If you’re a) in Sydney tonight and b) partial to the odd bit of grooving, then it’s worth heading along to Grooves on a Grassy Knoll at the University of Sydney. This year’s iteration will add to the lengthy history of an event that is constantly evolving and shifting its focus, but which always delivers the goods.
Under a variety of different monikers, the event has seen the likes of AC/DC, Cold Chisel and, more recently, Art vs Science and Flume leading the bill. So it’s fair to say that the student club at St John’s College – the organisers of Grooves – have always had a handle on the best of Sydney’s nascent musical talent.
In 2015, the headline spot is to be filled by local producer Kilter, whose tropical, percussion-driven beats attracted a substantial crowd to his set at Splendour in the Grass last year. Kilter has remixed everyone from Duke Dumont and Hermitude to Andy Bull and Snakadaktal, and will undoubtedly bring a varied and dynamic set of orginals and remixes to the event.
Supporting Kilter will be rising electronic duo Human Movement, Hottest 100 heroes Odd Mob (responsible for the Parks & Rec-sampling tune, Is It a Banger?) and fresh local acts Deuces and Helm.
Tickets are available here.
Two years ago I saw Art of Sleeping play a midday set at Splendour in the Grass. The crowd that gathered witnessed a performance of immense passion which, at its peaks, filled the capacious marquee. This band’s potential was evident, but their engaging moments – namely Above the Water and Empty Hands – were too few for them to have been an act of note at the festival.
Come 2015, and, in Shake Shiver, Art of Sleeping have released a storied and captivating debut album that has far exceeded my expectations. With no disrespect to the band, it’s the album’s consistency that I found most surprising. Honestly, I was prepared to find three or four layered, grand and memorable songs, interspersed with morose filler; instead, I found a masterpiece.
The pounding intro to Win Your Heart sets the pace for an album that ebbs and flows with as much grace as dynamism, demonstrating a unique aptitude I’ve always applauded in Art of Sleeping: their ability to be simultaneously intimate and grandiose. It’s only with their debut LP, however, that this aptitude has finally come to the fore in a consistent and meaningful way.
The delicate lilt of Caleb Hodges on Crazy belies the ferocity of the guitar chords that follow. It’s this balance of tenderness and raw emotion – also prominent on Bleeding Out and Voodoo – that works so well. Art of Sleeping make lullabies, only with crashing cymbals and searing riffs.
Another highlight is the irresistible melody of Jefferson, which tempers the album’s frequent moments of sober introspection. It’s my favourite cut from the album, providing a decidedly lighter approach to the wealth of lyrical excellence that forms Shake Shiver. Among the album’s more poignant moments is the breathtaking Burning Bright, which is perhaps the best example of Hodges’ vocal prowess.
My only issue with Shake Shiver is the track listing; where Voodoo could have been a powerful closing track, The Cage – by no means unworthy of a spot on the album – strikes a somewhat dour final chord. Overall, though, Shake Shiver is an impeccable album. Art of Sleeping have proved themselves to be a tremendous musical presence, not just locally, but across Australia. With a debut album as impressive as theirs, you can expect that to become the world in the near future.
Ubiquitous Canberra trio SAFIA have added further dates to their extensive and tremendously popular national tour, which kicks off with a maiden Splendour in the Grass performance later this month. The announcement comes on the back of sold out performances in Sydney and Melbourne, as well as a glowing response to their latest offering, Embracing Me.
Despite being consistently labelled a boring politicians’ paradise, Canberra has produced a number of world-class electronic acts in recent years. SAFIA are the latest and, in my mind, the most engaging of these acts, joining the likes of Peking Duk and The Aston Shuffle amid the cream of Australia’s EDM crop.
Structurally, Embracing Me traces the steps of Listen to Soul, Listen to Blues and You Are the One, but by no means are SAFIA packaging tunes from a factory line. Rather, they’ve simply found a blueprint that works: Ben Woolner‘s earnest, fluttering vocals – steady and isolated at first – blended with crisp production and mesmerising hooks. Basically, after several tender, soulful moments with Ben, it’s dancing time.
The significant demand for tickets to SAFIA’s shows are a testament to the band’s talent, industry and musical intelligence. They know what they do well, and they continue to do it – time and time again.
Tickets for SAFIA’s Embracing Me tour are available here.
I dare say few Americans could locate the coastal town of Wollongong on a map, but it seems they’ve taken a liking to one of the region’s best young bands.
Since releasing their debut EP, Dreamin’, last year, surf-rock duo Hockey Dad have been garnering fans across the country and, indeed, the world, with news that US college radio stations have been playing the EP to immensely favourable reviews. The lads have reportedly charted consistently in the top 20 at a number of core stations, joining the likes of Courtney Barnett amid the ranks of popular Australian acts.
