Kins

Kins - United Fate (mp3)

There was a period last year where I kept meaning (but ultimately forgetting) to post a few tracks by 'Pitseleh', the solo project of one Thomas Savage. Savage had of course been the relatively silent partner in band/duo/solo artist(?) Oh Mercy, who have garnered envious rivers of praise and attention in the past year.

In that band he was (I might be speculating) responsible for some of the more knotty and ethereal moments on Privileged Woes, from the lofty melodies and discordant guitar break of 'Met A Wizard' to the slightly unsettling but ultimately charming melodrama of closer 'What Good Is That To Me'. I suppose these contributions hinted at a sensibility that would inevitably be a touch stifled by the (still pretty great) straight up 'gumtree pop' that the band seems to veer towards of late.

But no more! In the last few weeks its become apparent that fairly quiet, unannounced tangent to what was his main band has now become priority numero uno. It feels like a pretty good fit too. Assuming the name 'Kins', the now-four-piece also features Jacqueline Collyer on keys, who came to my attention on myspace under the name Tiny Teahouse (now Bean) with a lovely batch of garage band tunes half way between the Motifs and Land of Talk.

They've been gradually leaving a trail of quite impressive tracks over the last few weeks culminating in their debut single 'Fade, Bird Fade'. That track is an interesting excursion with off kilter drums, snatches of big reverb-y guitar and detached vocals, but doesn't quite match what I presume is the first track from their upcoming album Tenochtitlan. An intriguing slice of Seagull-flavoured pop with pulsating keyboards, the lightest of vocal harmonies and a damn good chorus hook, 'The Bold Frown' is a pretty stellar introduction to the band. Also of note is the acoustic b-side 'The Endeavour', a pretty perfect laid-back strummer originally slated to appear on their album as is before being superseded by a full band version. I am pretty excited about this band.

For those in Melbourne they're launching the single on November 6 alongside The Ocean Party, with whom they share a drummer.

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Alarm Birds

Hope Diamond - Costume Drama (mp3)

A little game I often play on the radio is "bands that are in some way connected to The Sea Thieves and their ex-bandmates". Its one that has served me well over the months of Student Radio as I've cycled through Hope Diamond, Eiderdown, Bergerac, Girls & Adam and The Brels. Key to this fun-filled musical adventure is Jed Palmer and Zoe Barry, Adelaide natives who played with Zac Coligan of the Sea Thieves before escaping to Melbourne to form a whole bunch of bands. They have returned on several occasions to collaborate with their old comrades both live and in the studio, with Jed producing The Sea Thieves' yet-to-be released and hotly anticipated (by me) second album. Most recently of course, they ventured back to deliver a by all accounts rousing set of Sparklehorse songs at the Jade Monkey's recent tribute night as documented at length by Spoz. If this video (also via Spoz) doesn't send you diving feverishly into Sparklehorse's 'Its A Wonderful Life', nothing will:

In a decision that will haunt me for the rest of my days I didn't attend for some reason, which makes me all the more anxious in awaiting material by the pair's new project 'Alarm Birds', a new continuation of previous band 'Hope Diamond'. While recorded works are scant (or non-existent), they do have this video which I can't help but revisit constantly. Crisply downbeat folk with Ray Davies worthy references to Shangri-La augmented by some odd electronic buzzes and beeps that sets this project apart from some of their older bands.

Watch it and weep with envy.

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Cheer Advisory Council

Cheer Advisory Council - Coach (mp3)

A week-old Cheer Advisory Council release with no coverage on this blog? Outrageous! Coach is the third and latest single to be teased out of their soon-to-be-released-at-some-point-oh-bugger-it-just-burn-me-a-copy-already album. Its actually one of their earliest songs to my knowledge, appearing as a demo when they first emerged on myspace. Here it is rendered in all the band's seven member grandiosity, boasting once again those nimble guitar playing fingers possessed by Chairman Ben Revi as well as the fine violin-ing of Adam Osborn, who is just awesome. For more of his sweet violin playing listen to this track.... okay, that was a joke. But still, he is no slouch at the ol' fiddle. The song has a kind of slippery quality between the descending guitar line and the way the strings teeter over the top of it all as it descends into a rocky cacophony.

What really excites me about this release though, as great as headline track is, is the quality of the B-side demos. Both also featured back on the myspace but appeared to be regarded as throwaways since. Luckily they've been revived, and I think re-recorded in the case of 'Velodrome', and rightly so. Both do well to lead us further down the rabbit hole and accentuate the subtle nuances of Revi's songwriting. In 'Fables Excite' he builds warm layers of Elliott Smith-esque harmonies for him to yelp the chorus's plea over.

Right in the middle though, lie the blunt lyrical insults of 'Velodrome': "He has no point he goes around and around". Ouch! And although that song seems like the most nondescript of the three track release at first, it soon reveals itself to be perhaps the most rewarding, rising as it does with subtle layers of increasing instrumentation with sweetly plucked acoustic guitars, moody violin and a slightly percussive sounding organ.

Download the whole thing free here, fool.

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Sam J Nicholson

Sam J Nicholson - Nightcats (mp3)
Sam J Nicholson - Orange Lights (mp3)

A few months ago I mentioned a Hobart band called Tiger Choir who played with my old band when they ventured to the mainland for some Adelaide shows. Awesome as they were (very!) they did seem a strange fit to be playing with the Belle & Sebastian come Darren Hanlon indie folk-rock of that band, with all their pulsating synths, swamped vocals and Animal Collective-like samples. It all makes sense months later after finally getting around to listening to the solo work of their drummer Sam, who has a bunch of great tracks on Unearthed that pull influences from Darren Hanlon and The Lucksmiths, dabbing drowsy-eyed acoustic tracks with spots of lyrical whimsy and subtly catchy melodies.

