Mistletone

Artwork by Carl Breitkreuz

Mistletone, Fasterlouder, Triple R and FBi Radio proudly present the return of exhilarating indie-electronic party starters, Toro y Moi. Led by one of the world’s most forward-thinking producers, Chaz Bundick, and navigating a golden path from house to disco, electro-funk to indie rock, Toro y Moi bring the bangers to Sydney and Melbourne dancefloors this January, as well as playing Falls Festival (Lorne, Tasmania & Byron Bay) and Southbound Festival (WA).

TORO Y MOI TOUR DATES:

• DEC 28 – JAN 1: FALLS FESTIVAL Lorne, Marion Bay + Byron Bay. More info + ticket ballots here.
• JAN 8-10: SOUTHBOUND FESTIVAL, Busselton WA. More info here.
• SYDNEY: Monday, January 4 @ OXFORD ART FACTORY with special guests to be announced. Tickets on sale now from Moshtix. Presented by FBi Radio.
• MELBOURNE: Wednesday, January 6 @ MAX WATT’S on  with special guests Sui Zhen. Tickets on sale now from Ticketscout. Presented by Triple R.

2015 has been a bumper year for Toro y Moi, even by Chaz Bundick’s usual, wildly prolific standards. A producer and singer-songwriter of exceptional gifts and versatility, Chaz Bundick released the killer album What For? as Toro y Moi earlier this year. Recorded at home in San Francisco’s Bay Area, with Chaz’s meticulous production capturing the feel of a rock band playing together in the same room, cited Big Star, Talking Heads and Todd Rundgren, as well as the psychedelic soul of Brazilian legend Tim Maia and the ‘70s-era jazz-funk of France’s Cortex, as inspirations. It followed the clubtastic dance music outing Michael, Chaz’s first full-length release as Les Sins. And then Chaz trumped them all with the surprise-released Samantha, a brilliant 20-track Toro y Moi mixtape, shared as a free download via Dropbox and featuring collaborations with Washed Out, Kool A.D., SAFE, Rome Fortune, Nosaj Thing and SHORE.

• “Part of the fun in following Chaz Bundick’s musical trajectory is hearing how he changes up his style from one project to the next. From Causers of This on, each Toro Y Moi release has been a subtle shakeup: 2011’s stellar Underneath the Pine laser-cut the corners of chillwave down to a fine point; 2013’s Anything in Return turned his songwriterly impulses into disco and pop gems; and, most recently, he channeled early experiments with garage and indie rock into this past April’s What For? But each project somehow sounds distinctly like Toro Y Moi, bound by Bundick’s unflagging production chops. The latest Toro Y Moi project, Samantha, is a free mixtape that piles together recordings from as far back as 2012 and as recent as last month. It serves as a neat way of tracking Bundick’s progression as a musician while prominently highlighting his talent for both beat-driven and atmospheric production” – PITCHFORK

And take a few moments to watch the stunningly beautiful new visual for “Half Dome” from What For?, directed by photographer R. Adam Prieto and entirely shot in Yosemite National Park. This breath-taking time-lapse video features panoramic views of Yosemite’s Half Dome, and will balance all your chakras:

• “Like all good Beach House numbers, ‘Sparks’ starts to reveal its treasures after multiple listens, with Alex Scally’s scorching guitar patterns making more sense with the simple drums and organ hooks with each spin” – TRIPLE J NEW MUSIC

Mistletone is bowled over to share “Sparks”, the first single from Depression Cherry, the new album from Beach House which comes out worldwide on August 28. All customers who pre-order the LP version of Depression Cherry will receive the album on Loser edition Clear vinyl, while supplies last! The Depression Cherry LP comes packaged in a sumptuous red velvet sleeve. Pre-orders will ship by August 28, 2015; go to Mistletone’s mail order store to pre-order your copy now.

Depression Cherry, the band’s fifth album, will be available on CD / LP / DL  in Australia & New Zealand from Mistletone via Inertia, in North America from Sub Pop, and in Europe from Bella Union. Featuring the highlights ‘Sparks’, ‘Space Song’, ‘PPP’ and ‘Days of Candy’, Depression Cherry was produced and recorded by the band and Chris Coady at Studio in the Country in Bogalusa, Louisiana.

About Beach House:

photo by Shawn Brackill

Beach House is Victoria Legrand and Alex Scally. We have been a band for over a decade living and working in Baltimore, Maryland. Depression Cherry is our fifth full-length record. This record follows the release of our self-titled album in 2006, Devotion in 2008, Teen Dream in 2010, and Bloom in 2012. Depression Cherry was recorded at Studio in the Country in Bogalusa, Louisiana from November ’14 through January ’15. This time period crossed the anniversaries of both John Lennon’s and Roy Orbison’s death.

