Mistletone

Mistletone very proudly presents Kurt Vile, returning to Australia for a supreme solo tour.

KURT VILE SOLO TOUR DATES:

• PERTH: Monday February 27 @ Perth Festival. Tickets on sale now. *SELLING FAST!
• PERTH: Tuesday February 28 @ Perth Festival * SOLD OUT!
• SYDNEY: Friday 3rd March @ Taronga Zoo. Supported by Mick Turner. Tickets via Taronga Zoo.
• MELBOURNE: Saturday 4th March @ Melbourne Zoo. Supported by Mick Turner. Tickets via Zoo.
• BRISBANE: Thursday 9th March @ Queensland Performing Arts Centre. Supported by Mick Turner. Tickets via Qpac.
• MEREDITH: Saturday 11th March @ Golden Plains Festival. Ticket info via website.
• TASMANIA: Sunday 12th March @ A Festival Called Panama. Ticket info via website.

• “The music is quiet and the melody, like a hymn, folds in on itself, and embraces full strength in a sexy, floating forcelessness that slowly gathers into a wave that doesn’t go where you think it will” – KIM GORDON
• “The former forklift driver is now one of the most adored artists around. He has a canon of cool songs: feelgood, insightful, reflective, comforting, jubilant tunes. It’s been a slow burn, but he hasn’t put a foot wrong – he’s one of only a few that you’d trust to still be making cool music decades from now. Give Kurt Vile’s music some little chunks of your life and you will be rewarded. Handsomely” – AUNTY MEREDITH

Since releasing his debut solo album Constant Hitmaker in 2008, Kurt Vile has ascended to an elevated stature as one of the most accomplished and charismatic songwriters of our time. A firm favourite with Australian audiences, KV has packed out rooms across Australia (including Sydney Opera House earlier this year, with his band The Violators).

Kurt’s latest album b’lieve i’m goin down…, released last year via Matador / Remote Control, won universal acclaim; The AV Club called “the purest distillation of Vile’s idiosyncratic style to date”, and Pitchfork bestowed it Best New Music, noting: “Kurt Vile has a persona, and you know him by now: He is the weird quiet kid in the corner, the one who seems at first lost in his own world and disconnected from everything around him, but turns out to be smart, observant, and low-key hilarious. So while his albums draw you in with the vibe—the impeccably recorded and mixed songs that shuffle bits of folk, new wave, or country in the mix but are always squarely down-the-middle rock—you return to them for their human qualities, the way they offer a manner of seeing the world, a glimpse at a perspective that feels both voyeuristic and easy to connect to your own life.”

Last year, Kurt told Rolling Stone that he wanted b’lieve i’m goin down… “to sound like it’s on my couch”, citing Neil Young’s After the Gold Rush as a reference point. “Not in a lo-fi way,” he explained, “just more unguarded and vulnerable. I wanted it to feel like I was on a couch in a familiar living room even if I was somewhere else. To me, it’s sort of that home vibe that I had to capture somehow…to make it sound like it was played there in the room.”

This intimate and immediate power that Kurt Vile’s songs possess is one of the qualities that KV fans hold dear to their hearts, and it will be in generous supply on this rare and auspicious occasion of a Kurt Vile solo tour.

Kurt’s friend Mick Turner will be opening for him at Sydney’s Taronga Zoo, Melbourne Zooand Queensland Performing Arts Centre, performing his highly acclaimed solo work. Mick Turner has had a dynamic and celebrated career as founding member of Dirty Three and simultaneously with his solo project, releasing four LPs on the iconic US label Drag City (Bill Callahan, Joanna Newsom, Ty Segall) with The Australian labelling him “one of Australia’s most distinctive guitarists.”

EL GUINCHO TOUR DATES:

• SYDNEY: Wednesday February 15 @ Oxford Art Factory with special guest Donny Benet. Tickets on sale now.
• MELBOURNE: Thursday February 16 @ Howler with special guests Sui Zhen + NO ZU DJs. Tickets on sale now.
• MELBOURNE: Friday February 17 @ NGV Friday Nights. Tickets & info available from NGV.
• PERTH: Saturday February 18 @ Perth Festival with Skinnyfish Sound System. Tickets on sale now.

