of analogue TV, which got me thinking. I made a short piece years ago that was a very cartoonish look at our relationship with TV.” “The evening opens with Gogglebox, which is short, sharp, punchy and stupid,” he continues. “It’s a fun and surreal opening, and then there’s a quick break for a minute or two where we rearrange the set, and then it’s on to Double Think. It’s a great, comedic introduction to the more serious work that follows.”

What: Double Think / Gogglebox Where: Reginald Theatre, Seymour Centre When: August 21-24 More: seymourcentre.com

Miss Julie [THEATRE] A Sinister Tale By Alasdair Duncan

Y

script… He kind of believes that actors are going to come up with a better line than the writer so he just waits and waits and waits until it comes out of their mouths. It really empowers the actor.”

“We’re in week three of rehearsals, about a month from opening…and we have an Act 1 and we’re apparently getting an Act 2,” says Cowell. “Our writer is wandering through a cherry orchard in Melbourne somewhere so we’re trying to drag him out.”

Miss Julie is a story of power and class with a bit of lust and betrayal thrown into the mix.

The titular Julie is the daughter of a wealthy nobleman, rendered here by Stone as a politician. Alongside his fiancé Christine, Jean (played by Cowell) works in the house of this rich man and it’s not too long before sparks begin to fly between Jean and Julie. The pair feel trapped in their positions and see in the other an opportunity to break free.

ou’d think that when you work on a classic play, you’d be working with a finished script. But such is not always the case – Brendan Cowell’s upcoming production of August Strindberg’s Miss Julie is still missing a few pages.

Said writer is of course Simon Stone who is currently in Melbourne directing his latest adaptation, Chekhov’s The Cherry Orchard.

Stone’s reworkings of classic texts have turned him into one of the most recognisable theatre forces in Australia so while for this show the original plot and structure might be Strindberg’s, most of the words in Cowell’s production will have come from Stone or the actors.

Brendan Cowell 22 :: BRAG :: 525 :: 12:08:13

“Simon had a broad sheet draft and then we looked at the original and we all improvised,” says Cowell. Stone then works with a combination of his own ideas, the original script and the actors’ improvisations to create the adaptation. “Simon’s in no rush to finish the

Unlike most of Stone’s adaptations, he’s not in the director’s chair this time ‘round. Miss Julie is headed up by Leticia Cáceres, whose production of The Dark Room (also starring Cowell) stunned Belvoir audiences in 2011 with its visceral power.

For Cowell, the opportunity to work with Cáceres again is a no-brainer. “If I’m going to stand up for 50 shows I want to make it worth my while and I know if I work with Leticia we’ll be saying something and I’ll be pushed as an actor and it’ll be worth turning up every night and it’ll be worth it for the audience as well.”

The team are really trying to explore the play’s thematic epicentre – the class barrier that divides protagonists Julie and Jean. It’s something that Cowell sees as very relevant to Australia now. “Just like we like to think that we’re deeply multicultural we also like to think we have no class struggle, but we do,” he says.

“There are people brought up who go to Africa for their holidays instead of Noosa, they speak three languages…they know how to eat a meal, what cutlery to use, which is very different to someone who’s going to go on a Contiki tour and I think those things do matter and there’s a lot of doors opened for privileged Australians.”

With Cáceres’ unique ability to mix the political with the primal, Cowell is pumped to be a part of the production. “She makes theatre about the forgotten people in society and she gives them a voice, not an earnest voice, but a big, loud, dirty-flawed voice.”

What: Miss Julie Where: Belvoir St Theatre When: August 24 – October 6 More: belvoir.com.au

Olafur Eliasson, The Cubic Structural Evolution Project 2004, Purchased 2005, photo by Edwin Chen

The Cubic Structural Evolution Project

Film Reviews Hits and misses on the silver screen

■ Film

NOW YOU SEE ME

Beyond The Hills

In cinemas now From Las Vegas to New Orleans, New York and the streets of Paris, Louis Leterrier’s latest film Now You See Me follows an FBI agent (Mark Ruffalo) and Interpol detective (Mélanie Laurent) who attempt to track a four-strong team of illusionists – J. Daniel Atlas (Jesse Eisenberg), Merritt McKinney (Woody Harrelson), Henley Reeves (Isla Fisher) and Jack Wilder (Dave Franco) – nicknamed The Four Horsemen who publically pull off a series of seemingly impossible bank heists.

Now You See Me is for those after a lighthearted and fun film sans overly complex themes designed to challenge. The film’s thematic basis, however, does centre on the question of ‘is it just an illusion or is it actually magic?’ – a question that’ll keep you guessing right to the end and of course that question never gets answered.

While many of the more advanced tricks executed by our illusionists are obviously assisted by a little cinematographic magic, it’s satisfying to see Leterrier’s commercial Hollywood blockbuster attempting to keep as much of its farfetched storyline as realistic as possible.

And while unsurprising as it is that Leterrier’s latest has special effects coming out of its jacksy – what with his directorial history including the likes of The Incredible Hulk and Clash of the Titans to name but a few – his pulling power with the A-listers is still impressive. We’re talking Michael Caine as the multi-millionaire white-collar crook who falls victim to the illusionists’ heists, Morgan Freeman as the professional magic debunker and then there’s the blue chip cast of The Four Horsemen to boot.

Overall, Now You See Me is funny, fastpaced and captures the thrill value in illusionism. Sparkling, star-studded and special effect rife, the film is more caper than thriller, but if you’re a magic fan you’ll love the ride.

■ Film

BEYOND THE HILLS In cinemas now The screenplay for writer/director Cristian Mungiu’s challenging new film Beyond the Hills culminates two nonfictional novels by Tatiana Niculescu Bran to document the fascinating case of a young woman dying at a Maldovian monastery following an exorcism in 2005.

The film’s two main characters, Alina (Cristina Flutur) and Voichita (Cosmina Stratan), grow up in a rural Romanian orphanage where they become each other’s family. Alina is adopted at 19 and later heads to Germany to find work, while Voichita finds refuge in an Orthodox monastery, following her calling to become a nun. Growing increasingly isolated, Alina returns to Romania in an attempt to convince her childhood friend to leave the church and join her in creating a life together. Voichita, however, is reluctant to leave not only God but also the new family she has found in the monastery. In an effort to remain with her friend, Alina also pledges herself to the church. The fateful chain of events that ensue, in which Alina’s suspected schizophrenia is mistaken for demonic possession, lead to a naively callous exorcism and, ultimately, tragedy.

The story is told through lingering takes which are tedious at times, but this lengthy film (a smidgen over two and a half hours) is nonetheless engrossing.

The steady build to the final crescendo is captivating, raising personal questions for the two protagonists and consequently exploring traditional issues of morality and religion, and the challenging spaces where these concepts interact.

Premiering at Cannes Film Festival 2012, Beyond The Hills has won multiple awards including Best Screenplay and Best Actress. Despire such acclaim, however, this is a work that will divide people mainly due to its overwhelming bleakness. Here’s hoping Mungiu’s prowess as a filmmaker continues to be praised, but for some, the many confronting questions that remain unanswered might lessen viewers’ desire to dig any further for fear of the conronting truths they may find.

Jack Arthur Smith

Now You See Me

Lee Hutchison

See www.thebrag.com for more arts reviews

Arts Exposed Get some culture in ya with our pick of the week

The Baulkham Hills African Ladies Troupe

Xxxx

Belvoir St Theatre Opens August 15 “A celebration of women, human rights, laughter and resilience,” runs the tagline.

On Thursday August 15, The Baulkham Hills African Ladies Troupe brings its incredible stories of survival to Belvoir St Theatre for a limited season. Creating a joyous theatre of humanity, performances centre on individual tales of new beginnings in a land of refuge. Yarrie Bangura grew up in a camp in Guinea and has recently completed her HSC. Aminata Conteh is from Sierra Leone and is now an ambassador for the UNHCR. Big Mama Rosemary Kariuki is from Kenya and now a community leader. Yordy Haile-Michael grew up in an army and now has four kids. These are just a few of the stories viewers will learn through song, dance and acting. Visit belvoir.com.au for more information and tickets.

LV L 3 , 3 8 3 B O U R K E S T S U R RY H I L L S

L I V E M U S I C , V I S U A L A R T, T H E AT R E , CO M E DY, B U R L E S Q U E & B O O Z E

COME IN WE’RE OPEN TIL 3AM!

THU 1 5 AUG FRI 16 AUG SCARLET HEARTS COLOURSTARR THE IVORY DRIPS VIOLET PULP

GUESTS: SURES

SAT 1 7 AUG THE OWLS + OXBLVD FRANK SULTANA AND THE SINISTER KIDS + BILLY GOAT AND THE MONGRELS

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BRAG :: 525:: 12:08:13 :: 23

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

ALBUM OF THE WEEK HORRORSHOW King Amongst Many Elefant Traks

Xxxx King Amongst Many is exemplary of the Australian hip hop scene’s continued evolution and ability to produce dynamic and inspiring artists.

Hailing from Sydney’s inner west, dynamic duo Adit (production/mixing) and Solo (vocals) are back after somewhat of a hiatus with a brand new album, King Amongst Many. On their latest effort, Horrorshow showcase witty wordplay, dynamic flow and engaging storytelling, all backed by smooth production which incorporates subtle influences from other genres such as trip hop, funk and electro – no doubt accredited to Adit’s diverse background producing tracks for electronic act Left.

Opening track ‘Human Era’ is a highlight, setting the tone for the album and showcasing Adit’s production skills as well as Solo’s flow and thoughtful lyrics.

THE SMITH STREET BAND Don’t Fuck With Our Dreams Poison City Records

Melbourne punks The Smith Street Band have said they’d been galvanised and strengthened as a group by their recent touring, and the band do sound more focused on their new EP, Don’t Fuck With Our Dreams. They bunkered down with producer Matt Voigt (Paul Kelly, The Dirty Three) to record this ‘snapshot’ release that will tide fans over while the band work on the full-length follow-up to last year’s Sunshine & Technology.

Wil Wagner’s visceral, anguished vocals explode through speakers like a punch to the gut. The rougharound-the-edges aural aesthetic still remains, but is leaner this time around. These are emotions laid bare, battered and bleeding, but the lyrics are deceptively simple and matterof-fact.

