Ghostpoet + Melo doing their thing over an Oscar Key Sung beat. This is the future. Oscar Key Sung going global. Let’s be open here, isn’t it surprising that no other rapper has thought to sample an Oscar beat yet? You’re damn right it is! Excluding Brothers Hand Mirror, obviously, that doesn’t count.
Two posts in one day! Didn’t see that coming, did you? Couldn’t help myself mates, it’s big Summer vibez from Charles Buddy Daaboul. Having just entered December we’re all still too excited about Winter’s demise to complain about the sweltering heat and so our optimism clings on. This is obviously a track written in Winter, about Summer. Come February and you’ll be hearing odes to sweaty pits and failed air-con but for now it’s rose coloured sunglasses and warm nostalgia, a la the chorus of this track. The very same chorus that drags the verse’s drawl into a far smoother realm of higher octaves and Beach House guitar tones. I’m not going to use the term ‘Summer Single’ but seriously, summer single.
Charles Buddy Daaboul – Shorts and Smiles
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At this very moment I’m knee deep in Charlie’s bandcamp and pretty stoked with life. As the old saying goes, ‘good things come to those who are currently on bandcamp’. Never been more true. You too can hear what I hear and feel what I feel simply by following this link and listening to one or both of his EPs. Just as an aside, he’s also a member of Sydney experimental-cool-guy-rock band No Art. Actually a good band. Anywho, here’s an older track for you so that when someone asks “Have you heard Shorts and Smiles? Such a Summer single!” you can be all, “Piss off champion, his old gear was better. Go listen to Zazzbot the Magical then talk to me”.
Charles Buddy Daaboul – Zazzle The Magician
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A real cruisy slow-jam from Sydneysiders Au.Ra whose former projects include both Ghostwood and Parades. I know I get a little sugary when it comes to anything Parades related but this is good right? Yeah it is. It’s real good. It drifts between my conscious and sub-conscious with the casual nonchalance of a shoegaze staple. The sparkling synth is sufficiently off beat to bring you back from deep reverie each time the chorus kicks back. The washed out vocals + the lazy ocean vibe directly remind me of The Radio Dept., and I can’t think of much higher praise than that. It’s exactly what I need to resurrect an afternoon filled with office inadequacy and major label doldrums. The moment I heard this sympathetic melody at Circular Key I knew I was onto an excellent thing. Au.Ra, you’ve done well indeed. For more from the recently ended Parades, see Light Giant.
This is as good a chance as any to put my foot down about that son of a gun Tim Fitz. The dude won’t let me get my bearings before he takes off once more, chopping and changing between styles, navigating the waters between genre and genre with the sincere confidence of an old naval dog. The most recent single he’s provided is Mr Streetwise and it features the most straight down the line pop hook he’s yet written. Admittedly, I heard this track whilst it was still in its formative stages and my feedback was less than helpful. Now as a grown beast though, Mr Streetwise has thrown off his swaddling cloths and covered his fully-formed manhood with the pantaloons of post-production. And for all that, it sounds a million dollars.
This is as good a segway as any to make mention of a mixtape on which this track features. Sure, you could cop a download
of Mr Streetwise straight from the source (along with the other tracks that make up Fitz’s 3rd EP) or you could head over to the newly formed bandcamp of FBi Radio’s The Bridge. The Bridge is FBi’s Sydney-only music segment and they’ve just now put out their first mixtape, full licenced and completely free. You’ll find a couple of tracks on there you may already have heard via SD (such as Fawn Myers’ You Know Me So Well and the recent Mammals/Flash Forest collab) as well as a fair few that will hopefully be brand new for you. Get on it. Also, how good is this Day Ravies track?
Due to financial limitations I can’t actually write as much on each band as I used to so here’s the short of it. There appears to be a small collective forming in the Mountains that are throwing big tunes around like it ain’t no thang. The bros that make up said collective include Wheat Fields, Skinny Legion and Spoonty. Admittedly that’s the entirety of it but I think that still constitutes a collective. They’ve a mixtape up on bandcamp featuring tracks from the three and below you can hear a few highlights. For my money, the below track from Skinny Legion is the best of this bunch but it’s worth listening to the lot.
There’s a little Tame Impala going on with that new Wheat Fields track, am I right?
