Mistletone

We can’t wait til summer, too much going on in the spring… there are four new Mistletone releases & a bunch of tours on the way… read on!

DELAYS by MARK BARRAGE (release date: Nov 1)

Melbourne’s favourite cracked pop fuzzbox Mark Barrage makes a nervy sound tonic, equal parts pop music EQd to breaking point and midnight crucifix synth-kraut. Three years in the making, Delays by Mark Barrage finds the dissonant electronic songster shift from the overtly lyrical, heartbreak-obsessed territory of his debut into realms of hard sound, dance timings, band-ish arrangements and bleary- eyed nighttime sensation. Delays is a skittery, blunt mix of DIY electronic/minimal synth with a marked New Romantic sense of melody and melancholy.

“One of Melbourne’s finest fuzzy pop electronic wizards… reveals a dense, complicated album that is a few steps ahead of his American contemporaries like YACHT, Dan Deacon, and Panther”
– THREE THOUSAND

MARK BARRAGE LAUNCH DATES:

MELBOURNE: Wed Nov 26 @ The Toff In Town w/- Panel of Judges + Pompey + DJ AOI.
SYDNEY: Wed Dec 3 @ Consolador de dos Caras, La Campana, 53-55 Liverpool Street.
BRISBANE: Fri Dec 19 @ Decline of Modern Civilisation w/- Talkshow Boy + Dot.AY.

BEACHES by BEACHES (release date: Nov 15)

The debut self titled album by Beaches is a journey into the sublime: twelve songs born out of sprawling jams, chiselled into rough-diamond perfection, laden with cosmic guitar stretches, vast textures, conjuring voices and phantom frequencies. Their stylistic shades reflect their shared musical loves, from 1960s hit parades to 1970s psychedelia, shoegaze to prog, southern boogie to krautrock; yet Beaches transcend their influences to create something wholly new. Recorded by Jack Farley in Melbourne and mastered by Bob Weston in Chicago.

“Ascend/transcend-ent acid-rock quintet of the moment”
– THREE THOUSAND

BEACHES LAUNCH DATES:

MELBOURNE: Sat Nov 29 @ Northcote Social Club w/- Circle Pit & Lindsey Lowhand.
SYDNEY: Thu Dec 4 @ Hopetoun Hotel w/- Circle Pit & The Garbage and the Flowers.
Also playing MEREDITH MUSIC FESTIVAL: Fri Dec 12

BAD VIBRATIONS by PANEL OF JUDGES (release date: Nov 22)

The inimitably hep Panel of Judges have made the modest masterpiece of their 10 year career. Bad Vibrations crystallises everything that is great about these beloved bastions of the Melbourne underground: restless imagination, lazily catchy melodies, epic rhythms, and heavenly riffs. Bad Vibrations was recorded live in the studio with producer Jack Farley (Beaches, Spider Vomit) and guests including Julian Patterson (Kes Band, Minimum Chips), Jarrod Quarrell (St Helens, New Season), Justin K Fuller (Zond, Mum Smokes) and Antonia Sellbach (Love of Diagrams).

“Panel of Judges. They wouldn’t be out of place playing a sixties surf party or a slightly wild debutant ball, but just as everyone was getting into the good clean fun a bunch of bikers or local street toughs would turn up, because there is something in there for them too. Panel would probably not be sure who to party with after the show but under the influence of their music its possible that the two sides could get along just as they do in Panel’s music.”
– JON MICHELL

PANEL OF JUDGES LAUNCH DATES:

MELBOURNE: Sat Dec 6 @ Curtin Bandroom (29 Lygon St, Carlton) w/ The Twerps & St Helens
SYDNEY: Fri Jan 16 @ Hopetoun Hotel

COSA ASTRAL by COCONOT (release date: Nov 15)

Long before his solo project El Guincho took flight, Pablo Díaz-Reixa’s psych-tropicalia-rock band, Coconot (with Cristian Subirà and Jens Neumaier) had established themselves as leaders of Barcelona’s thriving underground music scene. Coconot’s dazzling new album Cosa Astral twists the limits of pop music into a new sphere by cloaking it in the rhythms and melodies of Latin America, the Caribbean and Spain. Here is a place where beauty flows and joy shines forth in a riot of colorful, swirling tropicalismo-psychedelics. The soundtrack to a heady, sunshiney summer!

KES BAND on tour

Kes Band hit the road with The Drones next week for the Havila national tour, and are playing a plethora of shows around Melbourne this summer, so catch them if you can. Kes Band are in top form; the Kes Band cd has gone into its second pressing and the new edition comes in a digipak. Limited edition Kes Band cassettes are also available on mail order.

