music

Carl Newman of The New Pornographers: “We’re a supergroup; that’s just the way it is”

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new pornographers

WITH their new album Brill Bruisers, The New Pornographers are keen to celebrate their return after a four year absence, says frontman and songwriter Carl Newman.

“With this record, I just wanted to make a rock and roll record, or what I thought was a rock and roll record,” he says. “It was fun to do because it was the first record [on which] we ever used a vocoder and we’d never used arpeggiators very much; it was fun to try all those things. It happened that all the songs I was writing lent themselves to that kind of arrangement, so it all worked out. It’s scary and exciting to know that a lot of people are going to be hearing it, but I feel confident in it.”

Four years may seem like a long time between albums, but Newman hasn’t been idle.

“I put out a solo album in there, so that took up some time,” he says. “I also had a kid; I’ve got a two-and-a-half year-old son. Kids take up a lot of time, and time just flies, you know? Sometimes you don’t even notice that it’s been four years between albums. I knew my solo record should be a lot more subdued. I wanted it to be a lot more singer-songwriter; a lot more personal.”

The Canadian eight-piece – featuring Neko Case and Destroyer frontman Dan Bejar, among others – are often labelled a supergroup; something Newman doesn’t take too seriously.

“It’s definitely a bit of fun,” he says. “People called us a supergroup when we began, and we weren’t a supergroup. Now I look at us and I think ‘sure, we’re a supergroup’. Why not, you know? I don’t fight it; I’ve just accepted it. Now, I think if we’re a supergroup, we’re a supergroup; that’s just the way it is.”

With eight members involved in their own separate projects, Newman admits it can be hard to bring them all together come tour time, but the end result is worth it.

“It’s an endless hassle,” he says. “It always has been, but it’s just the way it is. There’s nothing we can do about it. Its the weird part of our band. It’s our greatest strength and our greatest weakness, you know? [Touring] is fun to come back to. When we played a few songs recently it made me think ‘wow, we’re a good band’. I forgot we’re a good band. We’ve done about four of the new songs live, and that’s been very cool. In this day and age you don’t want to play all of your songs too early because then they all end up on the Internet. The new songs feel like they belong in our set; they don’t feel weird. [They went down] well, which is always a good sign. Sometimes when you play new songs people are looking at each other like ‘when are they going to stop playing new songs and play the old songs?’. But I feel like they fit in very seamlessly.”

So, will Australia be featuring on the Pornographers’ tour schedule any time soon?

“We want to [visit] but it won’t be until next year,” he says. “We’ll have to figure it out. It’s hard; there’s not enough time in the world to play everywhere you want to play, but I think well definitely get there next year. We’ve always loved playing in Australia, so I’m looking forward to it. The most exciting thing that ever happened was the first time we played in Sydney in 2006, and Dave Faulkner from the Hoodoo Gurus was at our show in Sydney. We met him and I remember we were really excited because we were massive Hoodoo Gurus fans. That really jumped out as an exciting thing to have happen the first time we went to Australia – to have one of our favorite Australian musicians be there.”

BRILL BRUISERS IS OUT NOW.

For Beat

Live review: Bob Dylan – The Tivoli, Brisbane – 27/8/14

/ Paul McBride / 4 Comments

Bob Dylan

TWO days spent listening to gushing reviews from the mouths of fans who had attended the Convention Centre show on Monday confirmed several things.

One: Dylan has still ‘got it’. Two: anyone expecting the ‘hits’ is going to be disappointed. Three: you’d better get there early if you want to get within a kilometre of the exalted one for a performance billed as a “once in a lifetime show”.

It was this last point that became particularly apparent as the line of people outside the Tivoli had already snaked so far around the block that it had almost arrived back at the front of the venue itself by the time the doors opened at 7pm. Anticipation was thick in the air inside the packed 1500-capacity venue, but when Dylan and his band sauntered on stage at exactly 8pm, the atmosphere was less rock show, more warm and cosy lounge gig.

It’s no secret that Dylan has spent much of his career trying to pop the bubble of high reverence in which he’s been placed by his adoring public, and this show served up yet more evidence of that. Partially hidden from the start behind his four microphones and under a simple four-light setup that can only be described as being darker than a coal miner’s depression, the man and his band were the epitome of non-showmanship throughout, save for a few grins and cheeky taps of the foot from time to time.

The first half of the set, comprising the first nine songs, was identical to that of the Convention Centre gig, with ‘Things Have Changed’ opening, followed by ‘She Belongs To Me’ and ‘Beyond Here Lies Nothin”. Unusually for a gig at the Tivoli (or anywhere) the standing audience, to a man, politely took their spots without pushing or jostling for a better position – this crowd knew it was lucky to be here at all, slightly-obscured view or not.

‘Duquesne Whistle’ was a stomping early highlight, as was ‘Tangled Up In Blue’ a little before the interval, which got the biggest cheer of the night up to then. Standing with his legs wide apart like a quarterback calling all the plays, the 73 year-old controlled every moment of every song, seemingly without even trying.

The second set kicked into life with the country twang of ‘High Water (For Charley Patton)’, followed by ‘Girl From The North Country’ and ‘Cry A While’, before late highlights ‘Trying To Get To Heaven’ and an extended bluesy jam on ‘Thunder On The Mountain’, before the set-closing epic, ‘Ballad Of A Thin Man’.

Only then were the ‘hits’ yielded to, with a two-song encore of ‘All Along The Watchtower’ (Jimi still owns this one) and a laid-back, cosy campfire version of ‘Blowin’ In The Wind’; the latter sounding like anything but the archetypal protest song it is often considered to be. After a controlled finish and quick wave, the stage is empty, and the unmistakeable realisation that something pretty special just happened is firmly splashed across the faces of the majority of the audience as the house lights flick on.

