Sydney
There’s a lot to get into here so we’re bus through fast. He’s cut his teeth producing for US minnows like Lil Jon and Soulja Boy but that’s all for nothing when we’re looking directly into the flame of ‘Wanna Act Like’, the aftereffect glowing even after you shut your eyes. Should I ever make the ill-informed decision to found a hip-hop project of any kind I’ll be hitting up Arona for production immediately and you best BELIEVE he’ll be outside my budget. These are expensive beats, bass shifting up and down like a stepper beneath an active-wear warrior, trap snares and a few little production sounds that are very Babushka Boy. He’s roped in Lil Spacely and Kobi Spice for a lick of both Sydney and Melbourne but their race is done when Arona takes this thing into its double time conclusion.
This one’s a co-release with DJ Nino Brown but we’re not putting that into the title are we, really just ruins the flow of it all.
At first I thought Jayvin’s name was actually Jayvid and it’s like… come on bro, just say David. But someone recently told me that Jayvin is a more common name than I’d realized so sure, there’s egg on my face now. This highschooler is evidently inspired, first and foremost by hip-hop but to look at it singularly through that lens is reductive. The span of production sounds and stylistic choices on display from vocal through to the beat are wonderfully mixed and what’s more, they change at various points through the song so that the final record is ultimately nothing like the opening bars. It’s no stretch to say that hip-hop is transcending it’s landscapes and, I believe, is the spot to look if you want to hear adventure and innovation. This kid’s take is only a thin slither of hip-hop, but I truly can’t find anywhere else to hang my hat if not on that exploratory label, so there it swings. Reportedly he’s been producing music in his home state of WA since he was 10 years old. Now he’s on his way out of high school and alongside his ATAR he brings a manila wallet full of deluxe mp3s like the one below. Stream it, it’s quite something.
Didn’t think I’d find myself writing about a band called Mountain Wizard Death Cult this week but I also didn’t think artists were still uploading to reverbnation* so I guess it was a big week for learning new things. This band get it, and by “it” I mean, the capacity to make heavy records that are exactly what I want to hear in 2019. “Records!?” I hear you say. “They have but one song!!!” Ok, maybe I’m jumping the gun a little here but like… what a song? This caustic bile is some of the better sludge I’ve heard in a very long time, local or otherwise, channeling not just Jacob Bannon’s throat tearing intensity but Kurt Ballou’s angular guitar parts in both fast and slower moments.
*not this band
Ivy-Jane possesses that most remarkable of tongues, capable of manipulating the air that’s pushed through her diaphragm so that when it finally coalesces into sound, it feels as if it could repair any and every hurt you might experience. Hers is the sort of voice that can heal a knife wound, and while many of my inner circle have suggested my best course of action is simply to stop knife fighting, I maintain that the voice of Ivy-Jane Brown is my best hope of avoiding fatal injury, while still giving me the opportunity to hone my blade skills and fleetness of foot. Plus I’m bound to win one soon, statistically speaking I’m well, well overdue.
It’s a voice full of spectacle and theatre, something that isn’t afraid to speak direct sentimentality into the spaces left suspended in her songs’ noteworthy instrumentals. This, and indeed all the songs on her recently released Midsummer EP, was produced by Jerome Blaze who like Ivy-Jane is a Sydneyside musician. His production across ‘Charles and Jane’ in particular is restrained but sparkles faintly like a dusty diamond. The palette of sounds he access is uniquely his and his vocal treatments, particularly in those moments where he’s pitched Ivy-Jane down, are sublime. That sort of pitch-shifting tomfoolery can sound downright cheap in the wrong hands but Jerome knows his way about it. If you like Vallis Alps or any other artist with a dewy voice and an unapologetic emotionalism then you’d best hit that play button my pal.
Watching the slow burn of Lupa J’s musical growth has been a joy, but I can only imagine that for the artist themself at some points, it must have felt like a movement by inches. She caught a whif of the internet via soundcloud aged fifteen and was twice an Unearthed High finalist thereafter. She’s spent the years since making writing, producing and singing clever electronic pop songs and last year I thought she may have reached her zenith with ‘You’re In My Headphones’. Fortunately, i was extremely wrong. This new one ‘The Crash’ is the best record she’s ever released. Grimes-like melodies and washy BV’s but polished to the sheen of a Lupa J production. I reckon even Claire would be proud to have this one out under her name.
Artists you need to know rn
| 1. 1300 |  |
316 |
| 2. Voidhood | |
259 | 3. jamesjamesjames | |
186 | 4. Zan | |
174 |
| 5. Sesame Girl | |
147 |
