Do me a favour. Have a quick look under your couch. Now check behind the fridge. Finally, tiptoe into your flatmate’s room and sneak a quick peek in their cupboard. See anything interesting? Do you even know what you found in all three spots? Australia! Those were totally parts of Australia that you mightn’t have ever seen before! It’s like tourism in the GFC! By definition, those bits you just saw and realised you’ve never vacuumed are as much a part of Australia as the tropical beaches, cosmopolitan bars and sweeping helicopter shots of kangaroos fleeing for their cull-approved lives. Similarly, in this month where some media outlets go out of their way to play Australian music, there are plenty of areas of Australian music that aren’t Powderfinger, Jet or Wolfmother. In a special look into the corners and cracks of Australian music of this week, Mine’s On The 45 presents a bunch of new songs from around these parts.

SINGLES OF THE WEEK – IT’S A TIE!

HUNGRY KIDS OF HUNGARY – Let You Down

(Independent / MGM)

Are you happy? Generally speaking, if you were to express your overall state of mind, would it be positive? I only ask because it seems that much of the music coming from this area of the world that Rave calls its own is out-and-out grin inducing. Hungry Kids Of Hungary are from Brisbane, and their follow-up to their joyous Mega Mountain EP from earlier this year is another sprite soul-lifting goodtime indie-rock jam, or thereabouts. Less obvious in its classic rock influences and incorporating a killer flute in the mix, Let You Down will still spark the same synapses in the pleasure centre of your noggin as Vampire Weekend, but it’s another step in the Hungry Kids’ pop ascension. Expect to be along very soon.

SINGLES OF THE WEEK – IT’S A TIE!

MONTPELIER – The Rafters

(Independent)

Don’t shake that smile just yet. There’s another one to be had with yet another Brisbane group Montpelier – though their piano-indie lends itself to more of a contented sigh than a raucous party guffaw. The established acts Montpelier recall throughout this floating, dreamy, but still somehow grounded excursion are numerous – the pop sensibility of Ben Lee without the smugness, or maybe the cerebral self-awareness of The Panics without their occasional indulgent meanderings. These are big calls to make about a band so new that their eyes are still adjusting to the light, so truly the most startling thing about The Rafters is that it’s the group’s debut. It’s just so … confident? I’m scribbling their name down as the next ‘must see’ local act.

THE BAMBOOS feat. LYRICS BORN – Turn It Up!

(Tru-Thoughts Recordings)

Leaping from the speakers like a ‘70s pimp from his holding cell, the new single from Melbourne’s international supergroovy ambassadors The Bamboos is quite simply a funk explosion. Operating on the premise that the last 35 years never happened, Turn It Up! is an exercise in syncing the damn coolest lines for bass/guitars/horns/keys/drums into one flow that’s all over the shop, yet ultimately smooth all at once. You know that funk groove that turns a walk down to the servo in your thongs into a world-beating how-you-doing strut? The Bamboos have perfected it, and plonking Californian special guest star Lyrics Born right in the middle of it all simply adds an extra layer of gloss. This is the soundtrack to good times. Bravo.

THE AUTUMN ISLES – Sun Soaked Horizon

(Green/MGM)

Starting with a crackly guitar out of Don Henley’s Boys Of Summer, Sun Soaked Horizon thankfully morphs swiftly into a thumping bar-room summer anthem that would sound equally at home on a tinny portably radio as you dangle your feet off a jetty. Bringing the light-hearted fun with little but a happy strum and a bouncy drum, Perth’s The Autumn Isles actually resonate along the same lines as a contemporary Mental As Anything, which you mightn’t realise until you hear this, but is something we’ve been missing. Sun Soaked Horizon seems destined to be one of those catchy ‘Who is this band?’ radio songs of the season.

PORCELAIN – The Last Song I’m Wasting On You

(Island)

Not all Australian music sounds like Slim Dusty, The Triffids or The Go-Betweens. Porcelain travelled all the way from Wollongong to LA to make sure their music sounds like Kelly Clarkson. Like, exactly. I’m told by their press release that for their debut album, from which this I’m-over-being-heartbroken-so-now-I’ll-angrysing-over-a-bunch-of-Avrilesque-guitars track comes, Porcelain sourced songs from the same catalogue writers who have contributed to the careers of Aerosmith, Maroon 5, Paramore and P!nk. They’ve got their money’s worth, to the precise dollar. From vocalist Lo Roberts’ unmistakable American accent to the perfect for FM production, this smacks of middle American radio convention, and as a result, it will be relatively huge. Just don’t expect to be able to pick it from the pack.

THE GIN CLUB – Rain

(Plus One Records)

Not content with being a band that’s hard to categorise and impossible not to embrace, Brisbane’s favourite collective The Gin Club have extended that approach to Rain, a two and a half minute song that’s the first release from their forthcoming fourth album. It’s a disarmingly simple tune on the surface, made complex by its musical evolution. Beginning with sparse but foreboding guitar repetition that promises to escalate into a bluesy-hard rock number, Rain sideswipes into the country twang of their origins, to arrive comfortably at a traditional pop/rock chorus. Oh, and it crosses a bridge made of acoustic guitars creating the ‘patter patter patter’ of the song’s namesake to get there. From a band whose records are slow-revealing growers, each and every one, Rain makes an immediately convincing start for #4.

FRIENDS OF MINE – Can’t See Straight

(Independent)

Produced by Scott Horscroft (Presets, Panics), and from a duo who live in both Sydney and Melbourne, Can’t See Straight is a pretty accurate indication of where Australian independent club music is right now. Loud and crunchy, combining the requisite amount of keys, guitars and creaky feedback, Friends Of Mine have given a straight down the line take on The Presets doing TV Rock’s Flaunt It, though with inevitably less cringey lyrics. It’s cheeky and buff enough that it’s destined for frequent play in dance clubs, but with so few surprises that it might skip that much-sought Anthem status to end up on the Summer Filler mixtape.

WOLFMOTHER – White Feather

(Modular)

Well, we can’t exclude Australian bands just because they’ve had a bit of success. And I love this song! ‘Start me up. You can start me up and never’… Lolz, Stockdale is getting the words wrong. And now the whole band’s got it wrong. Hang on a second … this isn’t a cover of Start Me Up at all! Nope, this is White Feather, the song where Wolfmother shake those pesky Led Zeppelin comparisons for once and for all, BY SOUNDING LIKE THE ROLLING STONES. Sure it’s fun, but I can’t wait to hear what happens once they get to the back of the These Cool T-shirts Are Also Bands rack at Supre and come up with something themselves.

SIMON TOPPER

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