New War Trouble In The Air Heavy Machinery Records Last year Sarah Mary Chadwick released an album that she’d recorded on the Melbourne Town Hall Organ – the largest of its kind in the Southern Hemisphere. New War had already ticked that box in 2017 when they recorded this new live album. While Chadwick created a grand widescreen soundtrack to her songs, her Melbourne contemporaries … Continue reading ALBUM REVIEW: New War – Trouble In The Air
Here’s a recently released new track from NZ’s Ria Hall, written with Laughton Kora. It’s a great slice of Pacific reggae but one that rides a minimal and dark rhythm instead of hitting summer jam heights. That works in its favour. Don’t get me wrong, it still gathers momentum and swings along with a real hook to it but it’s definitely on the lowdown tip. … Continue reading NEW MUSIC: Ria Hall – Walk
HYG are a Canberra psych band who’ve already released an EP a couple of years ago and now have this cool new single out. ‘Be Here’ finds its groove and rides it for all money. It’s big and fuzzed-out with heavy stomping drums and bass that provides the repeating melodic phrasing amid the noise and heavy riffage. There’s a simple idea at the core of … Continue reading NEW MUSIC: HYG – Be Here
There’s a great blend of cold industrial percussion and hot-blooded bass tones throughout this new track but US electronic producer BastienGOAT. Hailing from Pinole, CA, he’s just released his new Fumes EP – two tracks that carve some hard pummelling rhythms with haunted sci-fi sounds. A nod to the dynamics of drum & bass but firmly placed in the techno realm. There’s also a … Continue reading NEW MUSIC: BastienGOAT – Hexane
Sydney group The Wednesday Night follow up their 2018 LP Music Club Volume Two with their new single ‘The Perfect Scene’. Over tumbling drums and bass that wanders with curiosity and a free spirit, Laura Murdoch relays the scenario of a perfect scene (of two tales) through a hazy lens of psych-pop melancholy. Like Mazzy Star filtered through a tougher 60s aesthetic, the guitar of … Continue reading NEW MUSIC: The Wednesday Night – The Perfect Scene
Australian composer and sound designer Daniel McCagh has just released his debut album Altered States, an immersive and sonically detailed collection of compositions that range from visceral sheets of digital rain to delicate filigrees and textures. He manipulates acoustic instruments to place them in evocative settings where the organic and synthetic sounds become one. It sounds futuristic yet connected to human spirit, blood flow and … Continue reading NEW MUSIC: Daniel McCagh – Altered States
CABLE TIES, LONG JAMS AND LOUD AMPS Between festival appearances and European tours, Cable Ties’ Jenny McKechnie chats with Chris Familton about their new album Far Enough and explains the band’s 30-minute riff test. Picture three figures, closely grouped between numerous amps and drums, hunched over their instruments in the middle of a large warehouse as heavy guitars at full volume fill the voluminous space … Continue reading INTERVIEW: Cable Ties
With a bass-line straight out of The Cure and Joy Division handbook, this track from bdrmm is undeniably the sum of its influences, but they’re great ones and they approach the music with reverence and respect, keeping all the elements of mood and texture in check. The result is a wistful, melancholically propulsive and free-flowing track that draws from shoegaze, post-punk and dark pop. ‘Happy’ is the … Continue reading NEW MUSIC: bdrmm – Happy
We featured a track by The Klubs a while back on DS and ‘Pastors Dance’ is another single from their EP Cult Party, Part 2: Bow Down. The South African trio are an amalgam of loose limbed death-disco funk and flailing post-punk, where the rhythm section is the accelerant and the vocal is a wired narrator hanging on for dear life, imploring the masses to … Continue reading NEW MUSIC: The Klubs – Pastors Dance
This Friday from 4pm PST (Saturday morning 10am Australia EST) The label Light In The Attic are presenting a livestream Covid-19 relief benefit festival featuring an amazing line-up of label artists and friends. In hopes of bringing some much-needed joy to the planet, acclaimed archival/reissue label and distribution company Light in the Attic will be presenting a free charity concert this Friday (4/3), streaming live on … Continue reading NEWS: Light In The Attic Announce Livestream Festival
Polish composer Michal Jacaszek has just released his new album Music For Film on the Ghostly International label and it’s a wonderfully immersive and contemplative collection of compositions that showcase his amalgamation of ambient, classical, and musique concrete styles. He deploys field recordings, acoustic samples, poetry, and baroque instrumentation to paint pictures, oftentimes melancholic, nostalgic, tragic. ‘November Late’ begins tentatively before slowly morphing, swelling and rising into … Continue reading NEW MUSIC: Jacaszek – November Late
Talk Show are another of the current wave of post-punk bands coming out of the UK. From Idles to Fontaines DC, Squid to Black Country, New Road and The Murder Capital. They’re all putting their own stamp and flavour on the sound and Talk Show have a knack for thrilling and hummable melodies as evidenced on this track, ‘Stress’. The song follows their other 2020 … Continue reading NEW MUSIC: Talk Show – Stress
Doubtful Sounds 