Panda superstar and signee to Kanye West’s coveted G.O.O.D Music, Desiigner was in town this week for his debut run of Australian performances. The rapper was in town for FOMO Festival across Brisbane, Sydney and Adelaide, as well as a trio of headline shows in Sydney, Melbourne and Perth.
Desiigner enjoyed a huge 2016; not only did Panda continue to dominate the charts, bringing overwhelming commercial success to the young artist, but he released his debut mixtape New English and was featured as an XXL Freshman, among other highlights.
Opening for Desiigner was Elizabeth Cambage, MIMI, and local Melbourne rapper Ivan Ooze, who also enjoyed a massive year, including releasing a spitfire track featuring none other than Ghostface Killah.
We caught Desiigner and co live in Melbourne at the Corner Hotel on Wednesday, January 10 2016.
Elizabeth Cambage
MIMI
Ivan Ooze
Desiigner
Images: Michelle Grace Hunder for Howl & Echoes
Parramatta’s premiere summer festival The Plot returned this year ready to bring Plotters some of the biggest up and coming names in Australian music. Part I features Gold Fields, Indian Summer, Ocean Alley, Polographia, Tash Sultana, Ivan Ooze, Ziggy Alberts, Dylan Joel, Montaigne, Vera Blue, Elizabeth Rose, Alex Lahey, Pierce Brothers, Confidence Man, Luca Brasi, Japanese Wallpaper, Allday and The Bennies. Check the action below.
Gold Fields
Indian Summer
Ocean Alley
Polographia
Tash Sultana
Ivan Ooze
Ziggy Alberts
Dylan Joel
Montaigne
Vera Blue
Elizabeth Rose
Alex Lahey
Pierce Brothers
Confidence Man
Luca Brasi
Japanese Wallpaper
Allday
The Bennies
Photos: Teresa Pham/Howl & Echoes
Ivan Ooze is on a roll. He recently supported Wu- Tang while there were down under, recorded with Ghostface Killah, released his new mixtape The 93 KFC Rotisserie Gold, followed it with a national tour and has just announced the Vibe City underage shows. We recently sat down the the Melbourne MC in-between the madness to chat about his mixtape, recording with Ghostface and bringing the hype to his live shows.
This interview can also be found on Kiss FM’s Back To The Future Hip-Hop.
You’ve dropped a new mixtape, The 93 KFC Rotisserie Gold. Where did this name come from?
Awhile ago I was a little high and was looking through KFC stuff and saw there was the 93 KFC Rotisserie Gold, which was the first rotisserie chicken that was advertised by a fast food company. It was a new thing: it was fresh, had nice flavour and all that. And I was thinking, I can sort of compare my music to this and try and make a mixtape of the chicken side of things. So I just mashed it up and it sort of just formed in that way. It has a ring to it.
Do we have a lot of songs about chicken on here?
No we actually have none. I don’t think I even say chicken in any of the songs. The Colonel hates me. *Laughs*
I want to ask you about your name, because I know it’s a Power Ranger character and he’s quiet an evil character, how did that come about?
It’s more to do with my anger, like, when I started rapping I was a pretty angry kid. Ivan Ooze is a character where people hate him but they sort of like him because he still has that charisma and is still funny. I used to watch The Power Rangers movie all the time so I took that away from his character.
So that’s more your stage persona?
Yeah for sure. If you see me on stage you kind of see my eyes popping and I look a bit scary. I’ve seen pictures of myself and I’m like, Wow! I didn’t know I looked like that.
You’ve built quiet a cult following here in Australia. How did you build up your fan base?
Pretty much just by talking to people, being on social media and responding to everybody who has a question. Trying to get around to it now gets a bit full on because I get about thirty to forty messages a day but it’s still good to just talk to everyone, and doing the videos on Facebook when they get shared around.
https://www.facebook.com/mcivanooze/videos/1234093276609264/
You were one of the first people I saw doing the videos. I definitely draw some parallels between yourself and Allday in the way you relate to your fans and how you’ve built that fan base up through social media. I think you two do it the best that I’ve seen. I think that’s very commendable using social media to its best power.
Yeah for sure, social media is such a big tool now. You’ve got to be on social media. I don’t hear of many people who aren’t on social media.
You were recently on tour with Wu-Tang which would have been pretty exciting. And I saw you did a track with Ghostface, how was that?
It was pretty surreal, especially sitting in the studio and watching him write. I already had a track that was done, so I showed it to him and he liked it, so we went into the studio and he sat down for forty or fifty minutes and wrote his verse and did the same with the recording. Then we bounced it in the car and he was down ass for it. Then we went UGG boot shopping *laughs*
One of the things that I’ve always been impressed with is your skill to freestyle. It can be rare to see someone who is able to freestyle as well as they can rap. Is that a skill you have to hone all the time?
