New music from Augie March frontman Glenn Richards; experimental Sydney duo kyü; smart rock stalwarts Peabody and a the bright minds of Magic Silver White.
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If "going solo" suggests a back to basics approach for the songwriter, anyone pining for the mournful, nimble fingerpicking side of
Glenn Richards ouvre won't find it in the first single from his forthcoming solo album
Glimjack. (But then, as Richards says in the presser, it's: “not really a solo album, rather another album of songs written by me that happens to feature other players”.)
Glenn Richards - 'Torpor & Spleen'
'Torpor & Spleen' moreso references recent uptempo shuffling Augie cuts like 'The Glenorchy Bunyip' from
last years
Watch Me Disappear or the moodier 'Just Passing Through' from 2008's
Moo,You Bloody Choir, than any
experiment in solitary confinement. Richards has sung the praise of these "other players" - The Drones' Dan Luscombe and Mike Noga, as well as Ben Bourke from Ned Collette & Wirewalker - and it sounds like they've been given room to move here, Luscombe's slightly unhinged solo and Bourke's classy fretwork on the bass both highlights.
Glimjack is out Nov 5.
And look, it appears he's touring the thing from October 1.
CORRECTION: These dates are Richards' support slot on the Clare Bowditch tour. Glenn Richards headline tour coming soon.
GLENN RICHARDS - UPCOMING SHOW DATES 2010
supporting Clare Bowditch
1 Oct - Country Club Showroom, Launceston, TAS
2 Oct - Wrestpoint Showroom, Sandy Bay, TAS
7 Oct - Surfers Paradise Beer Garden, Surfers Paradise, QLD
8 Oct - HiFi, Brisbane, QLD
9 Oct - Tanks Art Centre, Cairns, QLD
10 Oct - The Irish Club, Toowoomba, QLD
14 Oct - The Loft, Warrnambool, Vic
15 Oct - The Governor Hindmarsh, Adelaide, SA
16 Oct - Settlers Tavern, Mildura, VIC
21 Oct - Wollongong University, Wollongong, NSW
22 Oct - Level One, Newcastle Leagues, Newcastle, NSW
23 Oct - METRO THEATRE, Sydney, NSW
29 Oct - Bended Elbow, Geelong, VIC
1 Nov - The Forum Theatre, Melbourne, VIC
More here:
myspace.com/glennrmusic
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Firmly within the thrall of Sydney's current infatuation with the trippier element of the Brooklyn music scene, duo
kyü make willfully obtuse, elegiac music that has links to The Knife, Animal Collective, Grizzly Bear, Middle Eastern melodies, Enya, flecks of jazz, local band Ghoul and/or any number of playful/soaring vocal-manipulating acts that have stuck out in recent years. There's patience and an attention to detail in kyü's music that belies such easy labeling however, shunting them up the list of people-with-samplers-and-floor-toms-that-might-make-it-out-of-here-alive-yet.
kyü - 'Pixiphony'
Whether it coalesces into something more meaningful remains to be seen but their expansive self-titled debut - out this Friday on Popfrenzy - is a bold start.
myspace.com/kyusounds
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Staying in Sydney for a minute, smart rock stalwarts
Peabody's fourth album
Loose Manifesto comes out on October 1 via the bands own Peabrain records. Recorded by Tim Kevin over just four days "in a shed in Ball's Head", the album purports to "ridicule the meaningless of the modern world through a series of short bursts, aural assaults, hypnotic rhythms, verbal sprays and carefully crafted diatribes". What they miss here is "doom".
Whenever I think of Peabody I think of forehead veins, sweat, punishing volumes and vitriol. So instead, here's the awesome 'Mirror Mirror', a brooding, reverby, six-plus minute mood piece that cares not about waiting until the four minute mark to explode into one of the finer anti-guitar solos of recent times.
Peabody - 'Mirror Mirror'
A fine account of album recording events exists on their
MySpace page exists also. One excerpt:
This is an exact account of what happened after we finished recording last night. Tim went to see Wilco and got home in a paddy wagon, Trix and Chamie couldn’t see their hands in front of their own faces, and Jared… well, let’s just say he had to be revived with a shot of adrenalin straight to his heart, Pulp Fiction style. Except he is not Uma Thurman and I am not John Travolta… hang on…. nope, I’m not John Travolta. I thought I’d get some rest after doing my nails, reading some Kafka and making the most divine cheese and Amaretto soufflé.
Peabody: shorthand for cheese and violence. The band tour throughout October. See dates:
myspace.com/peabodyband
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Magic Silver White are a Melbourne quintet led by sound designer Jojo Petrina, making immensely attractive synth pop and without the awful tropes that that "genre" conjures at this juncture in musical history. Meaning the use of electronic elements here sounds entirely essential and organic, the sounds squelching and chugging together in the way that old machines might. These things rattle, smoke and whir like an engine, providing a rich, propulsive bed for the glassy, disembodied tones of vocalists Petrina, Monica Sonand and Biddy Connor.
Magic Silver White - 'Doowah'
There's good reason this so works; members of Magic Silver White have links to other forward-thinking, genre-hopping artists like Qua, Mountains in the Sky, Oliver Mann, Super Melody, Kes Trio and whomever Biddy Connor is working with this week. But mainly, I just really love that when first single 'Doowah' starts I'm thinking of Everything But The Girl, and then by just over two minutes in it switches into a widescreen
Koyaanisqatsi-like sheen evoking some dark mutating metropolis being ravaged by worker ants and the downfall of man. All you could want in three and a half minutes, really.
Very much looking forward to the album. 'Doowah' is on iTunes as of Tuesday 21st September.
myspace.com/magicsilverwhite