With Keep Up, Melbourne three-piece Loose Tooth have inked their impeccable ear for a hook on a fresh sonic palate; the howling guitars of their first EP Saturn Returns peeled back to foreground the striking to and fro of the band’s distinctive vocalists. That’s three for three – Etta Curry (drums, vocals), Luc Dawson (bass, vocals, guitar, keys), and Nellie Jackson (guitar, vocals) – long time friends with a democratic approach to both songwriting and influences.
Where Saturn Returns was squared in youthful abandon, the band’s debut album is the hangover; recognising a tension between keeping up in a shifting landscape of necessity and staking out your own version of happiness as you wave goodbye to your golden twenties.
Raised on the holy trinity of soul, country and Eddy Current, their debut LP is a living reminder that the B-52’s used to be a punk band and the light hasn’t gone out on the storied shores of St Kilda, Loose Toothhave a new clip for ‘Asteroids’ taken from their most recent album Keep Up.
‘A knack for sunny vocal harmonies, addictive basslines and their own take on the striped, sunlight sound made famous by predecessors like the Go-Betweens.” 4 1/2 stars – The Sydney Morning Herald.
Loose Tooth have a new clip for All The Colours Gone from their debut album
‘All The Colours Gone’ is taken from Loose Tooth’s album ‘Keep Up’ out now:
Another Milk! Records signee, the mint rock trio Loose Tooth dropped their second LP, “Keep Up” in 2018. I must admit I was skeptical: How can Melbourne keep up the guitar-pop bands of such quality, But Loose Tooth were a pleasant surprise. Their transcendent rock certainly takes cues from bands like The Cure and that classic Melbourne jangle, but it’s nevertheless some of the freshest sounds coming out of the Australian metropolis. Etta Curry, Luc Dawson and Nellie Jackson know a thing or two about hooks, and “Keep On” is especially infectious, like a pleasant nag. With Barnett on their side and plenty of catchy rock melodies in their heads, this Loose Tooth won’t fall out anytime soon.
‘Keep On‘ is taken from Loose Tooth’s album ‘Keep Up’ out now:
We are always on the hunt for hot new Australian bands, we figured Courtney Barnett’s own label, Milk! Records, might be a good place to start the search. There we stumbled upon Melbourne’s Jade Imagine, who combine the best of slacker-rock with a distinctly Aussie surf-pop sound. The band’s frontwoman, Jade McInally, has been on the Melbourne scene since the early 2000s, but it wasn’t until 2016 that she sent a pile of demos to Dave Mudie,Barnett’s drummer. From there, McInally formed Jade Imagine with several other vets of the Aussie indie realm: Liam “Snowy” Halliwell of The Ocean Party and Ciggie Witch, Tim Harvey of Real Feelings and James Harvey of Teeth and Tongue. Together, they’re Jade Imagine, and they’ve yet to release a full-length LP, which means 2019 could be their big year.
from the Debut EP “What The Fuck Was I Thinking” By Jade Imagine, thru Milk! Records
It’s funny that East Brunswick’s debut album was called Seven Drummers – when “Essendon 1986” kicks off in earnest, that’s exactly what it sounds like. Jen Sholakis is the central focus of this spiralling, seething number, her toms rumbling the earth beneath her as her bandmates carve into their respective stringed instruments. The band has never sounded this dark, this aggressive or this forthright – and it’s this immediate shift that ends up paying off to create their finest singular moment to date. A fading, sepia portrayal of restless outward Australia that, truthfully, couldn’t have come from any other band.
“Teddywaddy” is the band’s most profound and riotous statement, focusing the seasoned intensity of singer/guitarist Marcus Hobbs, bassist/keyboardist Rie Nakayama, guitarist Rob Wrigley and drummer Jen Sholakis. Named after a slumbering patch of country 90 minutes from Bendigo, Teddywaddy was recorded with rising producer Anna Laverty (Courtney Barnett, The Peep Tempel). It follows 2014’s Australian Music Prize-longlisted Seven Drummers and 2009’s mini-LP Dead Air.
EBAGC have sojourned in Berlin and toured Asia but always circled back to Victoria, with Hobbs dropping wry geographical pins throughout his detailed songwriting. Spanning both smouldering studies of isolation and open-air eruptions of catharsis, Teddywaddy revels in such whiplashing contrasts. For every spacious swath of majesty, there’s some punked-up exorcism to fray the nerves and throttle the senses.
