What a nifty week it’s been for music. Seems like 2017 is shaking off the early new year daze and releases are pouring in from some amazing artists both locally and worldwide. Some of the best we’ve had our eyes and ears on this week:
London O’Connor – Nobody Hangs Out Anymore
The remastered version of his stunning debut O∆ is out today and with it comes a brand new video for one of the standout tunes from that album, Nobody Hangs Out Anymore. It’s an intoxicating blend of sound, think a less gloomy Earl Sweatshirt with more pop hooks and the accompanying video is a hypnotic slacker day-in-the-life that pairs perfectly.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2hpfYgbKBQM
Timbre Timbre – Velvet Gloves & Spit
With their fourth record Sincerely, Future Pollution due out April 7th, the juxtapositionally-titled Velvet Gloves & Spit is the gorgeous new single from Canadian trio Timbre Timbre. If you like Jack Ladder And The Dreamlanders, you’ll love this, baritonal storyteller vocals and uplifting synths melding together to create some of the dreamiest listening you’ll do all week.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ByE1Q4ABXsU
Kilter – Count On Me (ft. LANKS)
Keen to turn it up a few gears because it’s Friday? Sydney beatsmith Kilter is here with an utter banger in new single Count On Me. Featuring LANKS of Melbourne, another of our favourites, it’s a hazy slab of the kind of dance that brings a pit to its knees. Perfect to wave summer off with, expect more big things from Kilter, whose debut album is scheduled for launch in June of this year.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jbLxw2aR0DE
Little Simz – Picture Perfect
Putting out one of the low-key best releases of 2016 was absolute firebrand spitter Little Simz with Stillness In Wonderland. Picture Perfect was one of the many standouts from that record, discordantly jazzy and with Simz going all the way in with relentless force. It’s been given the video treatment this week with an animated feature directed by Jeremy Cole, it’s deliciously neo-noir and only adds to the chaos. Check out our interview with Little Simz while you’re at it.
https://youtu.be/rIVGtd5kjsI
Vera Blue – Private
Wrapping up back on home turf with the brand new single from songstress Vera Blue, who has a debut record due out this year after a 2016 spent ensuring her name was spread nationwide. Private is the first taste of her yet-to-be-titled first longplayer but all indications are that it’s going to be an absolute ripper. It opens with a melancholic piano that gives way to an absolutely monolithic chorus with crashing trap beats and synths like a blazing inferno all sparked by Blue’s utterly killer pipes. She goes harder than we’ve ever heard her here and it’s a fantastic sign of things to come from the Sydney talent. Judge for yourself below:
Image: Supplied
Kilter is one quarter of the line up on Tomorrow’s People – an all ages and alcohol free tour that will be heading around the country over the next couple of weeks. Also featuring Dylan Joel, E^ST and UV Boi, it’s shaping up to be an absolute ripper of a time with all four acts really coming into their own as artists and performers.
Kilter has been doing the round on the touring and festival circuit for a while now, and continues to blow minds with his percussion laden, electronic beats and tropical rhythms. He has toured extensively for the best part of last year and even the year before that, and has quickly become a household name when it comes to the “Australian sound” boom.
Before he launches into what is looking like another huge year, we asked him all about three albums that changed his life. Choosing Buraka Som Sistema, Onra and Rustie, Kilter let us in a little as to how these records have had input into his life. Take a look for yourself below.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ww-_VYWWrV0
Buraka Som Sistema, Black Diamond
Born out of the cultural and musical melting pot of Lisbon, Portugal, Buraka Som Sistema’s music fuses electro with African zouk and kudouro. At the time when Black Diamond dropped, I was just discovering dance music and was almost old enough to get myself into a club. Black Diamond introduced me to the world of afro music within the electronic scene, something that still makes up a big chunk of the music I listen to and influences the music I make.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xrwKAPd9mLM
Onra, Long Distance
When I first started producing I was really into flipping old funk and soul records into hip hop beats or future funk stuff. This was mostly because I didn’t know how to make my own sounds but it was also really fun haha. Onra was the best at this and this whole album is filled with awesome 70/80s tinged jams with a modern production twist.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pBRzcLHqq-c
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d99QjAK1R6I
Rustie, Glass Swords
Ask anybody producing beats/glitchy electronic music and they will tell you that Glass Swords changed the game. Rustie was and still is one of the most innovative producers out.