Much has been said about his so-called raspy or sub-par vocals, but Dylan’s are the types of tunes that don’t need belting out. The beauty is in the words, not the delivery, but if there’s one thing Dylan and his band did tonight, it’s deliver. What did 1500 Brisbanites do to deserve this?

Felix Burton of Basement Jaxx: “I saw something sitting right in the middle of the sky that looked a flying saucer”

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IT’S been five long years since the last official Basement Jaxx album, but the English EDM duo are coming back strongly with new effort Junto.

While being free of his record contract and releasing new material means DJ and song-writer Felix Burton should be feeling on top of the world, it’s something altogether more other-worldly he most wants to talk about.

“We’d just moved into a new studio; its windows look over London,” he says. “I saw something sitting right in the middle of the sky that looked a flying saucer. Well, it looked like a Ford Fiesta; the way a car shimmers in the sunshine – it was definitely metallic. [A friend was] with me, having a cup of tea, and we were watching this thing in the sky. We realised it wasn’t a helicopter or a hot air balloon or anything like that; whether it was a military device or arable farming technology we’ve never heard about, who knows? Some other people saw it on that day, but what was most interesting was how small-minded some people were when I told them. An unidentified flying object means I don’t know what it is, but people would get angry and say it doesn’t exist or there isn’t such a thing, and I thought it was amazing how closed-minded people are to new possibilities and ideas. I did a lot of research into all this as I was doing a talk at Oxford University, and I was trying to make sense of it, so I was trawling through conspiracy theories and all the stuff out there. I was seeing a girl at the time, and we were out at some exhibition. She had actually seen something when she was eight years old in Scotland; something had hovered over the car, and she had always talked about it. I was with her in this public exhibition and was talking about the UFO, and said ‘my girlfriend here also saw something’. It was a Judas moment because she said she hadn’t seen anything, and when I asked her about it afterwards she said it was because people think you’re crazy if you say you’ve seen a UFO. I just thought it was awful that people walk off on you and get angry if you say you’ve seen a UFO, but she was blatantly disproving it just because she was embarrassed. People can’t say what they think or be honest. So many people are living a charade and getting whipped up in all this bullshit of celebrity culture that has no effect on their lives and makes them feel dissatisfied and envious. I believe in angels, UFOs, ghosts and all those kinds of things, and I don’t have a problem with it. I’ve looked a lot into religions and what my spiritual path is; maybe because my dad was a vicar. But people are scared of even thinking about all these things, which is such a shame. People just jump on something and use these things to feel superior. They don’t like the idea of something they don’t understand, but the fact is nearly all of life and reality we don’t understand; it’s arrogant to think we do.”

Interplanetary interruptions aside, Basement Jaxx are back with an album brimming over with their signature electronic-pop anthems and plenty of vocal collaborators. After over ten years with XL, Burton is happy to be embracing independence on the new record.

“We’ve always felt free in how we write,” he says. “It’s just you might not hear a lot of the stuff that was very free [laughs]. There were people who thought it might be a bit too tangential or might not fit into the idea of what was appropriate. With this album, we were very clear that we wanted to have stuff we could DJ, so we wanted to make sure it could be useful in our live show and connect to Jaxx fans, as well as fitting in with the current resurgence in house and deep house; now that’s kind of like pop music here. A lot of those people are inspired by us, so actually we might as well do our version of ourselves anyway.”

One of the guest vocalists was transgender rapper Mykki Blanco, who didn’t exactly finish the job, Burton says.

“That was the one vocal where we weren’t actually with the singer. It was done in a very modern way, where we e-mailed stuff. I sent him a couple of things and said it’d be great to work on ‘Buffalo’ and get some Native American spirit. We were back-and-forthing, and Mykki was really into it, then we started getting random e-mails and things weren’t quite connecting. Then [someone said] ‘Mykki’s gone’. We thought it was all sounding great, and told them we need the second verse to finish it, but they told us he’d gone to the desert. I thought it sounded all quite biblical, but that was it. We were mastering the album the next day, so ran out of time, but it’s amazing what you can do when you’ve got to reshape something and make it work.”

Having been a major player in the EDM scene since the ’90s, Burton is unconcerned about how the music industry is evolving of late.

“It’s been changing so much in the past ten years,” he says. “I think people who work in the music industry now have no idea what’s happening with it or where it’s going, which I really like. Rather than resting on their laurels, people need to understand life is about change and embracing change. Everything is temporary, and if a tune is good, you’ll be whistling it in a few years and everything else will get left behind. At a time when there’s so much corporate entertainment dross, it’s good that things keep moving forward and we don’t know where they’re heading. Everyone says it’s all about streaming and nobody will own any music any more, but who knows? There are always going to be enthusiasts who pile up vinyl, but I don’t really worry about these things I guess.”

A heaving touring schedule is already locked in for the end of the year, with Burton hoping to add Australian dates.

“I’m really hoping we can come in February or maybe January; around that time,” he says. “We just did the Fuji Rock Festival in Japan and a festival here in the UK. They went amazingly and I feel very happy with our live show at the moment. We have a lot of people, so it’s quite expensive, but I’d love to bring everyone. Also, the album is called Junto, which is about togetherness. It’s not about me or Simon, it’s about the audience and ideally all the people on stage as well. But yeah, fingers crossed. If Australia shows some interest in the record, then hopefully we can come. At the moment, we’re slightly in that limbo time where we’re waiting on responses to the album, but in my mind I’ve got it to go to Australia and Japan in February next year.”

JUNTO BY BASEMENT JAXX IS OUT AUG 22.