“One of Melbourne’s best live bets, a powerful folk-rock revue in the vein of late ’60s Bob Dylan or English oddballs the Incredible String Band… one of 2008’s best.”
– THE AGE

ROSS MCLENNAN @ Melbourne Festival

Ross McLennan‘s post-Snout solo masterpiece Sympathy For The New World has been one of the year’s most acclaimed Australian independent releases. On Tuesday October 21, the Melbourne Festival presents a spectacularly symphonic performance by the Ross McLennan Sympathy Orchestra in Becks Bar at the Meat Market, North Melbourne. Don’t miss this rare opportunity to see a songwriting visionary in full orchestral flight. Tickets on sale now from Ticketmaster.

“The music of Ross McLennan is like that melancholic folk that you listen to while spreading butter on toast, when the morning sun is leaking through your kitchen window. In other words, it’s kind of soft. But it has something else. The layer of eerie guitar and looped vocals turns twee crumpet folk into a palatable concoction of psychedelic blues.”
– THREE THOUSAND

HOLY FUCK Australian tour

Mistletone proudly presents Holy Fuck, direct from Toronto on their first Australian tour. Holy Fuck are a celebration of sci-fi noise and casio rock — part experimental noise-fest, part free-for-all dance party. Their reputation as a killer live band is wholly deserved. Holy Fuck bring their punk rock background to electronic music, steering their songs into epic, kraut-rockish climaxes; something stirring and infectious, yet danceable and fun.

“Electo-pop perverts Holy Fuck make a noise as abrasive as it is awesome … these dark disco droogs thread every sound under the sun through their electric playground of wires. They come on like the nastiest electronic band since Suicide, or like the The Fall reworking their brains with screwdrivers, or Add N to (X) playing speed metal.”
– NME

HOLY FUCK TOUR DATES:

MELBOURNE: Wed Dec 10: 3RRR Presents Holy Fuck @ The Corner w/ Love Of Diagrams + Mountains In The Sky. Tickets $38+BF on sale from The Corner.
SYDNEY: Thu Dec 11: FBi Presents Holy Fuck @ The Annandale Hotel w/ Mountains In The Sky + WOW. Tickets $38+BF on sale from The Annandale.
MEREDITH MUSIC FESTIVAL: Fri Dec 12
BRISBANE: Sat Dec 13 @ The Zoo w/ Taste Of Teeth + Toy Balloon. Tickets $38+BF on sale from The Zoo.

LUCKY DRAGONS

Thanks to everyone who participated in the Lucky Dragons shows and helped make their Australian tour so amazing. Luke & Sarah sold out all their merch, so if you missed out, check our mail order in a couple of weeks ‘cos they are sending some goodies for you to buy online.

“Lucky Dragons shows branch into both the art world and the music world, but mostly the human world, where they run free and hold hands sans hackney and plus total realist euphoria.”
– RAVE

HIGH PLACES

Mistletone has just released the incredible High Places debut album and are thrilled to announce that the dynamic duo will be touring Australia in Feb/March. We have some gorgeous limited edition vinyl available for all you High Places fans: the LP is on grey vinyl and comes in a deluxe old-style tip-on gatefold jacket with extra artwork including hand-illustrated lyrics sheet. Just 25 bucks including postage from the mail order Mistlemart.

“Part of a rich vein of psychedelia now coming out of America, along with Animal Collective, Panda Bear and kindred LA spirits Lucky Dragons… High Places’ debut glimmers with fragmented and unfixed beauty.”
– THE BIG ISSUE (four stars)

BACHELORETTE

Mistletone presents much loved Kiwi space pop exponent Bachelorette, back in Melbourne for one show only at the Curtin Bandroom on Friday, October 24. Bachelorette (aka Annabel Alpers) and her trusty computer minions will lavish your eyes and ears with trippy visuals and deliciously skewed home made tunes that evokes Gary Numan, Broadcast and Panda Bear (sometimes all in one song!). Joining Bachelorette for this special show are two fantastic Melbourne bands, The Sun Blindness and Teeth & Tongue. Tickets $15 on the door at the Curtin Bandroom, 29 Lygon St, Carlton.

“Bachelorette almost steals the night with the latest installment of her love affair with electricity. Just as tight and as well executed as Love of Diagrams, she is compelling to watch, hypnotising to the ear and never at any stage buys into the detached irony that so often comes with the field of electronic music. The scene-setting On The Four seems to defy age and My Electric Husband brings the inherent humanity through loud and clear in a way so few acts do; perhaps she invests more than others? Whatever it is she does, right through to the cut-up cassette recordings of acoustic guitar that close her set, its spot on.”
– INPRESS review of Bachelorette @ Winter Tones
MISTLETONE XMAS

Draw a big red circle round Saturday, December 20 in your diary ‘cos Mistletone will be holding a Xmas party spectacular with all our fave Mistletone bands at a beautiful new venue in Melbourne. Stay tuned for invites!

and don’t forget you can pick up any Mistletone release on mail order for just 20 bucks including postage!

spring feverishly yours,

ash & sophie