This is huge news for a band who continue to improve; their current single Can’t Have Them – the video for which was released earlier this week – is testament to that. The clip sees frontman Billy Fleming and drummer Zach Stephenson rocking out in a world of erratic movement and colour. It’s a fun, rather charming reflection of what this duo from the ‘leisure coast’ are all about.
2015 is set to be an enormous year for The Jungle Giants, with the affable Brisbane four-piece announcing their sophomore album and a string of tour dates.
The album has been granted the curious title of Speakerzoid, which seems a suitably peculiar choice given the band’s recent musical direction. Both singles released from the album – Every Kind of Way and, more recently, Kooky Eyes – have showcased a bold, quirky and inventive side to The Jungle Giants, of which only shades were present on 2013’s Learn to Exist.
Speakerzoid is set to be unleashed on August 7, with the accompanying tour kicking off in Fremantle about a month later. Support comes from two very talented Australian bands – Art of Sleeping (who will have an album out themselves by then) and larrikin surf-rock duo Hockey Dad.
Tickets go on sale Monday the 29th June, and are available here.
Melbourne producer/songwriter Mark Zito – better known as Fractures – has returned with a gorgeous new single.
Since releasing his self-titled EP in July 2014, Fractures has spent the last year or so playing to capacity crowds both in Australia and overseas. It’s fair to say, then, that his new single has been keenly anticipated by many. It doesn’t disappoint. When we reviewed the EP we said that Zito “bares vulnerabilities and draws on your own in an exploration of heart and soul.”
Reactor is the first taste of Fractures’ debut album, which is slated for release in early 2016. Focusing on themes of lust, temptation and guilt, it’s reminiscent of acts like SOHN, with ethereal electronica offering a backdrop to vocals fraught with emotion.
Little has excited me more this year than the return of Everything Everything to the pop fore. Distant Past was the single that ended the Manchester outfit’s two year silence in February, and it epitomises what the band are all about. Frontman Jonathan Higgs‘ typical brand of pseudo-rap verse precedes a chorus that you won’t easily evict from your brain, while the instrumentation is, in turns, as sparse as it is chaotic.
In fact, that notion is true for the entirety of the album, as it has been for their previous releases – 2010’s Man Alive and 2013’s Arc. But, Distant Past and one or two other tracks aside, the band’s third album is remarkably dour. And I don’t mean that it’s an entirely miserable album. In truth, it doesn’t feature the same fragile, morose moments as its predecessors (think Tin (The Manhole), The House Is Dust and Undrowned), but that’s what’s so powerful.
Man Alive was something of a light/dark dichotomy, with tracks like MY KZ, UR BF and Photoshop Handsome offsetting the gloom of the album’s more introspective components. Arc was less incongruous, bridging the gap with Feet for Hands, Armourland and a number of others. Get to Heaven sees the two sides of Everything Everything become one, with no discernible line between their up-tempo pop numbers and their moments of wistful, falsetto-littered reflection.
To the Blade is deceptively fierce. It begins with Higgs’ solitary, delicate lilt (is that the tune of Come Alive Diana?) before he and guitarist Alex Robertshaw shred to an extent rarely heard from Everything Everything. That tempo is maintained by Distant Past and the title track. Get to Heaven even introduces a gaudy whistle to distract from its grim lyrics, which focus on the perverse absurdity of first world problems while, distressingly, there are people desperate to ‘get to heaven’.
Regret is a pounding, intoxicating song about missed opportunities, wasted lives and bleak outlooks, the misery of which is shrouded by chanting and a ceaseless, defining rhythm. Particularly striking are Spring/Sun/Winter/Dread and The Wheel (Is Turning Now), wherein the eerie line ‘Do you want to know how far you’ve come?’ is repeated above a dull, synthesised warble.
To my mind, No Reptiles mirrors the intricate lyricism and eventual crescendo of Duet, with Higgs’ captivating falsetto swarmed by insistent strings and percussion. It’s one of the more restrained cuts from Get to Heaven, yet it still emphasises the fusion of pleasure and pain that characterises Everything Everything’s complex, indefinable third album.
That fusion has resulted in a collection of songs that attended the party, eyed the punch warily, then went home early, sober and suspicious. They’re a set of sharp, intelligent reminders that, even sweetened by pop music, the world is a very serious place.
I cringe just thinking of the bands I loved as a child. I thought I was cool for listening to Green Day and Good Charlotte, and even cooler – and possibly tough and dangerous – for listening to G-Unit and Bliss N Eso. I distinctly remember peeling the parental advisory stickers off these albums at Sanity so I could get away with listening to lots of swearing. Recounting that is an embarrassing experience.