For Scenestr and The Brag

Record review: Jenny Lewis – The Voyager (2014, LP)

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The Voyager

Most people who haven’t slept for five days would see a doctor. Instead, former Rilo Kiley singer Jenny Lewis began writing songs for her first solo album in six years. Plagued by insomnia following the break-up of her band and death of her estranged father, the 38 year-old American crafted the bulk of The Voyager from a very dark place. While it shows on introspective laments ‘Slippery Slopes’ and the title track, there’s just as much defiance to counter the gloom, and it’s the combination of the two that makes this ten-track effort better than the average alt-country release. Lyrics flit between breezy and burdensome on highlights including the bar room stomp of ‘You Can’t Outrun Em’ and JJ Cale-esque riff on ‘She’s Not Me’, while throughout the brutally honest tale of fading youth on ‘Love U Forever’, Lewis lays herself barer than before. Top-drawer production from Ryan Adams rounds off what is both the sound of an artist looking for closure and calm, and a welcome and overdue return to making solo albums.

For The Big Issue

Joe Agius of The Creases: “In the beginning it was definitely not serious at all”

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the creases

LAST year, Brisbane’s Joe Agius and Jarrod Mahon decided to record a song and make a video one weekend as a bit of a laugh, doing it under the name of The Creases.

Little did they know that legendary UK label Rough Trade would soon have the band in their sights, and things were about to get a lot more serious.

“In the beginning it was definitely not serious at all,” Agius says. “They found the song and video on a random blog and e-mailed us. The Creases was kind of like a fun, joke band we had on the side, and then after we released the single for Rough Trade, we got more serious with it and realised that we could do it for real. It was suddenly an opportunity for us to tour and do all the things we wanted to do. It’s definitely different to a normal band, where you can chip away at it for a year and figure out exactly what kind of band you are and gig a lot, but we were thrown in the deep end pretty quickly. We had to make sure we were tight live, and had a good plan. We don’t mind the pressure; we actually work better under the pressure.”

The link-up with the label lead to a UK tour and now the young quartet have released their debut EP, entitled Gradient, but Agius is already looking forward.

“The EP has been a long time coming,” he says. “It’s a bit of a mix of stuff. There’s one song that’s more like the first single, and there’s a really shoegaze-y kind of track, and some more post-punk kind of stuff. It’s a pretty big mix, but still all sort of in the same category. Mostly pretty similar to ‘Static Lines’. We’re super-psyched for everyone to hear it. It’s taken ages for this EP to come out, so we just want to try and have a smaller gap between releases and move on to what will probably be an album. We’ll start demoing for our new album next month and then record it later in the year. We’ve probably got half an album right now, but we haven’t actually started writing properly.”

The sudden thrust into the spotlight has forced the band to adapt in other ways, with education and employment cast aside.

“I deferred before actually dropping out of uni,” Agius says. “I don’t think I’ll be going back, hopefully. Aimon [Clark, bass] has quit work then got employed again, but we’ve quit a fair few things for the band. It was hard in the beginning; my parents weren’t happy with me dropping out of uni to play in this band they hadn’t even heard yet, but I think they feel better about it now. I think once we started touring and they started seeing a good reaction and our music being played on the radio and stuff like that, they definitely felt a lot better about us dropping out of uni and work.”

The band began as a duo before going through a couple of changes and settling on the current line-up of Agius (vocals, guitar), Mahon (guitar, vocals), Clark (bass, vocals) and Gabe Webster (drums).

“When [our original drummer] dropped out, it was a pretty mutual thing,” Agius says. “She was doing law and was pretty far through a degree. At the time, she had to weigh up what she had to do. We were getting a bit too serious and she just didn’t have the time. Gabe is actually our third drummer; he played in Gung Ho in Brisbane. Gung Ho have kind of gone on hiatus; I don’t know what the go is with that band, but he joined the crew and it’s working really well. It’s good to have a confirmed line-up.”

With an appearance at Splendour in the bag, Agius is looking forward to a busy few months ahead for the band.

“Playing Splendour was the highest goal I ever set with music,” he says. “I would always go and tell my friends that next year we’d be on that triple j unearthed spot or whatever. It’s really scary, but super fun. We’ve got a few more tours with other bands, which will be announced, and we’re writing and demoing for an album. We’ll probably be doing some of our own shows as well.”

GRADIENT IS OUT NOW.

For Forte

Record review: Twin Peaks – Wild Onion (2014, LP)

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twin peaks wild onion

Despite having the same name as the brilliantly-disturbing cult TV series, Chicago quartet Twin Peaks are much easier to figure out, even if their second album finds them expanding their sound in an attempt to ‘grow up’ and edge away from their scratchy debut. While barely out of their teens, this is a gang whose sound has seemingly been spewed forth via the power-pop of Alex Chilton, sloppy party-rock of The Libertines and blue collar appeal of The Replacements, with a whole lot else stuffed down the middle and wrapped up in one big messy musical burrito. While there are some dirgy moments, as on the floundering ‘Ordinary People’, and they get caught belting out unnecessary hell-for-leather power chords at a couple of points, the overall vibe is of a fresh and energetic guitar album that’s generous and enticing at 16 songs. There are some great riffs spattered throughout, including on the shimmering, arching ‘Flavor’ and the excellent Faces-meets-Blondie ‘Telephone’, and when the the type of dual guitar interplay that Thin Lizzy would have exhibited pops up, new reasons to appreciate Wild Onion are found. ‘Sweet Thing’ shows the band know the power of a rhythm guitar in driving a song’s groove, while the instrumental ‘Stranger World’ catches them trying to bring sax back, before giving up a minute later. It’d be easy to write off Twin Peaks as just another bunch of rowdy indie upstarts, but this album is well worth getting your onion-loving tastebuds all over. (Grand Jury)

