“Dark Town” is the second release from Brisbane alt-country outfit, Suicide Country Hour. Their new album expands on the introspective feeling of their first release with a darker, more heartbroken collection of songs which speak to the bitterness and sadness in us all. It’s the epitome of ‘hangover music’ and most importantly…no drummers, no dramas.
The new album expands on the introspective feeling of the sextet’s 2017 self titled debut with an even darker, more heartbroken collection of songs which speak to the bitterness and sadness in us all.
Released June 15th, 2020 The Band:
Coxy – guitar/vox
Simmo – guitar/vox
Sarah – accordion/piano
Simon – bass/vox
Chris – violin
Sian Evans – banjo
Who can argue with something so bleak in these current times? Check out a couple of tracks from the album below, and click through to order via Bandcamp.
This is a Record Store Day 2020 item. It will be available to purchase from our stores from 9am 20th June. Remaining stock will be available to purchase from this page at 12pm 21st June.
Hatchie and The Pains Of Being Pure At Heart cover the Jesus and Mary Chain. Both tracks are previously unreleased. Hatchie has released a new 7″ exclusive vinyl to Bandcamp and 100% of proceeds will also go to The Movement for Black Lives and The Loveland Foundation. The 7″ vinyl includes “Sometimes Always” — a collaborative cover with The Pains of Being Pure at Heart, originally by The Jesus and Mary Chain and Hope Sandoval. Side B includes the 2018 Adult Swim single “Adored”
Hatchie is the world of Harriette Pilbeam. Step inside her mind; a dreamy landscape where cascading synths, jangling guitars, propulsive rhythms and white noise undulate beneath irresistible pop melodies. Rather than focusing on the external world of her life in Brisbane, Pilbeam turns her gaze inwards, making a soundtrack out of her daydreams, setting her emotional life to song,
“Sometimes Always”, originally performed by The Jesus and Mary Chain. A collaborative cover from Hatchie & The Pains Of Being Pure At Heart.
7″ vinyl available at midnight EST on June 5th. Items will not ship until
You might recognize Joe Agius as a member and co-writer of Hatchie, the dreampop project of Harriette Pilbeam. But for the better part of the last decade, the Brisbane (Australia) artist has been slowly and steadily chipping away on his own material. Today, he’s ready to share it with the world. His debut single as Rinse, “Tell Me Tell Me Tell Me,” is a shimmering and soaring post-punk plea for sanity.
Agius explained how the song, and its Nick Maguire video, came together:
‘Tell Me Tell Me Tell Me’ was recorded late last year at Airlock Studios in Brisbane and sonically sits in the middle of a lot of the music I’ve been getting ready in RINSE so felt like the right place to begin in. The song talks about a time in my life when I was wrapped up in a lifestyle that wasn’t doing great things for my mental health and I lived in a place that only really encouraged that behavior. While I still have many things to figure out, I realized leaving this period of my life that a lot of what I was doing to make myself feel better was really making myself feel a lot worse.
I wanted the video for ‘Tell Me Tell Me Tell Me’ to be a simple performance video as there was a lot of energy within the song I felt best conveyed live with a band with no bells and whistles. Black Bear Lodge kindly allowed us to setup and bash through the song for a couple hours one rainy afternoon before the bar opened and I had my friend Nick Maguire who I’ve worked on a number of videos with previously shoot it.”
The enchanting spell that Hatchie (aka 26-year-old Australian singer/songwriter Harriette Pilbeam) spins on her stellar dream-pop debut, “Keepsake”, is heady and hard to resist. “Obsessed,” easily the most delicious of ear wormy-y melodies here, gets its host toe tapping along instantly. She sings in earnest of an experience of love so innocent and unselfish: “You are the one who told me to run/Give it a try/Just have a life”—that whatever misgiving the album might harbor is happily forgotten in the whir of jangly guitars and the fuzz-drenched wash of her breathy vocals.