In general, this record shows a return to simplicity, with songs structured around a melody and a few instruments, with live drums playing a far lesser role. With the growing success of Teen Dream and Bloom, the larger stages and bigger rooms naturally drove us towards a louder, more aggressive place; a place farther from our natural tendencies. Here, we continue to let ourselves evolve while fully ignoring the commercial context in which we exist.

Here are a few quotes that we feel relate to the feeling and themes of this record:

– “I’ll never be able to be here again. As the minutes slide by, I move on. The flow of time is something I cannot stop. I haven’t a choice. I go. One caravan has stopped, another starts up. There are people I have yet to meet, others I’ll never see again. People who are gone before you know it, people who are just passing through. Even as we exchange hellos, they seem to grow transparent. I must keep living with the flowing river before my eyes.” – from ‘Kitchen’ by Banana Yoshimoto

– “We inhabit a world in which the future promises endless possibilities and the past lies irretrievably behind us. The arrow of time… is the medium of creativity in terms of which life can be understood.” – from ‘The Arrow of Time’ by Peter Coveney and Roger Highfield

– “Mostly it is loss which teaches us about the worth of things” – from ‘Parerga and Paralipomena’ by Arthur Schopenhauer

– “Hark, now hear the sailors cry, feel the air and see the sky, let your soul and spirit fly, into the mystic…when the fog horn blows, I want to hear it, I don’t have to fear it” – from ‘Into the Mystic’ by Van Morrison

Here is the track listing with selected lyrics.

1. Levitation – “The branches of the trees, they will hang lower now, you will grow too quick, then you will get over it”
2. Sparks – “It’s a gift, taken from the lips, you live again”
3. Space Song – “What makes this fragile world go ‘round, were you ever lost, was she ever found?”
4. Beyond Love – “They take the simple things inside you and put nightmares in your hands”
5. 10:37 – “Here she comes, all parts of everything, stars in the motherhand”
6. PPP – “Did you see it coming, it happened so fast, the timing was perfect, water on glass…”
7. Wildflower – “What’s left you make something of it”
8. Bluebird – “I would not ever try to capture you”
9. Days of Candy – “I know it comes too soon, the universe is riding off with you…… I want to know you there, the universe is riding off with you.”

For us, Depression Cherry is a color, a place, a feeling, an energy… that describes the place you arrive as you move through the endlessly varied trips of existence…

Photo: Liz Flyntz

The all-new Toro Y Moi album, What For?, is out April 3 on Mistletone Records / Inertia. Here is the video for the first single “Empty Nesters”, written, shot and directed by Chaz:

Opening to the scream of F1’s speeding around a racetrack, and maintaining that intensity with booming guitar riffs and psychedelic effects throughout, the forthcoming album from Toro Y Moi is definitely making a statement. Or maybe a few statements. But Chaz Bundick, the frontman and songwriter, is leaving it up to you to figure out what they are.

While it is obvious that each song is crafted around a personally meaningful experience, Chaz seems to purposefully leave the lyrics just vague enough to let each listener mold it into something unique. Chaz presents you with a few themes: love, beauty, nature; and gently lets go of your hand so you can wander off on your own.

A feeling of searching for something threads its way through every song on the album, which is aptly named What For?. It feels contradictory in a very human way, like Chaz is swinging between waiting for something and not being able to wait anymore. But the swinging isn’t panicked or frustrated, it’s just a situation that he’s reflecting on.

The songs are heavy with nostalgia, too, for simpler times, better music, more fulfilling relationships. Chaz references Weezer to warn you that “there is no one to destroy your sweater” and, in another song, recalls Big Star to declare that “rock and roll is here to stay.” It feels like he misses everything (even things he wasn’t around for yet), but is somehow excited for what comes next.

What For? is a glimpse into the life of a guy trying to figure out what it all means. The music is influenced by bands like Big Star, Talking Heads, Tim Maia, Todd Rundgren, but it doesn’t quite sound like any of them in particular. And it isn’t trying to. It has that special something that Chaz imbues in every Toro Y Moi album, his personal filter on the world he experiences.

So whatever message you take from the album, don’t forget that it’s good. As Chaz himself so candidly believes, “Good is good. Good finds its own audience.”

It’s been nearly six years since HTRK debuted with Marry Me Tonight, the first and only album written entirely by the band’s original lineup. The trio’s record is rife with breathy and caustic pop mutations, co-produced by Rowland S. Howard before his tragic death the same year it released. Originally available only on digital and CD formats, Marry Me Tonight will be issued on vinyl for the first time via Mistletone/Inertia on April 24 in Australia/NZ and on Ghostly International on April 28 in the USA. Pre-orders available here.

