Hear
HEAR is the enema your iTunes needs. Bringing you the most thought-provoking and up-to-date music reviews this side of Lester Bangs, HEAR sifts through the ever growing mountain of press releases and promos to only feature albums, EPs, LPs and mixes that we want to, not that we have to. Also, we try and make things make sense in 200 words or less so that you can just listen to the music.
Craig McElhinney, ‘Be Water My Friend'
At first I was going to give Craig McElhinney the secret Asian handshake for sampling a sound bite from Monkey Magic - potentially one of the worst dubbed yet amazingly awesome TV shows ever. Then Google told me that the title of this album and the various quotes running through it are actually the famous words of Bruce Lee, who is on par with MM anyway.
Super Wild Horses, 'Fifteen'
Hey Super Wild Horses! Yes Amy and Hayley I'm talking to you. Bone to pick. Thanks a lot for going and writing a song like 'Mess Around'. A tune so insanely catchy that for the last three days I've been walking around singing 'I've got a message for you it goes oooh oooh oooh' like some weird form of musical tourettes.
MIA, '/\/\ /\ Y /\'
I'll be the first to admit I'm paranoid. I'm convinced that someone is watching my every cyber-move in our real-life interpretation of 1984. I avoid virtual socialising, dismantled my phone and tore the chip out of my passport that they warn you not to tear out. And by 'they' I mean 'he' - ‘The Man'.
Dream Damage Music
Leading the nation from Canberra, Dream Damage have been consistently releasing local music that's forward thinking without trying too hard, pop without pandering, and contemporarily cool without pretentious posturing.
Take Jonny Telafone: making smart, heartfelt, deadpan folktronica. His debut Wherever The Wind Blows plays like an Aussie James Yorkston or Machine Translations (download it here).
Peoples Potential Family Album
The jheri curl, Billy Dee Williams -style moustaches and forehead sweat. All big in the early '80s US funk and boogie scene. Parachute pants were too, judging by some of the photos on this new compilation out on Washington DC's awesome Peoples Potential Unlimited label.
Family Album captures all the wah-wah disco-funk, squiggly keyboards, handclaps and heavy breathing vocals of the era that until now have only been available on 12" or 7" vinyl.
The Sirens of Venice
I'm all for quiet achievers. And unless I've been living under a rock lately (entirely possible) and have missed the media onslaught (also possible), the debut from Sirens of Venice is just that.
Craig Jackson (from Gersey) and his wife Camilla Jackson make slow burn, dark orchestral rock with some shoegaze fuzz to take the edge off.
'Church With No Magic', PVT
PVT (formerly known as Pivot) have been chipping away at a rather large block of marble for some time now, carving a kind of sleek Italo-Futurist music machine prototype. Their third album, Church With No Magic, leaves behind their instrumental meanderings and moves into the unknown shadows of dark vocal pop.
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