It really does depend on what time of the day it is when you wake up and how you feel that day. It also depends what’s going on in your headspace. If you’ve got a real clear headspace I think you can do it better cause there’s more words that riddle off the top of your head. Also, I haven’t been smoking cigarettes, I can freestyle better, whereas if I smoke cigarettes I feel like I revert back to the same word.
Your style on stage is super energetic, who are your biggest influences and how have you won over some of those tougher crowds?
For stage presence I’ve been watching a lot of Flatbush Zomies but it’s more to do with how people work the crowd. I watch acts when I’m on tour and bring that to my set. I think the main people I watched was Cypress Hill and they can control a crowd without even moving. It’s crazy, they have a power. I just try to do that. I spoke to my hype man, who does back flips on stage, about how we want to make it the most energetic set that we can because I know when you go to some hip-hop gigs you can go there and you’re partying and enjoying the music but you didn’t move as much. So what we try to do is make it so you’re jumping around and having a good time but still enjoying the music.
Image by Jacob Pedersen at Alter Ego Visuals
I’ve definitely seen you guys do that, two really strong memories; one was Cypress Hill which I think was one of the toughest crowds I’ve seen to win over, and also Azealia Banks.
I think to deal with those types of crowds is, that they’re only there to see who they paid to see, they don’t know who the support act is, so why should they care? But at the same time if you try to connect with them and get down to their level and go in front of them and say what’s up, and give them props or whatever, they’ll be like oh, this guy’s alright and pretty nice.
Every hip-hop act that’s out there should take that advice! I’ve seen so many that don’t take that seriously and don’t bring any energy, and are intimidated by the crowd.
Yeah you can’t be intimidate by the crowd.
So we always finish our interviews with some quickfire questions. I’ll give you two options and you just give me one answer.
Okay.
Type or Write?
Type.
Bus or Plane?
Plane, now.
Wayne of Garth?
Wayne.
KFC or Maccas?
KFC.
Vinyl or Digital?
Vinyl.
City or rural shows?
Ummm, crural. It’s like half half.
VB shots or Indica spots?
VB shots.
Cypress Hill or Busta Rhymes?
Busta Rhymes.
Ninja Turtlers or Power Rangers ?
Power Rangers.
Skateboard or bicycle?
Skateboard
Stage or Studio?
Stage, definitely.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wkIPwtcKTAA
Get The 93 KFC Rotisserie Gold for free download here.
This interview comes to you as a collaboration between Howl & Echoes and Back to the Future.
Read more: Ivan ooze tells us his 5 biggest influences
Image: Nicholas Murphy
It’s video roundup time! Once again, Howl And Echoes are coming in hot with the freshest, most eyeball stimulating music videos to be dropped by the artists you love and some of the artists you don’t know you love yet, of this week. We do all the dirty work and herd them all into one convenient web-based location for you to enjoy every Friday so that you don’t have to. Have yourself a good old gander at the latest offerings from:
Fascinator – The Traveller
Johnny Mackay, the artist otherwise known as Fascinator is at it again with the second track off of his much-anticipated debut album Man and its music video. The track is titled The Traveller, and is deliciously off-beat, layers of funk and dream pop punctuated by haunting vocals and regal trumpets befitting of the subject of the video, which is excellent in its simplicity.
It’s a day in the life of your average New York City dwelling, decked in full battle armour knight. Eating his morning serve of Special K, riding the subway to and from New York’s Renaissance Fair (where of course nobody bats an eyelid, because New York) and going medieval on everybody’s ass getting in on all the fun.
Man is due out early 2016 via Spinning Top Records.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-7C7-eV0wDs&feature=youtu.be
Manor – Grand Mal
Melbourne duo Manor have been on our watchlist of late. They just last week released a new tune, Grand Mal, and this week released its music video counterpart. The track itself is an odd and spinetingling hybrid of psychedelic and industrial, vocalist Caitlin Duff’s ghostly vocals wrapped up in some jarring instrumentation from Manor’s other half Nathaniel Morse.
The video is a kaleidoscope of colours and shapes interposed with overlapping shots of Duff, it fits the sonic appeal of Grand Mal perfectly. The track is from their upcoming EP, and if this and previous single Can You Hear Me Talking At You are anything to go by it should be a solid bedrock of a debut release upon which the duo can build bigger things.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aVcsnnhAviM&feature=youtu.be
Daughter – Numbers
London-based trio Daughter have an album of their own due out in the waking light of 2016, their sophomore LP Not To Disappear. They’re getting all kinds of ambitious with it as well, this week releasing the second installment in a cinematic trilogy they’ve commissioned for the album. The first was Doing The Right Thing earlier in the year and now we have a sequel in Numbers.