For mX

Record review: Anberlin – lowborn (2014, LP)

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Anberlin

Having already decided to disband after this album and one last tour, Florida alt-rock outfit Anberlin have nothing to lose in 2014. With six albums under their belts, the band – formed in 2002 – should be taking this chance to throw caution to the wind and go all-out in one last blast of statement-making rock fury. However, lowborn was pieced together by five musicians recording their parts separately with different producers, and while the sound quality hasn’t suffered as a result, it’s a formula that has produced a fairly robotic and over-polished piece of work that surely only hardcore fans of the band are going to appreciate. Every good album should start with a cracker then take it up a notch, but the plodding opening one-two of ‘We Are Destroyer’ and ‘Armageddon’ fall well short of the epic stadium pop-rock anthems they are meant to be. Elsewhere, the overwrought balladry of ‘Birds of Prey’ provides another forgettable moment among many forgettable moments. While ‘Dissenter’ reveals the first hint of potential perspiration by the band, as singer Stephen Christian lets rip with a vein-bursting, effect-ridden vocal, it’s nowhere near buoyant enough to stop the nine other tracks dragging it under the surface of mediocrity. Overall, there’s really nothing wrong with this album; there’s just nothing particularly right (or even memorable) about it either, so it’s with a whimper that Anberlin exit stage right. (Tooth & Nail)

For mX

Julia Stone: “Angus and I probably would have just drifted off”

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angus julia stone

BANDS split up and get back together for a multitude of reasons; whether it be for money, ego or another stab at the limelight.

For brother/sister act Angus & Julia Stone, however, it was different. Both were happily coasting along independently with their respective solo careers, until a legendary US producer sparked the flame that got them working together again.

“Rick [Rubin] said that he heard our music at a party and wanted to meet us,” Julia explains. “He contacted us when we were both on tour doing our solo records and it was very out of the blue. It was just so weird; we were like ‘what’s going on?’ We had our own paths set going solo, and we were both really happy doing that, and then Rick contacted us and came to both of our solo shows separately in LA. We hung out with him separately. I met up with him a few times in LA; we would hang out and go for walks, go on motorbikes and talk. Angus did the same when he was in town. Rick said he wanted to make a record with the two of us together, and that was kind of like the beginning of Angus and me talking; we hadn’t really chatted much between our solo tours. It was out of the blue, but it was a good thing, and it was a blessing. I think Angus and I probably would have just drifted off and not made an effort to be in each others lives. We really now have become friends because of this process, and I don’t think I would ever not talk to him for more than a week now, but at that time I wouldn’t have seen him until Christmas 2015, you know?”

Meeting and working with the Def Jam label founder has brought a new lease of life to the Stone siblings’ song-writing, the result of which is a new, self-titled album; their first since 2010’s Down The Way.

“It feels very exciting,” Julia says. “I feel like we know the record so well now, and I just assume that everybody else knows it. We’ve been playing a whole bunch of shows and summer festivals through Europe, and we play so much stuff off the new record and I forget that nobody’s heard it. I just sort of assume that everybody’s been living with the mixes as long as we have, but I’m actually excited that people will get to hear it for real, and not just in my head. It’s probably just the nature of what’s new in your life, but I feel that the new songs have a lot more energy for us. I think as well the [new] songs are a little more beat-driven and it’s more of a dance-y feel to a show, which is unusual for us. It’s fun to dance around a bit more.”

Not only has the rekindling of their personal relationship brought about a new album, but an entire new approach to song-writing for the pair.

“I think that for Angus and I, song-writing was always a really personal thing and it was space away from each other. All of a sudden, we’re Angus and Julia Stone and we’re this brother and sister thing. We were really young when it started and we enjoyed it a lot, so we kept on going with it, but there was a part of us that wanted to claim our independence from each other. I think for both of us, when we were on tour doing a lot of press and travelling, the song-writing was a really good way to express things that were personal to us and independent from the other person. The idea of writing a song together never even crossed our minds; it wasn’t something that appealed. This time around, we had had time apart and we had written and recorded on our own, and we felt that the only reason to get back together was to try to be different in the way we worked and in our relationship. I think the time apart made it possible; we established that we were independent, so when we came into the studio and started singing together, there wasn’t as much control and we felt more free.”

The new album takes the duo’s trademark folk sound and injects some unmistakeable American flavours, although the pair have no particular goals in that part of the world, Stone says.

“We signed to Rick’s label and he’s based out of the US, but I don’t know,” she says. “The guys from the label over there are really lovely and excited about the album. For us, we sort of just go to wherever we’re summoned to play music, and we never really know what makes a song work on radio or whether people are going to connect. We just wake up and play our songs, and whatever unfolds from it unfolds from it. We haven’t ever been known for our planning or goals about places or things. I think Rick’s great though, and his label’s really good, so we have a lot of support to tour there. Although I don’t really have a phone filled with famous people. It’s Rick and then family [laughs].”

The duo have lined up a September national tour following on from their homecoming show at Splendour, with dates already selling out.

“I was just looking at a tour schedule today,” Stone says. “We have so many tours, so many shows! We go to LA in a few weeks to do press, then we go to Europe to do TV and press and stuff. Then we have an Australian tour for September/October, then an American tour for November, then a Europe tour for December. Then I don’t know what happens after that. [I’ll] probably have a little nap.”

ANGUS & JULIA STONE PLAY THE PALAIS THEATRE SEP 25 & 26. THEIR NEW ALBUM IS OUT AUG 1.

For Beat

Sian Plummer of Circa Waves: “We’re a bit sketchy on the details – can you fill me in?”

