Posts Tagged ‘Blue Mountains’

Dec
04
posted by tommy

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?

Sep
17
posted by tommy

Wheat Fields have been on my radar for a few weeks now but hearing ‘Heaven Is A Place Where Nothing Ever Happens’ on FBi this morning was the straw that killed two birds. I should never have (metaphorically) slept on these dudes.

Before that though, can we talk about ‘lo-fi’ for a second? At least 50% of the EPs/demos/streams that land in my inbox on any given day cite a ‘lo-fi’ aesthetic. I have three immediate issues with this.

1) ‘Lo-fi’ is no interchangeable with ‘out of tune’. Seriously, if you have an iphone, you have a guitar tuner, get on that.

2) If your music is clear hi-fi and your press release claims it’s lo-fi (as if that’s a selling point) I’m pointedly going to assume that you’re making excuses for awful songwriting and start a smear campaign about your band’s sexual behaviours.

3) Maybe, just maybe, your music might sound better if you recorded it properly. We’re not talking about high end studios here, we’re talking about any schmuck with a laptop. It could be that the fuzz and crackle is stopping us from that glorious harmony that would have been outlandishly good had you let it be audible.

Wheatfields – ‘Heaven Is A Place’

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[MP3 DOWNLOAD]

I’m not going to pretend to know the first thing about audio engineering but even the untrained ear can identify a fabricated sound. To Wheat Fields though. Everything I’ve just mentioned is not in reference to Wheatfields. It’s actually the opposite to in reference to Wheat Fields. Ocassionally a band will get it right and broad lo-fi strokes will enhance a track. There isn’t a negating fuzz over the top of this, just a padding that draws out the guitar parts rather than masking them and Maddie Harriott’s plaintive vocals are enough to break the hardest heart. Take it as a free download below or with a couple of others over at Wheat Fields’ bandcamp.

The Blue Mountains never sounded so good.