New four track EP from off-center hip-hop duo Brothers Hand Mirror is a release you’d best listen to this week if you’re going to stay fresh. It’s the mentos of EPs, the freshbreathe deluxe. You’d even consider calling tic-tacs on this thing but when you listen to those beats it’s pretty evident that we’re talking more than 1 calorie. This is the high-fat business of Oscar Key Sung (aka Oscar of Oscar + Martin) on the boards and the nonsensical, image heavy rhyming of HTML Flowers. It’s a quavered lyric delivery that reminds me a whole, whole lot of Cincinnati’s WHY?, an Anticon group that already went a long way to blur the lines between hip-hop and hipster. My good-pal Maccy D who captains 2SER hip-hop show In The Red called this hipster-hop and that’s probably fair, given that I’m loving it and I’m not the firmest proponent of Aussie hip-hop.

The two tracks I’ve taken from the EP are ‘Our Will’ and ‘Oops Oh My’. The first because it’s the beat that most closely resembles historical Oscar Key Sung, the second because it’s an amazing cover of that Tweet (no twitter) track from way back when. I should point you to the whole EP though because ‘Waterfall Walker’ has a gritfingered blues lick that you’ll be crushing on. All four lo-fi gems are free for download anyway so even if you’re disappointed (unlikely) all it’ll cost you is a few seconds of your time. Ready go.

The nature of musicianship appears to have changed over the past however many years in as much as it’s not longer sufficient to be a member of just the one band. I’ve seen dudes find success in the side projects of side projects and still move into new material under a new name. That last sentence is an untruth but it serves the purpose of the point I’m trying to make; bands bloom into bands bloom into bands. It’s the nature of unsigned man.

The fertility of a band such as Parades then should come as no surprise to anyone remotely involved with their music. Parades are rich, experimental and technically exceptional. From it’s potent loins have already come the king of feature records, Jonathan Boulet, and let’s not forget what the kids have dubbed ‘the great rural ballcrusher’, ‘the big man’s dirty hands’, ‘the valley of angry smirks’, or more simply Snakeface. The band’s individual nodes were inevitably going to pursue their own creative exploits and so, we have Light Giant.

Light Giant – Waste of Wine [FREE DOWNLOAD]

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

It brings me great pleasure to share strong Australian music, more so still when it’s Sydney based and thus this three piece have been a hearty treat during this weather-wrecked weekend. There are multiple layers of distortion and falsetto, the two criscrossing as the song builds and builds. This isn’t the tried and tested indie-folk crescendo we’ve heard too many times now (enough with the xylophone) but it’s actually the result of a smarter mix, not just the constant addition of instruments. If you’ve listened to it once, hit play again, you’ll further appreciate it with subsequent listens.

Second single from Bearhug’s Bill, Dance, Shiner brings DIY lols by virtue of Gary’s Express Video Studio and an emotional performance. If you haven’t already bought the record, do it, or at the very least drag-and-drop it into a Spotify playlist (RELEVANT!)

Here’s another Swede for you to try on for size, and that sounded way creepier than I would have liked it to. This time it’s a gentleman named Dante whose production is out of sight. His beats are perfectly weighted and his vocals are all-up-innit and it’s like pow wow, shlippy wham bam you know what I mean? Of course you don’t. That was absolute jibberish. All I’m saying is that you’ll take the time to listen to the below if you know what’s good for you. I didn’t realise it when I started writing this but apparently there’s some sort of connection with Adele so that’s it then, get out your cheque books. Here’s Dante. EDIT: THIS JUST IN, THERE IS NO ADELE CONNECTION, IT’S JUST A SAMPLE. Back to work everyone.

Also, while we’re here, what’s the deal with Swedes!? Along with maintaining a fantastic degree of diplomatic neutrality (I’m probably confusing them with the Swiss) their second skill set lies in talent development. Jens Lekman, Lykke Li, The Tallest Man On Earth, The Knife, Miike Snow, The Radio Dept., The Hives, Peter Bjorn and John. The nordic folk have it going on, and that’s before we delve into their effective monopoly on all “true metal” since 1990. There must be something in water.

Checking back in with our favourite surf-pop-no-more two-piece Sures, proved more rewarding than anticipated this morning. I apologise if that sentence was as tough to read as it was to write but hopefully message conveyed, yes? The ‘we all knew it was coming but didn’t say it’ news that they’d signed with Ivy League Records was made public and not so coincidentally they relaunched their reverb-heavy four tracker with a bonus fifth track. I’ve hoped in my heart of hearts that Sures weren’t a one trick Pony and this new tune ‘Stars’ is making me think they certainly won’t be. It’s faster, tighter and more directed than their other sun drenched wanderings. It’s still reverb heavy and rife with two part harmony so OG fans will get what they crave while those looking for growth will surely hear it. They’ve made it the opening track of their EP which is now looking like a pretty strong release on the back of this late inclusion and that Poseidon track. Without further adieu, here is ‘Stars’, the song that’s given me new confidence in Sydney’s Sures.