The title track was inspired by an altercation a tour mate had with an aggressive concertgoer. ‘Don’t Fuck With Our Dreams’ became a mantra of sorts for the band and has carried over to this new EP. ‘Ducks Fly Together’ is an open, heaving love song. There is nothing sweet here, just a chest cracked open, exposing the slightly bruised but still beating heart within. On ‘Bigger Than Us’, when Wagner cries, “And when I tell you all I love you / Fuck, I couldn’t mean it more,” it seems inevitable that sweaty moshpit crowds will be screaming it back at him before long.

‘Kids’, meanwhile, is an introspective, acoustic-driven tour ode. Its stripped back opening kicks into gear by the second verse. And ‘Self Control’ is a sprawling, guttural song steeped in the misery of loneliness but manages to avoid getting bogged down by its subject matter.

Don’t Fuck With Our Dreams is raw and a little jagged, but it is also soaring and necessary.

He shows off a deep understanding of lyrical composition, whether he’s musing about what it takes to inspire greatness in oneself on ‘Free’ (“True kings don’t demand respect, they command it / And inspire when all hope has been abandoned / But all I ever want to do is sit on the couch, put my worries into a spliff / And blow them into the clouds”), or contemplating the transient nature of modern society while he observes the demise of a local neighbourhood on ‘Listen Close’: “Now the signs in the street say ‘for lease’ or ‘for sale’ / An invitation to dream / Reminder of those who failed”.

He also tackles challenging subject matter with grace, as in ‘Own Backyard’, which deals with the human rights issues surrounding the mistreatment of Australia’s indigenous community.

Despite featuring lots of heavy subject matter, the album contains light-hearted moments like the

catchy ‘Nice Guys Finish Last’ and the positive, upbeat ‘Make You Proud’. ‘Doctor’s Orders’ and ‘Dead Star Shine’ are also stellar tracks, rounding off a great album that is sure to set a new benchmark for what Aussie hip hop is capable of achieving.

Marisa Lugosi

GLASS TOWERS

SNAKADAKTAL

BEN MASON

SIGUR RÓS

Halcyon Days Hub/Inertia

Sleep In The Water I Oh You/Liberation

Holes & Corners Independent

Kveikur XL/Remote Control

Music aside, the cover of Halcyon Days is already one of my favourites of the year so far. On it, a young man treads water in the ocean with a lit cigarette in mouth, the image serving as a metaphor for the album’s theme, as according to lead singer Ben Hannam, it’s an “invitation back into the heady rush of teenage days” and represents young men “standing in the doorstep of adulthood”. The cigarette then can be seen as representing the flame of youth, which is about to be extinguished.

It’s a theme particularly present on the album’s last three tracks, ‘Griffin’, ‘The Best Of Friends’ and ‘Foreign Time’; the latter featuring a Flaming Lips-esque introduction and sweet, simple piano that links the verse and chorus. “Too young, too late / To find what I’ve been looking for / In this gutter town,” sings Hannam, the clearest reference to this exploration of the adolescent to adult transition.

Harking back to the days of teenage crushes with its jumpy, up-tempo roll, ‘Griffin’ shows a young man struggling to express emotions properly: “I’m sorry that I’m such a typical guy / I cannot speak / I have not tried”.

The rest of the album is classic indie rock; there are shades of Two Door Cinema Club throughout, mainly through the lead guitar on tracks like ‘Halcyon’, but Hannam has a distinctive voice which helps set his band apart.

That voice shines on ‘Jumanji’ during its grandiose chorus.

Weightlessness is a hell of a feeling, whether it is physical (floating) or metaphorical (transcendence).

Running with the duality of this adjective, Snakadaktal have released a debut album that, firstly, sonically flows with an effortless style that is so well-produced it immediately contemporises them with UK megastars The xx. Secondly, the album’s title and cover art, depicting a grey sea, touches upon that feeling of weightlessness and expansive wonder that is deeply imbued in the lyrical depth and vocal deliveries of Phoebe Cockburn and Sean Heathcliff.

This album is a winner on so many levels, with the first two releases from the album, ‘Ghost’ and ‘Hung On Tight’, as powerful as they are polarised. Cockburn’s vocals on ‘Ghost’ seem to have relaxed somewhat from Snakadaktal’s 2011 debut EP, with her voice losing that youthful twang and now settling somewhere in between Tori Amos and Kate Bush. The single ‘Hung On Tight’ burst into our media channels the same week Snakadaktal were set to play Splendour, and with its dramatic film clip and vivid lyrical storytelling the song has already made quite the impact. Musically, the song is dissimilar to ‘Ghost’ – while still having the ethereal edge, ‘Hung On Tight’ drives forward with compelling inexorability like a boxer pulling themself off the mat only to then deliver the winning punch.

As a group, Glass Towers manage, in part, to reach the celebratory highs and melancholic lows becoming of a tribute to adolescence. Halcyon Days boasts numerous finely crafted songs, and the band’s ambition to explore themes closer to their hearts is certainly something not to be knocked. A promising long player.

A highlight of this album’s tenderness and beauty is the triptych of ‘The Sun’ parts I, II and III. The first movement features Heathcliff and a clean guitar strum pleading to be heard, and the third movement, which closes the album, is a beautiful coalescence of Snakadaktal’s best attributes: naivety, texture, intelligence, and beauty.

Garrath Westmore

Denver Maxx

The passive avoidance of conflict that runs through the debut album from Ben Mason (formerly of The Smallgoods) is nicely summed up on opening track, ‘Avoiding A Fight’. The undercurrent of unease is reflected in a promo clip of feet moving without any clear direction, and with no real start or finish. Despite this, the gentle, warming melodies do enough to convince you that the lyric “Everything will work out fine” is not entirely in vain.

The following track, ‘Black Sky, Yellow Moon’, sees the ominous mood leak a little more into the music. The album continues along its casual yet conflicted route until closer ‘Word For Word’ opens up to sunshine and blue sky, even though the sky is “blue like you”. A deadeyed fence sitter is berated with the repeated mantra, “All that you know is all that you’ve learned / All you repeat is all that you’ve heard / Cause you don’t have opinions of your own” as the song fades out. It’s aimlessly stuck in the middle, but its charms lure you into its hypnotic, looping centre.

If Holes & Corners leaves you wanting more, you can explore Mason’s recent reinterpretations of other musicians’ works, including a full-album reworking of The Zombies’ Odessey And Oracle and a capella covers of songs originating from Australia and Portland. It’s all worth tracking down, but I’ll be primarily looking forward to the next piece that originates from Mason’s own mind.

Holes & Corners is an all-tooshort slice of life, offering eight songs of breezy discontent, and it sounds beautifully polished for what is essentially a bedroom recording.

Sigur Rós is one of those rare bands that distinguish themselves by sounding like absolutely no-one else. It’s refreshing given that at any particular point in time there are hoards of bands that wear influences on their sleeve and cash in on very particular and popular sounds. We are lucky to have a new album from this now iconic band, especially given all the rumors that they had broken up. As it happens their keyboard player Kjartan Sveinsson has left the band and all the lush orchestrations he engineered on the albums they recorded for EMI are now largely absent.

The band featured on Kveikur has now been whittled down to a more elemental rock outfit that has smoothed out the sweeping emotional highs and desperate crashing lows that once took us on wild emotional roller coaster rides to give us an album of dreamy glittering pop. Jonsi Birgisson’s ecstatic falsetto continues to float through their music and on this album it becomes the focus of the mix. There was a time when it seemed that Coldplay were emulating Sigur Rós, situating somewhat ethereal orchestrations in their obvious pop manoeuvres.

Ironically, ‘Rafstraumur’ and many other songs on this album find Sigur Rós shifting to craft majestic pop that edges itself into Coldplay territory.

Despite what fans of albums like Agaetis Byrjun may think, Sigur Rós continue to find a path towards the spiritual in their music. Kveikur feels like a new beginning for our favorite band from Iceland.

The Sideman

Chris Girdler

Natalie Amat

INDIE ALBUM OF THE WEEK THE NATIVE CATS Dallas RIP Society Julian Teakle is an artist, in the conceptual sense of that term. He makes music that explores the fundamentals of the pop and rock genres, stripping each back to its constituent elements, mashing them up, rolling them out and isolating the bits that work, and discarding all the rest.

Sometimes Teakle’s art works; other times, it confuses enough people to ensure Teakle remains on the fringes of the artistic scene. But it’s always important art. The

24 :: BRAG :: 525 :: 12:08:13

Native Cats has been Teakle’s primary musical outlet for the last few years, and Dallas is The Native Cats’ debut fulllength record. It’s difficult to explain just why this is such a significant record. It’s partly because the opening track, ‘Pane E Acqua’, is near-perfect minimalist punk rock: just a bass riff and a set of evocative lyrics (“You off the record / Or you at your best”); it’s also because ‘Hit’ might be the dark electronic pop everyone’s always wanted to construct in their bedroom.

Or that ‘I Remember Everyone’ works off The Celibate Rifles’ opening riff in ‘Merry Xmas Blues’ and whisks it off into psychedelic PiL territory; or that the atmospheric intensity of ‘Cavalier’ could wind its way into a Polanski film set in

freakiest parts of regional Tasmania. But it could just as well be the Queenstownvia-Berlin scratching Devastations textural sonic experiment of ‘Scratch Act’, too.

And then there’s 11-and-a-half minutes of atomised psychedelic electronic punk in ‘Mohawk-Motif’. The bass riff is relentless, captivating, hypnotic; the sonic background is replete with weird noises – is this the onset of insanity and eternal confusion?

The vocals kick in, and we’re confronted with a lecture from Mark E Smith, edited

by John Lydon.

If you don’t understand just why it’s so good by now, you never will. But if you do, you’ll never be the same again.

Patrick Emery

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

BOMBAY BICYCLE CLUB - Flaws SPANK ROCK AND BENNY BLANCO - Bangers & Cash FAT FREDDY’S DROP - Based On A True Story

MORRISSEY - You Are The Quarry PJ HARVEY - Dry

snap sn ap

live review What we've been out to see...

up all night out all week . . .

and wonderful especially when Rogers fucks up his windmilling guitar with great gusto on ‘Minor Byrd’.

Panthers Newcastle Friday August 2 It’s hard not to notice the muted excitement in the room as Tim Rogers, Andy Kent, Rusty Hopkinson and Davey ‘The Kid’ Lane beam sly grins from the stage. A few excited punters down the front bounce back and forth and fist pump at each jut and snarl Rogers delivers. (Ample amounts of the tour’s signature beer Brew Am I may have had something to do with all the matted hair flying around early on.) As the band rips into ‘Dead Letter Chorus’ from 1996’s Hourly, Daily, heads begin to bob, giving a clear sense Australia’s favourite likely lads know they’ve still got what it takes after nearly 24 years as a band.