Pilbeam cut her teeth in the Brisbane indie scene, playing bass on other people’s songs. After eight years, she stepped out on her own under the Hatchie moniker with her 2018 EP, “Sugar & Spice”. If she was still unsure of her prowess, a remix of “Sure,” the EP’s standout, by Cocteau Twins’ guitarist Robin Guthrie should have dissipated any doubts.
She has a knack of borrowing from the genre’s best progenitors and current practitioners, but also folds in mainstream pop and emo—musical styles that should be at loggerheads—yet in her capable hands, succeed and soar. Her airy vocals can slide satisfyingly from chesty to high, head tones in one breath; and has a timbre remarkably similar to that of Dolores O’Riordan of The Cranberries. Often, as in “Without a Blush” and “Keep,“ songs are anchored in evocative lyrics, rooted in that desire to give voice to emotions once suppressed or fleeting moments that need to be savored over and over again.
“Fate keeps trying to find me/I’m not the kind of/Girl to let it define me,” she coos on the shimmering “Not That Kind.” It’s beyond just a pithy observation of a girl caught up in the machinations of romantic love; it functions as battle cry for how she regards her career in music.
Australia’s Hatchie has shared the new video for ‘Stay With Me,’ a brand new track from her debut record ‘Keepsake’ to be released on June 21st via Heavenly Recordings.
‘Stay With Me’ is taken from Hatchie’s debut album ‘Keepsake’ out June 21st on Double Double Whammy, Heavenly Recordings and Ivy League,
“Stay With Me” may be her most straightforward dance floor pop moment yet.” – The Fadar –
“Stay with Me” has the pulse of a Madonna hit from the late ’80s and early ’90s, and fits right in with similarly themed “crying-in-the-club tracks” like the entirety of Lorde’s Melodrama and, of course, Robyn’s “Dancing on My Own”. – Consequence of Sound –
“It’s a Crying-In-The-Club style sad banger, a real bop that fuses her drifting, hallucinogenic guitar effects with something upbeat.” – Clash Music –
“The yearning chorus of ‘Stay With Me,’ punctuated with ethereal stabs of ‘90s synth, is delicious in its desperation and incredibly catchy.” – Paste Magazine –
Brisbane-based duo Amaringo release their debut album, “I Woke Up This Morning After a Dream”, out via Melbourne label Healthy Tapes (Stella Donnelly, Rainbow Chan, Dianas).
The project of drummer/vocalist Allie Wu Lin and guitarist/bassist Christian Driscoll,Amaringo create expansive and woozy atmospheres with tinges of psych that never stray too far away from their ambitious and beautiful songwriting.
Fragmented between writing and recording half of the album in a recording studio, then a year later completing the rest in a more improvised fashion, the resulting record is a startlingly consistent and accomplished piece of work. From the acoustic strums of the 70’s-inspired I Woke Up, to the major-minor drones of Saguaro, and the 7-and-a-half minute monumental Her Way, the album has no shortage of timeless moments sure to appeal to fans of La Luz and Sharon Van Etten.
Amaringo’s debut LP I Woke Up This Morning After a Dream is out October 30th digitally and on limited cassette via Healthy Tapes and features the singles Sacred and Her Way.
In the two years since releasing their second album Paint, it’s clear that Holy Holy have been making some changes and broadening their horizons. These efforts arrive in the form of their latest album, My Own Pool Of Light. The intricate melodies, soundscapes, and ever-present alluring hooks haven’t been left behind. One could say they’ve simply been given a new home amongst a plethora of fresh sounds and instrumentation.
Holy Holy’s third album My Own Pool of Light, arriving via Wonderlick/Sony Music Australia , is a twelve-track masterclass on how Holy Holy have grown into this messaging throughout the last five years, combining dizzying rhythms and flourishing melodies with some of current-day’s most important and prevalent topics – mental health, toxic masculinity, gender stereotypes and homophobia among them. “I wanted to write songs that really meant something on this album, that really had something at the core of why it was being written. Each song was trying to say something,” says Carroll on the album’s themes, and you can really feel this harnessed as the album’s punchy – yet, impactful – duration draws longer.
