It’s great to have Dallas Crane back on the scene. They’ve had one of the best live sounds over the last 15 years and now more than ever they are sorely needed to breathe some life back into the stagnant swamp of Australian rock. Here’s the video for their comeback single I’m Sorry Darling. Continue reading WATCH: Dallas Crane | I’m Sorry Darling
Austin Psych Fest has quickly become the benchmark psych festival on the planet, growing in stature each year while still retaining its core values. Below you can watch the 2012 event in full. It’s only 240p resolution on You Tube but hey, its better than nothing right? The good news is that they’ve also made the concert film Beyond The Third Sound of last year’s festival … Continue reading WATCH: Austin Psych Fest 2012 (in full)
Swervedriver return with their first single in 15 years. Deep Wound has been floating around for a while now with the footage in the clip below taken from their studio performance for radio station KEXP in Seattle back in April 2012. The single is available now via iTunes, Amazon and the band’s Bandcamp page backed with a dub version called Dub Wound. The single includes backing … Continue reading NEW MUSIC: Swervedriver | Deep Wound
It’s always a mighty challenge to narrow down all the songs you’ve heard in one year and slot them into order on a nice tidy list of 20. I’m sure I’ve missed a handful of gems but these are all songs that have either captured my imagination, feet, ears or all of the above and made me think “damn that is a great song”. 1. … Continue reading DS Favourite Songs of 2013
Ahead of the release of their 2014 LP Rave Tapes (out 21st January), Mogwai drop the second taster in the form of this Antony Crook directed video clip for The Lord Is Out of Control. Continue reading VIDEO: Mogwai | The Lord is Out of Control
Damien Jurado has been on a mighty fine roll with his last few albums and particularly now that he has hooked up with Richard Swift as collaborator and producer. That relationship continues on his 12th album Brothers And Sisters Of The Eternal Son which is due out January 20th via Secretly Canadian. Here’s the first single, Silver Timothy. Continue reading WATCH: Damien Jurado | Silver Timothy (NEW)
Anna Calvi’s debut album in 2011 marked her as a bold and confident songwriter that was matched by her exceptional voice and guitar playing. Two years later we have One Breath, a record that finds her retaining the dramatic and virtuosic elements of her music but also expanding its sonic scope by experimenting with new sounds and song structures. Eliza is an early standout with … Continue reading ALBUM REVIEW: Anna Calvi | One Breath
The Grand Rapids’ debut album possesses a striking sense of purpose and confidence. This isn’t the skinny, frazzled-nerve psych rock that many contemporary acts trade in, this is muscular music; widescreen and bold. They employ many of the classic elements of drone and psych rock (effects, repetition and tumbling rhythms) but nothing sounds particularly generic, referencing all manner of rock from Jane’s Addiction to The … Continue reading ALBUM REVIEW: The Grand Rapids | Great Shakes
The third album from Melbourne’s The Ancients is a record that hurtles, ambles and breezes by with equal amounts of intricate musicality and simple skewed-pop broad strokes. There is a wistful 60s folk tinge to songs like House of Cards, the lighter contrast to their more layered and dense psych excursions such as the shoegaze haze of Hamster and the epic Molokai that manages to … Continue reading ALBUM REVIEW: The Ancients | Night Bus
Pond are and forever will be compared to Tame Impala, with whom they share a few members, and yes they both trade in retro-fitted psychedelic rock but dig below the surface and the two bands are clearly circling different planets. On Hobo Rocket they’ve pulled back on the overblown eccentricities that were generally to their detriment and produced a concise, freewheeling and fun album. The … Continue reading ALBUM REVIEW: Pond | Hobo Rocket
Callinan is still spreading the good word on foreign shores (including CMJ) and getting great praise for his shows and album Embracism ahead of a return to Australia to play Laneway and support for Savages in January. He has also just released the video for one of my favourite Embracism tracks, the slow, bruised grace of Landslide. Continue reading WATCH: Kirin J Callinan | Landslide
Hope Springs are a trio from the Sunshine Coast of Australia who trade in the kind of indie guitar music that intersected post rock in the 90s and created literate and emotive songs that played with structure and dynamics. The band have recently recorded a Balcony TV spot for their forthcoming single Sooner Or Later which will appear on their second EP featuring production work by … Continue reading WATCH: Hope Springs preview new single on Balcony TV
Doubtful Sounds 