This along with his sometimes tour-buddy Billy Whims makes Hobart seem like a damn nice place to visit for an indie band leaning towards the twee side of things.

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You Am I

You Am I - Shuck (mp3)

I have been a fan of You Am I for a while. I won't try to deny that between 2004 and 2007 my obsession with Davey Lane's other band The Pictures reached levels totally disproportionate to the amount of great music they released in that period. But You Am I were always great to have around, whether slavishly checking their fan forums whenever wind of a new record came out to 'rediscovering' Hourly, Daily every couple of months and realising it really is one of those records that is front to back unremittingly incredible.

Their more recent albums have been an interesting proposition. While never containing melodies or arrangements cut from the same cloth as their era-defining early albums, they nonetheless contained a not unsubstantial share of fine songwriting and playing as the band changed gears, first with the guttural 'rawk' of comeback album Convicts and then the more subtle Dilettantes as the band teased at the edges of Tim's diverse songwriting. In many ways their new self-titled album continues that progression sounding quite unlike anything they've done before with a similar brand of moodier tension and melancholy trading punches with moments of bombastic noise and tender sweetness. Similarly, Tim's songwriting takes us further down the rabbit hole of his increasingly literary output of the last few years, eschewing the big laid back pop melodies of yesteryear for a more nuanced, almost spoken word style delivery. It means that for a lot of people, myself included, recent You Am I material is fairly unimmediate, and will take at least a couple of listens to really wrap itself around you, which really plays to the bands current strengths. Sections of a song that at first sound kind of boring soon reveal the depth of their craft and get stuck in your head anyway as some kind of chanted mantra. Case in point, the "I am such a chiiiiild" hook of lead single 'Shuck'.

Make no mistake, it still has some pretty straightforward nuggets in the laid back Deliverance-esque cruising of 'Lie And Face The Sun' (featuring token appearance by the damn near unescapable but always beguiling Megan Washington) and 'The Good Ones'. But while this is definitely a different You Am I to the one that released Dress Me Slowly almost a decade ago, and an age away from Sound As Ever, it still somehow feels like the interesting next step in natural progression a few years in the making. And while some might think it odd to self-title such an un-You Am I sounding record (in the traditional 90s sense), you get the feeling that this is where the band are 100% comfortable right now. Its not the immediately life changing, earth shattering masterpiece that the fanboys and girls over in the forums have heralded on first listen, but it's still pretty nice.

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Eminem 'Love The Way You Lie'

Eminem is ridiculous, but incredibly entertaining. Though hardly the sass-spitting, snot nosed funster of yesteryear, with deliberately provocative and parodic video clips strutting hand in hand with his sharply satirical yet unapologetically immature lyrics, his current spate of videos provide their own fair share of absurd chuckles.

I remember a few months ago checking out his new single 'Not Afraid'. Aside from the strange, bellowing rap power ballad that constitutes the song, resplendent with such puzzlingly straight faced "to the fans i'll never let you down again, i'm back i promise i'll never go back on that promise", the accompanying clip amused me the most. You see, for the lead single of his new album, an incredibly important step in his current comeback trajectory, the first three minutes of Eminem jumping around a dilapidated room and standing atop a city building just seemed way too low-concept, low-budget and just plain underwhelming. Also, there seemed an unnerving similarity between his style of angry, emotional direct address to the camera and other popular videos sweeping the internet...

and...

But then at the ... mark, HE FLIES. OH. JUST LIKE NEO. Oh...

Grinning from ear to ear I watched him rocket away from the crater-like edge of the city and land atop... the building from the opening shot! Genius. Pure and simple. I now saw the true meaning of it all. Eminem is NOT AFRAID. And his lack of fear means he FLIES. Not soar in a cryptic analogical way, but LITERALLY FLIES. And I love it.

His new video however, I'm pretty nuts about too. Aside from featuring Rihanna in what seems a little too transparent in its commercial motivation (we need a successful female artist to feat. on the second 'emotionally resonant' single... is Kelly Rowland free? No? Who else is on the charts?), the song kind of sits strangely with its naff acoustic guitar arrangement that sounds way too much like a Bubba Sparxxx song. I mean, when Eminem is referencing Bubba Sparxxx in his music, there is something wrong with the world's 'white rapper equilibrium'.

But the 'plot' of the clip is Eminem at his over-budgeted, over-connected best. Intercut with our stars earnestly singing and rapping in front of a burning house and a wheatfield(?) respectively, we see the story of a kind of trashy, 'punching and f***ing' type of couple, at each other's throats one second and making dirty rough love the next. But they're played in an awesome, nonsensical, ingenious bit of casting by Megan 'non-robotic Transformers eye candy' Fox and Dominic 'Merry The Hobbit' Monaghan. I know he shed his Hobbit image a little with his portrayal of the heroin addicted Charlie in Lost, but really? As the bad boy lover of Megan Fox? Surely not.

Anyway, that all progresses and escalates until their house burns down, which Eminem and Rihanna are now performing in front of.

And then the cherry on the cake of amazing appears, as we kick into 'token CGI' terrain and suddenly EMINEM IS ON FIRE!

So please, please, don't ever retire again. We need you. I need you.