MUSIC

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    Gregor – Silver Drop

    First published in Guardian Australia, December 2018

    Solo Melbourne artist Gregor makes new-wave pop with a wan exterior and a warm heart. The Durutti Column’s bloodless guitar noodling is an influence but Gregor’s storytelling skill is innate, comparable to The Magnetic Fields’ Stephin Merritt – the minimalist miseries of 1995 record, Get Lost, in particular. Despite at first feeling to be peering in on Gregor’s world – a place impervious to hearts so soft ...

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    Gang Of Youths (The Enmore)

    First published in The Guardian Australia, November 2018

    On Sunday, Gang of Youths’ frontman David Le’aupepe checked out of social media “for a bit” – though not for the first time. On Wednesday, the first concert of the band’s heroic six-night run in their hometown of Sydney was cancelled due to “our David’s” chest infection. The band had played eight sold-out gigs at the Forum in Melbourne already, not to mention other cities. Running yourselves ...

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    New War (Marrickville Bowling Club)

    First published in the Sydney Morning Herald, November 2018

    Melbourne band New War are in Sydney to launch their new album, Coin, at a venue dear to Inner West music fans. The bowlo’s boss, however, has insisted the lights adjoining the dance floor remain on. She’s gone home but something, something, “trip hazard”, something, something, “out of our hands”, say staff. The safety-first lighting lends New War’s set a kick-against-the-pricks feel. Prosaic forces are pressing ...

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    Is Tasman Keith Australia’s Next Great MC?

    First published on LNWY, October 2018

    AS a kid, Gumbaynggirr man Tasman Keith thought everyone’s dad rapped. “That’s what mine did so I thought it was normal,” he says of his dad, Aboriginal hip-hop pioneer Wire MC. When Tasman moved to Sydney, he realised his dad was kind of a big deal. “People would say ‘You’re Wire’s son?’ and be amazed. I was like ‘Fuck, I didn’t know he knew this ...

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    Skepta (Sydney Opera House)

    First published in the Sydney Morning Herald, September 2018

    In 2016, grime artist Skepta knocked a guy’s teeth out in a Melbourne club. Later that year he won prestigious British music award the Mercury Prize for his album Konnichiwa, which featured a song about the altercation called Crime Riddim. Skepta’s criminal record saw his visa denied in April. It was cleared two weeks ago, allowing him to play a Sydney Opera House show during ...

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    Laura Jean (Oxford Art Factory)

    First published in the Sydney Morning Herald, August 2018

    On Saturday morning folk-pop musician Laura Jean is on TV hosting Rage. “Remember your tribe is out there,” she says, closing the show. “Waiting to embrace you.” Jean’s own tribe surrounds her later as she launches her new album, Devotion. Her mum and dad are there, her sister Erica doubles as dancer and back-up singer, and after a few doses of Jean’s cheeky-bastard banter, the stiff room ...

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    Ben Howard (Sydney Opera House)

    First published in the Sydney Morning Herald, July 2018

    In 2011 and 2014, when UK singer-songwriter Ben Howard’s first two albums came out, hunger still rumbled for the guitar-lead musings of sensitive white men born with forlorn yet ultimately rousing voices. Since then our cultural frame has shifted, and broadened, but fortunately for Howard, so has his. While his new album Noonday Dream may estrange him from the folk-balladeer tastes that originally nourished him, ...

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    Laura Jean – Devotion

    First published in The Australian, June 2018

    On Press Play, the first track on Devotion, Melbourne songwriter Laura Jean winds back the clock. “I sat behind you on the bus yesterday / You were staring out the window”. The bus is leaving school and “yesterday” is decades ago, when Jean lived with her family on the NSW central coast. It sets the scene for an album anchored to youth, flowing with a ...

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    Cat Power (Sydney Opera House)

    First published in The Guardian, June 2018

    Cat Power’s Sydney Opera House concert is both an anniversary and a reunion. Moon Pix was released 20 years ago and Power (Chan Marshall) is here to play it with original collaborators Mick Turner (guitar) and Jim White (drums) of The Dirty Three. Presumably in full, in order, as is customary for such anniversary gigs. Yet that is an awful lot of rules for a woman with ...

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    Native Cats – John Sharp Toro

    A review from my quarterly Guardian column 'Music You Missed', April 2018

    Everyone and everything not in the crosshairs of Native Cats singer Chloe Alison Escott should be relieved. Her superpowers of perception lead to lyrics that first encapsulate and second eviscerate, while maintaining their shake-your-head-in-admiration hilarity. It’s no wonder bassist Julian Teakle is so po-faced at gigs. He’s probably trying not to lose it. The Tasmanian duo make precise and zeitgeist-unaware post-punk they call “electronic pub ...