Listening to Glass Swords, it’s impossible to ignore it’s influence on modern electronic music particularly trap and internet.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t9z2SKcr7_c
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NUEU8nMy5mA
Tomorrow’s People tour dates:
Friday 15 January
Courthouse Youth Arts, Geelong, VIC
Tickets
Saturday 16 January
Wrangler Studios, Melbourne, VIC
Tickets
Sunday 17 January
Karova Lounge, Ballarat, VIC
Tickets
Tuesday 19 January
The Byron Theatre, Byron Bay, NSW
Tickets
Wednesday 20 January
The Lab, Brisbane, QLD
Tickets
Thursday 21 January
Anita’s Theatre, Wollongong, NSW
Tickets
Friday 22 January
Impact Centre, Central Coast, NSW
Tickets
Saturday 23 January
The Lair, Sydney, NSW
Tickets
Versatility has always been the Hordern Pavilion’s greatest attribute. Originally built to host the Royal Sydney Easter Show, it became a place of many firsts. It heralded the very first Big Day Out (now sadly gone from our festival catalogue) back in the nineties and has continued to play host to some of Australia’s best musical talent. Friday night was no exception, opening its cavernous hallways to the sell-out crowd, there to see electronica/hip-hop duo Hermitude on the Sydney leg of their Sweet Light Dark Night Tour.
The humid November night proved a sweaty event, with thousands of bodies cramming their way through to the vast, yet inevitably stuffy venue. A thick miasma of sweat and heat built as the anticipation quickly rose.
Hip-hop duo and ARIA nominees The Meeting Tree (Joyride and Raph Lauren) and Kilter, a.k.a, Ned East, both did a fantastic job at warming up the crowd, delivering the precise balance of percussive beats and heady hip-hop ready to get you in the mood for Hermitude.
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nKTJU21Aa3M&w=560&h=315]
It wasn’t long before the main act took centre stage. The boys – Luke Dubs and Angus Stuart (aka El Gusto) – brought out a full artillery of live instruments: soundboards, keyboards, hit pads, drum kits, which they both managed to play all at once during points of their performances of Searchlight and Ukiyo. It makes you realise what adept musicians the two of them are and how much their music has developed over the years to create such an inclusive live experience.
Highlight tracks included Get In My Life, which had the crowd screaming out in ecstatic roars and dancing in pulsating jumps. Of course, it wouldn’t be a Hermitude performance without the inclusion of one of their most famous and successful hits HyperParadise (the Flume remix of course), the track that brought them to mainstream acclaim and cemented their status in the Australian music scene.
Cartridge Kings brought it back to Hermitude’s hip-hop roots and showed off their incredibly deft skills on the turntables, while their Missy Elliott and Kanye remixes had every single crowd member going wild over those familiar loops. And just when you thought the night couldn’t get any better or you couldn’t be more drenched in sweat if you tried, the duo brought out Chaos Emerald for another classic, Speak of the Devil.
The guests didn’t stop there; Young Tapz made an appearance for a blistering Through The Roof, the young New Zealander almost bringing down the roof with the high energy performance accompanied by the triumphant sound of trumpets blaring from the speakers behind him. Mataya joined him for The Buzz, along with an entourage of seriously skilled dancers clothed in tight whites with the moves to match.
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FulxpivZshg&w=560&h=315]
The show also featured some really cool lighting and imagery, including live shots of the artists playing drum pads, keys and more, which was a really cool addition – especially for an electronic show. The night ended with The Villain. Dubs and Stuart, obviously extremely happy with not only the turnout of the crowd but energy of their dedicated patronage, thanked the crowd earnestly, saying that it was “good to be home” after such a intense touring schedule over the year.
Check out our review of Dark Night Sweet Light here.
Check out our interview with Hermitude right here.
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.
It’s still Summer where Kilter’s at. Today the producer released a very belated summer good timer with fellow Sydney-siders Porsches entitled Want 2 – and it makes me Want 2 go back to Summer.
Though it would’ve fit perfectly amongst the heat and good times of the warmer months, it’s also perfect as a release that looks back on those times. Kilter and Porsches have created a perfect nostalgic track for the middle, colder months of the year. Look back on what’s happened and start looking forward to the end of the year and what it holds.
The synth pumps and the percussion is jumpy, but the vocals and the strummed and plucked guitar brings it down to a very cruisey level. The swelling of synths, especially at breaks without percussion even sounds like you’re being transported through time back to Summer – it’s really really nice. Want 2 follows a bunch of remixes that Kilter’s put out this year, for ODESZA, Hermitude and his collab with GRMM, Look At Me.