A favourite with Australian audiences, El Guincho has transformed huge crowds into ecstatic tropical dance parties at Meredith Music Festival and Laneway. Emerging from a five year break, Canary Islands-born Pablo Díaz-Reixa — or El Guincho, as he is known and loved — shared a new album, HiperAsia, earlier this year.

Released locally via Mistletone, HiperAsia is another enormous musical leap for El Guincho, inspired by a chain of Chinese bazaars in the outskirts of Madrid where Pablo now lives, having written, recorded and produced the album in studios and spaces throughout Spain; in the Canary Islands, Barcelona and finally Madrid, in a chaotic period for Southern Europe. The music that has emerged is immediately disconcerting; prickly, bright and uncompromising and demanding, it has resonated with a whole new audience of El Guincho fans.

Ever the innovator, El Guincho is reinventing music distribution, having launched his HiperAsia collection with wearable tech which comes with NFC (Near Field Communication) technology and an animated Vaporwave short film. El Guincho changed the face of music videos with his viral hit “Bombay” (over 2.3 million hits), which echoes in his wild new videos for “Comix” and “Pizza” (see bel0w). He has recently been nominated for a Latin Grammy Award for Best Short Form Music Video for “Comix”.

•  “El Guincho’s most resolutely electronic work yet, Hiperasia buzzes like an ice-cream headache (and) reaches frequencies most indie-electronic fusions never knew existed” – PITCHFORK
•  “A vivid, feverish soundworld of Auto-Tuned vocals, idyllic electronics and machine beats solid enough to stand alongside the best US R&B currently has to offer” – THE WIRE

EL GUINCHO ‘Comix’ Feat. La Mala Rodríguez from CANADA on Vimeo.

Mistletone is giddy to announce the return of El Guincho, bringing his kaleidoscopic Spanish fireworks to NGV’s Friday Nights in February with more to be announced!

EL GUINCHO TOUR DATES:

• MELBOURNE: Friday February 17 @ NGV Friday Nights. Tickets & info available from NGV.

EL GUINCHO TOUR DATES:

• SYDNEY: Wednesday February 15 @ Oxford Art Factory with special guest Donny Benet. Tickets on sale now.
• MELBOURNE: Thursday February 16 @ Howler with special guests Sui Zhen + NO ZU DJs. Tickets on sale now.
• MELBOURNE: Friday February 17 @ NGV Friday Nights. Tickets & info available from NGV.

A favourite with Australian audiences, El Guincho has transformed huge crowds into ecstatic tropical dance parties at Meredith Music Festival and Laneway. Emerging from a five year break, Canary Islands-born Pablo Díaz-Reixa — or El Guincho, as he is known and loved — shared a new album, HiperAsia, earlier this year.

Released locally via Mistletone, HiperAsia is another enormous musical leap for El Guincho, inspired by a chain of Chinese bazaars in the outskirts of Madrid where Pablo now lives, having written, recorded and produced the album in studios and spaces throughout Spain; in the Canary Islands, Barcelona and finally Madrid, in a chaotic period for Southern Europe. The music that has emerged is immediately disconcerting; prickly, bright and uncompromising and demanding, it has resonated with a whole new audience of El Guincho fans.

Ever the innovator, El Guincho is reinventing music distribution, having launched his HiperAsia collection with wearable tech which comes with NFC (Near Field Communication) technology and an animated Vaporwave short film. El Guincho changed the face of music videos with his viral hit “Bombay” (over 2.3 million hits), which echoes in his wild new videos for “Comix” and “Pizza” (see bel0w). He has recently been nominated for a Latin Grammy Award for Best Short Form Music Video for “Comix”.

