Phoenix @ The Forum, Melbourne, 26.02.2018
Jeez louise – Phoenix have been around for a while. Having released their debut record United back in 2000, they’re coming up on 20 years as a commercial band – reading into it a little more they smashed that barrier last year since they technically formed in ‘97. A lot of people my age would […]
Q&A with Cable Ties
Photo: Teds Records Cable Ties hold a special place as one of Melbourne’s most beloved bands, one in strong pedigree of fearless rock acts that are seemingly constantly shattering the boundaries of what you think they may achieve. In February, they’ll join artists like The War on Drugs, Aldous Harding, and Anderson Paak, in touring Australia’s […]
The Stevens – Good (Chapter)
I think people have a soft spot for art that, while it might seem at odds with itself at times, ultimately forms an experience that defies expectations of failure. Like a forest made up of different kinds of trees, or mismatched chairs around a table – there’s always something that’ll warm you when unity occurs […]
Xiu Xiu Plays The Music of Twin Peaks @ The Substation, Newport, 23.06.2017
For a moment, when technical difficulties intrude, Jamie Stewart’s mask slips. “Sometimes, all you can do is just fucking start over” he offers to the crowd at Melbourne’s electrical-warehouse-come-arty-locale The Substation. It’s only song two of the evening, but Stewart’s missed vocal entrance is easily forgiven – given the scope of the evening, it’s a […]
Faith in your Guts: The spontaneity, honesty and naivety of Jade Imagine
Jade McInally has had since January to make a call on the design of her tour poster, a decision that needs to be made today. “I’m a last-minute girl” she admits, sat within the mid-afternoon rush of a Melbourne cafe, “but I need deadlines, I need them to impose themselves on my life”. Admitting things […]
Tourist Dollars – Tourist Dollars EP (Deaf Ambitions)
Listening to Melbourne’s Tourist Dollars on their debut EP is like drifting into scenes of a slightly melancholic 1970s romance movie. They’ve got this nostalgic swagger to them, like a band performing to a mostly empty school hall covered with adornments from a local party supply store, with two star-crossed youths swaying beneath a softly […]
Poliça + Jaala @ Melbourne Recital Centre, 31.05.2016
I spent the first few minutes of Polica’s set at the Melbourne Recital Centre wondering whether or not this whole ‘sitting down’ thing was going to work for a band that, as I understood them, thumped and grooved enough in a way that might warrant a little boogie. Sitting down seems so academic, so chin […]