The first song we wrote for this album revolves around a 60s sounding vocal loop. We wanted to make it sound like an old sample and after many iterations, we got it there. The loop, built out of vocals from Ali Barter, Ainslie Wills and myself, is the bed upon which the song builds. Driving drums, menacing offbeat synths and fast tambourines back a wide-ranging spoken vocal approach.
This, and Tim’s vocal. It’s more based upon samples, and less on guitar. Faces is about a lot of things – online arguments; smartphone narcissism; the Australian treatment of refugees; and our ability to ignore inconvenient truths. It lays out a lot of the ideas that we’ve been wrestling with, and sets the tone for the rest of the record.
Pegged as the group’s biggest creative leap since the release of their debut album five years ago, ‘Maybe You Know’ kicks off the album with a steady drum beat and a sharp riff. It’s accompanied by songs like ‘Flight’, ‘Sandra’ and ‘Teach Me About Dying’, all of which provide the perfect marriage of the new and the old.
‘Hatswing’ is a taster of the musicality and creativity the duo has had hidden up their sleeve. It’s a rhythmically urgent tune that relies on the impeccable percussion to drive it along, yet still manages to maintain the anthemic vocals that fans have come to love from Holy Holy.
Vocalist Timothy Carroll comes through at the end of the record with a hauntingly slow and atmospheric vocal performance on ‘St Petersburg’. It’s one of the many songs on the 12-track album that give an idea of the creative freedom finally attained by Carroll and guitarist Oscar Dawson.
Band Members
Timothy Carroll, Oscar Dawson, Ryan Strathie (and special guests Graham Ritchie & Matt Redlich)
Holy Holy’s brand new album ‘My Own Pool Of light’ is out now!
Brief Habits latest single “Teleport” is a cathartic unwinding of Distance, Time and Separation. Peppered with interplay between guitar lines, drawn out vocal hooks filled with imagery and drums that hit home – the song conveys an overwhelming sense of longing for something that is out of reach. At its core, Teleport collates an array of emotions that unravel the bittersweet complexities of distance while savouring the small moments between.
That bird on the wire must have so much to write home about. A drive through the morning to take away a night you could have done without
An Ikea skyline is bouncing back a brilliant sun. The coffee and kindness makes the distance between us not seem so long. But it’s only ever half enough. I could never get enough of your light. Just know that tomorrow there’ll be nothing to be sorry about. Reality’s coming through to cast these dreamers out. But there’s so much I want to say to you that the conversation never leads to. Like how I really need you. But it’s only ever half enough. I could never get enough of your light. That bird on the wire must have so much to write home about. A drive through the morning to take away a night you could have done with.
Hatchie is the world of Harriette Pilbeam. Step inside her mind; a dreamy landscape where cascading synths, jangling guitars, propulsive rhythms and white noise undulate beneath irresistible pop melodies. Rather than focusing on the external world of her life in Brisbane, Pilbeam turns her gaze inwards, making a soundtrack out of her daydreams, setting her emotional life to song.
Brisbane’s Hatchie, aka Harriette Pilbeam, has released her debut full-length, “Keepsake”. Available through Double Double Whammy.
Following up on 2018’s Sugar & Spice EP, Keepsake spans 10 dreamy tracks that bring in elements of shoegaze and danceable pop. Singles “Stay With Me”, “Without a Blush”, and “Obsessed” have hinted at the influence of the likes of Cocteau Twins and Mazzy Star.
