French techno DJ/producer AGORIA has put the final touches to his addition to the Balance series – he speaks about the road travelled with SCOTTY HARMS.

Be first to comment on this article

Fresh from recording their latest album, Head First, to be released next week, Goldfrapp (pictured) are teaming up with trip-hop legends Portishead for a singular live show. The two will be performing a soundtrack synced-up to a screening of the 1928 silent film classic Joan Of Arc in Bristol, after which, with any luck, they might tour the performance. Apparently they need a conductor to keep the six (six!) guitarists they’re using in time.

Be first to comment on this article

Julian Casablancas (pictured), lead singer of The Strokes, is visiting Australia in solo form for the first time. His world tour on the back of album Phrazes For The Young has already taken in Europe, North America and Japan and he’ll be in Brisbane for a gig at The Tivoli on Thursday May 6. Tickets go on sale at 9am on Tuesday Mar 23.

Be first to comment on this article

Boston singer-songwriter Chris Smither (pictured) was raised in New Orleans and was given his first guitar in Paris. That’s quite a musical heritage. Now on his fifth tour of Australia, he’s a new studio album called Time Stands Still – his 10th – to perform songs from at the SoundLounge on Thursday Mar 18. Asa Broomhall supports. Doors open at 7.30pm.

Be first to comment on this article

Photo: Justin Ma

If there was the slightest suggestion of a cold snap outside tonight, it certainly didn’t make it past the stairs of The Zoo. Some of Sydney’s newest young bundles of energy, Cabins, work the small crowd with sludgy guitars and sinister rhythms. Twin guitars screech and squeal out a dark, aromatic blend of brash punk snarl and more foreboding Americana gothic, with the intensity of the former condensed by the subtlety of the latter. Their slow-burning tracks are almost a shame to waste on so few people currently in attendance.

It’s difficult not to use words like provocative, sultry and vivacious when seeing the four young females and one dapper gent onstage that make up Bridezilla, and this review will be no different in falling into those traps. Another band where fiery passion battles for dominance against atmospheric melancholy, the merging of rock instruments with rarer saxophones and violins push it beyond being a set and becoming a performance.

You could assume that Jed and Cec of The Mess Hall might run out of ways to put on a decent show eventually. But not tonight. You don’t get a shot at the title as one of the country’s true powerhouse live acts without having access to a fountain of youth, energy and ideas to stave off mustiness. 2009’s For The Birds dove deeper than ever before into their raw primal power, so their dirty grooves never seem to run low (these grooves also seem to do well with the ladies, judging from the screams after every song). Somewhere between the open-ended raucous jam version of City Of Roses and an encore based on audience suggestions, you come to the conclusion that you’ve just seen a gig that will be difficult to top. The Mess Hall make difficult look easy, and easy look unforgettable.

MITCH ALEXANDER

Be first to comment on this article

(Domino/EMI)

Devonté Hynes’s latest paean to musical restlessness

You can’t help but feel a little sorry for Devonté Hynes. As the lead singer of briefly-lived but much-hyped British dance-punkers Test Icicles, he had his fifteen minutes of being the next big thing at the tender age of nineteen. After that band dissolved because they didn’t actually like the kind of music they made, Hynes went on to record under the name Lightspeed Champion, producing an alt-country album (Falling Off The Lavender Bridge) with none other than Mike Mogis, one of the Monsters Of Folk and the guy behind Conor Oberst’s sound. Since then, Hynes has taken to giving away a ridiculous quantity of music online and collaborating with as many other musicians as humanly possible. On Life Is Sweet! Nice To Meet You, Hynes doesn’t exactly dispel his cultivated unpredictable image. Gone are the quiet Omaha-folk stylings of Lavender Bridge, which are replaced by a more driving Brit-pop sound, albeit Brit-pop filtered through Andrew Lloyd Weber’s histrionics (The Big Guns Of Highsmith sounds like it was ripped from a B-grade musical). There’s certainly diverse instrumentation, with Etude Op. 3, ‘Goodnight Michalek’ being driven by classical piano and I Don’t Want To Wake Up Alone being ornamented with rococo string arrangements. But no matter how many gems are in this album – and there are a few – stylistically, it’s a dog’s breakfast. Hynes is still clearly searching for a sound to call his own – but his frenetic approach isn’t likely to get him there.

***½

CHAD PARKHILL

Be first to comment on this article