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[Pod / Inertia: 2010]
Another buzz band that has the blog world frothing at the mouth is San Diego four-piece The Soft Pack, and we’ve jumped on the bandwagon with similarly rabid enthusiasm.
They specialize in two minute tunes that move along at a blinding pace, barely pausing for breath between tracks. Super catchy, energetic indie rock n roll songs that are more infectious that a room full of H1N1 and one of the first albums (amongst an onslaught of recent releases) that has made us drop the morning paper, sit up and feel that euphoric excitement of hearing something you’re almost immediately in love with.
When done well it’s hard to compete with the familiar sound of the classic rock band structure (two guitars, bass and drum kit) and The Soft Pack do it better than most, producing songs that are super catchy and have a timeless feel about them – as though they could belong to any era where guitar bands ruled.
“Answer To Yourself” is an awesome swaggering rock tune that would have been plucked from the late Sixties, while “Done On Lovin” is super-catchy jangly guitar pop, and “More Or Less” sounds like it came straight off the Strokes This Is It. One of the greatest charms of this band is the casual, deadpan voice of singer Matt Lamkin, whose vocals roll effortlessly out his mouth without pretension.
The Soft Pack sound recalls the solo work of Blur’s Graham Coxon, the swinging rock ‘n’ roll of the Easybeats and shades of the Dead Kennedys smoke-filled-whisky-bar vibe.
We like.
The Soft Pack's Album will be released in Australia through Inertia 06.03.10
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[Inertia: 2010]The dramatic organ intro that opens A Mountain of One's "Institute of Joy" had me feeling like I was being led down the altar towards communion. And in fact, I kind of was. Institute of Joy is the debut album for London duo Zebden Jameson and Mo Morris and it is epic and ambitious. Both men are accomplished musicians and producers and have worked with other ambitious artists; Oasis, The Pretenders and Tricky. What they have to offer as a duo is vastly different though: these guys are being touted as the new high priests of psychedelic rock.
The album kicks into 'Sky is Folding' and is the first real taste of what's to come as vocalist Zeb tells us "This is where it begins", and so it does as he has commanded. The track begins softly with melodic acoustic guitar, then haunting vocals lull you along through multi instrumental layering - dense and atmospheric, until it builds to a synth crescendo that has you swimming about in a psychedelic haze, before suddenly: 'BAM' you’re dropped off at the end. And while you’re still trying to figure out what just happened, the kick drum opening and funk guitar of 'Bones' - the stand out track for me – takes off into a dreamscape of Mountain of One's making.
These guys are on a mission and it's likely that they read from the Book of Pink Floyd. The album's mood is expansive and transcendental - on 'Highs of The Sun' Zeb croons: "I wanna take you away with my feelings and lift you up to the highs of the sun" and I truly believe that we wants to take us all on a journey (or should I say trip?), I'm just not sure I want to go anymore. By the end of the album I've well and truly strayed from the fray. If you are looking for redemption, the cult-like passion of 'Institute of Joy' may well be your answer. These guys have made an ambitious and dense sonic soundscape that those who worship psychedelic guitar solos will lose their soul in. Institute of Joy is beautifully produced. It's dramatic, accomplished and epic. But if, like me, you're a staunch atheist the drama of it may leave you feeling a little bit like you just don't quite get it.
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[Reprise: 1994]Go ahead and judge me.
Dookie was one of the defining albums of my early teenage years and served as the introduction to a genre of music I didn’t know existed. Before they went all political and ‘rock opera’, Green Day were a punk rock band whose lyrical M.O. was observations of a deadshit stoner living in the Nineties. Although hardcore punkers and fans of their previous two records renounced Dookie (the band’s debut release for a major label) as the ultimate anti-punk ‘sell out’, the infectious and accessible punk-pop melodies found a massive audience. It filled the gap for the kids who loved the philosophy behind the grunge movement but liked their guitar music loaded with catchy hooks and chords that were easy to replicate on a shitty, second-hand Brown.