•  “El Guincho’s most resolutely electronic work yet, Hiperasia buzzes like an ice-cream headache (and) reaches frequencies most indie-electronic fusions never knew existed” – PITCHFORK
•  “A vivid, feverish soundworld of Auto-Tuned vocals, idyllic electronics and machine beats solid enough to stand alongside the best US R&B currently has to offer” – THE WIRE

EL GUINCHO ‘Comix’ Feat. La Mala Rodríguez from CANADA on Vimeo.

EL GUINCHO TOUR DATES:

• SYDNEY: Wednesday February 15 @ Oxford Art Factory with special guest Donny Benet. Tickets on sale now.
• MELBOURNE: Thursday February 16 @ Howler with special guests Sui Zhen + NO ZU DJs. Tickets on sale now.
• MELBOURNE: Friday February 17 @ NGV Friday Nights. Tickets & info available from NGV.

A favourite with Australian audiences, El Guincho has transformed huge crowds into ecstatic tropical dance parties at Meredith Music Festival and Laneway. Emerging from a five year break, Canary Islands-born Pablo Díaz-Reixa — or El Guincho, as he is known and loved — shared a new album, HiperAsia, earlier this year.

Released locally via Mistletone, HiperAsia is another enormous musical leap for El Guincho, inspired by a chain of Chinese bazaars in the outskirts of Madrid where Pablo now lives, having written, recorded and produced the album in studios and spaces throughout Spain; in the Canary Islands, Barcelona and finally Madrid, in a chaotic period for Southern Europe. The music that has emerged is immediately disconcerting; prickly, bright and uncompromising and demanding, it has resonated with a whole new audience of El Guincho fans.

Ever the innovator, El Guincho is reinventing music distribution, having launched his HiperAsia collection with wearable tech which comes with NFC (Near Field Communication) technology and an animated Vaporwave short film. El Guincho changed the face of music videos with his viral hit “Bombay” (over 2.3 million hits), which echoes in his wild new videos for “Comix” and “Pizza” (see bel0w). He has recently been nominated for a Latin Grammy Award for Best Short Form Music Video for “Comix”.

•  “El Guincho’s most resolutely electronic work yet, Hiperasia buzzes like an ice-cream headache (and) reaches frequencies most indie-electronic fusions never knew existed” – PITCHFORK
•  “A vivid, feverish soundworld of Auto-Tuned vocals, idyllic electronics and machine beats solid enough to stand alongside the best US R&B currently has to offer” – THE WIRE

EL GUINCHO ‘Comix’ Feat. La Mala Rodríguez from CANADA on Vimeo.

Artwork by Robert Scott; design by Alex Fregon

THE BATS TOUR DATES:

• MELBOURNE: Saturday 28 January @ Northcote Social Club. The Deep Set album launch with special guests Loose Tooth + School Damage. Tickets on sale now from NSC.
• SYDNEY: Sunday 29 January @ Magic Mirrors Spiegeltent, Sydney Festival. The Bats perform The Deep Set in full, followed by a “greatest hits” set. Tickets on sale now from Sydney Festival.

“Four decades into their career, The Bats continue to produce sparkling and chiming pop that sounds as fresh now as it does when David Lange was New Zealand’s Prime Minister” – NOISEY

Legendary Flying Nun flag-bearers The Bats prove their everlasting songfulness with a brilliant new album, The Deep Set (out January 27 on Flying Nun). The band has shared the soaring first single, “Antlers”, and announced an Australian tour, performing The Deep Set in full at Sydney Festival with a string section, plus a Melbourne album launch at Northcote Social Club.

Listen to “Antlers”:

Five years after the release of their last critically acclaimed album, The Bats return with album number nine, The Deep Set. With the title conveying the long established and firmly embedded, it’s notable that it’s 30 years since The Bats began recording their debut album in the living room studio of a friend of a friend in Glasgow. This time around they recorded in The Sitting Room, the studio-sleep out-garage next to Ben Edward’s house in Lyttelton, New Zealand; following in the footsteps of Marlon Williams, Nadia Reid and many others.

