The forthcoming Wintercoats EP is looking sounding good. It’s sort of looking good too but I can’t much tell what on earth is happening on the album art. Full disclosure, the last time I saw Wintercoats it didn’t do much for me but that was almost two years ago now and there’s obviously been some real progression over that period. Once the Wintercoats experience felt too much like Owen Palette mk. II, now I get serious Porcelain Raft vibes from both of the tracks but this time they feel far less subordinate to their reference. More importantly though, the tracks are both big ol’ lumbering glaciers, full of pretty tinkle bits + oohs and ahhhhs. These two tracks point at a strong second EP that’s probably going to an elevating experience for all involved. Heartful is out April 17.

I thought we had something special but two sniffs from boss man Alessio and we’ve got ourselves a Home & Hosed exclusive. Well band, I call betrayal. I call corruption and I call shame. Shame upon the band and shame upon the very land itself, ABC. The code of conduct gets filtered through the industrial shredder when an indie-rock exclusive comes around. What happened to us I’lls… We had something real. I wrote about you and you said you liked me for who I was. I looked through your photos and, a wistful sigh upon the wind, I whispered “now there’s a band… there’s a band.” I even showed my folks a photo of ‘my musician friends’ and they said I was making great progress. Somehow here we are though, shunned and distant, emotions strewn everywhere and feelings leaking from the worst places to leak feelings from.

The saddest part about this whole affair is that the band are, as they say, bananas and this track is also, as they say, bananas. That was to be expected though, I suppose. When you send Simon Lam and co into the studio you know full well what the returning swaddling clothes will contain. Cloudy vocals that sit veeeeeeery deep in the mix and a whole lot of clever drum track. Granted I’ve just pointed at a Matisse yelling ‘look at the pretty colours!’ but the colours ARE pretty even if I’m ignoring all other technical attributes in the assertion. I previously wondered what might be if Simon were to let his vocals come forward just a touch more as he did on that Naysayer & Gilsun banger from back when and it looks like we’ll see that puzzled out on the forthcoming EP. That’s right sirs, there’ll be a new one come May, out through your good pals at Yes Please which seems like a good home for I’lls’.

As is, this is precisely the sort of thing I was hoping I’lls would produce in the wake of their innovative self-titled debut. A real attention to detail that’s usually lost in a track so sonically thick. More impressive is that even so replete with padding, the track never lends itself to excess.

This is without a doubt the offspring of the beleaguered ‘chillmate’ generation which I think we can all agree (come on gents, be civil) is ready to be put to bed/euthenised. There’s plenty of good acts that have come out of the few, fuzzy chillmate years but there’s plenty more that have parroted their best Bored Nothing / Boomgates impersonations. I guess it’s a really easy sound to mimic, though a surprisingly difficult sound to do well. Don’t we have an obligation to do the right thing though… It really isn’t the noise it once was and noone’s going to call us cruel if we should shake hands and go our separate ways. This isn’t to say the earlier mentioned Boomtwerp Nothing’s should call it quits, quite the opposite. Those are the acts that are going to cut through the noise for years to come and there’s been a pretty hearty batch of roaring good sorts that have come forth but yeah. That’ll do pig, that’ll do.

For me, it’s about more than detuning your guitar and overlaying your recordings with crackle and pop. It’s about writing good songs. And that friends, that is why Barnett can trace lineage through the strong Australian songwriters of chillmate times. And probably much further back than that too, but I’m being typically monodirectional and putting all of someone else’s eggs in someone else’s basket again. Let’s reaffirm this. She’s not derivative, she just shares merits with other winning bands.

Courtney Barnett – Avant Gardener

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All. That. Said. The new Courtney Barnett single is, quite simply, glorious. It’s got story-telling lyricism out the bee-hind and what could be one of the most interesting voices to rise from the red Australian sands these past few years. She recounts the overlap between a little gardening and some ambulance worthy respiratory problems, repeating ‘I’m having trouble breathing in’. Who’d of thought she could back up History’s Eraser with such a total jam / brilliant tale as this. Not I folks, not I.

Polaroids of Androids are presenting Courtney’s upcoming tour which is sure to be a real blasty-blast. See below for details.

Remember these dudes / these songs? Of course you do. They had a lasting impression on me mostly through this really sweet honesty that they had to their lo-fi jams. Since those early days its been a tale of progress and touring as the band brought all round nice guy Tim Fitz into the equation which was never going to be a bad idea. And here we are with a new single (though in this story we’re breezing past the tracks they’ve dropped in the interim) that comes replete with an equally charming video to boot. I love these dudes.

Something about Camm’s vocal delivery that reminds me of something else, but I can’t put my finger on what, or who. That last sentence may be an all time low for me, now that I look at it. Is there anything less useful than a simile comparing something you can’t identify to something else you can’t identify? The answer is yes, any song by Jinja Safari. Around the 21 second mark is the best example of what we’re talking about with those drawn out syllables that just don’t make sense within the frame of triple J-esque pop. I keep wondering if March will ever find their way into that world populated by Ball Park music and co. I mean, by virtue of sheer melody they should. Heaven knows they can write the ass off a tune and there’s a whole bunch of energy that just won’t quit but it’s missing padding. Hold on, I said that wrong. Their songs aren’t missing padding, they just don’t have padding. Which is great. There’s a pervading sense of space in every track that’s probably the product of clipped tones and cut vocals that you just don’t seem to hear most anywhere else at the moment. Hopefully the world is ready for their jelly.

I’ll just leave this up here to the benefit of your eardrums. It’s the work of the very recently formed Telling, a duo made up of Ben Abraham and Tim Shiel aka the face that blogged a thousand ships. Which is just to say that Tim Shiel is the same Tim Shiel you should already be familiar with by virtue of what he laid down under the mantle of Faux Pa (+ Time Shield + Mixed/Remixed work with Gotye). Anyway, if you want the press release info you’ll not find it here but this tune is already much blogged about in its day long lifespan so I’m sure you’ll find more deets if you get on the ol’ hypermachine. AdamNotEve just now laced it into their top 8 tracks of the week so there’s that. It sure makes for some pretty listening though, right?