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circa waves

THERE are bands who have had meteoric rises, and then are English indie-rock quartet Circa Waves, who are set to play Splendour In The Grass and four sideshows.

When they wrote, recorded and uploaded their single ‘Young Chasers’ to Soundcloud in a single day, they didn’t expect much to happen. That very night it was picked up and played on the biggest radio station in the UK, and the young band haven’t looked back since.

“It was definitely a freak occurrence,” says drummer Sian Plummer. “That’s not the norm for us by any means. I think it was just knowing the right person at the right time at Radio 1 that helped it get played that evening. It really helped that Radio 1 was so keen to help champion young, new music, and they were quite eager to give us a push. But [getting it played on] the first day was quite an achievement [laughs].”

Sudden national exposure led to a flurry of song-writing and touring for the band, before a deal was inked with Dew Process.

“We all met at a festival in Liverpool called Sound City,” Plummer says. “We were all there, and we were all bored with our respective bands and whatever. So we decided we’ll start a band with the aim of playing Sound City next year, and instead of doing that we ended up getting signed and touring the world. To celebrate we just went out and had massive steak dinners in this really posh restaurant. We basically gorged ourselves on quality meat.”

They’ve existed for barely a year, in which they’ve toured incessantly, so it’s understandable that not all the members of the band have had a chance to reflect and plan for the gigs ahead. When asked how much he knows about Splendour In The Grass, Plummer laughs.

“We’re a bit sketchy on the details – can you fill me in?” he says. “Australia: the idea that people are listening to our music on the other side of the world is an unreal scenario to think about. I don’t even know what’s happening over there. I can’t quite process the idea that people are hearing our music and are sort of down with it, so we’re looking forward to coming over and seeing first-hand. It’s really exciting. To be honest, we’re just pretty stoked to be going to Australia, so we haven’t thought far enough ahead to be considering festivals and club shows. I guess I’m excited to see what an Australian club show is like; how you guys react and whether it goes off. Festivals are amazing as well; there’s this whole other side of playing to a crowd in a tent that is just a unique feeling, so we’re looking forward to both.”

The band have just released their debut, self-titled EP in time for an airing at Splendour and a run of shows supporting Metronomy.

“We’re just about there right now,” Plummer says. “We’ve got enough material for at least a 45-minute set now. We’re sort of still perfecting our set and have been over the past six months, so I think we’ve got a good set-list together now and we can fill that time. Then obviously Kieran [Shudall, guitar/vocals] does loads of stand-up comedy between each song, so that takes about ten minutes between each song in the set [laughs].”

Despite being praised by British music press and hailed as a “buzz” band and ones-to-watch, Circa Waves are keen on winning fans the old-fashioned way, Plummer insists.

“We did the NME tour, and that was a strange one,” he says. “It didn’t sell as well as it could have done, but they’ve been really supportive and we really appreciate having anyone like that championing us and getting our name out there. In terms of getting us out there, it’s invaluable. Being played on Radio 1 is the best place to get heard. But from our point of view, it’s all about the live shows; going to people’s towns and playing is the important thing. That’s the way we’ve always got out there and got known. If people haven’t seen us play and don’t know what we’re about live, they’re not going to know what it is we’re about. We’re keen to spread that message.”

While their touring schedule appears unending, a band that does things as quickly as Circa Waves isn’t going to wait years to put out an album.

“We’ve just finished recording our album a couple of weeks ago,” Plummer says. “We went into a studio for about five weeks and laid down quite a lot of tracks. Bit by bit we’re going to start mixing them in and showcasing them live. We’ve amassed quite a bit of material in the last six months. Ideally we’re looking at an early next year release, and before then play live in as many places as we can. It’s a pretty raw sounding album in many ways. It’s not an overly-produced record; we’ve tried to keep post-production to a minimum, and it’s got quite a live feel to it in places as well, as some of the takes were done completely live. It’s about capturing and conveying a lot of the energy of us live. I think we’ve managed to get something that sounds pretty cool as well. We get a lot of comparisons to the Strokes and that’s a great comparison to have, but it doesn’t tell the whole story. We’re influenced by the Strokes, but I don’t think we sound like the Strokes, and what we’ve tried to do on this record is to convey who Circa Waves are and how we sound, and I think that’s massively important. We’re looking forward to getting it out there and showing everybody what we’re about.”

When & Where:

Friday 25th July Forum Theatre, Melbourne (supporting Metronomy)
Saturday 26th July Splendour In The Grass, Byron Parklands

CIRCA WAVES’ DEBUT EP IS OUT NOW.

For Forte

Russell Morris: “I was sick of trying to write songs that I thought people might like”

/ Paul McBride / Leave a comment

Russell Morris

AFTER almost 50 years in the music business, Russell Morris is enjoying somewhat of a renaissance, with his last two albums reaching numbers six and four on the ARIA charts respectively. It’s all thanks to throwing a bit of caution to the wind and getting back to his roots, says the 65 year-old Victorian.

“I remember an ex-manager asking me what I was doing next,” he says. “I said I was doing a blues album. He said ‘why would you do something stupid like that?’ and I said because I really like the blues, to which he replied ‘but nobody will ever buy it’. I’m not doing it for that reason, I’m doing it because I really love it, but I think what happened is that people really do love blues music, but they hear American blues mostly. They can hear it and love it, but it’s not in Australians’ hearts. I think people can relate to the music lyrically and like the sound. A lot of traditional Australian music is real corny country stuff that a lot of people can’t relate to, with lines like [adopts country accent] ‘he came down from Nanadoon with a swagger on his back’. I wanted something with a bit more meat to it.”

2013’s Sharkmouth and the recently-released Van Diemen’s Land tell stories about a range of colourful Australian characters from as far back as convict times.