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He’s set to play a bunch of shows coming up, supporting Carmada on their sold out Australian tour, as well as playing the etcetc Vivid Music showcase alongside Porsches for the first ever live performance of the track. Check more details and artists playing the showcase below, and grab tickets here.
Good news everyone!
Marmalade Skies Festival is back on! Punters despairing the cancellation of the originally slated December date can rest easy, with the festival now taking place on Friday 10th through to Sunday 12th April in the Southern Tablelands, Goulburn.
The rescheduled event is featuring a pretty sweet lineup, with etcetc Music hosting Friday night and including the likes of Kilter, Acaddamy, Flamingo, Godwolf and Luke Million.
If what the organisers are saying is true, then Marmalade Skies is going to be a festival like no other. Crowdfunded on Pozible, the event is uniquely curated with its audience in mind with a focus on amazing music from local artists, all while showcasing the beautiful NSW Southern Highlands. Another bonus is the BYO aspect, which means there’ll be no pesky security guards combing through your possessions like a bloodhound.
Supposed to be held back in December, the original event was cancelled due to a high fire risk in the region. A refund option was available to festival-goers not willing to wait out for the new date, however those still holding onto their tickets should have received an email with all the new details.
Tickets are $135 dollars for 10-12 April, camping included. You can purchase them here.
So grab your tickets and get ready for what the organisers are self-describing as a ‘two day country house party’.
Australian electronic music continues to go from strength to strength, with many artists constantly raising the bar higher and higher in the calibre of their music and live shows. However, with more and more artists jumping on the bandwagon, the scene can become a little oversaturated, and it takes something special to stand out from the rest.
This brings me to Kilter, or Ned East. His tropical, upbeat, pumping tracks have made their way into more than a few pairs of ears, and 2014 saw him have his biggest year yet. His Shades EP was a huge success, and saw the Sydneysider conquer 28 dates, as well as hitting the road with RUFUS, The Kite String Tangle and Art Vs Science. He ALSO played at Listen Out, Field Day, Southbound and Big Day Out!
2015 is proving no different, as Kilter brings his percussion-laden live beats to Mountain Sounds alongside Alison Wonderland, Touch Sensitive and DZ Deathrays this March in Kariong, Central Coast, NSW! The camping festival has already sold out of Early Bird tickets, so better jump on dat shit quiiiiick!
We got to ask Ned a few questions ahead of his set, to find out a little bit more about the beatmaker.
Hey Ned, thanks for answering these questions for us! First of all congratulations on such a huge year – can you tell us some of the highlights of 2014?
Thank you! Up until half way through 2014 I hadn’t really released much original music, just a couple of remixes. So a massive highlight was putting out the Shades EP and seeing how amazingly listeners and crowds reacted to my own material.
For those who are unfamiliar with you, can you tell us a bit about your live set up?
Pretty much lots of stuff to hit and gadgets to fiddle with! I come from a performing background having played drums and piano for most of my life so I wanted to incorporate as many “real” instrumentals as I could. While I’m always adding gear my current set up is a Roland 404sx sampler, Roland SPD-s Drum Pad, Microkorg and a set of roto toms and cymbals.
Tell me about Listen Out, there was a buggy shipping Tkay Maidza to make your set in time to play They Say right?
Listen Out was awesome. It was the first time I had done a full festival tour rather than just playing the Sydney stop or something. It was great to hang out with heaps of international artists who I really love as well as the loose times that always come about while on the road with my Aussie mates.
Tkay is the best, she would run straight from her stage as soon as she finished to perform They Say as the finale for my show. I was ready to try sing it myself if she got lost on the way 😉
How did you find the tour you did this year, with so many dates? Any touring tips you can fill us in on how to survive the gruelling schedule?
In between my own tours and touring as support for Rufus, The Kite String Tangle and Art vs Science as well as the festivals, I think i spent more time on the road than in my own bed. My tip is sleep wherever you can- I’ve gotten great at sleeping on flights. It was great through, tour times are definitely one of the best things about writing music.
You played so many different places – how does it compare playing say a Sydney club show, then a regional club show, then Splendour? Do you shake things up for each?
Definitely. Certain things work much better in some environments than others. For example in an intimate Sydney show like the Oxford Art Factory gigs you can afford to take your time and have lulls in the intensity of the set while at a big festival like Splendour it’s great to keep the crowd moving and excited.
You’ve never really been a “DJ”, and have showed off your musical talents – how did you get into your style of electronic music without that DJ aspect that so many others have?