HTRK’s revitalized debut will be available on standard black and translucent magenta vinyl, with both versions featuring a 20-page booklet of photos and liner notes. Among the many contributors are Yeah Yeah Yeahs’ Nick Zinner, Angus Andrew of Liars, producer Lindsay Gravina, Danielle de Picciotto, and Genevieve McGuckin, to name a few. Before this special vinyl pressing of Marry Me Tonight arrives on April 24, HTRK play two intimate shows with Finnish artist Mika Vainio:

• SYDNEY: Friday March 13 @ Goodgod. HTRK + Mika Vainio + Marcus Whale + DJ Conrad Standish. Tickets Tickets on sale now from Moshtix.
• MELBOURNE: Sunday March 15 @ The Shadow Electric, Abbotsford Convent. HTRK + Mika Vainio + Jonny Telafone + DJ Conrad Standish. Tickets on sale now from The Shadow Electric. Presented by Mistletone in association with the Adelaide Festival.

Like all three HTRK albums, Marry Me Tonight is singular in sound and circumstance. It’s the only album the outfit recorded from start to finish as a trio, and it’s the only HTRK record that bears the co-production stamp of Rowland S. Howard.  Breathy, caustic and rife with contradiction, Marry Me Tonight took the raw material recorded on 2005’s Nostalgia and transformed it into a pop record—pop that buckled and warped beneath the glare of Howard, fellow producer Lindsay Gravina and the HTRK trio: Jonnine Standish, Nigel Yang and Sean Stewart. Howard died at the end of 2009; Stewart died the year after. Things would never be the same.

Marry Me Tonight, which originally came out on Blast First Petite digitally and on CD, will receive its first full vinyl pressing accompanied by a 20-page booklet of photos and liner notes written by people who were around at the time of its recording and touring—Conrad Standish, producer Lindsay Gravina, Yeah Yeah Yeahs’ Nick Zinner, Angus Andrew of Liars, Danielle De Picciotto, Genevieve McGuckin—and others for whom the record holds a special significance, like Jim Haynes and Regis (real name Karl O’Connor). There will be two versions, one pressed on translucent magenta vinyl and another in standard black.

“HTRK possess an originality and mystery worthy of obsession and scrutiny,” writes Zinner in his liner notes, “for their beautiful and damaged sound is truly, and thankfully, their own.”

Marry Me Tonight: Vinyl notes

• Standard weight transparent magenta vinyl is limited to 500 copies worldwide
• Standard weight vinyl inserted into black paper dust sleeves
• 2-panel art sleeve printed jacket with 5mm spine on glossy stock
• Features 20-page booklet with liner note essays and photos of the band

Andrew Savage of Parquet Courts has made a tour poster for us & it’s pretty much the greatest thing ever. Yours as a limited edition A3 colour poster with any purchase of a ticket to Parquet Courts’ upcoming Sydney, Brisbane or Melbourne shows. While stocks last!

PARQUET COURTS TOUR DATES:

FRI FEB 27 – PERTH FESTIVAL: Chevron Festival Gardens, 8pm. Tickets on sale now from Perth Festival.
WED MAR 4 – SYDNEY: MANNING BAR with Straight Arrows + Destiny 3000. Tickets on sale now from Oztix.
THU MAR 5 – BRISBANE: THE ZOO with Blank Realm + Kitchen’s Floor. Tickets on sale now from Oztix.
FRI MAR 6 – MELBOURNE: THE HI-FI with The UV Race + The Stevens. Tickets on sale now from Oztix.
SUN MAR 8 – GOLDEN PLAINS NUMBER NINE. Sold out! More info: Golden Plains website.

We are overjoyed to announce that there will be a Mistletone stage in every city at Laneway Festival 2015. Our friendship with Laneway has been a long & joyous one since the festival’s inception 10 years ago, so we are deeply thankful for the golden opportunity to host a stage with some of the amazing artists from this year’s momentous Laneway lineup. Catch the likes of St. Vincent, Future Islands, Pond, Connan Mockasin and more on the Mistletone stage and get your Laneway tickets while you can!

HTRK + MIKA VAINIO TOUR DATES:

• SYDNEY: Friday March 13 @ Goodgod. HTRK + Mika Vainio + Marcus Whale + DJ Conrad Standish. Tickets Tickets on sale now from Moshtix.
• MELBOURNE: Sunday March 15 @ The Shadow Electric, Abbotsford Convent. HTRK + Mika Vainio + Jonny Telafone + DJ Conrad Standish. Tickets on sale now from The Shadow Electric. Presented by Mistletone in association with the Adelaide Festival.

HTRK have announced two intimate headline shows in Sydney and Melbourne with renowned Finnish artist Mika Vainio. One of Australia’s most esteemed bands, HTRK (Jonnine Standish and Nigel Yang) have been longlisted for The Amp and shortlisted for The Age Music Victoria Awards “Album of the Year” for their latest, exceptional release, Psychic 9-5 Club.