“History is something that really intrigues me,” Morris says. “I’d done probably six albums that had sunk without a trace, and I was sick of trying to write songs that I thought people might like. So, I decided to go back and make an album of stuff that I would really like. I thought about what got me into music, and the first album that really got me into rhythm and blues was the very first Rolling Stones album. I thought ‘wow, this unbelievable, I’ve never heard anything like it’. Then I realised they weren’t writing all the songs; they were written by a whole lot of other blues artists, and we started collecting their albums. I started off performing with a blues band, and I think that was the happiest I think I was. So, [with Sharkmouth] I decided to write a blues album. At the time I think I had written about four songs and I thought it didn’t seem right. One of the songs was called ‘Chilli Pepper Woman’ or something, and I thought it seemed a bit fake. I sort of put it on the back-burner, but then I was in Sydney and I saw a photo from 1916 of a guy called Thomas Archer being arrested. The photo really transfixed me and I took it home. One afternoon I was sitting looking at the photo and it almost spoke to me, telling me I’m not American and asking me why I’m trying to write songs about America, and almost telling me to write a song about it. I wrote a song called ‘Sharkmouth’ and as soon as I wrote it, I sort of saw the light and thought ‘that’s what I’ve got to do’. I’m Australian, with an English/Irish background, so that’s what I’ve got to write about and talk about my history and my blues. I can’t write about the Mississippi or New Orleans; I need to write about something I feel in my guts. That’s when I started writing about where my ancestors came from, the gangsters and stories I heard about when I was a kid.”

Morris will bring his new lease of life on a national tour beginning the first week of August.

“What I’m trying to do with this tour is to combine the [last] two albums,” he says. “Hopefully it’ll be an entertaining show. I’ve picked all the songs from the albums that I think are the best to do, and hopefully we can entertain the crowd. I think we should do, because we’ve been doing a lot of blues festivals, and it’s been really, really good; a lot of fun.”

Fans of Morris’s material from the sixties and seventies needn’t worry; he still plays classics ‘The Real Thing’, ‘Rachel’ and ‘Sweet, Sweet Love’ live.

“I almost become a sort of Doctor Who as we take a trip through time and end up in 1969,” he says. “That’s a way I can introduce it. I still enjoy doing the old songs, but the newer songs are much more fun, because as an artist you always hope you can engage audiences with new material. But people spend their hard-earned money to come and see me, and I don’t want them going away disappointed. If they’ve spent money to come and see me, I really have to give them the best I’ve got.”

When & Where:

The Capital Theatre, Bendigo Aug 3
The Palms at Crown, Melbourne Aug 8
The Wool Exchange, Geelong Aug 9

For Forte

Richard Jupp of Elbow: “It was a proper moment”

/ Paul McBride / 1 Comment

elbow

THEY’VE been together for over twenty years and have six critically-acclaimed albums and a host of accolades under their belts, so a lightning storm isn’t going to stop Elbow winning over yet another Glastonbury Festival audience, explains drummer Richard Jupp.

“[English drum and bass act] Rudimental were on not long before us,” he says. “Then the beautiful British summer weather absolutely let rip. It was torrential and then the lightning started. Unfortunately Rudimental had to be pulled off stage, and they were having an amazing set. I was standing at the side of the stage with my wife and son and they were absolutely killing it, but obviously the lightning was a threat. When it did finally stop, Lily Allen – who was on before us – amazingly pulled a couple of tracks out of her set so we could catch up, time-wise. Once she came off our crew played a blinder; they managed to turn over in about half the time it usually takes a band to get on stage, so we were able to get on a couple of minutes early, which was incredible on our crew’s part. Again, we had this sort of Glastonbury moment where the clouds parted, the sun made an appearance and we had that sunset set that we’ve had the last couple of times we’ve played there. I don’t know what’s going on; somebody’s put a word in somewhere, but obviously we were very grateful and it was a proper moment.”

Australian fans can expect similar moments – albeit without the downpour and sunset – as the band has announced a run of October theatre shows, with appearances in Brisbane, Sydney and Melbourne.

“When we come to Australia, we’ll be playing the Tivoli again, and a few places we’ve played before; big old theatres,” Jupp says. “Then obviously we’re playing the Sydney Opera House, so we want to do something special there. We’re talking about maybe doing some obscure b-sides like ‘McGreggor’ or ‘Whisper Grass’; I don’t know. Maybe something that lends itself a bit more to the grandeur of the place. I know it’s all seated, and there are a couple of big tunes that might not suit that, so we’ll need to sit down and have a discussion. I’m looking forward to seeing what we can pull out of the bag for that. There’s always stuff we can get better, but so far it’s been brilliant. We’ve been on the road since March; through the UK, a little bit in Europe, America, then back into Europe with Portugal, Holland, Belgium, Moscow and two nights at the Eden Project in the UK. After Latvia we have a couple of weeks off, then well be looking forward to getting to Australia.”

The band’s latest album, the grand and melancholic The Take Off And Landing Of Everything, has received almost universal critical acclaim, and was written at a time when lyricist and singer Guy Garvey had split from his long-term partner. Luckily for the band, the record filled with loss and remorse has gone down well with fans all over the globe.

“There’s obviously a certain amount of ‘thank fuck for that’ when people liked it,” Jupp says. “We have been around for a bit, and you do get a little bit conscious of how we’re perceived. We don’t want to try to compete with all these young bucks, but we really enjoyed the process of writing this one because we all did more a bit more separate writing, then brought it into the studio. It was a new thing for us really, and it worked out really well. Tracks like ‘Real Life (Angel)’; Craig pretty much brought in the complete track and we Elbow-ified it, then Guy spent some time putting lyrics on. Mark wrote all of ‘Honey Sun’; everything on that track is all his. It was a little bit weird; we’re used to doing the writing together all of the time, but it was really nice getting something in a drop box or a transfer with some weird and wonderful sounds that you could take up to the attic and put some beats or a bass-line on. I was able to get into melody, which is always a dangerous thing for a drummer, but it was a really good way of working.”

