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I’ll be remaining on this side of the Harbour Bridge tonight and seeing a good band play at a good venue. Impossible I hear you say. Not so! The Gate is a backyard in North Ryde that has begun putting on shows for ten dollars a pop. Tonight sees Guineafowl headlining and Guinefowl are pretty swish. They’ve had a lot of buzz mostly because of their single Botanist which is here for your listening pleasure and a free download. There should be a small group of us attending (among the larger crowd) so get amongst it.
Guineafowl – Botanist
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Gobble Gobble are bizarre. I think they’re summed up well by this, their main myspace page banner. Looking at this image I knew at once that I was about to listen to something special. I can’t think of another artist like them. The vocals are quavering but almost Phoenixesque at times while the blips and beeps make me feel like I just clocked a SNES game, and that’s surely a good thing. I had to run this by some serious music types to make sure that it was safe to write on and subsequently stream. A genuine worry was that this music might induce you to do something rash like amputate a limb or play hacky sack.
Urban Dictionary suggest that Gobble Gobble is the act of receiving fellatio while enjoying a delicious turkey feast on Thanksgiving. Honestly, that could be what their music is about. We’ll probably never know. At the end of the day Gobble Gobble are doing something new and exciting and I’m for it.
Gobble Gobble – Lawn Knives
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If you’d kindly click here then you can have yourself a free download of Lawn Knives. They have ten tracks you can listen to on their myspace but be warned, they get stranger the further down the playlist you get, eventually culminating in Sacred Dandruff and Alabaster Bodyworks. If you’d like the chance to buy some EP or album or even just download them for free then this is the link for you.
Hopefully the name Dog Is Dead is from a movie. If it’s a quote that lives within a special part of the band’s heart and has emotional significance then it’s potentially excusable. This blog should be called ‘Good Bands, Bad Names’. Every post seems to feature my initial apology for the bands name followed by my endorsement of their songs. If you’ve got a good thing going though, right? guys?
Dog Is Dead have a saxophonist! None of us thought we’d see the sax coming back in to popular music for a quite a while yet. I won’t mind if this is a one off. It’s used well though. The two tracks that I’ll stream (Two! Gift upon gift!) have pretty obvious sax melodies which work in tandem with keyboard to give them a smooth sound. Above all that though, the gang vocals make for some cool crescendos.
You may remember that in the last paragraph I promised two songs. I’m here, hat in hand, letting you know that I’m sorry, there’s just one. It’s great though. To hear a second song (and a third even!), visit their myspace. Bonus: The Zoo is a free download from The Culture of Me.
Dog Is Dead – The Zoo
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The new single Young will be out on September 20th through Your Childhood Records
This is my second “review” of Valar’s We Have A Home Among the Trees EP. I write twice because I’ve somehow contrived to delete the last and because the EP has grown on me like a fungus. A wonderful fungus. Here is the EP streamed in full. Listen to Wolf I playing as you read on.
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Buy this EP. It costs AUD$10. That’s just under £6! That’s nothing. I challenge you to think of 7 whole numbers smaller than 6. It can’t be done! That’s the sort of value we’re talking about here. It’s barely £1 per track. 1 is the smallest whole number there is! I know!!
With or without my clever numberwork this EP will sell itself. The falsetto can’t help but draw attention. It soars between guitar effects like an eagle through ravines. But it’s wilder than an eagle. It’s a tiger. A haunting, post-rock tiger. Like them on facebook to find out when their next show will be.
A great man once told me that a great lyricist will write what they know. For example:
If I lay here
If I just lay here
Would you lie with me and just forget the world?
Forget what we’re told
Before we get too old
Show me a garden that’s bursting into life
When I hear these lyrics from Snow Patrol I don’t feel like they’ve been months or years in the making. They were probably knocked out over ten minutes in front of a keyboard. They’re just so broad and wishy washy. By contrast, Jens Lekman sings about beautifully discrete situations. They’re so specific that it’s near impossible that they’re not based on the real experiences of our friend Jens. He has a new song out (it’s been three years Jens, how about a new album big guy?). The melody and the lyrics are worthy of high praise.
Jens Lekman – The End of the World Is Bigger Than Love
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Artists you need to know rn
| 1. 1300 |  |
316 |
| 2. Voidhood | |
259 | 3. jamesjamesjames | |
186 | 4. Zan | |
174 |
| 5. Sesame Girl | |
147 |
