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.

Weird fact: Both Katy Perry’s Teenage Dream and Collarbones own Teenage Dream both make reference to Jesse Davidson, the 13 year old golden orphan from central Adelaide. Those may be some untruths (I especially don’t know if he’s from central Adelaide) but I do know that he rails on that vocal line like a prize fighter. There’s more attention to space than a teenager is traditionally known to pay but he seems a special sort so I’m not going to make a big deal about it. Not many words here, just an intro, a tune and an EP out in the new year.

We’ve got ourselves a real premiere here fellas, something never before heard by the common man. Before we get into it though, I had to guarantee 250 thou page views to get this exclusive so I’m going to need all five of you to share this round about 50 thousand times each. Cheers.

Leaks has been at this nigh on a year now and his past excursions into beat making have borne good fruit. The most recent of these was ‘I’m Glad You’re Still Here‘ wherein man of the minute Thomas Guide demonstrated his knack for generating beautifully aesthetic soundbeds. The beat clung to pitch shifted vocals like a teething child, but not a regular child, like a super developed teething child. Like a twenty two year old man, still teething. Like a full grown twenty two year old adult teething away like the womb wasn’t actually that far back. A fully developed beat hanging tight to that vocal but without any really strong topline. I know, agreed, a successful beat maker need not always concern him/herself with topline but so many of these producer(/vocalist) types have loftier goals than limited production and so too does Leaks, it seems. So sayeth this new song, anyway. The last was a warning shot to say “friends, I can string some sounds together very nicely indeed, maintain a safe distance and I’ll do you no harm’. This new one though, this is big business.

It’s called ‘Often It’s You’ and it sees the Leaks brand skyrocket in value with the addition of an unmolested vocal line delivered by, well, Leaks. Or Thomas, or whatever. It’s a rainy day anthem that doesn’t wallow too deeply in pessimism but holds to an ambivalent ‘sometimes’ sentiment. Beats are as they’ve been in the past (ie pretty swell) and the production is out of sight. It’s the same restraint that will stop this tearing up hype machine that’s also the most credible feature of the song. It all sees Thomas Guida move from super-bantam to featherweight and it’s now staring the Mundine’s of the music world straight in the teeth. With shifting weight classes come greater expectations but I’m confident he’ll deliver.

His second EP will be out through Zero Through Nine. Eventually. Just another coup for Melbourne, isn’t it. Keep yourself well oiled, there’s good things ahead from/for Leaks, mark my words.

‘Watch Me Turn Colourful’ sees a Morse code bassline carry an encrypted message of ‘All of you just simmer on down’ while smokey hi-hats just keep on keeping on. This is whiskey drinking music. This is crime solving music. These are some proper Carmen Sandiego super sleuth jams. No more than thirty seconds in Black Pews and I’d already helped vindicate Jeremy Hammond and convinced the global super-government that ‘Leaky Old Snowden’ was innocent of all charges. These are songs of justice and truth, piped to you direct from McKinnon, VIC.