Band Members
Marcus Hobbs, Rie Nakayama, Robert Wrigley, Jen Sholakis
‘Essendon 1986’ is taken from the East Brunswick All Girls Choir album ‘Teddywaddy‘ was released June 29th
Courtney Barnett started Milk! Records in 2012 to release her first EP I’ve Got A Friend Called Emily Ferris. Soon aftercame the second EP How To Carve A Carrot Into A Rose. She took her band overseas with a condensed back catalogue called The Double EP: A Sea Of Split Peas. In 2015 Barnett released album Sometimes I Sit And Think, And Sometimes I Just Sit to worldwide critical acclaim.
“Small Talk,” is an outtake from Courtney Barnett’s 2018 album Tell Me How You Really Feel sounds a lot like most songs on the LP: an expansive, vamp-based affair with sunny choruses. Barnett’s hook-writing has only gotten sharper as time goes on. Where her early work would have been satisfied to let the interlocking organ/bass line groove ride for the entire runtime, here she injects an immediately felt, warmly rendered chorus of group singalongs. Her lyrics are, as always, sharp as a tack.
She takes the title seriously, regaling us with the shaggiest of shaggy-dog stories about whatever seems to float into her mind. “I’ve got a brother, Blake / he’s four years older than me / and I guess he always will be,” she sings, somehow managing to be both hilarious and weirdly philosophical. If she never got into business as a musician, Barnett could roundly kick all of our asses at this writing thing.
‘Charity’ is taken from Courtney Barnett’s album ‘Tell Me How You Really Feel’
Teddywaddy is a slumbering patch of country just off the Calder Highway in northwest Victoria, now mostly farmland. It sits 90 minutes from Bendigo, where East Brunswick All Girls Choir frontman Marcus Hobbs grew up, and he knows the drive all too well from regular visits there to see his father’s family. It’s also the namesake of the Melbourne ensemble’s long-awaited second album.
That makes it a resonant backdrop for the album Teddywaddy, which encompasses both smouldering studies of isolation and open-air eruptions of catharsis. Co-produced with Anna Laverty (Courtney Barnett, The Peep Tempel), the album is etched deeply with such contrasts. For every spacious swath of majesty like ‘Rounds’ or ‘Never/Never’, there’s some punked-up exorcism like the calm-to-squall ‘DOG FM’, the nerves-fraying ‘Cicada Chirps the Chicane’ or ‘Essendon 1986’, an old song revisited and accelerated.
“I like the contrast of power and surprise in music. Something that makes your head tilt back when it hits,” reflects Hobbs, who shares the band with bassist/keyboardist Rie Nakayama, drummer Jen Sholakis and guitarist RobWrigley. East Brunswick All Girls Choir debuted with the 2009 mini album Dead Air, then followed it up with 2014’s Australian Music Prize-longlisted Seven Drummers. To say it was worth the wait is an understatement: Teddywaddy is the most profound and riotous statement of the band’s career, anchored at every turn by the ragged glory of Hobbs’ eruptive singing and the piercing details of his lyrics.
The second single to be lifted from the new album from East Brunswick All Girls Choir. Out June 29th on Milk Records.
With Keep Up, Melbourne three-piece Loose Tooth have inked their impeccable ear for a hook on a fresh sonic palate; the howling guitars of their first EP Saturn Returns peeled back to foreground the striking to and fro of the band’s distinctive vocalists – Etta Curry, Luc Dawson and Nellie Jackson.
Where Saturn Returns was squared in youthful abandon, Keep Up is the hangover; recognising a tension between keeping up in a shifting landscape of necessity and staking out your own version of happiness as you roll into your thirties. In a time where platitudes about moving on up and giving love a chance abound, Loose Tooth are saddling up and getting on with it. In the words of Kurt Vonnegut, “you were sick but now you’re well, and there’s work to be done”.
Keep Up is out August 3rd.
‘Keep On’ is taken from Loose Tooth’s upcoming album ‘Keep Up’ out on the 3rd of August 2018:
Courtney Barnett has revealed the music video for “Sunday Roast,” taken from her forthcoming album Tell Me How You Really Feel, due out on May 18th via Mom+Pop / Marathon Artists / Milk! Records.