THE TAKE OFF AND LANDING OF EVERYTHING BY ELBOW IS OUT NOW.

ELBOW TOUR AUSTRALIA IN OCTOBER.

For Scenestr

Interview: Kevin Baird of Two Door Cinema Club

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kevin baird

AUSTRALIA and Two Door Cinema Club are no strangers.

The Northern Irish indie-pop trio have graced our shores a number of times for both headline and festival shows, but their upcoming appearance at Splendour in the Grass will be their biggest test Down Under yet. With a new label and material behind them, expect them to rise to the challenge, says bass player Kevin Baird.

Hi Kevin. What’s the plan to get yourself into a Splendour-headlining frame of mind?

I think we’re going to be super-excited to play. We haven’t really been playing much this year; it’ll only be our second or third show we’ll have played in all of 2014 at that point, so we’ll be really up for it. I think it’ll probably the biggest headline festival slot we’ve ever played, so it’s pretty exciting and we’re just going to go for it. I don’t think we’re going to be too nervous or anything; we’re just going to enjoy it.

How did you feel when you heard you were headlining?

I think if it had been last year or the year before we might have felt a bit of pressure, but the overwhelming feeling now when we get asked to headline things, is like ‘finally’. We sort of feel that we’re ready to do it, and it’s where we want to play on the bill. We’ve played enough and we’ve done enough big slots to know that we can headline a festival, so it’s really nice to know that you’ve got to that point. We always looked at other bands who were in that position when we’d be playing at midday or whatever and hoping we get to that point. So, the overriding feeling is happiness.

Will you do anything differently from a normal TDCC show?

I don’t think we’re too protective of ourselves in that way; even if we’re headlining a festival, we’re not under the illusion that everyone there is a massive Two Door Cinema Club fan. I think a lot of bands make that mistake. We’re obviously aware which songs translate better to someone who’s not a massive fan, and it’s all about pace and speed and not really giving people a chance to relax. We’re not going to be spending 30 seconds between songs talking rubbish, or standing in silence tuning our guitars. It’s all about momentum when you’re in a big outdoor arena; I think at a festival you just got to get on with what you’re trying to do.

Will you be playing any new material at Splendour?

We’re sort of toying with the idea at the moment. We’ve been writing a lot of new stuff while we’ve not been playing shows this year. We haven’t quite decided if we’re ready for an unveiling or not, but if we were to do it, I think Splendour would be a very nice place to do it.

How much have you written?

I think we’ve lost count, but we’re working in double figures in terms of ideas at least. The first album was very different, because there was no pressure. We just arrived with the album, recorded it and it was done. With the second, we sort of wrote 15 or 16 songs and 11 of them ended up on the record. I think this time around we’re trying to be a bit more conscious of having more choice, so we’re just writing as much as we can, hoping to have about twenty or thirty songs to pick from.

Are you looking take your sound in any new directions with the new material?

We were writing the last record in 2011 and a lot has happened and changed about what we are listening to, our perspective of things and our lives in general. It’s more natural to sort of write what we feel like writing, and that just naturally comes out differently. We actually find it much more unnatural to just rip ourselves off, if you know what I mean. Any time we’ve tried to do that it’s come out as a terrible song, so we end up doing whatever feels right at the time. Luckily for us people have liked it so far, and hopefully they’ll like it when we release another record.

After your second album, you left the Kitsuné label and signed with Parlophone. Was there any particular strategy behind that?

We left Kitsuné at the end of our record contract, and we felt like we wanted a change. Parlophone were one of the labels interested in signing us. Kitsuné have always been incredibly amazing and have been a really positive force in our music, image and everything. But at the end of the day we sort of became a bit frustrated – and it’s a horrible thing to say – about money, and although Kitsuné put everything in and we couldn’t ever have asked for more, we’re quite ambitious. We have quite large fanbases in places like Singapore and Malaysia, and we feel like we need to be releasing albums there, so that was one of the things that made us want to go with a big company; to make sure the records come out in these places. The previous two albums; they had to import them from Japan or Australia. Parlophone are amazing; they’re the small family relationship of an indie label, but with a major machine behind it.

If you could have a cameo role in any TV show, past or present, what would it be?

The Sopranos. It’s just the best TV show ever. I’d like to be one of the animals that Tony Soprano loves, but I don’t think that would be possible. So I’ll be some sort of animal keeper, so Tony Soprano will like me.

Which celebrity or musician would you be happy to sit next to on a long-haul flight?

Not the other guys in the band! Someone who’s not very talkative, because I don’t like to talk. Someone who is really boring.

Finish this sentence: fuck the expense, send me a case of…

Umm… Cooper’s Pale Ale. Love it.

TWO DOOR CINEMA CLUB PLAY SPLENDOUR IN THE GRASS JULY 26.

For Splendour in the Grass

Record review: Mere Women – Your Town (2014, LP)

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mere women your town

DIY post-punk trio Mere Women recorded their second album in a cold-storage warehouse, and if ever a record’s surroundings affected the final sound, it’s here.

All hauntingly-focussed vocals, stabbing guitars and dark disdain, Your Town is the type of brutally abrasive collection of songs that would never make sense played in daylight or with anything on your mind except thoughts of anger, helplessness and schadenfreude.