Over two sets – showcasing Hourly, Daily and its 1995 predecessor Hi Fi Way – the band pulls out required favourites like the former’s titular track and ‘Cathy’s Clown’ from the latter, as well as some surprises like ‘Trike’ from the international version of Hourly, Daily. It all feels familiar, scrappy

There are liberal dashes of Roger’s infamous cheek in both the ridiculous purple velour trousers he wears in the second set and the way he chides certain members of the crowd. The main man suffers no fools – and wins even more hearts – when he asks a guy in the front row filming the concert: “I’m really glad you came tonight, but can’t you just be here in this moment, with all of us together?”

During encore tune ‘Adam’s Ribs’, the band express their gratitude for more than two decades of sweaty and full venue floors. “This band only exists because of people taking chances,” Rogers says, “and Newcastle has always been the best at that.” And then, naturally, they play ‘Berlin Chair’ to an audience no longer bothered with hiding their smiles.

Benjamin Cooper

clare bowditch

PICS :: HL

YOU AM I

PICS :: AM

fidlar

world's end

PICS :: TL

03:08:13 :: The Factory Theatre :: 105 Victoria Rd Marrickville 9550 3666

02:08:13 :: Brighton Up Bar :: 1/77 Oxford St Darlinghurst 9361 3379

bernard fanning

PICS :: AM

31:07:13 :: Oxford Art Factory :: 38-46 Oxford St Darlinghurst 9332 3711

karnivool

PICS :: AM

02:08:13 :: Enmore Theatre :: 118-132 Enmore Rd Newtown 9550 3666

04:08:13 :: The Big Top :: Luna Park 1 Olympic Dr Milsons Point 9033 7600

S : TIM LEVY (HEAD HONCHO) OUR LOVELY PHOTOGRAPHER SE :: AKA CAPITALHAICH :: DAVID ROU

:: ASHLEY MAR :: HENRY LEUNG

BRAG :: 525 :: 12:08:13 :: 25

snap sn ap

oscar key sung

30:07:13 :: Entertainment Centre :: 35 Harbour St Darling Harbour 9320 4200

PICS :: AM

p!nk

PICS :: AM

up all night out all week . . .

castlecomer

PICS :: HL

02:08:13 :: Goodgod Small Club :: 53-55 Liverpool St Sydney 8084 0587

jack colwell & the owls

01:08:13 :: Blue Beat :: 16 Cross St Double Bay 9328 4411 :: ASHLEY MAR :: HENRY LEUNG S : TIM LEVY (HEAD HONCHO) OUR LOVELY PHOTOGRAPHER SE :: AKA CAPITALHAICH :: DAVID ROU

26 :: BRAG :: 525 :: 12:08:13

arctic seven

PICS :: HL

shelley segal & adam levy

PICS :: HL

01:08:13 :: FBi Social :: Kings Cross Hotel 248 William St 9331 9900

03:08:13 :: Upstairs Beresford :: 354 Bourke St Surry Hills 8313 5000

PICS :: HL

01:08:13 :: Oxford Art Factory :: 38-46 Oxford St Darlinghurst 9332 3711

BRAG :: 525 :: 12:08:13 :: 27

g g guide gig g send your listings to : gigguide@thebrag.com Xxx

pick of the week

World’s End Press

TUESDAY AUGUST 13 ACOUSTIC/ COUNTRY/BLUES/ FOLK

Paul Kelly

Paul Kelly + Urthboy City Recital Hall, Sydney.

7:30pm. $99.90.

JAZZ, SOUL, FUNK, LATIN & WORLD MUSIC Old School Funk And Groove Night Venue 505, Surry Hills.

8:30pm. free.

INDIE, ROCK, POP, METAL, PUNK & COVERS

Co Pilot Orient Hotel, The Rocks. 9pm. free.

WEDNESDAY AUGUST 14 ACOUSTIC/ COUNTRY/BLUES/ FOLK

Paul Kelly + Urthboy City Recital Hall, Sydney.

7:30pm. $99.90.

Pulp Kitchen And Folk Club - feat: Live Rotating Folk Bands Soda Factory, Surry Hills.

5pm. free.

The Folk Informal - feat: Buffalo Tales + The Harry Heart Chrysalis + Shardae Ewart + Dominic Youdan FBi Social, Kings Cross. 7pm. $10.

JAZZ, SOUL, FUNK, LATIN & WORLD MUSIC

TUESDAY AUGUST 13 WEDNESDAY AUGUST 14 City R Ci Recital Hall

Paul Kelly + Urthboy 7:30pm. $99.90.

MONDAY AUGUST 12 INDIE, ROCK, POP, METAL, PUNK & COVERS

Frankie’s World Famous House Band Frankie’s Pizza, Sydney. 9pm. free.

28 :: BRAG :: 525 : 12:08:13

The Great Australian Songbook - feat: Angry Anderson + Alex Smith (Moving Pictures) + John Paul Young + More Enmore Theatre, Newtown.

6:30pm. $39.

JAZZ, SOUL, FUNK, LATIN & WORLD MUSIC Brackets And Jam Revisited

Venue 505, Surry Hills.

8:30pm. free.

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

Mariachi Mondays - feat: Victor Valdes And Friends The Basement, Circular Quay.

5pm. free.

Motown Mondays - feat: Soultrane The White Horse, Surry Hills.

8pm. free.

Ghetto Funk - feat: DJ Jono Bar Century, Sydney. 8pm. free.

Hump Wednesdays - feat: The Petting Zoo The Little Guy, Glebe. 7pm. free.

Lionel Cole The White Horse, Surry Hills.

8pm. free.

Mingus Amongst Us Venue 505, Surry Hills.

8:30pm. $15.

Souled Out Orient Hotel, The Rocks. 9pm. free.

The Strides The Basement, Circular Quay.

8pm. $5.

World Music Wednesdays feat: El Orquestron The Basement, Circular Quay.

8pm. $5.

INDIE, ROCK, POP, METAL, PUNK & COVERS

Bastille + Tigertown Metro Theatre, Sydney. 8pm. $48.70.

Reckless Scruffy Murphy’s Hotel, Sydney. 11pm. free.

The Whitlams With The Sydney Symphony Sydney Opera House, Sydney.

8pm. $69.

Wes Carr’s Buffalo Tales FBi Social, The Rocks. 8pm. $10.

THURSDAY AUGUST 15 JAZZ, SOUL, FUNK, LATIN & WORLD

MUSIC

Organ Groove - feat: Dave Goodman + Darren Heinrich + Lionel Cole The White Horse, Surry Hills.

8pm. free.

Pugsley Buzzard Camelot Lounge, Marrickville.

7pm. $25.

Silvie Paladino Slide Lounge, Darlinghurst.

7pm. $30.

ACOUSTIC/ COUNTRY/BLUES/ FOLK Lo Carmen & Peter Head feat: Jason Walker The Vanguard, Newtown, Sydney. 8pm. $23.80.

INDIE, ROCK, POP, METAL, PUNK & COVERS

Scarlet Hearts - feat: Colorstarr + The Ivory Drips + Violet Pulp The Standard, Surry Hills.

8pm. $10.

Bryce Cohen Brass Monkey, Cronulla. 7pm. $18.

Chicks Who Love Guns feat: DJ Ronnie Frankie’s Pizza, Sydney. 8pm. free.

Gary Johns Scruffy Murphy’s Hotel, Sydney. 10pm. free.

Ian Stephen & The Imperfectionists - feat: Reverse Vienna Oyster The Green Room Lounge, Enmore. 8pm. free.

John Vella Bexley North Hotel, Bexley North. 6:30pm. free.

Louis London - feat: Tigertown Unsw Roundhouse, Kensington. 8pm. free.

Slumberhaze

Low 302, Surry Hills. 8pm. free.

St George Scream - feat: 8 Live Bands Rocking Out! Forest Inn Hotel, Bexley. 7pm. $15.

Taos & The Dreamers - feat: Kaibe + The Book Of Vilah Town Hall Hotel, Newtown.

8pm. free.

The Whitlams With The Sydney Symphony Sydney Opera House, Sydney.

8pm. $69.

Thursday Night (Live) (The Myall High Club) The Spice Cellar, Sydney.

7pm. free.

Watsup Orient Hotel, The Rocks. 9pm. free.

World’s End Press Brighton Up Bar, Darlinghurst, Sydney. 8pm. free.

FRIDAY AUGUST 16 JAZZ, SOUL, FUNK, LATIN & WORLD MUSIC George Benson And The Sydney Symphony Sydney Opera House, 7pm. $49.

Pape Mbaye & Chosani Afrique Camelot Lounge, Marrickville. 7:30pm. $22.70.

Salsa Kingz Canterbury Leagues Club, Canterbury.

9pm. free.

The Todd Hardy Swing Orchestra Play Ella & Duke feat. Anita Spring Venue 505, Surry Hills. 8:30pm. $25.

ACOUSTIC/ COUNTRY/BLUES/ FOLK Tigertown

g g guide gig g send your listings to : gigguide@thebrag.com Emmanuel + Pop Standen And Lightning Jack Ridge + Devils Kiosk + Jbh Revival + Shaun Kirk The Hi-Fi, Moore Park. 8pm. $25.50.

INDIE, ROCK, POP, METAL, PUNK & COVERS And_us - feat: Underground Airforce + Wishing Fiction Roxbury Hotel, Glebe. 8pm. $12.

Bloods Brighton Up Bar, Darlinghurst. 8pm. $12.

Midnight Juggernauts

Bryon & Steve Cock N’ Bull, Sydney. 7pm. free.

Gang Of Youths + DJ Bernie Dingo Upstairs Beresford, Surry Hills. 6pm. free.

Glass Towers + Jordan Leser The Standard, Surry Hills.

7pm. $10.

Hornsby Hotshots - feat: In 3 + 2 + 1 + Lauren Harrison + Ex Curia Ku-ring-gai PCYC Performing Art Centre, Hornsby. 7pm. $15.

Ian Moss Lizzotte’s Kincumber,

Kincumber. 8pm. $82.50.

Kurt Williams Chatswood RSL, Chatswood.

5:30pm. free.