Tell Me How You Really Feel is Barnett’s second solo album, which follows her smash-hit debut full-length Sometimes I Sit And Think, And Sometimes I Just Sit. Barnett unveiled three other cuts from her new album earlier this year: City Looks Pretty, Nameless Faceless and Need a Little Time.
In her video for “Sunday Roast,” Barnett takes the reins as guitar teacher as various close-up shots of Barnett’s guitar playing move across the screen. She plays while sitting in front of a purple backdrop casually held up by two of her bandmates, who, at various points, sing along, accidentally drop the backdrop and check their cell phones.
Rolling Stone magazine praised Courtney Barnett as “one of the sharpest, most original songwriters around — at any level, in any genre.” At festivals like SXSW, Bonnaroo, and Lollapalooza, the Australian indie rocker has garnered fans worldwide since her 2012 debut EP. In 2016, she took Songwriter of the Year honors at the APRA (Australasian Performing Right Association) Music Awards and was nominated for a Best New Artist Grammy. Her new album is Tell Me How You Really Feel. features Katie Harkin (keyboards), Andrew Sloane (bass), David Mudie (drums).
Courtney Barnett will release her highly anticipated new album Tell Me How You Really Feel. To date she has released three singles from the record.
She performed all four of these songs in a taped show for NPR’s Chris-Thile-hosted Live From Here, formerly known asPrarie Home Companion .
Tell Me How You Really Feel, the second proper album from Courtney Barnett, the great Australian songwriter and guitar-monster. Tell Me How You Really Feel is very much a rock album, but it’s more chilled-out and reflective than her previous album. Host Chris Thile introduced Barnett with a joke about Barnett driving up the show’s electricity bill, but it wasn’t like she was playing on gigantic ceiling-high Bill & Ted style amps. For Barnett, this came off as a pretty laid-back set, one where she played four songs from the new album, including one we haven’t heard yet.
She played all three of the song released so far, and all three sounded great. She also played “Sunday Roast,” the album’s meditative closer, a song that most of the world hasn’t heard yet. (If you managed to get your hands on the “City Looks Pretty” Record Store Day single, “Sunday Roast” was the B-side.
Barnett is currently embarking on a short string of U.S. warm-up shows, which wrap up in Chicago on May 21st, but she will also play more tour dates across North America, the U.K. and Europe, with an impressive lineup of special guests. Support will come from the likes of Jay Som, Julien Baker, Big Thief, Molly Burch, Vagabon, LALA LALA, Loose Tooth and Palehound.
Watch the video for “Sunday Roast” via Amazon Music and watch a video of Barnett performing the lead track from her debut album below. Check out her upcoming tour dates
Exclusively for Record Store Day Courtney Barnett releases a new track ‘City Looks Pretty’ + for a limited time only you’ll be able to hear album track ‘Sunday Roast’ only via this 12″! After the release of the critically acclaimed ‘Sometimes I Sit And Think, And Sometimes I Just Sit’ and the ‘Lotta Sea Lice’ collaboration with Kurt Vile, a life on the road and all of its quirks appears on track ‘City Looks Pretty’ while ‘Sunday Roast’ sees Courtney her most reflective & emphatic self in a beautiful down tempo moment. A release that perfectly captures the many facets of Courtney’s upcoming second album ‘Tell Me How You Really Feel’ released May 18th
This is a photo of us taken backstage in Birmingham on our U.K tour in February. I’m pretty sure we were a little delirious after a couple of days of long drives and late nights. Our whirlwind tour also took us to the States for our first ever headline shows. No matter where we played in the world we were greeted by beautiful, attentive audiences who had genuinely connected with our music. It’s not lost on me that at the age of 44 I’m touring to different parts of the world and playing sold out club shows. Amazing! Thanks to each and everyone of you for coming out to show your support or buy an album. It means the world to us.
Lastly, I wanted to offer you a little gift as a token of my appreciation for the support you have shown me and my band this year. I’ve put together an 8 track EP of songs from all different projects. Some of them you may have already but just in case you don’t head over here and enter $0 into the payment field, then enter your email and it’s yours.
The Fat Angel Sings 