The Sydney trio of keyboardist/singer Amy Wilson, drummer Katrina Byrne and guitarist Flyn Mckinnirey have been knocking around since 2011, and their 2012 debut Old Life earned them acclaim as an underground act worth keeping an eye on. Since then they have honed in on a more cohesive sound that perfectly captures the crushing, claustrophobic feeling of small-town-anywhere in all its depressing glory.

If the title track were a person, it’d be one of those pent-up, vaguely unhinged people you meet on public transport who fill you with equal amounts of intrigue and dread. Single ‘Our Street’ is the musical manifestation of suburban solitude, as Wilson asks “will you still want me when I’m old and frail?” and “will you think of me when I’m cold and pale?” with a jagged pop melody, as Mckinnirey’s relentless riffs flail and stab.

Waiting for the gloom to ease off over ten songs is a long and exhausting process, but by the time closer ‘Moon Creeper’ tries to lull you into a false sense of security with a soft opening 30 seconds, you know it isn’t going to happen, and another Mckinnirey riff proves you right.

Overall, Your Town is a well-crafted and worthwhile album of post-punk, even if after listening to it you’ll want it to creep back into the shadows of the ill-lit warehouse it crawled out of. This is music for dank basements and crushed hopes.

For FasterLouder

Record review: Lowtide – Lowtide (2014, LP)

/ Paul McBride / 1 Comment

lowtide album

Melbourne’s Lowtide are a band that takes their time, but boy has it been worth the wait. What started as a bedroom project for guitarist Gabriel Lewis in 2008 has blossomed into a four-piece band with a strong live reputation and now a debut album in the bag; and what a fine debut album it is. While shoegaze is the label that will be slapped all over these nine songs, there’s a lot more to sink your ’90s-cut teeth into. The band seem to know the perfect time to drift out of focus, as on ‘Still Time’ and ‘Yesterday’, before returning sharply into view with crisp pop single ‘Held’ and darkly primal ‘Autumn’. First single ‘Blue Movie’ could be ripped from a Lynchian dream sequence, whereas the chugging bass rhythms on ‘Wedding Ring’ provide a more forward-looking approach. Top marks have to go to singers Giles Simon and Lucy Buckeridge, whose poised vocals provide constant highlights on most tracks. Unfortunately, such fresh beauty often causes music reviewers to roll out plum old phrases like “melodic textures”, “aural layers” and the worst of all, “sonic soundscapes” in failed bids to capture the grandeur of this music in words, but crap like that doesn’t do it justice. Whether you want to call it shoegaze, roogaze, dream-pop, indie or whatever, this is simply a classy piece of work that should feature in everyone’s end of year best-of list. (Lost & Lonesome Records)

Gabriel Lewis of Lowtide: “I’ve battled this for a long time in my head”

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lowtide

HAVING EXISTED in various forms since 2008, yet only releasing their debut album this month, Melbourne shoegazers Lowtide aren’t a band you’ll catch making snap decisions. Blame their perfectionist guitarist and all-round nice guy Gabriel Lewis.

“Yeah, it has been ages actually,” he says. “When we recorded it there were lots of overdubs and returning to things. I sort of decided how my guitar was sounding in the studio sessions wasn’t as up to scratch as I’d like, so I overdubbed everything and broke everything down separately, just to get full control over everything and its sound. Otherwise, I think we’d played too much all at once and it got a bit choked. I really like doing that sort of stuff, because the idea is always there when I’m performing the songs, but I know that I don’t have enough fingers to be able to play all the stuff that I’m thinking of. So it’s kind of cool to flesh it all out and to see it realised in a way that we hope to be able to do.”

The quartet’s eponymous debut may have taken an age to see the light of day, but consistently strong live performances have paved the way for its arrival and reception.

“To begin with, we were so relieved just to have it done,” Lewis says. “But now it’s really exciting; the response we’ve had from the single so far has been really amazing. Live, there’s always a pretty strong response. The good sign is that you can’t hear too much talking going on in the room, which is nice. Especially with the quieter songs, people tend to lose attention and be chatty or whatever, but it seems to hold, so I think that’s a win.”

The first single is ‘Blue Movie’; a sparse slow-burner, although any future writing may come about in a different way, or so Lewis hopes.

“When we started there were a lot of songs already written,” he says. “[They] sort of just slotted into place in the band. More recently, we’ve had a few jams and a few ideas started from the two bass players doing parts over each other, then I’d come along and do stuff over that. I’m hoping to do more of that in the future. Everything I’ve written is really kind of taxing as far as performing goes. When we play shows it’s non-stop for me, and everybody else gets to have a bit of a relax now and then (laughs).”

Shoegaze’s original wave of popularity might have peaked in the early ’90s, but Lowtide are just one of a number of new bands taking the genre in a new direction.

“I’ve battled this for a long time in my head,” Lewis says. “You kind of don’t want to knock off what everyone’s done in the past, and if it works so well then why re-invent the wheel? Then there are a lot of bands classed as nu-gaze or whatever, adding their own edge to it to try and stand out from the crowd. I find that generally weakens the concept, and I guess if you look at blues or rock – there are standard ways of doing them, and it’s the same with shoegaze. Shoegaze is a fairly independent or off-the-radar thing, so maybe that’s why people feel that they need to try to make something else of it. But I think it’s now establishing itself, and the sound is still popular, even if it’s still linked to the ’90s because that’s when it first blossomed. It keeps coming and going as well; there have been ups and downs, and it’s just coming up at the moment, which is really exciting.”

As humble a musician as you’ll probably find, Lewis is happy take one thing at a time for Lowtide.

“At the moment we’re just focussing on the album launch,” he says. “[It] is on the 25th of July at the Tote, and after that we’ll be touring to Brisbane, Sydney and over to Adelaide as well. Then we’ll take it from there, I guess.”

LOWTIDE IS OUT NOW.

For mX