Billie Joe Armstrong’s lyrics that told the plights of a pot smoking loser, captured an audience of wannabe disaffected youths. “Longview”, which kicked off with the much-imitated signature bass line of Mike Dirnt discusses boredom, isolation and masturbating. “Welcome To Paradise” details the band’s time living – and finding ‘paradise’ - in an LA squat amongst gang activity and junkies. In “Basket Case” Billie Joe describes his struggle with panic disorder to a frenzy of pop-punk riffs and blistering drumming.
Sure, I might be taking a major credibility dive by posting a positive Green Day review, but what the hell. The other day “When I Come Around” ticked over on the radio and I found myself playing air bass and singing along to every word like I was a 15 year old, Vans-wearing skater again. For me, that instantly familiar nostalgia was well worth reliving - and I think that deserves a mention.
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The Very Best brought out one of the top albums last year with their second release ‘Warm Heart of Africa”. The Very Best consist of Malawi singer Esau Mwamwaya and Radioclit duo Johan Karlberg and Etienne Tron mixing traditional Malawi music, African reggae, hip hop, electro, dance and everything in between.
Album of the week caught up with Etienne from the group just before their first Australian tour.
AOTW: Hey Etienne, how are you going?
Etienne: Hey man, how are you going?
AOTW: Good mate. What are you up to at the moment?
Etienne: I’m just at home with my wife and my kid. My kid is sleeping next door and my wife and I had a friend over for dinner tonight, so they are in the kitchen and I’m just sitting on my bed.
AOTW: What time is it there?
Etienne: It’s 11 o’clock at night… And I’m actually super scared because I’m going to the dentist tomorrow for some major surgery.
AOTW: “Major” hey?
Etienne: Yes – it’s a pretty bad sign I think.
AOTW: Well no one likes a dentist.
Etienne: Exactly.
AOTW: I’ll change the topic then. Your album [The Warm Heart Of Africa] has been out for a couple of months now. How are you liking the response?
Etienne: Yeah it’s been really cool. I was actually quite relieved because for a while we only had good news for the record, and at some point I started to feel weird about that because all the records I really like, when there are a lot of good reviews you almost start to think about that as a problem. But recently there’s been a few bad ones which made me feel better.
AOTW: That’s so true. But I suppose it’s better than being the other way around.
Etienne: Yes. Like we are very conscious that Africa is really fashionable at the moment, so we’re conscious of the fact that, on paper, we have an amazing product of new-African-meets-western music because it’s the kind of collaboration everyone wants to hear right now, so we’ve really released it at the right time. But at the same time all this is just words and at the end of the day music is something really abstract and really personal, so I’m really happy about the amazing reactions and reviews and stuff, but it’s going to have to wait the test of time. Doing live shows and seeing people react to your music is very rewarding because that [the response to live shows] doesn’t lie – real human reaction.
AOTW: Seeing some of the footage from your live performances it looks like an amazing show…
Etienne: Yeah man! There’s a great vibe. It’s really like a party basically: everybody dances. It’s funny because even in places where people say to us “guys, be careful. People don’t dance there. It’s an industry party, or it’s a New York party” – you know, whatever the reason, and we’ve found it’s been really cool with every show we’ve done so far. So far so good.
I think it’s got a lot to do with Esau (Mwamwaya). He’s a funny guy. I think he’s a very different pop star than the kind of person you find in the music industry these days. He’s very very different.
AOTW: So with your live shows has it taken a while to get into the swing of things or did you just kick things straight off at the level your now at?
Etienne: No no man, it’s been great – we’ve done like 16 or 20 shows and it’s been good so far. All of them have been really good – a lot of them have been in America and we’ve done clubs, we’ve done festivals, we’ve opened for Diplo, we’ve done a bit of everything you can do and it’s been great.
You know, me and Johan (Karlberg), as DJs, we’re used to the crowd and to being on stage as DJs, and it’s interesting to discover the life of being in a band.
Hold on a sec man?
AOTW: Sure
[We hear rustling, then giggling and French conversation]
Etienne: Yeah sorry! I’m back.
