melbourne – and so she thinks

jade imagine – Big Old House

admin — Thu, 23 May 2019 12:08:00 +0000

jade imagine, a low-fi, slacker-fuzz-dream pop dream band from Melbourne have put out their debut EP What The Fuck Was I Thinking on Courtney Barnett’s Milk! Records to rave reviews. They’re now back. All shady guitars and bristling beats, new song Big Old House cam to front-person Jade McInally in a dream. She says: ‘This song came to me in a dream. I woke up and sang the melody into my phone. It’s about holding the mirror up to yourself. There is light in the dark. Letting yourself feel okay again. Rebirth. Getting back to basics. The film clip is an extension of the themes within song; it’s about telling yourself in your darker moments to let the good things in, even if all you feel is negativity.’ Confessional,

Free Time

admin — Mon, 18 Aug 2014 15:17:12 +0000

‘New York was there, but what did I care,’ sings lead singer of Free Time, Dion Nania, on Here & There from their debut and eponymous album. Apparently, a lot, since he upped sticks from home town Melbourne to the big city in 2011, and brought his jangly strained guitar vibes with him. With a disinterested bounce, Free From tell the tales of suburban frustration and misery in a whimsical fashion, and where similar bands Real Estate, Beach Fossils and mates Scott & Charlene’s Wedding vibrate slowly with resurgent intensity. Song titles such as I Lost Again, World Without Love and It Doesn’t Stop suggest a pessimistic outlook, but new tracks Guess Work and Esoteric Tizz, the new 7″, are delivered with such nervy skittish disillusionment that the songs never sound bleak. Sunny melodies and exasperated lyrics just sound like the reality of being in the world’s greatest city, but on a rainy grey day

The Sunday Reeds – Jean Luc

admin — Fri, 04 Jul 2014 16:29:27 +0000

Jean Luc is a superb piece of rock’n’roll pop noir from Melbourne’s The Sunday Reeds. Taken from their EP Amour Tragique, out on August 1st on Heartgun Records, it tells of the tumultuous relationship between Jean-Luc Godard and actress Anna Karina. Their complex relationship has mirrors in a particularly bitter relationship break up in Paris, that most romantic city in the world, where founding duo Romana Ashton and Drew Jones spent three days and were evidently inspired. Joined by Jeremy Russell in 2010, the three piece toss together 90s grunge (check out the vocals), bristling blues scales and wholesome 60s pop. It’s rich and lush, dark and poised, ominously teetering on the edge of an emotional immersive collapse but all the while musically tight.

The Beatles visit Australia

admin — Wed, 19 Feb 2014 07:30:47 +0000

Travelling and writing about local arts and culture, I didn’t expect to be writing about The Beatles. Liverpool lads. Bit of course, The Beatles are everyone’s culture. They swept the globe, made the world twist and shout, won the love of millions of girls and the longing of millions of boys, as the Beatles in Australia exhibition at Sydney’s Powerhouse Museum, heading soon to Melbourne’s Art Centre, pays testament to.
Frenzied youth, chart domination – She Loves You was in the Australian Top 40 for 42 weeks – media madness, branding paraphernalia and endless promotion from anyone who could associate themselves: this was confirmation of the musical revolution in Australia. And the effect was not solely musical.
‘It was liberating,’ Glenn Barker, writer and commentator recalls on one of the many interviews, ‘we were isolated, and lived out of the mainstream of the world, we sensed there was something incredibly exciting happening in the top half of the world, the youth had taken over. Until the Beatles arrived…like a skewer to lance the the boil of stifling conservatism. They changed us completely.’
This is the main focus of the exhibition: not just their incredible music, electric presence and phenomenal feel that surrounded them, but their impact upon a generation. Survival suddenly looked so dull. Suburbia wasn’t interesting. There was a world out there and The Beatles revealed it. Their charm and talent was often deemed responsible for fuelling teenage rebellion toppling some of the conservatism that existed. For some this responsibility was a credit, for others a blame.
The Beatles only played one Australian tour, of twenty concerts, the Adelaide date only added later after an 80,000 strong petition by local residents
. Upon arrival the largest crowds ever seen in the city gathered to welcome their idols, an event which has become part of the musical history of Australia. It wasn’t only Adelaide. Throughout 1963 Australia was in the midst of an even more heightened sense of Beatlemania. Everywhere saw celebrations for Beatle Week, or B-Day. The Sunday mirror changed its name to The Sunday Beatle and offered a competition to win an invitation to Paul’s 22nd party.
The exhibition is full of memorabilia of all kinds. (One wonders what museums will do in the future when we don’t collect the physical or make scrapbooks or join fan clubs but show ‘adoration’ via a like or a click. How do we document our enthusiasm and record our lives in a lasting way that can be experienced by others?) Records and posters adorn the walls, and as well as the usual requests for signed records, kissed photos and thrown panties, one girl mailed George a piece of chewing gum with the instructions ‘chew this darling, and send it back to me.’ Women’s magazines featured cakes and goodies for Beatles parties, Paul cupcakes a highlight.
Whilst the music is rightly and loudly lauded, the focus is more about the experience of Australians. How the band and their songs threw so many segments of society into a delightful disarray of emotion and hedonism, joy, passion and mayhem. How they changed Australia, and the world in a way that many other artists, institutions and politicians envy.
As George said ‘Everyone was saying ‘There are more people here than came to see the Queen.’ Well she didn’t have any hit records.’

Kins – Aimless

admin — Fri, 15 Nov 2013 13:40:00 +0000

Self produced, self titled, self everything, Brighton via Melbourne band Kins debut album was recorded in a basement flat by the sea last year. As you may expect, and will find on first single Aimless, the whole feel is one of drifting and dreaming, trying to find contentment where doubt exists, sunshine through dreary days and escape muted existence. Shimmering and spacious, their songs are deliberately potent, a cocktail of subtle psychedelia and mesmerizing warmth. Watch the video here.

Valentiine – Love Like

admin — Fri, 17 May 2013 13:04:37 +0000

I love a bit of dirty, scuzzy, fuzzed out rock, especially when delivered by three lovely ladies. Valentiine (for once, that is not a typo) are an Australian three piece who make have soaked up the 90s grunge that they grew up with and chucked in some modern garage to create something somehow angry yet upbeat. We’ve all been angsty and frustrated, but I have never articulated it so well. Valentiine are Vanessa (guitar/vocals), Erica (bass/vocals) and Shelly (drums/vocals), and they have earned their musical stripes in their home town of Melbourne – next up, the world. ‘Love Like’ is the first single taken from the eponymous debut album, out on Integrity Records.
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YXOhXj0CXGY]