Major Leagues Brighton Up Bar, Darlinghurst. 8pm. free.

MDC - feat: Fire Arms + Rust + Hostile Objects Hermann’s Bar, Darlington.

6:30pm. $44.

Mick Vawdon Customs House Bar, Sydney.

7pm. free.

Midnight Juggernauts Metro Theatre, Sydney. 8pm. $28.70.

Mitchell Anderson, The Blondettes

The Brass Monkey, Cronulla.

7pm. $28.

The Dark Hawks - feat: Samoan Punks & Hollywood Rock N Roll DJ Bunnykose The Backroom, Potts Point.

8pm. $10.

Uncovered Scruffy Murphy’s Hotel, Sydney. 10:30pm. free.

SATURDAY AUGUST 17 INDIE, ROCK, POP, METAL, PUNK & COVERS

Bloods Terrace Bar, Newcastle. 9pm. $10.

Counterfeit Tribute Night - feat: Telafonica + Rex Havoc Banned + The Blarney Stoners + Bella Voltaire + Captain Obvious + Gold Model + Glimmer Twins + The Side Cars + Bull Bull + T-Bone & The Chips And Chiko & The Rollers The Gaelic Club, Surry Hills.

9pm. $5.

DMC World Championships NSW Final - feat: Local DJs Hermann’s Bar, Darlington.

9pm. $12.

Elevate Orient Hotel, The Rocks.

9:30pm. free.

F!Ngert!P$ Oxford Art Factory, Darlinghurst. 8pm. free.

Flyleaf + Breakaway + Red Bee + Carmeria Metro Theatre, Sydney.

7:30pm. $59.10.

Seabellies - feat: Tropical

Zombie Beach Road Hotel, Bondi Beach. 8pm. free.

Souled Out Scruffy Murphy’s Hotel, Sydney. 10:30pm. free.

The Jacks Oatley Hotel, Oatley. 8:30pm. free.

The Mal Eastick Band Roxbury Hotel, Glebe. 8pm. free.

The Stabs + The Holy Soul Goodgod Small Club, Sydney. 8pm. free.

Persian & Flamenco Fusion - feat: Davood And The Far Seas + Pegah Panah + Rafael Alcolea + Ali T + Greg Alfonzetti + Geatan Frichot + Steve Ley The Factory Theatre, Marrickville, Sydney. 8pm. $35.

ACOUSTIC/ COUNTRY/BLUES/ FOLK

JAZZ, SOUL, FUNK, LATIN & WORLD MUSIC

Black Dog EP Launch feat: Zoe Elliot + Edward Deer + Achoo! Bless You Paddington Uniting Church, Sydney. 7pm. $15.

Muddy Waters Tribute feat: Dom Turner + Ian Collard + Kevin Bennett + Don Hopkins The Brass Monkey, Cronulla.

7pm. free.

Stormcellar Moorebank Sports Club, Sydney. 9:30pm. free.

JAZZ, SOUL, FUNK, LATIN & WORLD MUSIC 20th Century Dog Venue 505, Surry Hills.

8:30pm. $15.

Daryl Beaton & The D1 Cartel + Major Leagues + The Conversations + DJ Hobophonics Upstairs Beresford, Surry Hills. 6pm. free.

George Benson And The Sydney Symphony Sydney Opera House, Sydney. 7pm. $49.

SUNDAY AUGUST 18

Rembetika Camelot Lounge, Marrickville. 6:30pm. $24.70.

INDIE, ROCK, POP, METAL, PUNK & COVERS Cartel + Lydia The Annandale Hotel, Annandale. 7pm. $47.

The Road Runners & DJ Grizzly Adams Torque Bar, Sydney. 4pm. free.

ACOUSTIC/ COUNTRY/BLUES/ FOLK

Bronte Oatley Hotel, Oatley. 2pm. free.

Little Sundays - feat: Stephanie Grace The Little Guy, Glebe. 7pm. free.

Stormcellar Royal Hotel, Bondi. 7pm. free.

tue

13 Aug

(9:00PM - 12:00AM)

wed

14 Aug

(9:00PM - 12:00AM)

thu

15 Aug

(9:30PM - 12:30AM)

fri

16 Aug

(4:30PM - 7:30PM)

(9:30PM - 1:30AM)

SUNDAY AFTERNOON

SATURDAY AFTERNOON

sat

17 Aug

(4:30PM - 7:30PM)

SATURDAY NIGHT

(9:30PM - 12:30AM)

sun

18 Aug

(4:30PM - 7:30PM)

SUNDAY NIGHT

(8:30PM - 12:00AM)

BRAG :: 525 :: 12:08:13 :: 29

gig picks up all night out all week...

MONDAY AUGUST 12

THURSDAY AUGUST 15

The Great Australian Songbook Feat: Angry Anderson + Alex Smith (Moving Pictures) + John Paul Young + More Enmore Theatre, Newtown. 6:30pm. $39.

Silvie Paladino Slide Lounge, Darlinghurst. 7pm. $30.

WEDNESDAY AUGUST 14 Bastille + Tigertown Metro Theatre, Sydney. 8pm. $48.70.

The Whitlams With The Sydney Symphony Sydney Opera House. 8pm. $69.

Wes Carr’s Buffalo Tales FBi Social, Kings Cross. 8pm. $10.

Flyleaf

Silvie Paladino

Bloods

Scarlet Hearts - Feat: Colorstarr + The Ivory Drips + Violet Pulp The Standard, Surry Hills. 8pm. $10.

The Whitlams With The Sydney Symphony Sydney Opera House. 8pm. $69.

FRIDAY AUGUST 16 George Benson And The Sydney Symphony Sydney Opera House, 7pm. $49.

SATURDAY AUGUST 17

SUNDAY AUGUST 18

Pape Mbaye & Chosani Afrique Camelot Lounge, Marrickville.

7:30pm. $22.70.

Flyleaf + Breakaway + Red Bee + Carmeria Metro Theatre, Sydney. 7:30pm. $59.10.

Cartel + Lydia The Annandale Hotel, Annandale.

7pm. $47.

Blues & Grooves Feat: Phil Emmanuel + Pop Standen And Lightning Jack Ridge + Devils Kiosk + JBH Revival + Shaun Kirk The Hi-Fi, Moore Park. 8pm. $25.50.

Bloods Brighton Up Bar, Darlinghurst. 8pm. $12.

Glass Towers + Jordan Leser The Standard, Surry Hills. 7pm. $10.

Midnight Juggernauts Metro Theatre, Sydney. 8pm. $28.70.

Black Dog EP Launch - Feat: Zoe Elliot + Edward Deer + Achoo!

Bless You Paddington Uniting Church. 7pm. $15.

George Benson And The Sydney Symphony Sydney Opera House. 7pm. $49.

Persian & Flamenco Fusion Feat: Davood And The Far Seas + Pegah Panah + Rafael Alcolea + Ali T + Greg Alfonzetti + Geatan Frichot + Steve Ley The Factory Theatre, Marrickville.

8pm. $35.

Wes Carr

WED 14th AUGUST

LUNCH BREAK: BEARS WITH GUNS

THE FOLK INFORMAL: BUFFALO TALES + THE HARRY HEART CHRYSALIS + SHARDAE EWART + DOMINIC YOUDAN

1PM // FREE

8PM // $10

THU 15th AUGUST

AIM SHOWCASE: WHO SHOULD PLAY AT ‘FBI TURNS 10’?

BELLE & THE BONE PEOPLE + THE ELECTRIC VOGUES + BAD PONY + MARY GUNN + OSCAR WILDE + RODSKEEZ + OEDURA + OLYMPIC AYRES 8PM // FREE

FRI 16th AUGUST

BEARS WITH GUNS + LEPERS & CROOKS UACSC 8PM // $10

www.fbisocial.com 30 :: BRAG :: 525 : 12:08:13

SAT 17th AUGUST

THE CARRAWAYS + PRETTY CITY + THE LOVE YOU RIGHTS 11:30PM // $10

HANDS UP!

DJS STAGGMAN & CLOCKWERK 11:30PM // FREE

level 2, kings cross hotel

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

he said she said WITH

Talib Kweli

ALLDAY

RAP CITY

Growing Up I grew up in a fairly 1. musical house. My uncle

Your Crew I’m a solo artist but 3. there are a lot of people

Basically it’s rapping and music, not rap music.

was always playing guitar in the kitchen and the CD player was always on.

Still when I go home the first thing I hear is music blaring before I step in the door. My mum had me play instruments when I was young but none of them really stuck. Rapping was the cool thing to do in my suburb (Blackwood in Adelaide) so that’s what I did.

who help me do what I do.

I have two managers and a booking agent who handle the business side of things.

My friend Charlie records and mixes all my work. It’s good having a friend who understands your vision for the music. He plays a huge part in the process. Then there’s my DJ Mikey Hundred who comes on tour with me. Not to mention all the producers I work with. My best mate is a rapper from Adelaide called Dialect. He was like a child prodigy battle rapper and he used to win rap battles when we were like 14.

The Last Record You Bought 5.

I think the last thing I bought

4.

moment. Australia and New Zealand have some of the coolest acts in the world right now. We always have and we probably always will.

Inspirations I’m always checking 2. new music and taking little bits of inspiration.

Growing up I loved Big L, Talib, Eminem, MF Doom, Wu-Tang Clan… Those were the years of Fubu shirts and baggy jeans. Then for a couple of years all I listened to was neo-soul like Maxwell and Dwele. Then it was only indie rock for a while. Now I listen to all kinds of different stuff. My favourite rapper is Drake. A lot of people find that weird but yeah, he’s my favourite.

The Music You Make I make hip hop... kind of.

Sometimes it’s hip hop and sometimes it’s other stuff. I sing a lot, it’s usually pretty bad but I’ve got Auto-Tune for that. Sometimes I rap on garage or house music, often traditional hip hopsounding beats or anything in between. I’d like to say it’s a mix between Frank Ocean, Nirvana and Talib Kweli.

DJ SPRINKLES MIDWEEK ENCORE

Terre Thaemlitz, AKA DJ Sprinkles, will follow on from her performance last weekend with an encore Sydney show this Wednesday August 14 at Club 77. Thaemlitz will be playing live, performing material from the Soulnessless EP, which was praised for cementing Thaemlitz’s status “amongst the most interesting and bravest of contemporary musicians and for that reason an asset to any artistic movement.”