AOTW: So, you mentioned New York before. How have Americans responded to you?
Etienne: Really cool! We all love America. I hear a lot of the time that people in Europe think that they party harder than Americans so they always ask “how was it in America?” And actually I think that there are a lot of good times in America. The only thing that I hate is that everything closes at 2am – right when people are asking for more, and people go crazy after 2am because there’s nowhere to go. But before then it’s amazing!
AOTW: Where we’re originally from in Brisbane [Australia], they brought in a law so that all clubs and bars have a lock out at 3am so after that time you’re either stuck outside or inside a club.
Etienne: That’s a bit better at least.
AOTW: How was the recording process for the album?
Etienne: It was the most easy process we’ve ever had with anybody in music. It was amazing. Sometimes we were writing on the spot and an hour later we would have a song. We never even planned to do a whole album but it just happened naturally. It was only after we did seven or eight songs that we were like “mmm, maybe we’ve got an album there”. We were more than halfway through an album so we were like “let’s do one.” At the time, as producers, we had worked with a lot of people but we never did full albums for anybody and even for us, so this was the first full album that we were completing, and we are very happy and relieved that we didn’t because for a long time we were thinking about what kind of album we’d do for a first album and that’s when we met Esau and things just happened by themselves.
AOTW: Were you always interested in African music or was it not until you’d met Esau that you fully got into it?
Etienne: We’d been into black music – you know like hip hop – from very, very young, maybe from five or eight years old, so the black music thing had always been there. And I think four or five years ago we got a bit bored with the hip hop vibe and we thought that hip hop was not so cool anymore, and the hip hop energy that we loved turned into ghetto music love – from all over the world, and what was evolving in Africa and, in a way, when you’re a real music lover, African music is one of the phases that you are bound to have at some point - like classical music. If you’re a real music lover you listen to classical music at some point. I think Africa is the same. It’s where everything comes from, it’s where the beats, the trance and repetitive music comes from… For me, it’s where techno music comes from. For me the techno music comes much more from Africa than it does from Kraftwerk or German electronic music. For me, the beats come from there – from the start.
AOTW: So are you guys going to see how it goes with The Very Best – do you have plans for the future or is it just a short-term, temporary collaboration?
Etienne: Well we got together almost two years ago now. It took a while to put [the record] out, so we’ve been moving on. We work with a lot of different people. We’re producing the first solo album of a single girl called Marina Gasolina You might be familiar with her. Do you know a band called Bonde do Role.
AOTW: Yeah sure.
Etienne: She used to be the singer in Bonde do Role. We hooked up with her a year a go, so we’re doing her solo album. We’re also working with an African boy, which is a young Nigerian rapper in London. We’re working with MIA. And we’ve also started to work with people and start a bunch of songs for the next Very Best record as well.
AOTW: So you’ve got heaps of awesome stuff happening. You’re also coming to Australia early next year…
Etienne: Yep!
AOTW: Are you excited for that?
Etienne: Very excited. Me and Johan, we toured Australia once three years ago for Good Vibrations festival as DJs, and it was the first time we were doing a tour – the first tour ever for us and it was absolutely amazing. An amazing experience. The first time we’d DJ’d in front of thousands of people, first time we were on tour with people like Kanye West – like musical big guys, and the vibe was amazing. So really looking forward to it.
AOTW: And this time you guys are coming down as Radio Clit and The Very Best?
Etienne: Yeah yep, they’ll be some DJ sets late at night, they’ll be some gigs in the afternoon… It should be really cool. The more the better really. Once we’re out there we’ve got our singles and our records so the more shows we can play the better!
AOTW: We’re really looking forward to seeing the show Etienne.
Etienne: Thanks man!
AOTW: Our last question, what’s your album of the week at the moment – the record that you’ve been listening to or digging most in the last week?
Etienne: you know, I’m getting really, really heavily back into surf music, like Sixties Beach Boys style stuff, Dick Dale, and a lot of that kind of thing. I think originally Tarantino was the guy who got me into that with his films. Except now I’ve just become really obsessed with it and without naming one particular record I’d say the Sixties has really been the stuff I’ve listened to so much lately.
