It's all about the music…
Australian band Easy Street throw a Dylan-like urging vocal and some loose-limbed exuberance into the musical blender on this new track ‘Get On’. It’s one of those songs that feels purpose-built for the fast approaching warmer months.
Hailing from Sydney, the quintet have a great carefree and melodic, garage psychedelia going on in their sound. We’re looking forward to hearing more from the band.
You know when you hear something that sounds so familiar, the sum of their influences but you can’t nail them down to any degree of specificity? That was how felt on hearing this track from German band Mofer. It’s steeped in the history of post-punk, with the anguish-tinged, staring-at-the-horizon vocal, that Stephen Morris-like drumming and guitars that skate across the surface of the song. It has a great 90s melancholic indie guitar rock vibe to it too.
‘Sometimes’ comes from the band’s recently released EP Ghosts.
Michael A. Muller is a co-founder of Balmorhea who have released six albums over the last 13 years. ‘Lower River’ is the title track of his solo album and it’s a wonderfully immersive and hypnotic piece of ambient, droning music that hangs in the air, draped in resonating, melancholic chords.
The press releases describes the track as being inspired by his own remote travels throughout the US and Europe and the personal exploration of a meditative practice, it’s a sonic exploration of what it means to hear versus to listen, to immerse oneself in navigating the subconscious plane of pure energy and deep, immersive creativity.
Lower River is out October 25th on Beacon Sound (vinyl) + 1631 Recordings (digital).
Christopher Tignor is a New York composer with an impressive CV. In his early days he mixed sound at CBGBs, was an assistant to La Monte Young. He gained a Masters in computer science from NYU, proceeded through Princeton’s PhD program in music composition, and was later recruited for a software engineering position at Google. He’s released nine albums and collaborated with a range of other artists including Keith Kenniff (Helios), Jefre Cantu-Ledesma, John Congleton, and This Will Destroy You.
Tignor’s latest album A Light Below features this track ‘The Resonance Canons’, an 11 minute instrumental journey that is based around the sound of tuning forks. It sparkles and glistens, clangs and pulses with bell-like qualities and both melancholic and slightly ominous undertones. Lovely stuff!
“Since the last LP, my technique for tuning forks also earned some attention (and an honest-to-God tuning fork sponsorship). Again, I wanted to push the musical possibilities here, dialing those gestures in to create locked, luminous polyrhythms alternating with left hand pizzicato. I combined these methods with cascades of triggered synths in “The Resonance Canons”, an 11 minute trip ending in complete vulnerability—as the tuning fork loses its resonance, I continue knocking it against my bridge, a final ostinato built from processed noise and resonant wood.”
Here’s some cinematic, widescreen psychedelia courtesy of Federale, a seven-piece ensemble based in Portland, OR. Spearheaded by longtime Brian Jonestown Massacre bassist Collin Hegna, the band was conceived as an outlet to channel inspiration from 60’s & 70’s European soundtracks, particularly those from Italy made famous by the Spaghetti Western & Giallo genres.
They certainly hit the mark on ‘Trouble’, a song that swaggers along with dark intent, a smokey atmosphere akin to Calexico on a desert road trip with the Bad Seeds and Lee Hazlewood behind the steering wheel. Horns and strings enhance the mood before the operatic sound of Maria Karlin sends things skyward.
‘Trouble’ comes the new album No Justice, due out on November 8th.
Jamie Hutchings is heading out on tour at the end of this month to celebrate the vinyl and digital release of his new live album King Hits and Goldfish Memories. Special guest on the tour is Mark Moldre who has also just released his new album, the critically acclaimed Fever Dreams. Both artists will guest in each others live sets plus along for the ride will be bassist Reuben Wills.
GIVEAWAY
Win a double pass to see Jamie Hutchings launch King Hits and Goldfish Memories with special guest Mark Moldre at Camelot Lounge Marrickville on Thursday Oct 31st. To sweeten the deal they’ll also throw in a signed copy of Hutchings’ Bedsit and Moldre’s Fever Dreams albums on CD.
To go in the running:
1. Like Jamie and Mark’s Pages on Facebook and/or Instagram
2. Share the giveaway post (pinned at the top of their FB Pages)
3. Comment DONE
A winner will be drawn on Monday 21st October. Tickets will be emailed to the winner. CD’s can be picked up at the show.
Special thanks to Wire Bluthe – who really wanted to be at the show, but lives in Townsville, for “fan-funding” this giveaway.
“A really nice, new English indie guitar tune” I thought to myself when I first heard ‘Heaven Moves’ by Dear Boy. I was wrong though! The band hail from Los Angeles and they’re starting to gain some attention with their mix of English jangly post-punk and pop-tinged melodies. They recently finished a run of dates with James and Psychedelic Furs which gives a further idea of the kind of sound they have. ‘Dear Boy’ reminds us of Ride and Boo Radleys with a dash of Prefab Sprout thrown into the mix. A really nice tune.
Dear Boy released The Strawberry EP earlier this year and this track is a bridge between that release and a full-length album.
Under The Reefs Orchestra are a Belgian trio who certainly know their way around a dark and hypnotic groove. Drums, guitar and bass saxophone combine in a haunting rhythmic mix of post rock and a dash of jazz. It works wonderfully too, conjuring squalls of guitar across a doom-laden desert backdrop.
This is a live in-studio version of the song, their brand new single, of which the recorded studio version is available on Spotify and Apple Music.
