The big news in all this is that one of my favourite Australian music blogs Skydreams is evolving from music blog into an outstanding record label / music blog hybrid. It’ll probably be a long time before they start releasing (inevitably excellent) music though, so we sh- WRONG! They’ve jumped the gun! They haven’t waited, not a day, not a second! The first Skydreams mixtape is here and I don’t overstep my bounds when I say that it’s the best new thing on the entire internet right now, including this reddit thread that ruined my whole day thanks alot Reddit #goodonereddit. Anyway, I’d be remiss not to throw up my favourite from the mixtape as it’s been an absolute revelation to me and a capital-J Jam. It’s the project of a dude named Luke who is from a little band you might have heard of MAYBE, ONLY THE LAURELS! Yahztee! I bet you’re grinning from ear to ear right now, I know I am! Everyone is looking into my office (I’m a suit!) being all “why is Tommy smiling so much while he does his TPS reports?” but they don’t even know, THEY DON’T EVEN KNOW! We know though. We know that this is excellent and we’re going to share it with absolutely every connection we have via social media and word of mouth. Do it for me, do it for Luke, hell, do it for Skydreams cause those dudes have worked a long time to set this label up.

Just so that you don’t think our Skydream pals are a one trick pony though, here’s some Bonetwister to keep you guessing. Who? EXACTLY! Magic.

Stream the rest of the mixtape here and keep your ear to the ground and your eyes to the skydreamsies

Seems like this race has been run and I’m just vernturing forth to the starting line but not to worry, it’s not about reaching the finish line first [I hope]. In fact it’s not even about the delivery, it’s just about the tune. Sometimes I forget that I guess. This new one from The Smiths Camden is an easy affair consisting of lazy Saturday guitar brushes and lax bass rolls. Technical terms the lot of those. You’ll hear more of the Morrissey reference if you’d delve into the Camden back cat (at your leisure) which, while not an unpleasant experience, is a little too derivative for my liking. Still, to sate your curiosity, you’ll find a less recent tune below though has more than a little in common with The Kooks’ Frankie’s Gun. Shouts to Hugh for being across this over eleven years ago. On drums you’ll hear the same man who sits behind the skins for Food Court whilst the rest of the band have performed in various other Sydney incarnations. If the songwriting continues to improve then I see no reason why Camden couldn’t swell ever larger as a known outfit. Let it be so.

Even though it aint what we’re all holding out to hear (the new Oscar record slash EP slash release of the year) it’s still got the name Oscar Key Sung across it so you know it’ll be [at the bare minimum] interesting. It’s the second beat tape he’s dropped so rather than comparing it to most recent single ‘It’s Coming‘ you’d be better off putting it next to Tape Beats EP from 2011. This particular beast is a little dark and a little underground, which isn’t to imply that it’s unknown but more a suggestion that it reminds me of this. You’ve witnessed top flight music criticism here, I hope you were taking notes.

I’m not in a wordsy mood so let’s keep this honest and let’s keep this brief. There’s five tracks on this album. I like all five of them. The two most wordworthy are Crystal & Moonbeam. Crystal because the articulation is completely riveting, staggering like beatpoetry (but not in an awful way) and hitting syllables on and off beat, languid and free. Sometimes the rhyme falls where I expect it, sometimes it doesn’t, it doesn’t really matter, I plod through the track unthinkingly content with the lyrical movement of it all. I’m not really saying a lot of good things here, it’s been a long week and it’s Friday afternoon so the best has long passed through my system.

I’m pretty sure Moonbeams features an R.L. jones chorus on and it makes sense as the lead single because it’s easily the most listenable track. I mean I *thought* it was Rohin doing the chorus but there’s no mention of it in the notes so maybe I’m cloth eared. The track soars into synth driven euphoria around the minute thirty mark when the chorus drops back in and voila, you’ve got yourself a bonafide winner. I’m seriously enamored with that chorus. It has to be Rohin, it sounds so much like this one back here. **UPDATE** IT IS NOT, I REPEAT IT IS NOT ROHIN. It does however, remain wonderful, so there’s that.

The five track package is reasonably interesting and equally diverse as it should be, the product of three years recording. There’s even a beat heavy track with an MC called Lyndon De La Cruz on it who articulates like one of the dudes from Foreign Beggars. Spin it through, listen closely, pay good attention and appreciate.

A few months ago, ‘The Key of Sea Vol. 2′ compilation was released, featuring contributions from ‘once asylum seekers’ teaming up with Australian alt-music cool kids such as Chet Faker and Sounddoc favourites Jinja Safari. This album was intended to raise awareness and money for the important work done by various Australian Refugee organisations. Great cause, people.

This might be the only thing Chet Faker has done in the last year that hasn’t completely exploded all over the internet, and I think I know at least 2 reasons why: yes people, today we’re talking about the 2 biggest dirty words in Australian pop culture right now: jazz and refugees. Jazz, once the ultimate musical expression of rebellion and life has now been relegated to the status of ‘novelty genre’, technical but not ‘hip’ (unless sampled). Forget the fact that all the most important western music in the last 50 years has its roots in jazz, music culture’s inner teenager has become ashamed of its embarrassing dad and that is just where we are. Oh well. And refugees, those people living off your hard earned taxes (oh wait you’re a uni student paying next to nothing in tax) but with nothing really to contribute to society (unlike you, allegedly). Well guess what people! Chet Faker disagrees, and when a bearded man believes something, you can never rule out the possibility that one day that belief could become a Holy Book, and even further down the track, a Channel 9 TV show.

A double bass line opens the piece, brooding and minor. Cymbals are introduced, not the bright shiny kind but the dark, jazz kind. The keys join the rhythm section in this moody Bflat jam, laying the foundation for Chet Faker’s vocals. The instruments are played by musicians from ‘The Royal Swazi Spa’, a South African ensemble. The vibe is kind of reminiscent of Wayne Shorter’s ‘Footprints’ (circa 1966) so I could definitely see why someone might feel it doesn’t sound ‘current’, however I think that if you put a fat 808 drum track over the top of this and added some sidechain-compressed synth, there is a 90% chance that hipsters in bars could be ambiguously moving their upper bodies to this tune in no time.

Now, to Chet’s vocals: the guy is the real deal. One thing about Chet Faker is that he doesn’t really show off range-wise, he just sings the damn song and sings it well. Chet Faker’s voice is like when you have a beautiful Vintage Telecaster plugged into a Blues Junior amplifier: you can turn off all the damn effects pedals now and just listen to the damn instrument. Got it?

Ok, have a listen, and try not to let the nylon string guitar solo after the first chorus put you off, maybe we’ll all learn something. Enjoy!