Oh readership… this is pretty. You’ll like this, I’m confident. I know we sort of lost you a little with that new jam from Kirkis but I have a steady optimism that bids me hope you’ll come around yet. By contrast, Skinny Legions is very, very palatable. Harsh snare sounds and thundering bass drums worry you? No need, it’s all out the window. This is a kitless, bassless, keyless affair, all strum, string and sing and vastly peaceful. Skinny Legion is the moniker under which Glenn Hopper performs and harkens from the Blue Mountains, featuring on the geographically specific mixtape ‘Tangible‘ that also offered up Spoonty and Wheat Fields last year.
Three track EP for y’all over here and an undernourished facebook for you here.
Readership, if you’re anything like me then you’re actually a pretty big fan of Christmas. We put a tree up, hung some Christmas lights around our window, wrapped some present, did all the mandatory stuff and I’m feeling jolly as heck right now so I thought it would be a good opportunity to share a couple of little Aussie buddos who have dropped Christmas tracks over the past few. I don’t have the audacity to call this a best of Australian Christmas list since it’s the entirety of the Australian Christmas songs I was able to find but to be fair I didn’t look all that hard.
Babaganouj got into the spirit of things, with their Shitty Christmas which may not have upheld the same ideals as Little Drummer Boy but they haven’t completely forgone the sweet sanctity of the December communion with the chorus ‘I don’t mind having a shitty, shitty Christmas… as long as it’s with you.’ It’s a lovely sentiment and probably not all that far from the reality plenty the world over. Also, if it’s your first exposure to Babaganouj (it’s mine) then I do say, not a bad start. For those hoping for a more stripped back rendition, get at this.
Jesse Davidson has been pedaling this one at his shows with Mac Demarco so if you’re lucky then maybe you’ve already sorted yourself a 7″, replete with hand drawn sleeve art in a series of variations. It points once again to what is an effortlessly strong voice and he pretty gloriously restructures a classic here. Also, please note new name ‘Last Chrimbles’. Full disclosure, I’m now working with Jesse in a “bizness” sense as part of my 9-5 so if y’all are worried about my partiality then you must not even know how little that matters to me. Lots of love for you still, just lots of love. Remember the Jimmy Eat World version of this’n? I do.
Slumdog Sociallaires released an EP to critical acclaim in November this year which turned at least one head and added to the rich compendium of great EPs to offset 2013′s failure to launch with albums. They’ve backed that doozey up with a seasonal number to demonstrate that they know the true meaning of Christmas, which apparently is reverb and choral sampling. Who knew!?
Sleepyhands even gifted us with an entire Christmas EP though it’s hard to believe that was all of two years ago now. If you’ve never heard of them it’s because they unofficially called it a day before things ever took off. They featured members of Jonathan Boulet (not Jonathan Boulet though) as well as Sures & Nantes. I’ve always had a but of a soft spot for them by virtue of their many part harmonies and I’m getting strong waves of nostalgia just listening to this. Feelings.
I’ve been devoting all my time and attention to two things, readership, the construction of an extremely powerful end of year list, capable of destroying all other end of year lists and full of songs and albums so potent that most of them will ruin the careers of the artists who penned them them by growth of the crippling terror that they’ve peaked and may never again match the intensity of their release. That sentence kind of ended in a reasonably gross climax, didn’t it? No matter, don’t worry about it, there’s new B-side and a new single from Guerre (in that order) launched last week. I can’t say why but it always seems that Guerre’s B-sides are better than his A-sides. Not that J U D G E / L O C K isn’t a bloody beautiful piece from one of the few true bassmen Australia possesses. He manipulates the low end gloriously putting it through constant programmed runs and my word, he knows EXACTLY how to add weight without over thickening the cream on the beat end.
If you’re listening through a laptop or your iphone headphones then this is your official cease and desist. There is absolutely no point hearing this song unless it’s through any half decent+ system. You won’t hear any of the lows because they’re as subtle as Shackleton’s own tribal manoeuvres which is high praise and something not worth missing. It’s not the sort of sound you’ll see appearing in Triple J’s Next Crop but it’s more modern than the artists in said list combined. He’s demonstrated a profound ability to generate three dimensional soundscapes through clever levelling and sharp, thought-out production choices (see A M O N G from a few months back) but J U D G E / L O C K sees him penetrating particularly British territories.
He’s got a full record out via bandcamp and a number of other singles that you need to be across as well work within Black Vanilla and under the moniker of Cassius Select and that’s probably about enough conjunctions for one sentence.
New music is being churned out all the time. I don’t know if you guys know this but every minute, somewhere in the world, 46 terrible albums are given the tick of approval by fat men smoking cigars. What’s the only thing that can save us from this nightmare combination of bad tunes, lifestyle disease and mouth cancer? If you know the answer to this, be sure to get in touch with any remaining members of Sticky Fingers in about 20yrs. In the meantime, THIS REMAINS OUR ONLY HOPE: huge new jams from avante-garde musical futurist Kirkis.
At first, it might feel like chaos. A synthetic kick-drum pounds out an irregular pattern, sometimes anticipating, sometimes a little late, sometimes spot the beat. Over this, a synth stutters out a melody in triplets. Each note of the sparse-yet-effective vocal line is positioned on the off-beat. This might give us a clue as to why the opening of this piece seems so rhythmically chaotic, as almost nothing is happening on the counts of ’1, 2, 3, 4′. These beats are implied, but are largely ignored by the tune itself. THE SCIENCE OF MUSIC! To make sense of it, we need to become little metronomes, keeping the time in our heads. Helpful hint: try tapping your pen on the desk. Another hint: if you’re working in an office, to keep noise levels to a minimum, you could tap the pen on your leg instead.
Some heavy side-chain compression synth swells begin that will make us think “Hey, is this a gig at Sydney venue ‘Tone’ circa 2011?” Alas though, ‘Tone’ is now ‘The Soda Factory’, Jarred Beeler is no longer curating musical events and Flume has 4 Arias. We’re none of us getting any younger.
I don’t flick the switch too frequently when it comes to bouncy producer world because semi-decent ‘blipboys’ are a dime a dozen (and there’re plenty of other internet types ready to show love) but I really like the sonic articulation on this one so today’s the day! Some reasonably simple ideas expressed with highly literate production and a diverse palette of noise. Instead of an introductory build of steadily hastening 808s, this one is replete with marching band snares that indicate the same steady forward movement with more consistency and more creativity. Throw in some synth (a la Wave Racer) punctuated by cymbals which in turn lead to some watery keys (a la FISHING) and you’ve got yourself a jam that treads lightly on its toes. Sure there’s the obligatory pitch shifted vocal samples but if an Australian producer drops a track without pitch shifted vocals are they even an Australian producer? Science just isn’t ready to answer these sort of questions yet.
As for the image included here, it doesn’t appear to be any official Basenji art but the work of Hugo Muecke whose illustrations I’ve spent the last 10 minutes browsing. I’ve always said, if it’s good enough for Basenji it’s good enough for me.