Soulnessless was a truly epic 32-hour digital album released last year as a 16GB Micro memory card, which traversed such disparate themes as gender transitioning, Japanese immigration law and Catholicism. When performing Soulnessless, Thaemlitz melds audio and visual content with commentary

was Kanye West, Yeezus. I’ve loved every Kanye album to date. So when Yeezus came out I bought it straight away. I really don’t think it’s his best work (surprise, surprise) but there are some really amazing songs on there. I don’t want to say anything bad about it because I haven’t made music nearly as good as Kanye yet, so I don’t deserve to critique him.

Hip hop festival Rap City returns for its fourth installment since 2010 with a lineup fronted by legendary Brooklyn emcee Talib Kweli, Stones Throw Records’ Homeboy Sandman and New Orleans Jet Life Crew staple Trademark Da Skydiver. Kweli boasts an impressive pedigree, working with Mos Def as Black Star; partnering producer Hi-Tek for Reflection Eternal; and collaborating with the likes of Kanye West and Madlib, as well as releasing plenty of landmark solo material. Kweli recently released a new album, Prisoner Of Conscious, which features guest spots from Nelly, Kendrick Lamar, Miguel, Curren$y, Marsha Ambrosius and Busta Rhymes. “I wanted to put out an album that really can support the artist that I’ve become,” Keli said of the release. You can catch him along with a host of other well-known hip hop impresarios at Rap City on Sunday October 6 (a long weekend) at The Hi-Fi.

PANGAEA

Hessle Audio co-head Kevin McAuley, AKA Pangaea, will headline the Civic Underground this Saturday August 17 courtesy of Astral People. Pangaea has released on labels such as Hemlock and Hotflush Recordings and completed highprofile mixes for BBC1 and Resident Advisor.

Pangaea has been instrumental in the continual evolution of dubstep, working closely with Pearson Sound and Ben UFO and evolving his sound into a densely percussive hybrid sound of techno steeped in jungle and dubstep. Pangaea will be supported by local DJs Cliques, Ben Fester and Adrian E.

Music, Right Here, Right Now 6.

I love the music scene at the

EARS HAVE EARS

FBi Radio’s flagship experimental radio show Ears Have Ears has announced the next event in its live music series. Ears Have Ears Presents #4 will see the launch of Brisbane fractured noise misfits Cured Pink’s 7”, ‘Body Body Body’. Cured Pink will play alongside a selection of acts spanning various corners of the experimental and contemporary music spectrum, including Brisbane duo Brainbeau, Sydney techno synth act Four Door and the pairing that is Ruined Fortune. Also featured on the bill is projectionist Jadis Mischka and Ears Have Ears DJs. It all goes down on Friday August 30 at 107 Projects, Redfern.

Moby

What: ‘Soon I’ll Be In Cali 2’ mixtape out now Where: Supporting Illy at the Metro Theatre When: Saturday September 14

and dialogue with the audience, blended with passages of live audio performance.

“Clearly, this album requires a lot of active engagement and activity from the listeners themselves, and this is deliberate,” Thaemlitz said of the release. “I want the audio in my projects to interfere with conventional listening to some extent, as an actualisation – or at least a metaphorical extension – of the ideas I’m talking about. Otherwise it all becomes masturbatory philosophical dallying.” A local lineup comprising Matt Format, Adonis, Nick Forrest and Nuck Fames has been assembled for the occasion, with the latter two playing live.

Respected veteran DJ Simon Caldwell will be threading it all together. Doors open at 8pm, with prospective revelers required to show their DJ Sprinkles ticket printout from last weekend at the door, because that will be what gets you in.

MOBY DJ SET

Rave veteran Moby will play an exclusive DJ set at Chinese Laundry on Thursday September 19 to an intimate crowd of 400 people, to promote the release of his forthcoming album Innocents, dropping on Friday September 27. Moby hooked up with producer Mark ‘Spike’ Stent on the record; a man who has produced the likes of U2, Massive Attack and Madonna, and worked with Moby on his career-defining album Play, which sold over 12 million copies worldwide.

BRAG :: 525 :: 12:08:13 :: 31

dance music news

free stuff

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

email: freestuff@thebrag.com

on the record WITH

MIDNIGHT JUGGERNAUTS

BRO SAFARI The Last Record I Bought: The Record That Changed I was in LA, rolling around My Life: 2.

5. town with a buddy recently, This is an impossible question and had the urge to listen to ATLiens by Outkast. I’ve probably purchased this album a few times already, but it’s worth buying as many times as I need to. Classic.

The First Thing I Recorded: The first thing I recorded 3. was myself singing and playing

The First Record I Bought: The first record that I ever 1. bought was a cassette version of the Dead Kennedys’ album, Give Me Convenience Or Give Me Death. My mum let my sister and me each buy one album, and that’s what I picked out. Unfortunately, when we

got back to the car outside the store, my mum made me return it. She didn’t approve of the artwork. Funny enough, the tape that I bought instead was Appetite For Destruction by Guns N’ Roses, which was way worse, in terms of the lyrical content.

The Last Thing I Recorded: The last studio session had 4. me working on a remix for the band Korn. I worked on it in an LA studio with my collaborative partner, UFO! Nobody has really heard it yet, but I think it’s going to go over well once we release it. We took a really different approach to making trap music with this one, infusing a load of drum’n’bass influence.

Where: Chinese Laundry When: Friday August 16 And: Bro Safari + UFO! Animal out now

WALL OF SOUND

Still wondering what lies beneath Sydney’s trap door? East Midlands boys Andy Wright, Ben Wiggett and Simon Smith – AKA Drumsound and Basslinesmith – are set to thrust it open with their mix of modern electro, dubstep, glitchy 4/4 and, yes, trap (see what we did there?). Wall Of Sound is their latest kaleidoscopic project, two years in the making and featuring stellar collaborations with the likes of Tom Cane and Fleur. We have fi ve copies of Wall Of Sound up for grabs, just so you can practise your rave face before racing to their set at Stereosonic. Email freestuff@ thebrag.com and tell us what you’d pin up on your wall of sound.

MAD RACKET UPDATE THUNDAMENTALS

Blue Mountains via Newtown hip hop trio Thundamentals have released a new single, ‘Smiles Don’t Lie’, lifted off their upcoming, as-yet-untitled third album. The troupe released their second album Foreverlution back in 2011, an album that did the business on both the ARIA and AIR Charts and built on their debut release, which had already caught the attention of Rolling Stone magazine. Thundamentals have forged a reputation as one of Australia’s most accomplished and energetic live acts, supporting heavyweights like A Tribe Called Quest, Big Boi, MF Doom and Lyrics Born. They’ll perform alongside a host of illustrious drawcards at FBi’s Tenth Birthday bash at Carriageworks on Sunday September 8

Long-running Sydney institution Mad Racket is on temporary hiatus while the Racketeers find a new venue. (Perhaps it’s no coincidence the last Mad Racket party was themed ‘Cops & Robbers’.) However those desperate for their fix of the racketeers can catch them playing at Melbourne’s SloMotion Social Club this Saturday, with SloMotion main man Phil K revealing he’d offered the Sydney lads his venue so “the legend can continue”.

Booka Shade

Thundamentals

Nile Rodgers

SUBSONIC 2013

As we move towards the end of the wretched season that is winter, it’s time to look forward to summer, and events such as the annual Subsonic Music Festival, which will take place in the idyllic surrounds of the Riverwood Downs Mountain Valley Resort at Barrington Tops over the weekend of December 6-8. Production maestro and disco luminary cum Daft Punk collaborator Nile Rodgers will be headlining the event with his band Chic, ahead of the likes of Dirtybird artists Christian Martin and Kill Frenzy, UK producer Zed Bias, and Salmonella Dub Soundsystem. In terms of house and techno, Sydney favourite Alexkid and international drawcards Marcus Meinhardt, Nico Stojan, Smallpeople, SIOPIS, Klartraum, Amir Alexander, Eelke Kleijn and Psychemagik will all perform over the weekend, along with Africa Hitech, Opiuo and Dizz1 and an extensive local DJ lineup. Now entering its fifth year, Subsonic has built up a devoted following by offering a diverse and discerning selection of performers in an environment where the music runs continuously for over 48 hours (in contrast to the paternalistic 10pm curfew that characterises most ‘inner city’ festivals we have in Sydney). For the uninitiated, Subsonic is a custom-built lifestyle festival held in a world heritage site on the banks of a river, two-and-ahalf hours north of Sydney. The party is BYO and 18+. Head to subsonicmusic. com.au for further details and ticket sales – first release tickets are available for $150.

32 :: BRAG :: 525 :: 12:08:13

BOOKA SHADE + DIGITALISM

PEOPLE MUST JAM

People Must Jam returns on Saturday October 12 for a double celebration of the party’s fifth birthday and first release on wax.

New Zealand’s Frank Booker, who also headlined the event last year, will headline proceedings with an extended set of “deep house and chunky funk”. Alongside his good mate Recloose, Booker has co-promoted and co-hosted Auckland’s legendary ‘Hit It And Quit It’ radio show and its associated club night for the past decade. Booker has also released tracks on a plethora of labels including Kat Records, Razor-N-Tape, Kolour Ltd and Sleazy Beats, and features on the first 12” to be released on People Must Jam’s record label, ‘Floor Jammers Volume 1’.

Booker will be joined on the decks by Matt Trousdale, Pete Dot and JMS, with the party a BYO affair that will take place at an inner city warehouse space. The address will be emailed to ticket holders the week of the party. Those who attend will have the chance

to grab a copy of ‘Floor Jammers Volume 1’ on the night.

PETER VAN HOESEN

Following on from their recent party fronted by &Me, Strange Fruit will host Belgium techno proponent Peter Van Hoesen at the Abercrombie on Saturday September 28. An affiliate of the Ostgut Ton label, Van Hoeson is coming off a profitable 2012, in which he released an album under the name of ‘Sendai’ with Yves De Mey, crafted multiple podcasts for tastemaking websites such as XLR8R, CLR and Electric Deluxe, and dropped the LP Perceiver on his label Time To Express. Perceiver was an amalgamation of Van Hoesen’s traditional stripped-back techno and some more experimental forays into modular electronics, and received plaudits from the cognoscenti.

Van Hoesen arrives on our shores with plenty of (well-deserved) hype attached. Local DJs Jordan Peters and Methodix Mainline will be spinning in support.

German duo Booka Shade and compatriots Digitalism will both play at the Garden Party, a daytime romp at ivy on Saturday October 26.

