In 2020 the don Hau Latukefu showed me this clip of a teenage artist from Mr Druitt called Vv Pete. She’s sat in front of OneFour among others, spitting with total confidence having never formally released a record and commanding the space from nothing but an office chair. Fast forward two years and she drops her first single, a bouncy club record called Bussit. I gave that one a little four and a half star moment of triple j Unearthed (digital website, you gotta check it out).
That was June, this is November and now a nineteen year old Vv Pete has gone and offered up one of my favourite Australia rap releases of 2022. It’s called Frauds and in a nice little full-circle moment, you’ll hear that it’s largely the same song she performed in that office chair back in 2020. The evolution of it sees her flesh the record out more fully and rope in none other than Cassius Select on production duties which is… inspired. If the name’s familiar it’s because he’s been a staple of experimental electronic music in Australia for well over a decade, harkening back to one of his first projects Guerre which funnily enough, I wrote about around 10 years ago now. He was also part of iconic Sydney trio Black Vanilla around that time too, worth a little snoop if you never caught ‘em. The track and video is holistically surrounded by great people. Co-production by Trackwork record label founder UTILITY, additional mixing and production by T.Morimoto (another artist I wrote about under a different name many moons ago) and music video design by Russell Fitzgibbon (aka Skeleten / formerly of FISHING)
The partnership between rapper and producer here is so interesting because you can hear so much of both identities in the track while neither feel compromised. If you’re a hip-hop A&R out there rn, take notes, because this is a key example of how you don’t have to run the same beat track that every other next-up rapper is running on to make an impact. A week ago FBi gave the Sudanese icon their SMAC award for ‘Next Big Thing’ and you know what? Fairs. The hook on this record is immaculate and I can see why they opted to lean into it so hard in the chorus between her supremely laid-back verses. A proper favourite here.
You sweet fool. You came to my Special Website hoping to hear some soothing whale sounds and instead I’ve handed you a moist glad bag packed tight with paprika and human hair. It’s crass, it’s visceral, it’s futurist, it’s Super Death. He’s a lad from Meanjin country who dropped this whole record called Noise Breeder that I simply can’t recommend highly enough. You’ll hear vestiges of nu-metal, noise, industrial and what I dream could be longbow inspiration from one of my favourite acts to synthesize the electronic with the organic side of metal, Genghis Tron. In reality, it probably owes just as much to 100 Gecs as it does any golden age heavy hitters but that’s part of the magic and the eclecticism of inspiration hey.
I’ve only lived with even a knowledge that Super Death existed at all for around 46 hours now but it’s already feeling like a record that might see its way into my best of list. This one belows’s the first track off the LP and the best showcase of his production chops and his more futurist instincts.
The whole album’s extremely worth your time. I’m personally excited at the prospect of these excoriating vocals delivered over synthetic beats in this way. It’s not the first time it’s been done but I’ve not heard much of the like coming out of Australia, particularly done with this level of craft and agression.
yum yum.
My teenagehood is built on a mixture of excruciatingly aggressive noisecore and pastoral vocal harmonies and I’ll level with you, you’re not about to hear any noisecore. The pastoral harmonies of those early years, the likes of Mountain Man or even Sydney’s lil ol’ Sleepyhands, those are twisted in here amongst kitchenware percussion, anarchic basslines and doubletime everything. Meet Naarm sextet Empress. Is it a name they’ll have to change soon because there are almost certainly 113 Norwegian black metal acts under that moniker? You bet your ass it is. You and me, we don’t care though, we’re hear for the sounds not the branding and the sounds are good gravy.
They’ve had a trio of releases this year but we’re talking about Grandma (You Lie) first and foremost. That’s the one described above and that’s the one you need to start with if you’re going to tap in with this act. The references land in places like Hiatus Kaiyote and tUnE-yArDs so you know the musicality’s gonna be on point, if nothing else.
Gleeful me, I got to do deliver the First Play of their brand new single on triple j Unearthed radio tonight and my good fortune is now yours – enjoy. It’s a change of pace but it comes equipped with this subtle undertow, a sherberty bass sound tentpoled by searing synths that swells into a proper wall of sounds.
There’s a little Sydney clique that’s been bearing fruit over the last few years that centers up the likes of Nick Ward, Zion Garcia, Sollyy, Dylan Atlantis and Breakfast Road. It’s called… I don’t know. It probably doesn’t have a name and the more I think about it, the more insane it seems to actually name a friendship group. Anyway, two of those earlier mentioned are the protagonists in today’s story. Sollyy, a producer whose ideas are starting to shape more than a hand full of local records this year has roped in Zion, a vocalist whoms flows have been largely emotive and introspective across his limited output. Full disclosure, I work with Sollyy, but historically that’s never guaranteed I’d write about a song on this webzine so assurances be, this record is a real one. You know what, why don’t you just go ahead and hit play while you read.
45 seconds with swelling tension, rising temperature and leftfield samples and Zion showering one liners around your ears. Then it hits. The most pure house bass line you’ll hear in 2023, sucking everything around it in like a collapsing blackhole with only Zion’s vocal capable of resisting its improbable gravity. I’ve LOVED hearing Zion on his inner heart tip over the last couple years but this steezy, high impact flow of his bowled me straight on my ass. For reference, have at ‘Overthinking’, a little something Zion gave us earlier this year that’s been a mainstay for my 2am moments few as they are in my parent era.
Pretty bloody beautiful huh. Back on Apply The Pressure though, and credit has goooooot to be paid for the way Sollyy has hammered down this production with total force and subtlety. It hits so hard on the beat end yet everything arrives just at the right moment and transitions so cleanly. How nice is it to hear collaboration between two artists who clearly love working together too, you can tell when it’s not phoned in. One full circle thing to add that pleased me on an inner level is that the title and lyric in this track ‘We can still die a legend, still I apply the pressure’ is a tight little reference to an officially unreleased Tkay vocal. A couple years back I hit up Tkay for some bars for triple j Unearthed DIY Supergroup and she obliged with some proper flambé. This line featured among them and was a producers favourite through the comp (por ejemplo) but hearing it reimagined like this? That’s amore.
About a year and a half back and I was on this website claiming that Matahara had “a supremely bright future ahead of her” and even though you all came at my neck over it, I’m the one who’s come out on top. Egg and your face; they are as one. Matahara evidently went out of her way to vindicate me because this is no light step forward from her debut EP but a fairly substantial leap into something more buoyant. This is a shoe in for those with a sweet spot for those older Alpine records or more recent Superorganism cuts but neither reference is going to give you much indication of what’s going on here. The guitars are far fizzier than those we’ve heard previously and there’s a driving drum track courtesy of regular collaborator Tram Cops. While we’re talking Trammies, I do believe that’s his vocal we’re hearing on the track too by the by, sliced in delicately in the early chorus. Wonderful, weird record from an artist I’d be doing everything I could to try to sign if I still had my own lil label.