With Ben Edward’s help, The Deep Set continues The Bats’ 21st century resurgence. Yes, this is The Bats so the chords still chug, the guitars chime, ring, and jangle, the melodies are clear and memorable, the rhythm section is unstoppable. But the band mines the darker, deeper sound that 2011’s Free All the Monsters revealed.

The songs remain reflective but that oft-expected sweet folksiness pops up less frequently. As the title suggests the music is richer, expansive, deeper. In their fourth decade as a band familiarity has come to mean a more careful treatment of each song. Is it maturity? It definitely translates into more depth and complexity but hey the songs are still as catchy as all hell. And as a lyricist, Robert Scott continues his mastery of the personal and pastoral, the landscape and longing.

As always the key to The Bats is the emotion that their (seemingly) simple songs carry. They continue to mine that Mainland melancholy; the kind that somehow never risks being depressing. But of course that means there is lament and nostalgia, even if it’s only for last night. Taking us from the sun of Otago’s Taieri River to darkest Durkestan and apparently ending in the midst of contemporary New Zealand politics, The Deep Set continues the composed confidence of their recent albums with one of The Bats’ strongest sets of songs, fueled by ever-more powerful guitars.

If you grew up with The Bats their early recordings will always pull at your emotions but while less vulnerable and immediate than on their classic debut album, The Bats of the 21st century somehow manage to be more intimate and urgent.

Artwork by Robert Scott; design by Alex Fregon

THE BATS TOUR DATES:

• MELBOURNE: Saturday 28 January @ Northcote Social Club. The Deep Set album launch with special guests Loose Tooth + School Damage. Tickets on sale now from NSC.
• SYDNEY: Sunday 29 January @ Magic Mirrors Spiegeltent, Sydney Festival. The Bats perform The Deep Set in full, followed by a “greatest hits” set. Tickets on sale now from Sydney Festival.

“Four decades into their career, The Bats continue to produce sparkling and chiming pop that sounds as fresh now as it does when David Lange was New Zealand’s Prime Minister” – NOISEY

Legendary Flying Nun flag-bearers The Bats prove their everlasting songfulness with a brilliant new album, The Deep Set (out January 27 on Flying Nun). The band has shared the soaring first single, “Antlers”, and announced an Australian tour, performing The Deep Set in full at Sydney Festival with a string section, plus a Melbourne album launch at Northcote Social Club.

Listen to “Antlers”:

Five years after the release of their last critically acclaimed album, The Bats return with album number nine, The Deep Set. With the title conveying the long established and firmly embedded, it’s notable that it’s 30 years since The Bats began recording their debut album in the living room studio of a friend of a friend in Glasgow. This time around they recorded in The Sitting Room, the studio-sleep out-garage next to Ben Edward’s house in Lyttelton, New Zealand; following in the footsteps of Marlon Williams, Nadia Reid and many others.

With Ben Edward’s help, The Deep Set continues The Bats’ 21st century resurgence. Yes, this is The Bats so the chords still chug, the guitars chime, ring, and jangle, the melodies are clear and memorable, the rhythm section is unstoppable. But the band mines the darker, deeper sound that 2011’s Free All the Monsters revealed.

The songs remain reflective but that oft-expected sweet folksiness pops up less frequently. As the title suggests the music is richer, expansive, deeper. In their fourth decade as a band familiarity has come to mean a more careful treatment of each song. Is it maturity? It definitely translates into more depth and complexity but hey the songs are still as catchy as all hell. And as a lyricist, Robert Scott continues his mastery of the personal and pastoral, the landscape and longing.

As always the key to The Bats is the emotion that their (seemingly) simple songs carry. They continue to mine that Mainland melancholy; the kind that somehow never risks being depressing. But of course that means there is lament and nostalgia, even if it’s only for last night. Taking us from the sun of Otago’s Taieri River to darkest Durkestan and apparently ending in the midst of contemporary New Zealand politics, The Deep Set continues the composed confidence of their recent albums with one of The Bats’ strongest sets of songs, fueled by ever-more powerful guitars.

