It’s a bit of a muggy old October night in Brisbane’s Fortitude Valley, and we find ourselves at The Foundry on Wickham Street, a venue that has absolutely lived up to the hype since its beginnings earlier this year, hosting some of the more intimately explosive live shows this side of the muddy Brisbane River. We’re here tonight to mark the occasion of another new beginning, the inaugural, debut, out the gates, first ever Brisbabes night!
Quite a portmanteau, a catchy noun that rolls off the tongue ever so nicely and captures exactly what tonight is all about: getting together and having a ripper of a time celebrating some of the most talented young women in the Brisbane music scene.
Kicking off proceedings with a cracker of a set this evening are quintet OK Badlands. Frontlady Kate is utterly fantastic, rather quiet and unassuming in between songs, cracking jokes and then nervously wondering aloud whether her banter is shit (bless her, it definitely isn’t). It’s when she’s behind the microphone with the full force of the band around her that all notions of quiet disappear completely. A track called Kindness is a particular highlight. So is when Kate belts out one note towards the end of their set that lasts longer than some of my previous relationships. I could have taken a bathroom break and then a cigarette break and come back to her still hitting that note, I’m sure.
It was a really long note is what I mean. And OK Badlands are my find of the night real early.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NPpfYcvC7Yw
Sultry songstress Sabrina Lawrie is a very welcome 11th hour addition to the event and is up next, riding in on a typhoon constructed almost entirely of absolutely gigantic rock riffs and triple-smoked vocals. I hear somebody say she has a PJ Harvey type vibe and they’re not wrong. She launches into a song called Sex Dreams and those same giant riffs turn appropriately filthy with the blues. There’s one point between tunes that she tells the audience ‘music isn’t a competition, it’s an army’, to a big round of applause. One of her set-closers sounds so eerily reminiscent (in the best possible way mind you) of Black Sabbath‘s Paranoid that it takes me a little while to discern whether I’m listening to a cover or not. Magic. So far it’s been nothing but raw power here at Brisbanes.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YxsqnEpiywM
Gabriella Cohen is our penultimate act of the evening and might be one of the busiest young musicians in Brisbane. She wowed us in a huge way with a solo slot at this year’s BIGSOUND Live, then did so again with her band The Furrs supporting The Preatures on their Cruel tour a couple of weeks back. You’d really be at long odds to find her disappointing us ever, and she certainly doesn’t this time around either, absolutely murdering The Foundry stage with songs like I Don’t Feel So Alive and latest single Sever The Walls. Her album Full Closure And No Details is due out in early 2016 and at this point it looks as though the sky might not be enough of a limit for Gabriella Cohen.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zc5STLlURGQ
The headline act of tonight is MKO Sun, who proceeds to go full Oprah Winfrey as far as giving out goosebumps goes (You get them! And you get them! EVERYBODY GETS THEM!). The notes she’s hitting on songs like Baby’s A Dreamer and the closing strains of the quirky and mesmerising Black Seaweed are also gigantic in size, threatening to throttle the walls of The Foundry to within an inch of their life. It’s a stellar and soulful performance from a lady with an absolute gift for entertaining.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B5Dui0dgpMc
I have a disgustingly early flight to catch up north in the morning and alas I must depart into the relatively early night air at the conclusion of MKO Sun’s fantastic set and unfortunately miss what I’m sure was nothing short of a thunderstorm of late night bangerz dropped by DJs Emma DIDI and Sezzo to end the night respectively.
Nights like this are exactly what the music scene in Brisbane needs. Far too often talented young women like the ones who’ve not just graced but destroyed the stage at The Foundry tonight and many others find themselves and their achievements overlooked or downplayed next to their male counterparts. Nights like tonight go some way towards giving them the recognition and the props they really do deserve. Plus it was a metric shit-tonne of fun! And even if you made a horrible, grievously inexcusable mistake and missed tonight, fear not, the buzz going around Brisbabes is that its debut was so successful and well-received that there couldn’t possibly not be a sequel.
Stay tuned to your friendly neigbourhood Howl And Echoes, where you’ll get all the deets first…
How many times have you looked at a gig lineup and thought to yourself, “Wow, that lineup is all dudes?” We could hazard a guess not too many times, as such if life in the music industry that bills are nearly always male dominated. We’ve all come to accept this, but now, thanks to a new regular gig in Brisbane, hopefully this might change.
