Sea Thieves

This Adelaide duo released a brilliant, if succinct, debut album of lo-fi folk tunes last year, Hiding in the Shade. It's use of singing saw, ukulele and warm, creaky ambience, along with the falsetto croon of male half Zac Colligan made it a real gem. And who doesn't like a bit of acoustica with subtle nautical themes (read subtle, Josh Pyke).

Zac previewed this new song on Radio Adelaide's The Range last year. The follow-up album is being recorded as we speak.

The Sea Thieves - Describe the Sky to Me (live on Radio Adelaide)
the whole Radio Adelaide performance can be listened to here.

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Richard & Linda Thompson

Richard Thompson should need no introduction. But, I guess, since most didn't grow up with fathers subconsciously inculcating them with his music, I suppose I should give some background. Richard Thompson was a guitarist and songwriter in the seminal British Folk-rock outfit Fairport Convention, before leaving for a solo career and later marrying one Linda Pettifer.

His first solo album, the curiously titled Henry the Human Fly did not set the world on fire, but he soon resurfaced as a duo with his wife, and in 1974 released an album, I Want To See The Bright Lights Tonight, that is pretty brilliant. Thompson's ye olde baritone voice and acoustic guitar chops merge with the multitracked vocals of his wife to add a woozy technicolour to otherwise sepia-toned songs that sound like they've been sung in front bars across the Isle for a long, long time. In a good way.

It has a real sense of yearning and a balance between destitution and optimism. By their next album they both converted to a Islam, joined a Sufi commune and divorced some years later. Richard's last solo album Sweet Warrior dealt with the Iraq conflict and was very solid indeed.

Richard & Linda Thompson - I Want To See The Bright Lights Tonight

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Bing Goes To Monaco

This week, yet another Adelaide duo who mine a territory best described as "indie folk". I am truly running out of adjectives for this kind of thing, I may need to broaden my musical tastes somewhat.

Comprised of two young ladies with a pair of voices that go together like Paul & Art (if they weren't guys), Bing Goes To Monaco make dreamy and contemplative tunes held together by echoing acoustic guitar, piano and simple yet delicately charming melodies.

Their debut EP Interspecies Backup has some great tunes on it, and is being launched at Jive next week.

Bing Goes To Monaco - No. 6

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Fergus Brown

Fergus Brown strikes me as a quirky fellow, from the puncanny title of his debut Burgers Frown to his... well, look at the boy. His most endearing kinks and twitches however, are in his music. In songs like Nerds in Love and Hot Kisses, Cold Tiles he mixes impeccably lilting hooks with witty lyrics like Darren Hanlon's bespectacled bro.

Apparently by day he is a primary school teacher. I like a cool teacher as much as the next seven year old, but I just don't think my young mind could have coped with an eccentrically dressed, mannequin-lugging maths teacher who plays Martha Wainwright support slots on school nights. It's just too much!

Fergus Brown - John, She Was Never Only Dancing

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JJJ unearthed

Humble Bee

Humble Bee are a nifty little pop duo from Adelaide made up of Carly Whitaker and Ben Revi, also of Cheer Advisory Council. Initially something of a solo venture for Whitaker, the addition of Revi steeled the 'project' into an actual band when he started putting melodies and music to her often cute, often melancholic lyrics. The result is something like an unnassuming, threadbare collaboration between Ben Folds and Kimya Dawson.

I bumped into Ben Revi at uni once, he seemed more than a little freaked out that I: a) knew his name and face and b) was familiar with his many bands. Let's hope he doesn't stumble upon this blog.

Having been on the "scene" since early 2008, they have seen fit to compile and release 10 of their songs as their debut album When I Should Be Sleeping on June 12.

Humble Bee - Happy

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G Bizzle are the Shizzle

I thought it was high time I added to the already overcrowded pool of gushing blog reviews on ... Vetamitesck!

This album really is a dizzying step from the dusty and creaky folk sounds of Yellow House, near unrecognisable from their debut Horn of Plenty. What we have with this little shiny plastic disc is a colletion of talent piled upon vision upon awesome. Allow me to visualise the progression:
That's right. I made a pyramid. Note the lonely monochrome of Ed Droste, expressing himself through that time honoured art of bedroom folk, by all means a promising and rewarding venture. Horn of Plenty is still a worthwhile listen, with several good tunes and a general awkward fuzziness that is, well, quite nice. Then comes Yellow House, the band's spiritual debut, with a full band, including wily little munchkin Daniel Rossen, whose addition brought the fun interplay between his and Droste's distinctive voices to the mix, as well as his catchy-as-flip tunes (see On A Neck, On A Spit). And on top of this, the recording, arranging and instrumental abilities of rhythm section of Chrisses Bear and Taylor. But however, note the sepia tone, the dust. Admittedly these are central to 'the House's charm, and are by no means a point of detraction. Just a point of difference to...

But seriously, look at the bottom. Rainbows! It's technicolour man! They have bop Beach Boys-inspired piano pop, they have chugging power chords and waltz freakouts in the same song! Wow! Ok, calm down Walter. It is a very good album. Buuut it does suffer from a few little points, particularly the magnitude of its radness; it is so packed with layer upon layer of orchestrated "rad" that it is darn near overwhelming, and at times it feels like they've just concentrated a bit too mcuh, thrown a few too many ideas in there. And whilst it is a huge step in making it "about the song", at times they suffer too from the feeling that the democratic songwriting process has a few different ideas awkwardly welded together in a song, like the middle section of Dory. And really, what is with Hold Still? Why is it there?

Anyway, it is, regardless, smashing. Obvious highlights are Two Weeks, While You Wait For The Others, Foreground and Ready, Able, but for me, the more subtle and slow burning All We Ask is an apt summary of the intricacies of the band and this record. From Droste's domsetic lament to the reserved yet triumphant Rossen chorus, to the buoyant harmonies of that utterly intoxicating ending refrain, it is, in a word, tops.

Grizzly Bear - All We Ask (live)