Speaking about the album title , Hatchie said of Keepsake,
“It was a word that popped up in one of the songs, ‘Kiss the Stars’. I talk about keeping a heart as a keepsake, and I thought it was really nice. I have a bunch of little keepsakes and mementos in a drawer at home. I thought that this album would be a keepsake, kind of like a time capsule of this time in my life. So, it just kind of makes sense. I didn’t put too much thought into it at the time, which is good because I was worried I would be agonizing over it. I really liked that it was an easy decision to name the album Keepsake.”
For more insight into Keepsake, Hatchie has broken the record down Track by Track.
“Not That Kind”:
I wrote this song in mid 2017, when I wasn’t intentionally working towards anything specific like, say, an album. I just wanted to write a fun, rollicking pop song so I started with the lead synth line and guitars. It came together really quickly and I don’t even remember writing the lyrics. It’s got one of my favourite bass lines on the whole album. I used an old multi-effects pedal to create a random rhythm for the guitar in the bridge. I always thought it would be the perfect opener for an album, so I’m glad it’s ended up that way.
“Without A Blush”:
I wrote this one in early 2018 when I was focusing on the more industrial, heavy sounds that I wanted on the album. I started with the bass line and worked on the verses for ages. I actually lost the original demo because my programs kept crashing, but it ended up being a bit of a blessing because the second time around I had a much more concise vision for the song. I agonized over the bridge for months, originally trying a bunch of different vocal lines before deciding it really just needed some breathing space, both for me as the singer and the listener. After all the touring I did over the past year, I realized most of my songs have no breaks at all, so I really wanted this one to have space to grow before coming back with a bang at the end.
“Her Own Heart”:
This track is sonically more similar to the early Hatchie demos and the vision I had for the project back when I started it. As with the EP demos, the original version was also super washy, with 10 layers of guitars stacked up to make it as wet and verbed out as possible. At the time it was really irking me that so many of my songs are about someone else and how they make me feel, so with this one I set out to write about how I hoped I would react if I was suddenly completely on my own and forced to be emotionally independent — hence the cheesy lyrics about shooting your heart with your own arrow, and being your own muse. These are concepts I wish I’d been more aware of when I was younger. The original lyrics were far too long, telling a much bigger story that I wish I could have fit in. I wrote it in third person because I found it easier to open up and see it from a different perspective.
“Obsessed”:
I wrote this song more recently than the other tracks, a few weeks before we went into the studio in July last year. I wanted a super contained, compressed pop song with imperfections to balance out the sprawling, dramatic songs already written for the album. I started with the drum machine and layered up the synths before adding the vocals and guitars, trying to make them sound like samples. It makes me feel really nostalgic for when I was a teenager. It sounds like it’s a love song but it’s actually about my tendency to get obsessed with new friends to the point of pushing them away because I over analyze the relationship and ruin it. I wrote it in a few hours when I was feeling really down about not writing any new songs that I liked for a few months.
“Unwanted Guest”:
I probably shouldn’t say it, but this is my favourite track on the album. It’s exactly what I wanted the whole album to sound like before deciding it needed the balance of other more poppy, light, happy songs for it to work as a whole. I played around with the verse for months, really struggling to figure out where it should go after the spoken line. I just had two parts that I loved – the vocals and a bass line – and couldn’t decide on proper chords to fit under it. I had actually decided to shelve this song after a few different sessions working with Joe where we tried everything from changing the key to changing the entire chord structure. It was driving me crazy and I felt like we just kept getting further and further away from how I wanted it to sound. I gave up and started working on a brand new song, which I realized worked perfectly as a chorus after this original verse, so we put them together in a new session and it was a revelation. Recording all the synths in the outro was one of my favourite days in the studio. It’s an angry song about being dragged to a party you don’t want to be at!!
“Secret”:
This song was a surprise addition to the album in the final days of recording. We had some spare time after almost finishing all of the other tracks so decided to give something new a go. I had all the vocal and synth parts written, but like Unwanted Guest, I had no idea how to fit them all together and make something that sounded really different from the rest of the album. John Castle, who produced the album, sat down with the parts for an hour and came out with something way beyond where I imagined the song going originally. We were wary about the Robbie Williams piano line he suggested we add in behind everything in the second half of the song, but it’s my favourite part now. I wrote the lyrics last. It’s about confiding in a friend about your mental health.