Booka Shade are renowned for club anthems such as ‘Body Language’ and ‘In White Rooms’, and put on a rollicking live performance. The pair are as far removed from the stereotype of the phlegmatic German DJ as one could imagine, having opened for Depeche Mode and remixed The Knife, Yello, Laurie Anderson and Hot Chip.

Meanwhile, Digitalism have been a mainstay in the dance scene since the huge success of their first two 12”s, ‘Zdarlight’ and ‘Idealism’, in the mid-noughties. The Hamburg pair has since released a couple of full-length albums and remixed the likes of Daft Punk and Depeche Mode. Traversing indie and electro influences in their productions – a fusion encapsulated in their cover of The Cure – Digitalism have established a strong Aussie fan base, as have Booka Shade. Presale tickets are available online.

Bro Safari photo by ODAGYO photography

guitar, using an ancient cassette recorder. It was a toy, really. I can’t believe that I remember that. I was probably eight or nine years old, singing about something totally inappropriate.

for me to answer. So many artists have shaped the way that I perceive the world. From Minor Threat to Radiohead, or from N.W.A to Aphex Twin. If I were to choose one memorable moment, well... I remember listening to Thom Yorke’s solo album, The Eraser, and it just hit me in a way that nothing had in quite some time. The song ‘Black Swan’ flipped a switch in my mind. I was going through a lot at the time. I wasn’t happy with my life at all, and I really wanted a change. I got home from an out of town trip and just didn’t want to be there. The lyrics, “Do yourself a favour and pack your bags / Buy a ticket and get on the train” came on and I got goose bumps. It was as if he was singing directly to me. Sounds corny, but it happened...

Our favourite nocturnal Melbournians, Midnight Juggernauts, are jetting our way to swallow Sydney whole in their cosmos of progressive dance and interstellar harmonies. Uncanny Valley is the band’s third venture into era-eclipsing experimental soundscapes. Described as “a bold musical future envisaged through a soundtrack to a forgotten Eastern Bloc Tarkovsky fi lm”, it is the trio’s most radical work yet. The Juggers will comet onto stage at The Metro on Friday August 16 with the game-shifting Kirin J Callinan and Fascinator (the side project of Children Collide’s Johnny Mackay).

To get your little hands on one of three double passes, email us at freestuff@ thebrag.com with the name of Midnight Juggernauts’ debut LP.

Speedy J Synchronised By Alasdair Duncan

D

utch producer Jochem Paap, AKA Speedy J, has been in the game for 20-odd years. His latest release, Zeitgeber, came out of a fortuitous meeting with Luca Montarello (Lucy). Now, the Electric Deluxe head honcho is on his way to Australia for a club tour.

In German, ‘zeitgeber’ means ‘synchroniser’ – why did you choose that title for your collaborative release with Lucy?

Actually, the title is on Lucy’s account, I have nothing to do with it. Before we met in person, we knew of each other, obviously. With Electric Deluxe we run events around the world, but our residency club is in Amsterdam. So at some point, we asked Luca to play for us – and what I sometimes do, and also did in this case, was to ask some of the performers to stay for an extra day or two, or come a little bit early so we can hang out and maybe hit the studio. So that was what we did.

When you put two people in the studio who don’t really know each other that well, anything can happen. Anything from awkward silences and polite conversation to something that ends up being really productive. That’s exactly what happened with Luca – basically we shut the door in the studio and a couple of hours after that we had a couple of tracks. Everything went really fast. We didn’t talk that much – we just hit it off really well in the studio and we had a really fast workflow, so decided to not just stick with one idea but meet again afterwards … and actually do an album.

When you’re making tracks, do you let the gear guide you and give you inspiration?

Could an unexpected synth sound lead to an all-new track?

It’s a process which is sometimes driven by an idea, and other times by exploring gear. The gear, though, doesn’t guide me – I would say

it’s more a case of exploration. The gear is of no use at all if it’s not played or operated by a human. Yes, I sometimes use happy accidents, but most of the time it’s a process of sculpting.

Sometimes I intentionally steer things in an unpredictable direction; other times I tune and sculpt things on a micro level with surgical precision.

I’ve heard you say that you always tour with your library of about 10,000 digital tracks, which is a lot of choice – how do you keep it from overwhelming you?

Most of them just sit there, and are legacy files which I have never bothered to delete. The stuff I play is mostly the stuff that I just got my hands on and want to try out. Every now and then, I use the collection as an archaeological site and delve up some tracks that I forgot about or never even considered playing before.

You’ve said that your sets simply consist of “banging techno played very loud” – I’m curious to ask, are there any particular tracks or artists you’re playing out at the moment?

No, I play whatever works for me. In my sets, it is not really about the tracks anyway – I select the material I play based on certain features that I can use. I don’t usually follow the arrangement of the track; sometimes I do, but mostly not. So I’m looking for useable stuff, not necessarily stuff that I would consider to listen to as it was intended. It’s raw material. On top of that, I’m useless in remembering names or labels. I have no idea about at least 50% of the music I play – what it is, who made it or how I got it.

What: Zeitgeber out now through Strobosophic Artefacts Where: Chinese Laundry When: Saturday August 17

Sebastien Drums He Bangs The Drums By Alasdair Duncan

S

ebastien Drums grew up on the sound of classic French house, and now he tours the world at the peak of the current wave of French electronic music. He takes some time out of his hectic schedule to talk to Alasdair Duncan about his friendship with Avicii, and the inspiration behind his work.

The rest of the world looks to France for quality house music – growing up there, were you immersed in that dance music culture from a young age?

Yes, I was a big fan of the French touch sound, like Daft Punk and Cassius and all of those bands. The filter house sound in the early 2000s also inspired me a lot. I grew up with that music.

That filter house sound was big in Australia, and lots of artists, like Cut Copy, took it on board – are you a fan of Australian dance music?

Yeah, you have a lot of big artists down there, people like Hook N Sling, who I really look up to, and I listen to a lot of their music. You have some really great tunes coming from down there.

One of your earliest tracks, ‘My Feelings For You’, sampled Cassius, right?

That’s actually a Gwen McCrae sample, of a song of hers from 1984 called ‘All This Love That I’m Giving’. Cassius sampled her record, and we went back to the original record and sampled that, we took different parts of it.

You collaborated with Avicii on that track, and a few others – how did you become friends?

It was easy. Everybody goes to the Miami Winter Music Conference to meet people to work with. Someone introduced us and we hit it off. We had some drinks on the beach, had a really good time, and when I got home I sent him some ideas. We decided to make one track, which became two tracks, then three, then four, and so on.

Sounds like dubstep and trap have come into vogue in recent times, but your releases are faithful to house and electro – have you ever been tempted to venture into other areas?

I respect music like trap and dubstep, but to be honest, I’m not a big fan, because it just sounds too busy for me. I respect producers like Skrillex for what they do, but I wouldn’t try it. My new track is called ‘In The Stars’, and it has a bit of a different sound – my first time experimenting with a bit of a different sound, and I’m interested to know what people think.

You’re very busy with DJ bookings – how do you balance travelling the world with making tracks? Do you work a lot on the road?

It is difficult. When you’re on tour for a long time, when you get home, you don’t want to do music – you want to see your friends and do different things, you don’t want to sit there playing with your gear. I have a home studio now, so that makes it easier. I have a lot of hardware to play with, and it’s going very well at the moment.

What’s the best part of your job as a DJ and producer?

I really like the travelling – going to other countries, meeting all sorts of people. When the crowd responds well, it means a lot, it makes me happy. I played the opening party at Pacha Ibiza this year, and it was just like that. It was the perfect night.

You’ll be playing at ivy in Sydney on Saturday August 17 – what can we expect from that show?

I really love the place and the crowd – people are beautiful in Sydney, and they love to dance.

Pacha parties are always crazy.

Where: Pacha at ivy When: Saturday August 17

Hayden James Permission Granted By Jody Macgregor

A

fter almost 350,000 hits on SoundCloud and regular spins on the radio, Hayden James’ ‘Permission To Love’ might seem like it’s doing pretty well for itself – but you know you’ve really got a hit when the unofficial remixes start coming in. Although the original draws its influences from the classic styles of disco and 1990s house, sounding like it comes from a time before some American coined the name ‘EDM’, you’ll find remixes of ‘Permission To Love’ that have sped it up, doofed it up, chopped and screwed it and made mash-ups out of it. James prefers the two official remixes by Touch Sensitive and Charles Murdoch, however.

“They’re so different to each other and the original as well,” he says. “I think it supports the track really well and it shows off what they’re good at as artists. I have seen a few other bootleg mixes online, which is funny. You search for yourself on SoundCloud or something; your search comes up, ‘Like, what?’ But the official ones I really love.”

James calls ‘Permission To Love’ “probably the most accessible track” on his self-titled debut EP, but it’s not entirely representative of his sound.

James sings on several of the songs, his smooth croon lending an indie R&B vibe to woozier numbers like ‘Lay Down’ and ‘Embrace’, while ‘Beginning’ is an experiment in combining piano

with beats and vocal samples. “It’s quite different,” James says of the EP’s sound. “Everyone thinks I’m quite disco-y and house-y and I’m not really that at all, so it’ll be interesting to see how the EP goes with people’s thoughts tending to go towards the house-y vibe of what ‘Permission To Love’ is.”

Then there’s ‘No Time’, featuring the guest vocals of George Maple, who might be familiar from her spot on Flume’s ‘Bring You Down’. Her breathy tones don’t dominate songs, instead giving them a striving, yearning quality, like they’re reaching for something beautiful just beyond their grasp. “It’s good to work with someone fresh,” James says of the collaboration. “I enjoy a really interestingsounding vocal rather than someone that’s pitch perfect, like an X Factor-style vocal. Because I pretty much sing on all my other stuff, I’m not looking for guy vocalists per se. I am interested in working with female vocalists but it’s kind of grassroots at the moment.”

James used to be more of a straight-up DJ but with this new project he’s making the music himself from the word ‘go’, playing guitar, piano and synth as well as singing and producing. When he tried out his new songs on his parents they asked him which bit he’d done and he had to explain, “all of it”. (The talented multi-instrumentalist also knows how to play the saxophone but has yet

to work that into his music, despite his jazz-loving manager begging him to give it a shot.)

