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
I’ve waxed on about Mango so much to those I know IRL that he’ll need no repeat introduction. You lot, however, haven’t felt the hot breath of my fandom sufficiently and I’m about to sit uncomfortably close while I monologue about him. Sorry, am I spitting? Don’t even care, Agung Mango is on that polymath tip and it’s time everyone at this party acknowledged it. Reportedly he’s a reputable basketballsman, he has his own most excellent fashion line, he’s one half of music video production team Shady Trees, but most importantly, he’s releasing these monumental records that I truly can’t suppress my excitement over. Before today’s newest issue, the most recent was ‘WOKEUPINJAPAN’, a track and video I wrote 
about earlier this year having not clocked it until months after its release. No such mistake this time, you’re here with me on day one for ‘Toughskin’.
I’m going to steal some of the sentiments I expressed in my review of this song over on Unearthed when I flagged this dudes capacity to move between voices like a motorbike weaving between lanes. You’ll hear that tonal fluidity in full affect around the 1:50 mark when he really Goes In and around that higher energy moment so too does the production. He’s got bars, confidence, cadence, flow, lyricism and every necessary element to announce himself as a 2019 rap luminary. Mango’s in season my friends.
Single uno from album three for this small Melbourne man who I’ve followed since his formative days under the name ‘Laurence‘. He’s historically felt like an isolated node within the sprawling Melbourne ecosystem but increasingly he’s become a central figure in that weird jazz-kid / indie world where everyone graduated VCA and now tutors at Box Hill Institute. Sure I might not know what any of the words I’m saying mean but the desired effect of them is that you’d understand that your local Cops are back on their business, making laconic retrofit pop music. It’s a co-prod with Gab Strum (Japanese Wallpaper), mixed by Simon Lam (Kllo) and has this cute as hell video to accompany it, so where he’s previously been a man of few release assets, he’s thrown the lot at California Way.
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.
Woorabinda, in Central Queensland, has a population of 851 and right now I can tell you for a science fact that one of those 851 locals is a certified star. Miiesha is a name that’s gonna ring out in a big way over these next few years and you’ll remember the starting point as this, a song called ‘Black Supremacy’. She wields that voice like a serrated edge, cutting cleanly with stand alone lyrics pregnant with experience and suffering. Tell me you hear “Survival ain’t that beautiful” and don’t immediately feel it in your gut. It hits me with a mixture of shock, shame, sadness and genuine joy at hearing THIS sound rise from the hurt. Hit play and feel this one for a minute but remember the name.
It’s only up on triple j Unearthed for the moment but expect it on yr streamables real soon.
