Party Dozen began performing in 2016 and have been recording and releasing music periodically. ‘The Living Man’ has now been fully recorded and was released digitally and on Vinyl on June the 30th 2017. One of the most exciting and down right wild things to come out of Sydney in recent memory. ‘Straights’ is the first single off PartyDozen’s debut album The Living Man and is unlike anything you’ve heard before. It’s not for the faint hearted but if you’re partial to a bit of experimental saxophone, this one’s for you.
‘The Living Man’ vinyl comes with 1 of 5 possible coloured inserts. There are also 25 unique hand drawn inserts that will be shipped at random. The band area a sonic partnering of saxophonist Kirsty Tickle and percussionist Jonathan Boulet, Party Dozen in a project loosely based around improvisation.
The recorded performance of the song ‘Straights’ from the album ‘The Living Man’ by Party Dozen, Release date, 30th June 2017
Filmed and Edited by Mitch Fresta and Mel Tickle live at the Plutonium in Brisbane.
The recorded performance of the song ‘Straights’ from the album ‘The Living Man’ by Party Dozen, Release date, 30th June 2017
Filmed and Edited by Mitch Fresta and Mel Tickle live at the Plutonium in Brisbane.
I’ve noticed Julia and the Deep Sea Sirens front-woman Julia Johnson popping up on bills around the country under her own name, so always suspected it was only a matter of time before we saw her officially launch of her solo career. It’s exciting to have these suspicions confirmed with the release of Johnson’s debut solo single “Melissa”. The single sees Julia Johnson step away from the guitar and banjo driven folk of Julia and the Deep Sea Sirens and more towards a synth based contemporary folk sound.
“I needed to get out of my comfort zone, and boy did I do a good job of that,” Johnson explained. “After a few months in Berlin, my old songs didn’t fit me anymore. Writing all new material has been liberating and fun, but also uncomfortable. This new territory is not easy to navigate.”
“Working with Sarah Belkner has had a huge impact on me creatively. Sarah can take the amorphous, blurry sketches of what I imagine and craft tangible, fleshed-out songs. It’s new to me, putting trust in someone else’s vision. Her instincts and incredible knowledge helped me to shape “Melissa”, taking the song into a realm which I couldn’t have taken it to on my own.”
Written by Julia Johnson
Produced by Sarah Belkner
Vocals + guitar: Julia Johnson
Synth + bass: Sarah Belkner
Drums: Bree van Reyk
Sax: Matt Keegan
Recorded and mixed by Richard Blekner at Free Energy Device Studios, Sydney
Julia Johnson has a handful of tour dates in the coming weeks in Australia where you can really get to know her new sound.
Sydney’s no.1 fuzzy jangle good time band. I keep expecting the Australian well of goodness to dry up any day now, but this year has featured so many quality releases from down under that the well is deeper than most. This Sydney band makes mellow jangly goodness that has much in common with Teenage Fanclub, the Earthmen and Dick Diver.
Julia Jacklin’s star continues to rise and we couldn’t be happier for the Sydney based singer-songwriter. Her latest video and single is “Eastwick” from her captivating record Don’t Let The Kids Win.
The video for “Eastwick” is self-directed by Julia
New single from upcoming 7″ “Eastwick/Cold Caller”
Out September 15th via Polyvinyl Records, Transgressive Records and Liberation Music
“Getting Better” is a gorgeous new single from Sydney based indie-folk singer-songwriter Emma Davis . The single is a sumptuous, looping masterpiece that has Davis trademark vocals and production front and centre.
The track is the first taster from Emma’s upcoming album Demons which she’s pieced together of the last couple of years with producer and musician Greg J Walker (Paul Kelly, Tiny Ruins, Machine Translations).
The Sydney musician has created a beautiful little debut album” – Music Feeds “Davis’ music is arresting and beautiful, quick to convert strangers and easy to satisfy those already familiar…It’s simple really – of the current crop of sensitive white singer songwriters brandishing six-string acoustics around this land of ours, Davis stands out as amongst the finest”
On the farm in rural Australia where Sophie Payten – AKA Gordi – grew up, there’s a paddock that leads down to a river. A few hundred metres away up the driveway of the property named “Alfalfa” sits another house, which belongs to her 93-year-old grandmother. The rest, she says, “is just beautiful space. And what else would you fill it with if not music?”
“Heaven I Know,” the first taste of Gordi’s debut album “Reservoir”, is an example of just that. With the breathy chant of “123” chugging along beneath the song’s sparse melody and melancholic piano chords, “Heaven IKnow” gazes at the embers of a fading friendship. “Cause I got older, and we got tired,” she sings, as synthetic twitches, sweeping brass and distorted samples bubble to the surface, “Heaven I know that we tried.”
Debut album ‘Reservoir’ out 25 August 2017 on Jagjaguwar Records
With the confidence Middle Kids display in their songwriting and performances, it’s hard to believe just how new of a band they are.
The emerging indie pop band from Sydney, Australia has its roots in 2014 when classically trained pianist Hannah Joy met multi-instrumentalist Tim Fitz, who worked as producer for Joy’s solo work. The project turned collaborative, and shortly after they recruited drummer Harry Day. Before the band had even played a show, they wrote and recorded their incredible debut single “Edge of Town”, which gained quick exposure after Elton John shared the track on his radio show and Apple Music playlist.
They quickly released their debut self-titled EP, which was recorded partially in their garage. They arrived in Toronto for a tour stop with Cold War Kids at the Danforth Music Hall, and played a short set for us in the StieglHidden Studio which included “Edge of Town” and two other stand-out tracks from their EP. Check out their performance below and see for yourself why Middle Kids have blown up so quickly (and to check out Hannah’s unique upside-down guitar playing.)