“Kiss The Stars”:
This song is about seeing a childhood friend after years apart. I wanted to write something super nostalgic that looked back on a much simpler time in my life. I had the ‘kiss the stars’ line in my head for a while, having an idea of how I wanted that part of the song to go but not the rest. I tried adding it to various other tracks I was working on before realizing it worked best with this one. I love that the rhythm guitar and bass alternate between the same two chords for the entire song. In the demo I even just cut the progression in half and pasted the guitar and bassline in the opposite order for the change halfway through. The outro vocal part is such a special part to me, I love stacking up three or four harmonies to mimic a chord like that. It’s also when I reference the album title!
“Stay With Me”:
I heard Joe playing and singing this verse over and over from the other room and fell in love with it. We finished it together for fun, not as a song for any project in particular, aiming for a Kylie meets Trainspotting dance track. It was really exciting hearing it all come together though, and we agreed it was the perfect addition to the album. I love that it’s got a real a crying-on-the-dancefloor vibe.
“When I Get Out”:
This is another track that started off sounding completely different from the final product after merging multiple songs into one. I wanted something that reminded me of the The OC soundtrack that was so prevalent in my teen years.
“Keep”:
This is by far the oldest song on the album — it actually almost ended up on the previous EP. When deciding on the demos I was going to re-record for the album I skipped over it, feeling like I had outgrown the straight up pop sound and had better options. Once I had selected all of the other tracks though I felt like “Keep” would be the perfect connection between the album and the EP. I really like the simple, pop bookends of the album – opening with “Not That Kind” and closing with “Keep”.
Holy Holy write dramatic songs that soundtrack imaginary coming-of-age films from the 80s; music with a propulsion built for highways, house parties and death pacts. Teach Me about Dying chugs along as synthetic strings swoop in and out like ghosts, instruments echoing into the void and the song’s main tenet shines through: that in order to live a full life you must keep your inevitable death at the forefront of your mind. Memento mori, as they put it in the medieval period, a concept adapted from the ancient Stoics. As Holy Holy put it: “Teach me about dying”, so I can learn how to live.” A good message that never sounded so alive as when coupled with Holy Holy’s throbbing backbeat.
Ostensibly about dying, this new song reveals itself as a parable on living and parades Holy Holys continued musical evolution as they approach their forthcoming third LP.
Self-produced by Oscar Dawson & Timothy Carroll , Teach Me About Dying was born from a 1980’s-era portable Casio keyboard and features dark driving bass, live and programmed beats, melodic guitar tones, and the return of Ali Barter and Ainslie Wills on background vocals. Just as life itself, the song manoeuvres between jubilance and melancholy at once.
Frontman Timothy Carroll describes the song as, “an exploration of the way in which our mortality affects our lives … death imbues life with urgency and clarity and a sense that time is precious. And so, although it is by definition morbid, remembering that we will all die is actually a really important tenet by which to live.”
The new single succeeds the fearless left turn on Faces. The first single from their third studio album saw Holy Holy move away from their trademark solos and riffs on the experimental mini-epic, and perform a wildly successful lap of the country on a headline tour.
Holy Holy have their third album due out later this year.
Hatchie is the world of Harriette Pilbeam. Step inside her mind; a dreamy landscape where cascading synths, jangling guitars, propulsive rhythms and white noise undulate beneath irresistible pop melodies. Rather than focusing on the external world of her life in Brisbane, Pilbeam turns her gaze inwards, making a soundtrack out of her daydreams, setting her emotional life to song.
‘Without A Blush’ is taken from Hatchie’s debut album ‘Keepsake’ out June 21 on Double Double Whammy, Heavenly Recordings
The Fat Angel Sings 