Collarbones

Collarbones - Lover Of Mine (mp3)

One of the best tracks presented to me by Seb last year during our weekly witching hour on Student Radio was from Adelaide via Sydney duo Collarbones, the pair behind one of the best singles to come out of either city last year with Beaman Park. Speaking of which, as I was watching Zumba ads on TV earlier tonight Travis put their covers and remix mixtape 'Tigerbeats' online. A prelude of sorts to next year's full length 'Iconography', which is due out through the consistently great Two Bright Lakes record, the mix features previously heard takes on Justin Bieber and Destiny's Child all filtered through the pairs MSN-collaborating, glitch-pop goggles. They also turn in a remix of fellow Two Bright Lakes signings Oscar + Martin (formerly Psuche), turning their vibraphone and typewriter-driven track 'I Sea A Wolf' into a haze of dialtone synths and hills-hoist whirring.

My favourite so far though is the cover of 'Lover of Mine', one of the better tracks from Beach House's Teen Dream. It features some cool sounding vocal interplay between Marcus Whale and fellow Sydney resident Anna Chase, who I'm going to have to check out now...

Update: Rose Quartz premiered a new single from 'Iconography' last week in the form of Don Juan. It finds new ways to endear Marcus' voice to me with some lush multi-tracking and a shuddering dance beat.

Download the mixtape and previous singles at bandcamp.

Kins

Kins - Lake Troposphere (mp3)

Since posting about them back in October Kins have gathered some decent momentum on the national broadcaster and played a handful of nice support slots, perhaps unsurprising given the previously established pedigree of frontman Thomas Savage. Although I had earlier mentioned their forthcoming album Tenochtitlan it seems that record has been overtaken somewhat by a new mini-LP intriguingly entitled 'Dancing Back and Forth, Covered In Whipped Cream', an album Thomas tells me "is based on a true story of a man who spent $2000 in a brothel, yet was baffled at his wife's lack of understanding. It was very expensive as he requested for her to watch him dance back & forth, covered in whipped cream." That about summarises it, I suppose.

The first single 'Lake Troposphere' just popped up on bandcamp, so be sure to hop over and download it for sweet nothing. It's somewhat chunkier and guitar-driven than previous tracks which made use of sparse, syncopated rhythms, tasty organ and clean sparkly guitar melodies here and there. One might also be interested in observing the video clip for another mini-LP cut 'Hume Bloom' down here...

Also while the full album might be a little way off yet, the band are streaming on Soundcloud a bunch of really strong material that may yet surface.

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Wiley Red Fox

Wiley Red Fox - Nothing Like It (mp3)

Clem Wetherall apparently used to be the receptionist at the radio station I work at, and has played and contributed to a bunch of Adelaide bands I dig so very heartily from The Keepsakes to (just-before-my-time-but-by-all-accounts-excellent) Zeta. I discovered this when putting together an 'Adelaide Band Hop' playlist during the heady Student Radio days of 2010 and found her name gracing the credits of almost half the tracks presented. She buggered off to Melbourne a while ago, but has returned on occasion for such esteemed events as the Format Festival of Song and the crowd-surfin' love-in that was The Keepsakes album launch back in April of last year.

Last but not least however, she plays music on her lonesome under the appropriately folksy moniker 'Wiley Red Fox'. 'Nothing Like It' is a simple but indisputably likeable song, building as it does over four and a half minutes of gently swelling circular guitars and harmonies around a neat, subtle vocal melody.

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Quiet In The Lab!

Quiet In The Lab! - Why Bother (mp3)

Doug Arnott is probably one of the nicer people you could meet fumbling around the Adelaide band scene, always eager to chat and more genuinely enthralled by the joy of playing music than I could ever be. Along with his wife Jayney they play in Quiet In The Lab, a band I will try to summarise thusly:

Picture a band of 17-20 year olds sitting in an Adelaide garage with black t-shirts listening to Nirvana, Smudge, You Am I's Sound As Ever), trying to catch bands like Jebediah play on episodes of this new fangled show called 'Recovery' before picking up their guitars and churning out angry, happy, emotional songs full of chunky fuzz guitars, gang vocals and earnest, angsty lyrics. And they're good! Now, transpose that band 15 years into the future and age them accordingly. They're still good, if a little unusual in the present climate, playing music they're un-self-consciously in love with, no matter how confused snarky little post-Cold War brats like myself might be by the various obscure band names emblazoned across their T-shirts.

Perhaps the fact I spent most of the 90's watching Peter Pan and this, explains the lack of reference points for their music. I guess they remind me of the Foo Fighters in some ways, a comparison which I was reluctant to offer but one Doug seemed to embrace. I suppose he remembers the days when Dave Grohl was something of an upstart, as opposed to a slightly grittier, American Powderfinger type. Anyway, their demo from last year features the damn catchy, horny middle age pop of 'Get My Hands On You' and some utterly cathartic crunch and screams in 'Why Bother'.

Tiger Choir

Tiger Choir - Vultures (mp3)

Out with the old and in with the new! The year's barely begun and already the list of sure-to-be formidable 2011 releases is looking rather paunchy around the waist. In my inbox today arrived some cuts from Tiger Choir's upcoming debut album, including singe Vultures and a slightly reimagined version of pulsating, synth driven 'Dancer', which surfaced last year on their self-titled EP. The Hobart trio turned many a head earlier in the year with a pair of Adelaide shows and a debut release that made waves well beyond the Apple Isle. From what I can extrapolate the album seems to retain many of the bands Animal Collective influenced quirks with a broader, more expansive scope (and really nice sounding drums). That's all the more impressive given it was recorded in a Hobart shack by the band themselves, who are proving to be a pretty damn talented bunch of guys.

They're playing Adelaide shows this weekend, and short of seeing Thee Oh Sees and/or my band there's really no excuse to miss them.

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