One instrument consistent across the EP is his favoured synth, a Prophet ’08 he’s had for six years and says was already maybe six years old by the time he picked it up second-hand. What appeals to him about the instrument is “probably the fact that sometimes when you use it – what’s

the word? – it changes every time you use it. It’s an analogue synth so it can act in different ways and my one’s quite old so you get a lot of different sounds out of it every time you use it, which is good.” So what was the word? “I guess it’s unpredictable.”

What: Hayden James EP out Friday August 30 through Future Classic BRAG :: 525 :: 12:08:13 :: 33

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

CLUB NIGHTS Sebastien Drums

SATURDAY AUGUST 17

Chu - feat: Various World Bar, Potts Point.

7:30pm. $5.

Coyote Tuesday - feat: Resident DJs Trademark Hotel, Potts Point.

9pm. free.

I Love Goon - feat: Resident DJs Scruffy Murphy’s Hotel, Sydney. 7pm. free.

Rumba Motel Salsa - feat: DJ Willie Sabor The Establishment, Sydney.

8pm. free.

WEDNESDAY AUGUST 14 HIP HOP & R&B

The Wall - feat: Resident DJs World Bar, Potts Point. 8pm. $5.

CLUB NIGHTS

Garbage 90s Night - feat: Garbage DJs Lewisham Hotel, Lewisham.

7pm. free.

Kit Wednesdays - feat: Resident DJs Kit & Kaboodle, Kings Cross.

10pm. free.

Salsa - feat: Resident DJs Ivy Bar/lounge, Sydney. 8pm. free.

The Supper Club - feat: Resident DJs Kit & Kaboodle, Kings Cross.

10pm. free.

The Wall - feat: Various World Bar, Potts Point. 8pm. free.

Whip It Wednesdays - feat: DJs Camo + Snillum + Jaimie Lyn Whaat Club, Kings Cross.

9pm. free.

The Exchange Hotel, Darlinghurst. 8pm. $15.

In Search Of The Puppy Frequency + Scattered Order + Greta Mob + Psychlops Eyepatch + Mc Filth Wizard And The Celestial Axe + DJ Octopus Pi Goodgod Small Club, Sydney.

8pm. $10.

Kit & Kaboodle - feat: Resident DJs Kit & Kaboodle, Kings Cross.

10pm. free.

Miami Nights - feat: Jay-J + Husky + Liam Sampras + Tom Kelly Goldfish, Kings Cross. 9pm. free.

Pool Club Thursdays - feat: Resident DJs Ivy Bar/lounge, Sydney. 5pm. free.

Propaganda - feat: Gillex + DJ Moody World Bar, Potts Point. 9pm. $10.

Red Cup House Party - feat: DJ Skeezy Bar Century, Sydney. 8pm. free.

Rewind - feat: Resident DJs Sapphire Lounge, Potts Point.

9pm. free.

Take Over Thursday - feat: Resident DJs Trademark Hotel, Potts Point.

9pm. $10.

Teenage Crime - feat: Resident DJs Playing Trap + Electro Dub And Dnb Bar Century, Sydney. 8pm. free.

The Myall High Club The Spice Cellar, Sydney.

7pm. free.

FRIDAY AUGUST 16 HIP HOP & R&B Low The Argyle, The Rocks, Sydney. 12am. free.

CLUB NIGHTS

THURSDAY AUGUST 15

Ivy Bar/Lounge

Pacha Sydney Sebastien Drums + Chardy + John Glover + Fingers + Spenda C

+ Jace Disgrace + Pat Ward + Dylan Sanders + Trent Rackus + Hobophonics + Here’s Trouble + Heke + Adam Bozzetto + Stu Turner + Pro/Gram 8:30pm. $35.

34 :: BRAG :: 525 : 12:08:13

HIP HOP & R&B

Free The Beats - feat: Ears + Flight Recorder + Elliot + Ostinato + Kid Fiction Venue 505, Surry Hills.

8:30pm. free.

CLUB NIGHTS

Balmain Blitz - feat: Various Bridge Hotel, Rozelle. 7pm. free.

Chakra Thursdays - feat: Robust + Brizz Whaat Club, Kings Cross.

9:30pm. free.

Dip Hop - feat: Levins And Guests Goodgod Small Club, Sydney. 8pm. free.

Hot Damn - feat: Hot Damn DJs

$5 @ 5 On Fridays - feat: Resident DJs Jacksons On George, Sydney.

5pm. free.

Alto Tango - feat: Resident DJs Zeta Bar, Sydney. 6pm. free.

Bro Safari + Spenda C + Nemo + Ra Bazaar + Snillum + Biotech + Nuns With Guns + Intheory Chinese Laundry, Sydney.

10pm. $20.

Compound - feat: Zeus + Aaron Andrew & Subaske The Spice Cellar, Sydney.

10pm. $10.

El’Circo - feat: Resident Circus Act Performers Slide Lounge, Darlinghurst.

7pm. $109.

Factory Fridays - feat: Resident DJs Soda Factory, Surry Hills.

5pm. free.

Fridays - feat: Resident DJs Kit & Kaboodle, Kings Cross.

10pm. free.

Low The Argyle, The Rocks, Sydney. 1am. free.

Mashed Fridays - feat: DJ Tone Oatley Hotel, Oatley. 8pm. free.

Mashup Fridays W/ K-Note Marquee At The Star, Pyrmont. 10pm. $20.

Mum - feat: Mum DJs World Bar, Kings Cross. 8pm. $10.

Outer Bass Sound 1st Birthday - feat: Mark Pritchard + Rubio + Tokoloshe + B.O.O.M.A. Goodgod Small Club, Sydney.

11pm. $10.

Soho Fridays - feat: Kronic + Skinny + Zannon Rocco + Fingers + Pat Ward Soho Bar & Lounge, Potts Point. 9pm. free.

TGIF - feat: Resident DJs Trademark Hotel, Potts Point.

10pm. free.

The Guestlist - feat: Various Home Nightclub, Darling Harbour. 9pm. $15.

The Underground Candys Fridays - feat: Zoolanda + Robustt + Mitchos + Harper + Aydos + J-Deece + Even Steven Candy’s Apartment, Potts Point. 8pm. $15.

Unwind Fridays - feat: DJ Greg Summerfield Omega Lounge, Sydney.

5:30pm. free.

SATURDAY AUGUST 17 CLUB NIGHTS

After Dark - feat: Resident DJs Whaat Club, Kings Cross.

8pm. $15.

Argyle Saturdays - feat: Resident DJs The Argyle, The Rocks, Sydney. 5pm. free.

Astral People Presents Pangaea - feat: Cliques + Ben Fester + Adrian E Civic Hotel, Sydney. 10pm. $20.

Big Guns At Candys - feat: Neon Stereo + Sherlock Bones + Stalker + Sms Bronx + Front To Back + Matty Whells Candy’s Apartment, Potts Point. 8pm. $20.

Darius Bassiray (Text Book Music- Melb) - feat: Robbie Lowe + Space Junk + Nic Scali + Murat Kilic The Spice Cellar, Sydney.

10pm. $20.

FBi Hands Up! - feat: DJ Clockwerk + Special Friends With Benefits FBi Social, Kings Cross.

11:30pm. free.

Giraffage + Alpha Pup Oxford Art Factory, Darlinghurst, Sydney. 8pm. $28.60.

Handle Bar - feat: Resident DJ Lovertits The Oxford Hotel, Levins

Xxx

club pick of the week

TUESDAY AUGUST 13

club guide g send your listings to : clubguide@thebrag.com Darlinghurst. 10pm. free.

Hed Kandi - feat: Adrian Benedek + Shaun Warner + Emmet Greene + The High Rollers (Live) + Tim Whitney + Tom Kelly Goldfish, Kings Cross. 9pm. free.

Helena + Katie Valentine Marquee At The Star, Pyrmont. 10pm. $30.

Homemade Saturdays feat: Resident DJs Home Nightclub, Darling Harbour. 9pm. $25.

Jacksons Saturdays - feat: Resident DJs Jacksons On George, Sydney. 9pm. free.

Love Kings - The Finale?

- feat: Levins + Radge + Franco Goodgod Small Club, Sydney. 11pm. $10.

Pacha Sydney W/ Sebastien Drums + Chardy + John Glover + Fingers + Spenda C + Jace Disgrace + Pat Ward + Dylan Sanders + Trent Rackus + Hobophonics + Here’S Trouble + Heke + Adam Bozzetto + Stu Turner + Pro/Gram Ivy Bar/lounge, Sydney.

8:30pm. $35.

Skybar Saturdays - feat: Resident DJ The Watershed Hotel, Darling Harbour. 9:30pm. $20.

Soda Saturdays - feat: Resident DJs Playing Disco And Funk Soda Factory, Surry Hills.

5pm. free.

Speedy J + Jeff Drake + Jimmy Frew + Wolfpack + Dave Winnell + Fingers + Methodix + Andrew Wowk Vs. Susie Q + King Lee + DJ C-Bu Chinese Laundry, Sydney.

9pm. $20.

The Suite - feat: Resident DJs Sapphire Lounge, Potts Point.

8pm. free.

Wasted Years - feat: One Vital Word + Safe Hands + Surrender + Apart From This The Exchange Hotel, Darlinghurst. 9pm. $10.

SUNDAY AUGUST 18 CLUB NIGHTS

Resident DJs Upstairs Beresford, Surry Hills. 3pm. free.

Easy Sundays - feat: Resident DJs Kit & Kaboodle, Kings Cross. 10pm. free.

Random Soul - feat: Yogi & Husky The Argyle, The Rocks, Sydney. 6pm. free.

S.A.S.H Sundays The Abercrombie, Broadway. 2pm. $10.

Soup Kitchen - feat: The Soup Kitchen DJs World Bar, Potts Point.

7pm.

Spice After Hours - feat: Steven Sullivan + Murat Kilic And Guests The Spice Cellar, Sydney.

4am. $20.

Sunday @ Gay Bar - feat: Resident DJ The Gay Bar, Darlinghurst.

3pm. free.

Sunday Sessions - feat: DJ Tone Oatley Hotel, Oatley. 7pm. free.

Sunday Sessions - feat: Live DJ On Terrace Oatley Hotel, Oatley. 7pm. free.

Beresford Sundays - feat:

club picks p send your listings to : clubguide@thebrag.com

THURSDAY AUGUST 15

Speedy J

In Search Of The Puppy Frequency + Scattered Order + Greta Mob + Psychlops Eyepatch + Mc Filth Wizard And The Celestial Axe + DJ Octopus Pi Goodgod Small Club, Sydney. 8pm. $10.