I don’t really think the way you perform your music has a massive effect on what you listen to. For example I love the same sort of music that my friends who might not have had the same musical upbringing as myself. However I feel like when I am writing new tunes I often think of what might work well for the live show and this changes the way I write.
You’ve collaborated with quite a variety of people, but I think the most interesting collaboration is with Citizen Kay – it’s definitely my favourite on your EP – how did that come about?
The instrumental for Alive Again was actually one of the first tracks I wrote for the EP. Originally it had a little vocal sample from an old soul track but I decided to take this out and find a feature artist. I struggled a little to find someone who would suit the track as I definitely wanted it to be a rap track. Around the same time Citizen Kay was getting radio spins on a few things and he jumped to my attention. He is a legend I’ve been lucky enough to have him perform live with me a few times now!
You seem to have quite a strong hip hop influence in your music – is that something you’ve always been a fan of?
I started off listening to hip hop- producers like J Dilla, Q Tip and DJ Premiere. You might be able to dig up some old tunes of mine (circa 2012) that are pretty much sample based hiphop. I still listen to it a fair bit but am very much a dance man now!
Do you think people take to your music differently compared to DJs due to your live
instrumentation?
Sometimes it’s hard when I have to drag a massive live rig around the country and the show might not go as well as I hoped with the crowd not really understanding what I am doing and then a DJ comes on after me and plays a set full of bangers made by other people. Generally though, a more educated crowd will really appreciate the live show.
You were on a panel for EMC as well as performing, how was that experience? What did you discuss there?
That was a pretty cool experience chatting with people like Laidback Luke, Nina Las Vegas and What So Not. The panel was about success which was something I didn’t really feel as qualified in next to these huge international artists. It actually ended up working really well as smaller artists like myself and Basenji were able to talk about the success we have found on a much smaller scale which could have been a lot more relevant and useful to the aspiring artists in the audience.
What can we expect still to come from you?
2015 I am cutting back on the shows and really focusing on writing both for myself and other people. I already have some pretty juicy tracks in the works that I will hopefully be able to show everybody soon. There will definitely still be gigs though, keep an eye out!
Sydney’s own Ned East, aka. Kilter, has announced he’s releasing a new remix album called Reshades just in time for Christmas. The release date is set for December 19th and comes after a hugely successful year of touring for Kilter, with killer performances at festivals like Splendour In The Grass and Listen Out. The album will feature never before released remixes for Duke Dumont, Odesza, The Kite String Tangle and more, as well as collaborations with other big names like, Mø feat. Diplo, Rüfüs, Andy Bull and Snakadaktal.
Kilter also announced upcoming tour dates not too far ahead, which will see him playing at Falls Festival in Lorne, Victoria and Field Day in Sydney on New Year’s Day. For further dates see below.
Considering the insanely cool tunes Kilter has already released this year like Coward featuring Ngaiire and They Say featuring Tkay Maidza, we’re expecting Reshades to dominate the airwaves this summer. Have a listen to the minimix below to get a little taste of what’s to come in in what will surely be an even bigger year than the last.
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TRACKLIST
1. ODESZA – All We Need feat. Shy Girls (Kilter Remix)
2. Disciples – Poison Arrow (Kilter Remix)
3. Duke Dumont – I Got U feat Jax Jones (Kilter Remix)
4. The Kite String Tangle – Stone Cold feat. Tiana Khasi (Kilter Remix)
5. Kilter – They Say (LWKY Remix)
6. Mø – X*X 88 feat Diplo (Kilter Remix)
7. Kilter – Coward feat. Ngaiire (Akouo Remix)
8. Andy Bull – Talk Too Much (Kilter Remix)
9. Shapeshifter – Shadow Boxer (Kilter Remix)
10. Ben Pearce – What I Might Do (Kilter Remix)
11. RÜFÜS – Tonight (Kilter Remix)
12. Snakadaktal – Fall Underneath (Kilter Remix)
13. Kilter – Alive Again feat Citizen Kay (salute Remix)
14. Kilter – Hold Me feat. YOUTH (Paces Remix)
15. Matt Miller x Kilter – Gravel Pit
Tour Dates
Fri, Dec 19 2014: The Garden, Wollongong
Sat, Dec 20 2014: Wonderland, Supreme Court Gardens Perth
Tues, Dec 30 2014: Falls Festival, Lorne
Thurs, January 1 2015: Field Day, Sydney
Sun, January 4 2015: Southbound Festival, Busselton