The tune kicks off with some minimalistic instrumentation surrounding the gorgeous vocals of frontwoman Elena Tonra before taking flight via the aid of an unrelenting drumbeat that dances around some nifty low-key guitars, and from there it doesn’t touch the ground again. The kind of song made for late nights and loneliness, Daughter do a wonderful job of bringing the listener all but to their knees. The journey of the woman in red around a neon-drenched after dark urban wonderland is beautifully shot and only enhances a wonderful song.
Not To Disappear is out January 15th, 2016 via 4AD/Remote Control Records.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z-fD3PIRSO8
Tindersticks – Lucinda
Nottingham rockers Tindersticks have been plugging away for more than two decades, putting out ten albums in total so far and just a few months shy of releasing their 11th, The Waiting Room, in January of next year. It’s set to be an ambitious record both sonically and visually, with each song to be accompanied by a short film.
Hey Lucinda is one of those songs and it’s absolutely bone-chilling in both sound and context. It’s a duet between Tindersticks frontman Stuart Staples and Lhasa De Sela, a friend of his who tragically lost her life after recording the track. It burns slowly and builds beautifully throughout, the video a dusky wander through the seen-better-days nightlife of an English town.
The Waiting Room is out January 22nd, 2016 via Inertia.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XxZS7uXSvEU
Plaitum – LMHY
Another London-based act, this time a duo, is Plaitum. They’re another one we’ve had our eye on for quite a while and their latest single and video for LMHY, from their forthcoming and eponymous debut EP, are keeping them glued firmly there. It’s electro-pop gone through a grimy shredder, urgent vocals that alternate between ethereal and screaming, twisting and writhing around stark and shuddering synths and off-kilter trap beats.
The video is a mesmerising lo-fi light show, shots of the duo filtered through all manner of clashing greens and oranges that arrests your eyes as much as the sound does your ears.
Plaitum is out December 4th via Wolf Tone/Caroline Australia
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1KKuHOuHLTU
Here We Go Magic – Be Small
Brooklyn indie rock trio Here We Go Magic recently released their newest LP Be Small, their first since 2012s A Different Ship. Critically acclaimed as an album, the band have since released the eponymous first single from it as well as a video to go with it.
I loved it, a contemporary grim reaper who wears uh… sandals and wheels around a suitcase along with the traditional tattered black robes and hood, wandering around the pedestrian parks and streets of Hudson New York like it ain’t a thing.
Be Small is out now via Secretly Canadian on Inertia.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E2Ab4_3OgWM&feature=youtu.be
Ivan Ooze – Fire
Ivan Ooze, apart from sharing the name of that evil purple motherfucker who brainwashed all the parents in the Power Rangers movie, is a Melbourne MC who continues to drop jaws everywhere. His latest single is FIRE, both in title and in general sonic terms.
The video is awash with scuzz and sleaze, featuring burning dictionaries, tables, laptops, spliffs (you name it, he’ll burn it) and an array of 0ther pyrotechnics around an orange-jumpsuited Ooze, whose snarling machine gun flow never once hints at relenting. The production is fittingly industrial and stomps along wonderfully as Ooze shrieks over the chorus ‘I bring the fuckin’ fire’ (pronounced ‘fiyahhh’ of course).
Not your conventional Aussie hip hop by any means, refreshingly bizarre and masterfully crafted.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M2zdtDj2AAE&app=desktop
Elizabeth Rose – Shoulda Coulda Woulda
I’m not someone who thoroughly enjoys pop music usually, but Sydney songstress Elizabeth Rose has really captured me with latest single Shoulda Coulda Woulda. Co-produced by M-Phazes, the track has been spun like a spiderweb on Australian airwaves since its release, hypnotic and warped synths the driving force behind Rose’s sugary (but never saccharine) pop voice.
That’s what ensnared me, the sound is sonically pleasing pop but not in the traditional sense. Everything about the track, the lyricism and the production in particular, are highly intelligent and deftly-crafted. The video is mesmerising too, featuring Rose trapped in a 360 degree mirror room, alternating neon lights and rhythmic dancing all but chokeholding the attention of your eyeballs.
The track is from her upcoming debut LP Intra, all indications thus far suggesting Australia has produced yet another wonderfully talented pop artist in Elizabeth Rose.
Intra is out March 4th via Midnight Feature/Inertia.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4HhL0V_EnRE
MS MR – Criminals
Heading back to the Big Apple for the next video, we’ve got the latest from much-acclaimed duo MS MR. Their latest offering is for single Criminals. It’s nothing short of infectious, each verse guided along by the heavenly vocals of singer Lizzy Plapinger until the driving chorus drops in and grabs you by the collar. The production from the MR of MS MR, Max Hershenow, is nothing short of stellar. Criminals is multi-layered dream pop with lashings of darkness and its thumping chorus will have you hitting the repeat button to no end.