AOTW: Awesome. Well, I think our time’s up. Thanks so much for chatting to us Etienne.
Etienne: Thanks man. We’ll see you in Australia.
So Frenchy, so rad.
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Laneway, as far as Australian music festivals go, is an Album of the Week favourite. Usually the bill of artists is pants wettingly good, the set up is comfortably intimate, the 'laneway' concept has a really nice get-lost-in-the-shadows-of-the-city vibe, and there's hot dogs aplenty. Everyone wins.
Let's start with the tunes.
We started our day with the indie guitar driven dance tunes of Portland locals, HOCKEY - "like the sport", singer Benjamin Grubin told us. Der, Grubin.
We really like this record. Sure, it ain't genius or groundbreaking stuff, but it's infectious and laden with great hooks and the very young-looking ("isn't that Johnny Borell?") Benjamin has the effortless sexy rasp thing down to an art. They kicked off with their best track "Work, work, work" and gave the crowd a great start to the day with high energy, hook-laden tunes like radio regulars "Song Away" and "Too Fake". Drummer Anthony Stassi and lead guitarist Brian White were great. Solid.
Next we checked out KID SAM - a Melbourne-based duo made up of cousins, vocalist Kieran Ryan and drummer Kishore Ryan. Holy jeebus. The drumming was crazy town and the vocals were like an off-kilter Jeff Buckley. Yes he was. The bluesy/rock n roll/avant-discordant set was peppered with mid-song rhythmic experiments (that they pulled out for "let's Go Down To The Cemetery") and minimalistic punk-edged tunes like a more-melodious version of No Age. These dudes are well worth seeking out, so hit your search engines. Big things to come...
Scottish indie rock band, FRIGHTENED RABBITS, were freaking amazing considering their early time slot. Guitarist/vocalist Scott Hutchison was intense, passionate, desperate - such a fitting tone for their song content, which covers romantic isolation, loneliness and the most fucked up aspects of relationships you can think of. His performance - complete with flying saliva and closed eyes, captured the intensity to perfection. An audience member suggested to me "Nothing's hotter than an unattractive Scotsman". Hells yeah. As a band, a less attractive bunch of dudes would be hard to find, but you couldn't help but fall in love with all these wistful, yearning little Frightened Rabbits. Highlights were "Modern Leper", "Old Fashioned" and "Keep Yourself Warm" which had a mass of diehard fans storming the barriers and singing along word-for-word.
WILD BEASTS. Oh my sweet sweet jaysus. After their crazy beautiful 2009 record “Two Dancers” we were breath-taken to discover that they can perform a live show that is equally beautiful. Vocalists Ben Little and Hayden Thorpe brought their otherworldly voices as well as their showmanship. This shit is indie-baroque gorgeousness like you can’t even imagine. "Hooting & Howling"/"Through the Iron Gate" and “All The King's Men" were moving, amazing, extraordinary.
THE VERY BEST. Cut to 300, predominantly white folk dancing in the only way we whiteys know how: badly. Yet, we had The Very Best (titter titter) time while revolving our awkward hips and jutting our lame sized booties because we could not freaking resist it. Afro-beats ahoyyyyy.
We bailed out of an incredible, energetic set by The Very Best to see THE XX. Definitely one of our favourite discoveries of 2009, and yet a disappointing performance. True, they had recently lost a band member prior to their Australian tour, but the performance lacked. The sound and the music was absolutely stunning, but we got nothing more from it than we could have from listening to their beautiful record at home. Very anti-climatic on the whole. We look forward to seeing them again once they have their stage show mastered. They’re 20 years old, so we’ll be kind.