Middle Kids perform “Edge of Town”, “Fire In Your Eyes”, and “Old River” live for Indie88 in the Stiegl Hidden Studio.
Sydney post-punk quartet Mere Women have released their new single ‘Big Skies‘, the first track taken from their third LP out this June via Poison City Records.
Released together with an accompanying video, ‘Big Skies‘ is their first piece of new music since the release of ‘Drive‘ last August, and will be launched with a string of shows around Australia.
‘Big Skies‘ is everything that encapsulates Mere Women: it’s hypnotic, unsettling, intense, angular and dark. Driving drums, shaking bass and a haunting guitar hook lay behind Amy Wilson’s vocals which have a range of their own. Wilson explains;
“Big Skies is inspired by when I was living out in a small regional NSW town. I left my friends and family and was living all alone in a big house. It was fun having all of that space and freedom but sometimes extremely lonely. I was told when I first moved to town that I should get a dog for protection which made me feel unsafe – like there was something I needed protection from.“
The video for the single shows the band wandering amongst the scenery of the Capertee Valley, the widest natural canyon in the world nestled amongst the Blue Mountains 135km north-west of Sydney. The clip finds beauty in nature and the inanimate alike – industrial buildings, rusted pipes and abandoned furniture laying out on soggy grounds. Together they trek over roads and unstable hills, with moments of blue and red lights flooding the night.
The Church Band’s ‘Priest=Aura’ released 20 years ago today. Been listening to this one a lot lately. Where do you think it ranks in the band’s discography? Pretty near the top for me…Priest=Aura (styled as priest=aura) is the eighth album by the Australian psychedelic rock band The Church , released in March 1992
After touring their previous album,Gold Afternoon Fix (1990), with new drummerJay Dee Daugherty (Patti Smith Group), The Church returned to Sydney’s Studios 301 to commence work on new material. With lowered commercial expectations and less pressure from Arista Records, the atmosphere was more relaxed than the fraught L.A. sessions for their previous two albums. Bringing in British producer Gavin MacKillop to supervise the sessions, the band began to improvise the framework for the next set of songs. The use of opium and, for Kilbey, heroin, saw the material take on a more expansive and surreal quality, while Daugherty’s occasionally jazz-like approach on drums brought a fresh change.
Titled Priest=Aura, from Kilbey’s misreading of a Spanish fan’s English vocabulary notes (‘priest’ = ‘cura’), the album contained fourteen tracks, several over six minutes long. At nearly 65 minutes, it was their longest release so far. With song concepts derived from cryptic, one-word working titles (an idea originally proposed by Willson-Piper), the lyrics leaned towards the abstract and esoteric. Emphasising free association and undirected coincidence between music and motif, Kilbey declined to define their meanings. Sonically, the interplay between Koppes and Willson-Piper dominated throughout, especially on tracks such as “Ripple,” “Kings,” and the epic, aptly titled “Chaos”, whose lyrics were a reflection of Kilbey’s unsettled lifestyle at the time.
Upon its release on March 10th, 1992 (it was issued in the United States slightly before Australia), Priest=Aura had less chart success than any of its predecessors, It was given a mixed reception. Rolling Stone‘s Ira Robbins called the album “rich in texture” but with an “arid atmosphere”. The band went on a sold-out tour of Australia (the “Jokes-Magic-Souvenirs” tour), as Kilbeyprepared for the birth of his twin daughters, but after the final gig founding guitarist Peter Koppes announced his departure. Increasing personality conflicts, especially with Willson-Piper, who had been moonlighting with UK band All About Eve, combined with frustration over The Church’s declining chart success had made the situation intolerable. Koppes would eventually return to guest with the band on their 1996 album Magician Among the Spirits and rejoined permanently in 1997.
Despite its muted reception at the time of release, Priest=Aura is considered by both the band and fan base to be an artistic high point. In 2011 the album, along with Untitled #23and Starfish, was played in its entirety on the band’s 30th Anniversary “Future, Past, Perfect” tour. In his 2014 autobiography, Something Quite Peculiar, Kilbey calls it their “undisputed masterpiece”.
The original 1992 Australian release was bundled with the 1991 rarities album A Quick Smoke at Spot’s: Archives 1986-1990.
A 2-CD remastered edition was released in Australia in 2005. The second disc included the tracks “Ripple (single edit)”, “Nightmare”, “Fog”, “Feel (extended mix)”, “Drought” and “Unsubstantiated”.
In 2011,Second Motion Records re-released the album as part of their 30th Anniversary Remaster series, with the bonus tracks “Nightmare” and “Fog”, in a cardboard sleeve with a booklet containing lyrics, photos and sleeve notes by Marty Willson-Piper.
Premiering on triple j’ Radio Sydney garage pop four-piece Flowertruck releasetheir new single “Dying To Hear”
Its the first taste from the band’s anticipated debut album. The single comes as Flowertruck prepare to head out on the road for a slew of festival shows and a Melbourne headline during this March and April.
A hybrid of infectious guitar riffs, singalong choruses and devastatingly honest songwriting, “Dying To Hear” charts the agony of anticipation and an uncertain future. Lead singer, guitarist and songwriter Charles Rushforth says the track “was written in my bedroom one night as I awaited a call from my soon-to-be-ex-girlfriend. My phone kept doing that thing where you think you feel it vibrate, which was slowly sending me a little bit insane.” Taking the track to the rest of the band, Rushforth explains, “we wanted to make something that was big and dramatic and kind of desperate – to match that feeling.”
The Fat Angel Sings 