New Oz music from the fringes of the capital, a Sydney lift shaft via the Presets and beachy plastic popland.

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We first waxed on about ACT guitar band Hoodlum Shouts back in '09 when their blistering Horses And Human Hands EP came across our desk, saying then: The band summon the tense ghosts of Midnight Oil and The Dead Kennedys as much as evoke more recent locals like The Nation Blue, The Drones and, curiously - but with great affect - early Art of Fighting. There's a rural melancholy to their angst, one that has room for harmonica, field recordings and sparse, hanging chords, as much as powerhouse drumming, thundering riffs and the taught, captivating, wobbly voice of Sam Leyshon.

Well despite various band members moving themselves around the country since then, the group found time to hole up with producer/engineer Matt Voigt (The Nation Blue, Harmony, Black Level Embassy) in Melbourne earlier this year to lay down their debut album. Due out on Canberra label helloSquare in 2012, the first offering comes in the form of 7" single (and download track) 'Guns Germs Steel', one of the more pummelling tracks from the LP and evidently one that continues frontman Sam Leyshon's musings on the dissatisfactions and bum choices stemming from that big house on the hill in their home town.

You can buy the thing from the hellosQuare bandcamp, and listen to 'Guns Germs Steel' (as well as the pretty excellent, melancholic b-side 'Doom Country (Reprise)') below.



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We've banged (bung?) on about it here before, but Catcall's 2008 jam 'August' is still one of our favourite tracks in recent memory, local or otherwise. Her follow up 'Swimming Pool' kept up the enviable track record, making it into our Top 10 Best Pop Jams of 2010. Now Sydney resident Catherine Kelleher is back with another single from her long-awaited debut (The Warmest Place -- due 2012) and it's one that takes another left turn. Alas...

'Satellites' sits firmly in the middle-of-the-road, forgettable cut n' paste breeze of plastic Yacht-pop that's spawned wildly in the wake Empire of the Sun and Co.'s wake. Passing listeners would be hard pressed to distinguish it as a forgotten Ladyhawke cut, or (*forgive me*), the kind of thing Strange Talk have been stomping into the ground recently. For an artist existing so confidently on the fringes of club-pop over the past couple of years and who's strength has come from recontextualising '80s sheen into something truly affecting, it's entirely irksome that 'Satellites' seems content to blend into a world that Catcall once effortlessly snubbed. Hoping it's an anomaly.



Catcall - 'Satellites'

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Sydney four-piece Charge Group are winging their way around the country at the moment off the back their new EP Run/The Gold is Gone. We already spoke to the band a few months about their excellent video with Brendan Cowell (which you can read here) but of interest is that the physical release now comes with a slew of remixes; via such names  as Seaworthy, MYLeS (Wolfmother, Machete Moon, Palace of Fire) and KIM aka Kim Moyles (the Presets).

Here's KIM's take on 'Run', which (to the surprise of no-one) turns the sinewy, tense original into a heaving electro-jam that wouldn't be out of place in a Presets set proper.

Run (KIM Remix) - Charge Group by kim moyes

And here's the original:

CHARGE GROUP 'Run' (Official music video) from Microphone & Loudspeaker on Vimeo.

Their album's due out early next year, but the band wrap up the EP tour with a couple of shows over the next few weeks. See below:

CHARGE GROUP - RUN EP TOUR 2011
(remaining dates)

Sat, Nov 5 - The Zoo - BRISBANE
w/ Epithets + Quiet Steps + Still Rain Fell

Fri, Nov 11 - The Gate [ALL AGES], NORTHERN SYDNEY (TBA)
w/ Aleks & The Ramps

Sun, Dec 11 - The Metro, Sydney
supporting Explosions in the Sky


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