We stretched our legs and amped ourselves for BLACK LIPS. Dreams of seeing them had never come to fruition, but now the moment had arrived. Feck dudes. In front of a frothing crowd the Atlanta foursome ripped straight into a cracking set of quick, addictive and crazy-catchy surf punk tunes. Their notorious stage antics – such as Jared Swilley hocking saliva high in the air and catching it in his mouth – a highly practiced skill, were on show, yet no groin exposure, disappointingly. “Born To Be A Man”, “Veni Vidi Vici” and “Oh Katrina” topped the performance. They were the most engaging, enthralling band of the day and they overcame their rep as a “spectacle band” and reminded us of the kind of guitar pop the freaking Beatles made. They’re better than they realize.
So off we went to check out probably the most anticipated acts of the day FLORENCE AND THE MACHNE. Before she arrived on the car park stage the crowd was packed and beaming with energy. Florence Welch dressed in a flowing bat wing type out fit showed everyone why her voice is one of the best going around. And if you were lucky enough to be in the front half of the very long crowd she demanded every bit of your attention strutting from one corner of the stage to the other. The Album favourites ‘Rabbit Heart’ and ‘Drumming Song’ were also the sets highlights and Florence and the Machine left the stage living up to their live performance reputation and earning their Headlining title while the crowd left very satisfied.
At the same time just around the corner EDDY CURRENT SUPPRESION RING were closing the festival and did so the only way ECSR can with their fast paced I don’t give a fuck (but we really do) type set that had vocalist Brendan Suppression climbing everything including a nearby building. They lived up to their reputation of being one of the best festival-closers around and then some.
So the music was amazing. But the rest of it was a little hit and miss.
Organisers underestimated the appetites of the masses and as a result the lines for food were long and timely. The venue was lovely but it just wasn’t anything like a laneway. The charm of the festival was lost because it was just TOO nice a venue. We wanted to get lost in the shadows and bump into walls. Instead there was too much space and the vibe was generally “weird”… Not comfortable or intimate – as we were accustomed to from our previous Laneway Festival experiences.
To be fair, we had a great time, but there’s a little bit of room for improvement. We’ll definitely be back next year to see if that happens.
All Sydney Laneway photographs taken by Daniel Boud
Official Laneway site
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Big Day Out - the largest and most-attended music festival on the Australian summer circuit - was a day riddled with highs, lows and everything in between. To start with, Biblical is an appropriate choice of word to describe the weather - a combination of insane heat (a woman walked past shouting “42.3 degrees Celcius!”), horizontally gusting winds, extremely large and painful rain pellets (hail?), and ultimately a perfectly clear night sky. There were thousands of partially-dressed girls streaked with fake tan, shirtless men galore (some whom should have kept their oversized rigs under wraps), an infinite number of hideous tattoos, over 300 arrests, and record water prices – a brutal $5 per bottle. And so it begins…
Kasabian - English quartet Kasabian leapt onto the stage with a startling display of energy - considering their shoes were probably melting to the boards. Touring with a few extra members, the band put on a real, very loud rock show - quite the departure from the middle-of-the-road Britpop from their early days. Lead singer Tom Meighan is of course a wanker with a gigantic ego, but - credit where it’s due etc - he had the huge crowd eating up all the rock star chest-thumping and knee-dropping he could muster - particularly on their most popular tunes like "Shoot the Runner" and "Fire". Promising start to the day.
Passion Pit – Despite the dangerous hype attached to it, their debut album Manners was a highlight of 2009. I assumed their unique electro-pop tunes would be impossibly hard to translate into a live format but I'll be darned. Michael Angelakos’ crazy falsetto was pitch perfect and his energy incredible – especially considering the band was playing in the day’s hottest slot. The rest of the band – juggling synths, keyboards, guitar, samples, bass and drumkit between three – were latex tight, producing an explosive, sparkling, bleeping racket of pure pop joy. Anyone that can make several thousand people dance with gay abandon in 40 degree heat is riding a pretty rad wave. “The Reeling”, “Sleepyhead”, “Little Secrets” and a cover of The Cranberries “Dreams” were highlights. A real revelation. I danced AND whistled.