I was eleven years old when one of my primary school friends told me about a band called Arctic Monkeys to whom his older brother had been listening. I remember my friend eagerly handing me his Discman and headphones. I imagine myself tossing Bliss N Eso’s Day of the Dog across the room, inserting a CD covered curiously in cigarette butts, and pressing play.
Whatever People Say I Am, That’s What I’m Not. What a defiant, obnoxious, immortal title for an album. I thought it was perfect; I still do. The View from the Afternoon begins with some of the most intense drumming I had ever heard, not to mention the cheeky opening line: ‘Anticipation has a habit to set you up/For disappointment…’ , which, given the hype that engulfed Arctic Monkeys prior to the album’s release, was incredibly bold. All of a sudden there was a new benchmark for cool music – Matt Helders‘ fierce, relentless bashing and Alex Turner‘s mesmerising Yorkshire brogue.
I Bet You Look Good on the Dancefloor is, incredibly, even more brash than its predecessor. The music was sufficiently ragged and loud to appeal to my pre-teen conception of cool, but not so violent as to leave me clinging to my dreadful pop-punk comfort zone.
The less frenetic pace of Fake Tales of San Francisco allowed me to contemplate the cornerstone of Arctic Monkeys’ success – their lyrics. In the band’s early days, Turner was essentially writing hip hop-inspired poetry about teenage life in northern England. But what set them apart from other acts was the frank, accurate assessments of Sheffield life and, moreover, the humour with which they were conveyed. I didn’t necessarily understand all of Turner’s quips and references at that age, but it didn’t matter. The lines I did understand made me feel clever or somehow closer to my British roots, even though a middle-class Yorkshire youth was a world away from any life I had ever experienced.
Still Take You Home and Red Light Indicates Doors Are Secured remain two of my favourite cuts from the album; their intensity and swagger, respectively, are irresistible. Wedged between them is Riot Van, a mellow but equally superb reflection of the band’s teenage experiences. It pokes fun at the police and celebrates the innate hedonism of youth in a manner that only Arctic Monkeys can. I didn’t appreciate its wit and brevity nearly as much then as I do now.
Indeed, many of Turner’s lyrical subtleties and societal dissections were decoded as I got older. When the Sun Goes Down, for example, is a song about prostitutes. Lyrics like ‘She don’t do major credit cards/I doubt she does receipts/It’s all not quite legitimate‘ make a whole lot more sense to me now.
Penned by a keen, masterfully observant 19-year-old, Whatever People Say I Am, That’s What I’m Not is an album brimming with personality. It displays cutting intelligence and wit in abundance, held together by the authentic style and musicianship of a carefree and immensely gifted young band.
In personal terms, it was the album that set me straight and opened my eyes to a world of music beyond American Idiot. For that, I am eternally grateful.
Fresh from supporting The Delta Riggs on their ‘Dipz from the Zong’ tour, Melbourne multi-instrumentalist Darren Hart – better known as Harts – is set to embark on an extensive headline tour of his own. Starting in early June and concluding with a debut performance at Splendour in the Grass in late July, the tour will be promoting his soon to be released Breakthrough EP.
Harts’ debut album Daydreamer – which included the hit single Red & Blue – garnered acclaim from some enormous names, including Prince and legendary producer Quincy Jones. His guitar work expertly balances searing riffs and delicate funk; coupled with infectious falsetto melodies and the confident showmanship of a veteran performer, Harts is a revelation on stage.
Tickets for Harts’ massive Breakthrough EP tour are available here.
Melbourne’s Alex Gow has been on the road recently. Since 2012’s spectacular Deep Heat record, the leading man of Oh Mercy has spent much of the intervening three years abroad, gathering inspiration for the band’s fourth album. When We Talk About Love is slated for release on the 19th June, and – if the lead single is anything to go by – it’s set to be a more intimate, introspective work for Gow.
With the impending release of Oh Mercy’s new album comes the welcome announcement of tour dates. The national When We Talk About Love tour will see Gow & Co. returning to Sydney, Melbourne and, for the first time since 2012, Brisbane, Newcastle, Darwin, Perth and Fremantle. Tickets are available via the website.
OH MERCY – WHEN WE TALK ABOUT LOVE ALBUM TOUR
Sat 22/08 Howler, Melbourne
Fri 28/08 Oxford Art Factory, Sydney
Sat 29/08 Cambridge Hotel, Newcastle
Fri 04/09 Woolly Mammoth, Brisbane
Sat 05/09 Darwin Railway, Darwin
Fri 18/09 Mojos, Fremantle
Sat 19/09 Rosemount, Perth