ADRIAN AN BOH B BOHM O M PRESENTS

FRIDAY AUGUST 16 Bro Safari + Spenda C + Nemo + Ra Bazaar + Snillum + Biotech + Nuns With Guns + Intheory Chinese Laundry, Sydney. 10pm. $20.

Compound - feat: Zeus + Aaron Andrew & Subaske The Spice Cellar, Sydney. 10pm. $10.

El’Circo - feat: Resident Circus Act Performers Slide Lounge, Darlinghurst. 7pm. $109.

Mashup Fridays W/ K-Note Marquee At The Star, Pyrmont. 10pm. $20.

Outer Bass Sound 1st Birthday - feat: Mark Pritchard + Rubio + Tokoloshe + B.O.O.M.A. Goodgod Small Club, Sydney. 11pm. $10.

The Underground Candys Fridays Feat: Zoolanda + Robustt + Mitchos + Harper + Aydos + J-Deece + Even Steven Candy’s Apartment, Potts Point. 8pm. $15.

The Spice Cellar, Sydney. 10pm. $20.

Giraffage + Alpha Pup Oxford Art Factory, Darlinghurst, Sydney. 8pm. $28.60.

Helena + Katie Valentine Marquee At The Star, Pyrmont. 10pm. $30.

Speedy J + Jeff Drake + Jimmy Frew + Wolfpack + Dave Winnell + Fingers + Methodix + Andrew Wowk Vs. Susie Q + King Lee + DJ C-Bu Chinese Laundry, Sydney. 9pm. $20.

Wasted Years - feat: One Vital Word + Safe Hands + Surrender + Apart From This The Exchange Hotel, Darlinghurst. 9pm. $10.

SATURDAY AUGUST 17 Astral People Presents Pangaea feat: Cliques + Ben Fester + Adrian E Civic Hotel, Sydney. 10pm. $20.

TUESDAY 20 AUGUST ENMORE THEATRE

Big Guns At Candys - feat: Neon Stereo + Sherlock Bones + Stalker + Sms Bronx + Front To Back + Matty Whells Candy’s Apartment, Potts Point. 8pm. $20.

Darius Bassiray (Text Book MusicMelb) - Feat: Robbie Lowe + Space Junk + Nic Scali + Murat Kilic

BOOK AT TICKETEK 132 849 TICKETEK.COM.AU OR ENMORE THEATRE BOX OFFICE 9555 3666 Mark Pritchard ABPRESENTS.COM.AU

STEPHENLYNCH.COM

BRAG :: 525 :: 12:08:13 :: 35

Deep Impressions Underground Dance And Electronica with Chris Honnery

Amir Alexander

T DEBUT ALBUM OUT AUGUST 2 FRI AUGUST 30 – METRO THEATRE

TICK E TS ON SA L E NOW . WWW.SNAKADAKTAL.COM

We has internets!

Extra bits and moving bits without the inky fingers.

www.thebrag.com

he coverage of any large festival often seeks to incorporate so much information – the venue, the sound system, the set times and of course the DJs and bands as a collective entity – that the individual producers playing at the event don’t get the detailed attention they deserve. To combat this, I will use this column to profile a producer from this year’s Subsonic lineup, Amir Alexander, a hidden gem who would otherwise be lost against a backdrop of more illustrious drawcards. The Chicagoan is at the forefront of the US underground scene, but remains an esoteric figure, and is not the sort of act that Aussie promoters would normally tour, despite his transatlantic profile rising in recent years.

However his appearance in the first round artist announcement for Subsonic 2013 illustrates why the festival has developed such a devoted following since launching in ’09. The Subsonic lineups consistently confound expectations, and invite dancers to discover new music over the course of the weekend rather than lip-sync or fist pump to the same old tripe. A classically trained musician – “My upright bass teacher told me in my first lesson, ‘I’m not going to teach you anything except how to refine your ear and how to teach yourself,’” he recalls – Alexander’s sound merges elements of Chicago’s house scene with flourishes of Detroit techno.

Alexander has been spinning records since the early ’90s, but didn’t start releasing his own music until ’08. He has since collaborated with highly touted New York heavyweight DJ Spider, released on labels like Hakim Murphy‘s Machining Dreams and established his own imprint, Vanguard Sound. “I probably resonate on the more melancholy side of things,” Alexander reflected when interviewed. “I was always on the outside looking in. I touch on all aspects but I really like exploring, and sharing the darker side of life because that’s what I know best. I make dance music for parties, but I also like to probe deeper into the depths of human existence.” Both a thinker and a groover, Alexander is a venerated DJ who churned out one of my favourite tracks of last year in ‘White Rhino’. He is not to be missed at this year’s Subsonic Music Festival, even if you mightn’t read or hear as much about him as some of the other international headliners in the lead-up to the event.

The next installment in the Watergate Compilation canon arrives courtesy of German house and techno proponent Mathias Kaden. Kaden is a respected producer who dropped his debut album Studio 10 on Vakant back in ’09, and has also notched up EPs on labels like Freude Am Tanzen and more recently Desolat, while remixing the likes of Terrence Dixon, Onur Özer and Wareika.

Kaden’s sonic intuition extends to his DJing, and he is held in high regard for his abilities behind the decks by dancers worldwide. Opening Watergate 14 with the beguiling collaboration between DJ Koze and Apparat, ‘Nices Wölkchen’, Kaden collates cuts from the likes of Moodymann, Christian Burkhardt and the anthemic DJ Sprinkles remix of The Mole, closing his house music odyssey with exclusive edits of his own track and a cut from Daniel Stefanik entitled ‘Distillery’. Watergate 14 mixed by Mathias Kaden will be released at the end of September.

Underground Quality label boss Jus-Ed returns to Sydney in a few weeks, having played at Mad Racket a few years back.

This time around, the man labeled the “lynchpin of Northeastern US deep house” will headline S.A.S.H at the Abercrombie on Sunday September 1. Jus-Ed is married to DJ/producer Jenifa Mayanja, and dropped his debut album Vision Dance on Mule Electronic back in 2011. One of the finest deep house pushers in the business, Ed has dropped a plethora of excellent EPs on Underground Quality, and was instrumental in the rise of people like DJ QU and Nina Kraviz. A few years on from its release, Ed’s collaboration with Kraviz, ‘CPT Time’, remains one of the finest cuts of sultry house you will ever wrap your ears around. Any neophytes after a proper fix of quality deep house would be ill advised to miss Jus-Ed mix his brand of music, which the man himself describes as travelling “straight line down the middle between house music and techno”.

Mathias Kaden

LOOKING DEEPER SATURDAY AUGUST 31 Pepperpot The Spice Cellar

SUNDAY SEPTEMBER 1 Jus-Ed The Abercrombie

SATURDAY SEPTEMBER 28 Peter Van Hoesen The Abercrombie

FRIDAY DECEMBER 6 – SUNDAY DECEMBER 8 Amir Alexander, Marcus Meinhardt et al.

Subsonic Music Festival, Riverwood Downs Mountain Valley Resort

Deep Impressions: electronica manifesto and occasional club brand. Contact through deep.impressions@yahoo.com 36 :: BRAG :: 525 :: 12:08:13

snap

something wicked

PICS :: TL

up all night out all week . . .

clubfeet

PICS :: DR

02:08:13 :: Goodgod Small Club :: 53-55 Liverpool St Chinatown 8084 0587

chvrches

PICS :: AM

31:07:13 :: Beach Road Hotel :: 71 Beach Rd Bondi 9130 7247

s.a.s.h

PICS :: AM

motez 04:08:13 :: The Abercrombie Hotel :: 100 Broadway Ultimo 9211 3486

PICS :: AM

02:08:13 :: Oxford Arts Factory :: 38-46 Oxford St Darlinghurst 9332 3711

03:08:13 :: Chinese Laundry :: 111 Sussex St Sydney 8295 9999 :: ASHLEY MAR :: HENRY LEUNG S : TIM LEVY (HEAD HONCHO) OUR LOVELY PHOTOGRAPHER SE :: AKA CAPITALHAICH :: DAVID ROU

BRAG :: 525 :: 12:08:13 :: 37

snap

goldfish

PICS :: TL

03:08:13 :: The Standard :: 3/383 Bourke St Surry Hills 9331 3100

02:08:13 :: The Goldfish :: 111 Darlinghurst Rd Potts Point 8354 6630

PICS :: HL

miami

01:08:13 :: The Goldfish :: 111 Darlinghurst Rd Potts Point 8354 6630

the underground presents zoolanda party profile

dialectrix

PICS :: HL

up all night out all week . . .

It’s called: The Underground presents Zoola nda It sounds like: Dance music from staple bangi n’ electro house, to trap to dub to Melbourne bounce... genre? Anything that keeps the place pumpin’.

Acts: Zoolanda (Melb); Harper; Aydos; Oh Dear; Audio Trash; Next In Line; Death Juice… in the back bar: Nu-Nix; cop THAT; How bout it; Mr Smith (coming soon: Uberjakd, SCNDL, Slice and Dice and more).

Three songs you’ll hear on the night: 1. ‘Drop That’ (Will Sparks & Zoolanda) 2. ‘Blurred Lines’ remix 3. Heaps more than three tracks worth namin g...

And one you definitely won’t: No extreme cheese factory commercial tracks.

Sell it to us: A dark underground club, very danceable but NO cheesy beats, trippy visual projections, lazers, hazer s, an excellent run of headliners supported by a lot of residents, going back to our unique underground basics.

The bit we’ll remember in the AM: Whatever…

Crowd specs: A club packed with 18-25 y/o unpretentious clubbers, just there for a good time.

alt j

PICS :: AM

jagwar ma 31:07:13 :: Hordern Pavilion :: 1 Driver Ave Moore Park 9332 3711 38 :: BRAG :: 525 :: 12:08:13

PICS :: TL

Wallet damage: $10/$15 Where: Candy’s Apartment, 22 Bayswater Road, Potts Point When: Sat 16 Aug 8pm ‘til dawn!

02:08:13 :: The Standard :: 3/383 Bourke St Surry Hills 9331 3100 :: ASHLEY MAR :: HENRY LEUNG S : TIM LEVY (HEAD HONCHO) OUR LOVELY PHOTOGRAPHER SE :: AKA CAPITALHAICH :: DAVID ROU