The video landing with it is a neon dream, directed by Charlotte Rutherford, who has previously worked with artists like Charlie XCX and Marina And The Diamonds. Like the song it visualises, the video is full of glitzy neon lights but with a shadowy vibe throughout. Watch it and be enthralled.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y1jI774ZWF8
Polish Club – Beeping
Having dropped their debut EP just last month and winning over damn near everyone, Sydney power-duo Polish Club are set for a massive breakout very soon. Their raucous old time rock and roll sound, driven by the raw and guttural vocals of frontman Novak that are damn near inimitable, is catchier than the clap and few new releases from an Australian band have grabbed me the way theirs did.
Beeping, their third single from their eponymous debut, was one of those tracks. Two and a half minutes of raw, foot-tapping rock and roll straight out of the garage. The video is lo-fi renaissance art in itself, made using a fucking photocopier. I don’t even want to know how many hours this took to put together, just watch and appreciate and tell everybody you got on the bandwagon while there were still seats.
Polish Club is out now via MGM Distribution.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E-iy8ns0CLg
Photos by Seshanka Samarajiwa
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Ivan Ooze
Read more: PLAYLIST: Ivan Ooze’s favourite tunes right now
REMi
Horrorshow w/One Day
Thundamentals w/ Solo
Read more- PHOTOS: Thundamentals at Magnetic Island, QLD
Seth Sentry
Read more: ALBUM REVIEW: Seth Sentry, Strange New Past
Melbourne rapper Ivan Ooze is shaping up to be one of Australia’s most unique, talented MCs. His Social Alien mixtape dropped a few weeks back, and we cannot get enough of it.(Haven’t heard it yet? Check it out right here.) It follows on from singles Jimi Hendrix and Trippin’, which might not sound like the titles of rap songs, but are very cool, and made serious headway on Triple J Unearthed.
Anyone who has ever been to a rap concert knows how great they can be – the energy, the audience, it’s a special moment. And Ivan’s about to step it up a few notches. Fellow Australian rapper Seth Sentry is heading out on a HUGE 43-date tour in support of his new album Strange New Past, and Ivan, alongside Dylan Joel, will be joining him on every. single. date. See below for tour details.
We recently asked Ivan to share his five greatest influences. From Danny Brown to Apathy to Busta Rhymes, it But that wasn’t enough for us, so we also asked him to make a sweet playlist with some of his current favourite tunes. It’s safe to say that he has pretty excellent taste in music, so this is a GREAT playlist.
Enjoy!
Ivan Ooze’s favourite tunes right now
Summer Of Sin – Apathy
Propeica – Spark Master Tape
Rap Game James Franco – Riff Raff
R Cali – A$AP Rocky
Nightcrawler – CZARFACE (Ft. Method Man)
Oh My – Boogie
Hazeus View – Joey Bada$$
Dope Walk – A$AP Ferg
Kick It – Scrufizzer
Queen’s Speech 3 – Lady Leshurr
Saggin – REMi
Get Down – Busta Rhymes
Dalai Lama Big Banana Marijuana – Dune Rats
Milk & Cereal – G. Love & Special Sauce
Idiot Gear – Louis Logic
Catch Ivan Ooze on tour with Seth Sentry and Dylan Joel:
Fresh faced Melbourne rapper Ivan Ooze may not ring a bell for you just yet, but that is all about to change thanks to the mixtape he recently dropped! The whole damn thing is fire, reminiscent of ScHoolboy Q or Danny Brown, and is really, REALLY impressive.
Titled The Social Alien, Ooze said of the mixtape that it was “A reflection of the good, the bad and the ugly from my life on this planet so far and how I feel about it all. Some will love it, others won’t, but fuck it, we’re all human…or so we think.” Pretty interesting description, and if you listen to any song off the collection you’ll know exactly what he’s talking about. Intergalatic rhymes with a whole heap of lyrical depth, and out-of-this-world beats (couldn’t help myself) thanks to the like of WZRDKID and Sable – The Social Alien does not fail to impress.
If, like me, you are now dying to see this guy live and have missed him supporting Cypress Hill, Ice Cube, Allday and Illy as well as his performances at Beyond The Valley and Ragamuffin (NZ) – you’re in luck! He is about to embark on a national headline tour, a tour you should not delay on getting tickets for! See the details below, and listen to The Social Alien here:
Ivan Ooze tour dates:
Wed Apr 29, Sosueme
Beach Road Hotel, Bondi NSW
Tix here
Thurs Apr 30, Lambda
Alhambra Lounge, Brisbane QLD
Tix here
Sat May 2, Ed Castle
Adelaide, SA
Tix here
Fri May 8, Hussle Hussle
Mojos, Fremantle WA
Tix here
Fri May 15, Can’t Say
Melbourne, VIC
Sat June 6, Come Together Festival
Luna Park, Sydney NSW
Tix here