Introducing Brisbabes, a night celebrating and showcasing the wealth of female talent on display in the River City – and we couldn’t be more excited to be a part of this. Teaming up with the new kid on the block when it comes to venues (and just quietly one of our absolute favourites) The Foundry, Brisbabes hopes to give all the musical ladies in our city the leg up they might not otherwise have received, as well as aiming to help form bonds and connections to those who might not have otherwise met before.
The first night of the quarterly event will see leading ladies MKO SUN, Gabriella Cohen and OK Badlands take to The Foundry stage in a night of praise for the oestrogen filled among us, as well as party gals DIDI and Sezzo showing off their DJ chops. Kicking off on Friday, October 9th, the genre spanning lineup not only showcases just how much Brisbane has to offer in terms of genres and styles, but puts a spotlight on three of the most exciting acts to come from the Queensland capital. From the undeniably impressive live show that MKO SUN brings every. single. time; to Gabriella Cohen’s nostalgic tinged rock n roll; to the sweet and beautiful sounds of newcomers OK Badlands, there’s something for everyone – and lots more to come.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B5Dui0dgpMc
Brisbabes #1 kicks off at 8pm, Friday October 9th at the Foundry. Tickets on sale NOW!
We recently touched on one of our new favourite artists, Gabriella Cohen, and her extremely promising solo project. An obviously incredibly talented songwriter and musician, Cohen has been trying her hand releasing her solo material – and god damn are we glad she is!
Sever The Walls is the second single off Gabriella’s forthcoming album Full Closure and No Details, an album she recorded in a house in the country with her friend and collaborator Kate Dillon for 10 days last April. Picking up where she left off with Don’t Feel So Alive, this is a relentless track about leaving it all behind and starting again. “Sever the walls with a broken heart / Cut all your ties, go back to the start,” she sings as the track kicks off. From here, Cohen’s voice meanders over her delicate harmonies and her trusty guitar before kicking up a few notches with a jangly drum beat and some token backing vocals.
There’s a certain 70’s-esque American feel to Cohen’s music, like she really is from another time. There’s an air of nostalgia in her voice and her arrangements, and her influences from that time are clear. Instead of a lounge room in Brisbane’s West End, Cohen transports you to Route 66 or some other iconic American pop culture reference from a bygone era. It’s this added eccentricity that makes Gabriella Cohen’s music so captivating, and the fact that she makes it sound so easy is just thrown in for good measure.
Full Closure and No Details is due for release in October (vinyl and digital release), and considering she is now set to play BIGSOUND next month, we are predicting very big things to come from Gabriella Cohen! You can catch her in action on Thursday 10th September at 10:30pm, playing at The Press Club.
You may recognise Gabriella Cohen from Brisbane band The Furrs, but I can pretty much guarantee you haven’t heard her quite like this. If she’s still unfamiliar to you, let me change that with her latest track, I Don’t Feel So Alive.
In the same way The Velvet Underground‘s Heroin creeps up on you to a racing roar of noise, I Don’t Feel So Alive is a slow burner with a trickle of instrumentation and harmonies slowly added to the mix. Cohen lets us in with her intimate lyrics and carries the track with her stuttered riff, but remains in control as the precise addition of crisp drum beats, tambourines, and backing vocals courtesy of Kate Dillon quickly picks up speed as she eventually pleads “Why don’t we get together?” over the cacophony.
It’s a liberating track as it breaks free, but before you know it (or want it to be), it’s over. Demonstrating she’s got more than what it takes to go it alone as a solo performer, I Don’t Feel So Alive is a track that not only shows off her extensive songwriting abilities, but stands as a testimony of what she can achieve on her lonesome! And if this isn’t enough, do yourself a favour and check the accompanying visuals for the track below. Clocking in at just under 4 and a half minutes, Cohen and Dillon mess about together in the DIY clip, which documents some solid friendship times between the two ladies. It’s a whole heap of fun and shows a softer side of Gabriella that may not have been seen before.
Gabriella Cohen has just been added to the BIGSOUND lineup, so we more than recommended those attending clear their schedules to catch her in action! More details on that HERE.