I am a musical act that has variously been the following: the favourite band of everyone who matters in your life, featured on Pitchfork, completely disappeared from every radar, played shifty shows replete with Jay-Z and soft core porn (potential synonyms) and remixed everybody.

This was a real-life riddle I found on the wrapper of a Fantale yesterday. Obviously I near certain that the answer was Drake, but I was wrong. The answer is Fishinggg.

Fishing (the band) are in the active process of building the anticipation for their first record ‘Shy Glow’ which is due on the 6th of June. That’s not a clerical error by the way, despite a relatively long and storied existence as mainstays of Sydney bee bop scene, Fishing are yet to pull out a full length record-managing instead to keep the masses intrigued by drip feeding 7” singles, mix tapes, and erotic live performances.

They not-so-quietly dropped their first piece of new material from this new record a few months back in the form of ‘Chi Glow’, arriving online with a washed out video clip in tow. The track hints at what this new record is going to bring (a party, it’s almost certainly going to bring a party). To this party, Marcus Whale of Collarbones brings the vocal warp and also gets a haircut in the video, which is cool because haircuts are a great way to keep your image looking fresh. Fishing (the band)’s own guy Doug brings his rhyming daze (and eats noodles in the video – also cool). This is Fishing headed out in a different direction, an evolution of the bounce and beats that were so attractive in their formative times, matured into a track with depth and texture and retains that same beat pop pleasure.

Also, Tommy forgot to tell you that Collarbones dropped a new track a minute ago. He’s not sorry, not really, but I am. The new Collarbones jam is out ahead of their new Atlantis EP which is also lined up for a mid-year release, and shows the band underplaying their hand, keeping it real calm and putting up a watch this space sign.

Back to the main news which is Fishing (the band) who’ve now delivered unto us a second track from that new record, ‘Your Mouth’. Jonas Nicholls from Sures retains the coastal vibes with his reverb soaked vocals, which I’m reliably told is not an affectation but is a natural product of a superior voice-box and is present in his everyday speech. The tropical guitar fused production and the clicks and whips all hint at yet another arrow present in the quiver that is Chi Glow. I can’t help but think that this is a record that’s going to contain more than its fair share of surprises. Suffice to say that at the Sound Ducktrine offices the excitement is palpable.

So that’s all the news, enjoy your lives.

Maybe these are real drums we’re listening to right now, maybe not. Hard to tell these days, these new fangled sonic engineers can make anything sound like anything. You know the other day I was listening to a song thinking I was hearing a synth and it was actually a kangaroo. I kid you not, it was a wiley bedroom producer and he convinced me that a synth was a kangaroo. Wait, no, that a kangaroo was a synth. You know what I mean? It’s a crazy world. Up is down and down is up and Astral Classix are re-releasing Flume’s third album with a bonus track featuring guest vocals from Ice T’s hologram and the entire verse is lifted from his Law & Order quotes and the whole time you’re wondering, “Is this a sample or is this an actual band?”

In the end, I’m less than certain that there was a real life human hitting real life drums but I real life don’t even care because the song is beautiful. Such a clear, warm vocal line that’s not quite perfect but certainly comes close. Three guesses as to who leveled this one so perfectly though if you need more than one then you’ve not followed #melbournemusic these past two years. Tropical sounds that interpose between the more quickly plucked parts and the overlayed twangs are also, mostly likely the product of a keyboard and artfully arranged to leave no jagged edges, the whole thing sanded down to a perfectly flush surface.

Whatever this is, it’s undeniably pleasurable to listen to and a marvelous start for Leisuire Suite.

On Spookyland

the earth, clad in her coloured glory,
is
a pin.
no more or less, chaps.
perhaps several
overstatements have been made
about the size of her womb.
I know she is pregnant.
but maybe not as due as
she first seems.
there has always been clamour and clang
throughout the ages.
there has ever been the roar of pretense
and the deafening cage of violent thought.
but through the cracks of her pinched skin
some bard, prophet or thing
connects.
comforts, sums and protects
the swelled heart that pin
does long to stick
itself in

While I’ve been writing this I’ve felt like that french balancing guy, though more like a young, attractive, Australian version with plenty of friends and the critical journalistic respect of his peers. Not because I’ve chosen the carny life and ditched my three by two meter cubicle to start walking literal tightropes -that’s ridiculous- but because I’m struggling to be as positive as I feel this Laneous single deserves without losing all written form and spilling into an amorphous mass of press release.

Look, I want to be grounded about this, but it seems as if I can’t help but heap high praise onto this song. The fact of the matter is that it may be the best new song that I’ve heard this year, and that comes from a man who has heard something in the vicinity of twenty to thirty songs thus far. Laneous themselves are less new with a handful of years under the belt and have released more songs now than Client Liaison have released music videos which is- wow, ok, only four. Way more than that then. As a travelling troupe of lovable misfits they’ve teetered delicately across the ‘great live divide’: playing club tours and major festivals alike, and have maintained their balance throughout.

I want you to know the key things here but you mostly just need to know that this song is sort of groundbreaking. It’s actually everything you like about music- think boatloads of sitar-esque noises contrasted with bright synth bounce which combines into what we in the business, ladies and gentleman, like to call modernism. I’m drawing a limp bowstring here but the closest thing I can parallel it to is Kirkis combined with tUnE-YaRdS and if that doesn’t whet your appetite then it’s best I simply stop writing and you start listening. Here we go then.

They’re playing a few East coast shows from the end of the month onward which you would be a straight fool to miss.

Some days it’s hard to come to grips with the idea that anyone with the name Rick Scully isn’t a private investigator. First it’s anger, then it’s grief and usually just before lunch it’s acceptance. It’s a pain mitigated by the knowledge that though the name is near wasted, this one particular Rick Scully is doing something that clearly suits his skill set better than any sleuthing ever might have. He lives out Burwood way making guitar based beats of quality commensurate with his relevant musical background. You see readership, Rick Scully is one third of Yon Yonson. Your collective gasps will suffice to show you understand the gravity of the situation. Correct, you are in the digital presence of a mastermind, Burwood’s truest muse. The EP is a cheerful four tracks long and is calm but warm, moving forward slowly but forward none the less. I’ve chosen Nestle for your single song pleasure but listen to the whole EP through because each of the four songs reveals something different about Rick Scully as a musical entity.