If you grew up with The Bats their early recordings will always pull at your emotions but while less vulnerable and immediate than on their classic debut album, The Bats of the 21st century somehow manage to be more intimate and urgent.

Artwork by Alex Fregon

WEYES BLOOD plays BRISBANE: Sunday January 22 @ Junk Bar (solo show).

Evening show sold out & matinee show added! Tickets for the matinee show opening 4:30pm on sale here.

Mistletone is delighted to present the great Weyes Blood, touring Australia for the first time.

Though Natalie Mering, who performs and records as Weyes Blood, chose to distort her project’s name (giving “Wise” an appropriately outré, olde feel) with a nod to the ocular (w’eyes), her entire output thus far has been an exercise in exploring the atemporal. She is a musician, a singer, after all, but the particular process of Weyes Blood’s development, and her experimentation with everything from early 2000s local-noise-scene strangeness to her present mastery of timeless balladry, highlight her as an meticulous sonic alchemist.

Active in underground music since 2006, Natalie Mering has collaborated with a slew of strange birds including Jackie-O Motherfucker and Ariel Pink. She’s released four records as Weyes Blood. The Innocents, Weyes Blood’s Mexican Summer debut, deepened and broadened the shimmering murkiness of her earlier album, The Outside Room (attributed to Weyes Blood and The Dark Juices), shaving away the fuzziness of that album’s lo-fi production and revealing a songwriting ability at once classic and singular. Cardamom Times, the EP that followed, went further down the folky, lyrically evocative river that The Innocents travelled so deftly. The influence of classical and Early music can be felt throughout these two works, rivaling the ostensible folk music lineage within which one may like to situate Weyes Blood’s songs.

Weyes Blood’s new album, Front Row Seat To Earth, captivates immediately with its frank clarity in both sound and word. Though still retaining a deep influence of the classical often felt in her songs as a sense of ancient resonance, Natalie Mering is at her most intimate and vulnerable here, due in large part to her stunning vocals and simple, essential lyrical phrasing.

Produced by Natalie with Chris Cohen (who also contributes his deft, subtle drums to many tracks), the album is warm and close with a pop sensibility that sends it soaring into the atmosphere. The closeness of this record – how personal, alone, and frank it feels – conceals its aspirations to the outside, to the “Earth” of its title.

Natalie Mering wants to lead us through the microcosm of the personal to the macrocosm of the transpersonal. Her witness harbors devastating weight (“… and now you can’t stay, please baby don’t go away”) while also universalizing the strange ways of identity and relationships. These are not typical love songs or protest songs — they are painful, poignant riddles that celebrate the ambiguity of love.

Weyes Blood affirms the conflict of harmonious life within a disharmonic world — she illuminates and mythologizes it, projecting it back over the whole of Earth. The inner ecology leads outward, bridging “us” with our obscure inheritance of nature.

• “She crafts emotional epics that masquerade as psych-folk ballads, subtly symphonic songs that are informed by yesterday but live and breathe right now” – PITCHFORK BEST NEW MUSIC

• “The exceptional voice of Natalie Mering never ceases to sweep us off our feet” – THE FADER

Mistletone is proud to present the debut Australian tour by Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith. American composer Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith is cresting a new wave of electronic music, with dazzlingly beautiful compositions to open up our consciousness of the natural world, inner and outer space. Her pioneering work with the rare Buchla 100 synthesiser is rebirthing a forgotten technology to create an auditory world that is at once deeply human, spiritual, futuristic and present.

KAITLYN AURELIA SMITH TOUR DATES:

• MELBOURNE: Friday January 20 @ NGV Friday Nights. Tickets & info available from NGV.
• MELBOURNE: Saturday January 21 @ Sugar Mountain Festival. Tickets on sale now.
• HOBART: Sunday January 22 @ MONA FOMA Festival. Tickets on sale now.

Mistletone very proudly presents three brilliant artists — Moses Sumney, Weyes Blood + Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith — at Sugar Mountain Festival on Saturday January 21. Tickets on sale now.