Latest record reviews
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Cable Ties – S/T
When I arrived at Camp Cope’s pub gig earlier this year everyone asked: “But did you see Cable Ties?” The Melbourne three-piece had clearly done their warm-up set ...
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Julia Reidy – Dawning On
Experimental guitarist Julia Reidy moved to Berlin last year where, in addition to her solo work, she plays in a “thrashy improv” duo called Pales in “places you ...
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Kris Keogh – Processed Harp Works Vol. 2
Kris Keogh is based in Nhulunbuy and his toddler won’t sleep without this music. As for others in the tiny Arnhem Land community, Keogh says: “I think zero ...
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Acharné – Innocence and Suburbia
The dissolution of two romances – the first with his partner; the second with Berlin – saw techno producer Rick Bull, better known as Deepchild, forge new ground ...
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Wolf Shield – Residuum
This is Wolf Shield’s debut but I’ve heard these songs before. Well, fragments of them anyway. These days Randy Reimann is best known as the founder of electronic ...
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Au.Ra – Cultivations
Great shoe-gaze isn’t defined by wall-of-sound guitars – though they sure help. The vocals should elicit genuine pity because unless I think things are insolvably fucked I can’t ...
Latest live reviews
Arcadia review – flat production can’t dampen Stoppard’s dazzling play
A quick flick through the program is usually enough to mainline a show’s ideas. Tom Stoppard’s Arcadia, however, is the play of ideas of plays of ideas. Audiences ...
Latest features
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features 0Reflections on a weekend in exile
“This song is about underground communities and how they tear themselves apart.” Fifteen minutes after Shogun of Royal Headache said this onstage, I began to experience an offstage version. Only there was no catharsis; no song. In the gig washout, a message popped up on my phone. It was from the admin of a Facebook group I’ve been part of pretty much ...
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features 0Music You Missed: Jan, Feb, March – 2017
Last weekend in Melbourne, and the week before in Brisbane, A Rock & Roll Writers Festival returned for a second year to put songwriters, music critics and novelists on stage to discuss their craft. Speakers included Adalita, Bunna Lawrie, Tim Rogers, Jess Ribeiro and Jenny Valentish. I took part in a panel with three other music critics. The festival claims to “celebrate ...
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features 0Empire of the Sun on the ad that changed their lives
On YouTube, views of the Honda Civic advertisement first televised in January are ticking towards 200,000. “Song iz awesome,” reads one comment. “Hey what is that song called and who is it by I like that song,” reads another. A commercially placed song, known as a “sync”, is an increasingly legitimate way for musicians to make a buck in an industry where ...
