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FAVOURITES

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Jenny Hval – APOCALYPSE, GIRL
First published on The Quietus, June 2015
In 1969 feminist Carol Hanisch wrote an essay called The Personal Is Political. It was her response to criticism that the ‘consciousness raising’ meetings she was organising were not political, but personal. The meetings were therapy, said the critics; navel-gazing at the expense of bringing down the system. “They belittled us no end for trying to bring our so-called personal problems into the public arena ...
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25 years on: The Necks’ Sex revisited by Kate Hennessy
First published in The Quietus, December 2014
Piercing the darkness and din, over her drink, were my sister’s eyes, insisting I meet their glare. I’d done it, just before, and it had been horrible. She was in hell over there on her high swivel stool and was blaming me. Around that time – 2003-ish – I maxed out on seeing The Necks live. I certainly stopped bringing friends and family. The gig with ...
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HTRK – Psychic 9-5 Club

“Your love is so successful/It’s perfect, it’s synthetic.” Wryly funny on first utterance, by the time HTRK’s Jonnine Standish is done blankly repeating it the line’s not funny at all. With each repetition the gloom grows, layering like sediment in a fossil record. Right across HTRK’s 2011 record Work (work, work) – which the song, ‘Synthetik’, is on – lyrical repetition is used to hypnotise then ...
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Laura Jean – Laura Jean
First published in Mess+Noise, September 2014
I wonder if Melbourne folk singer Laura Jean Englert ever feels exposed by her honesty. Or did she fly fear’s cocoon long ago? This self-titled record is Englert’s fourth. She released EPs at 21 and 23 years old, and LPs at 24, 26, 29 and now 32. Public peaks of expression as she bore out the private troughs and joys of her twenties, like an ...
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Liars (Carriageworks)
First published in The Quietus, March 2014
“There’s no earthly way of knowing / Which direction we are going / There’s no knowing where we’re rowing / Or which way the river’s flowing.” Liars’ pre-show sample is Willy Wonka singing as the Oompah Loompahs row far too fast down the chocolate river. Of course it is! What else? Willy was silly and sinister, in equal measures, just like Liars. Just like the ...
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Iron and Wine, ‘Faded From The Winter’
My contribution to 'Tracks Of Our Tears: 50 Songs That Make Quietus Writers & Artists Cry’, March 2014
“Needlework and seedlings / In the way you’re walking / To me from the timbers / Faded from the winter.” Could there be a more beautiful way to articulate the particular delicacy of a woman as she approaches, perhaps for the first time, but probably for the last? The phrasing is careful, as fine-boned as she is. Any other way to describe her shape or ...
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Spiritualized, ‘Stay With Me’
My contribution to 'Tracks Of Our Tears: 50 Songs That Make Quietus Writers & Artists Cry’, March 2014
Spiritualized – ‘Stay With Me’ It might begin as a bit of casual noodling and a waltz you could slow dance to, but it’s coming for you man, layer on layer. Cross yourself as a churchy harpsichord starts to rain down, then: a pause, a power socket found, and a spear of feedback that opens into a deluge of amplified guitar, as thick and warm ...
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Colin Stetson (Circus Ronaldo Tent, Sydney Festival 2014)
First Published in The Vine, January 2014
With his straight back, strong hands and banker’s hair, the physique of experimental saxophonist Colin Stetson looks as purpose-built as a dancer’s. No wonder he is strong. The Canadian – a touring member of Arcade Fire and a collaborator with Feist, Tom Waits and Bon Iver – has developed a technique of circular breathing through a huge bass saxophone, its weight supported only by his ...
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Lee Ranaldo’s ‘Hurricane Transcriptions’ (City Recital Hall)
First Published in The Vine, January 2014
“Allow not nature more than nature needs” Lee Ranaldo’s ‘Hurricane Transcriptions (The Last Night On Earth)’ can at first only be seen, not heard, rather like a storm viewed from a window, as Sydney’s Ensemble Offspring violinists scrape their bows all-but inaudibly. Gradually, an inhalation begins to pulsate and the volume increases, arching into the aching weep only violin and cello can co-create. A bass ...
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Matmos (City Recital Hall)
First Published in The Vine, January 2014
“I saw Matmos in London years ago. They had some sound issue and couldn’t play so the brown-haired guy peeled the other guy’s pants down and spanked him.” My plus one’s story will surprise you if you’d pigeonholed the American electronic duo of Drew Daniel and Martin Schmidt as serious-minded experimental glitch artists who probably didn’t crack a smile during their shows. If you’d assumed ...