The Decemberists - No pretences or rock star posturing from the Decemberists, just incredibly talented musicians performing great songs. Each band member plays several instruments (including a steel pedal named "Kate" spelt in hand-stuck diamantes), but it’s hard to be the unique instrument that is Colin Meloy's voice - so distinct and clear it could cut through glass. The set was an enthralling collection of songs that felt like the soundtrack to a gothic western flick. Especially beautiful moments in the set were: a rousing rendition of the murderous ballad "The Rake's Song", "The Perfect Crime No. 2", older single "Billy Liar", and finally a loud, haunting performance of "O Valencia". There was no other crowd throughout the day that was ever as still or as silent as the one absorbed in The Decemberists.
The Horrors - Much hyped "It" band whose Interpol-meets-My-Bloody-Valentine-meets-emo schtick didn't manage to hit the mark and didn't convince us that the huge amount of attention they've received is necessarily deserved. My take? - A too-serious attempt at being the 21st Century Joy Division complete with nu-goth black attire, feedback laden noise/shoegaze with sludgy percussion, and humourless pained intensity in the performances… I just don't know - it was all a little bit obvious and cringey. Perhaps one of my neighbours put it best: "Shit."
Dizzee Rascal – One of the day’s best moments was when 20,000+ people jumpied in unison as the heavens opened suggesting maybe grime-hop-electro-step-garage-skank-whatevs had the power to summon the gods. “Jus’ A Rascal” was suitably hysterical. “Fix Up, Look Sharp” was amazing. Those of us old enough to remember it sang the hook to “Dirtee Cash” and pretended we were ‘street’ enough to sing it without irony. And when his DJ dropped the dreaded bass line of club jam “Bonkers” the crowd went bezerk. A pair of crutches could be seen waving in the air, and a woman who was at least 50 years old was ripping it up in a tracksuit and sensible shoes. Bonkers indeed.
Lily Allen – Poor Lily. It really isn’t fair.
Unfortunately, her sound people just did not have it under control. The mix was WAY too bass heavy so her vocals were barely audible - very disappointing, especially on a day when the sound was generally fantastic. On the bright side she looked really nice in paisley drapes and fluoro yellow Louboutins. And her less critical, more forgiving fans were oblivious to the sound issues and sang along to every word in great rapture.
Devendra Banhart – Did anyone order a Venezuelan dreamboat? While hordes flocked to see Lily Allen, a few hundred fortunate folk were lucky enough to trip the tropical freak folk fantastic with Devendra Banhart and his band The Grogs. Joyous to watch purely for the fact that the band were clearly having an amazing time playing together - not to mention the fact that they sounded superb Included in the set was a fabulous mariachi-inspired “Carmensita”, a fruity jangling version of “Lover” (most of the females collectively wet themselves), and finishing with “I Feel Just Like A Child” at which point perfectly normal people started dancing about with their arms swaying loosely in the breeze like hippies on acid. "He's so 'Woodstock'", one pal aptly commented. "He's pants'd Natalie Portman", said another. Favourite set of the day.
The Mars Volta – Totally self-indulgent jam session by the incredible prog post-rock outfit, who I have seen absolutely dominate a festival crowd on previous occasions. Only the really hardcore fans enjoyed it (and boy did they) – but there was much too much improvisational wankery for the rest of us. Such a shame. As one festival-goer suggested: “bring back At the Drive-in.”
Muse – Child prodigy Matt Bellamy and co have done their fair share of touring since they became totally MASSIVE and so have mastered the art of Putting On A Rock Show. Take-no-prisoners guitar shredding galore, flawless vocals, and songs so “epic” they can't possibly be serious. Bellamy is the most unlikely of rockstars - a skinny, pale, classical music prodigy - and yet to see him wielding his guitar skywards like a superhero you couldn't help but think that it is a gigantic extension of his penis. WHhat?... Anyway – big things were expected and they delivered – penis references or no..
The final verdict:
With more than 100 shows over its 28 year run, Big Day Out operates akin to a Austrian made industrial drill (or any other well oiled machine). Nary a hiccup along the road – performances ran to the proposed playing times (bravo!), bathrooms (a generous choice of word for the dismountables) were numerous, booze was plentiful, attendees were scantily clothed, and we survived the locust storm. Til next year…
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