The relationship between HTRK and Mika Vainio can be traced back to Berlin in 2008, when HTRK co-founder Sean Stewart became friends with the revered Finnish artist, who was a big influence on all three members of the band. Last year, Mika Vainio created a stormy, minimalist remix of HTRK’s “Poison” from Work (work, work) (Mistletone Records, 2011) which was released on 10” vinyl by US label Ghostly International.

Currently based in Berlin, Mika Vainio was one half of influential Finnish minimal electronic duo, Pan Sonic (the other half was Ilpo Väisänen). Before starting Pan Sonic in the beginning of the 1990s, Vainio played electronics and drums as part of the early Finnish industrial and noise scene in the 80’s. His solo works, under his own name and under aliases like Ø, are known for their analogue warmth and roughness. Be it abstract drone works or minimal avant techno, Vainio is always creating unique, physical sounds. He has released on labels like editions Mego, Touch, Wavetrap and Sähkö and he has been collaborating among others with Alan Vega of Suicide, Keiji Haino, Chicks on Speed, John Duncan, Bruce Gilbert and Stephen O’Malley and has contributed the music to Cindy van Acker’s dance pieces since 2009.

Click below to watch the clip for Mika Vainio’s remix of HTRK’s “Poison”, directed by Turner Prize winner Laure Prouvost:

Artwork by Triforce (Ben Montero x Farmer Dave Scher x Eric Ernest Johnson)

Mistletone, Triple R and Tone Deaf proudly present the much anticipated Laneway side shows by the magnificent Connan Mockasin. Connan Mockasin and his band will play his first ever Sydney & Melbourne headline shows as well as touring Australia & New Zealand as part of the epic lineup for Laneway Festival 2015, having previously only graced our shores once as the opening act for Radiohead.

CONNAN MOCKASIN TOUR DATES:

SYDNEY – Wednesday 4th February @ Goodgod Small Club with Jack Ladder & the Dreamlanders. Tickets on sale now from Moshtix.
MELBOURNE – Thursday 5th February @ Howler with The Frowning Clouds. Tickets on sale now from Moshtix. * selling fast!

Also playing LANEWAY FESTIVAL:

Auckland – Monday 26th January @ Laneway Festival – Silo Park.
Brisbane – Saturday 31st January @ Laneway Festival – Brisbane Showgrounds (16+).
Sydney – Sunday 1st February @ Laneway Festival – Sydney College of the Arts.
Adelaide – Friday 6th February @ Laneway Festival – Harts Mill, Port Adelaide (16+).
Melbourne – Saturday 7th February @ Laneway Festival – Footscray Community Arts Centre.
Fremantle – Sunday 8th February @ Laneway Festival – Esplanade Reserve.

• “Caramel sounds like an LSD binge in a sleazy motel, or an elf covering a Barry White album, or maybe even a rom-com set on Mars; a collection of trippy, mutated soul songs wedged between dreamlike interludes. He mimics the hip-hop mainstream to brilliant effect, and fuse(s) such a surreal mix of pixie enchantment and pimped-out creepiness that it’s impossible not to be seduced” – THE GUARDIAN ★★★★ 4 stars

photo by Cara Robbins

“When the sun is rising east, won’t you think of me dear Mary;
For the same sun will be setting where I lie on distant shore.
Every letter you have sent I keep folded to my chest
And I read them in the evening when the shells are laid to rest,
And it heartens me to learn that you wait for our return
From hearth to trench so far away, watching waiting day by day;
The distant call of home” – THE ORBWEAVERS

Melbourne band The Orbweavers have released their song, “The Distant Call of Home”, via iTunes with a release date to coincide with Remembrance Day, recalling the end of hostilities of World War I on this date in 1918. Click the link above to purchase via iTunes.

“The Distant Call of Home” was the evocative theme song for “The War That Changed Us”, a dramatised documentary series broadcast on ABC1 in August and September 2014, to mark the centenary of the beginning of the First World War.

Click below to watch the video, featuring The Orbweavers’ Marita Dyson and footage from the series:

Written by Marita Dyson and Stuart Flanagan of The Orbweavers, “The Distant Call of Home” was especially commissioned for “The War That Changed Us”, and Marita Dyson’s exquisite voice featured prominently throughout the four episodes of the series, singing old songs from the World War I period, such as “‘Sing Me To Sleep”, “Good-Byee” and “Oh! It’s A Lovely War”.

Marita Dyson and Stuart Flanagan reflect that learning and recording traditional World War I songs for the soundtrack, and then writing an original theme song, was an extraordinary experience for them as musicians. “We stood at the gate of our house and looked down the street, imagining what family or a loved one would have felt in the same place, 100 years ago, waiting for news”, Dyson recalled. “We thought about the Australian landscape of home, the sound and light – a tangible environment across time. Themes of time and distance became our focus; the rising of the sun in Australia signalling nightfall in trenches across the other side of the world — the sun as a link between people and places thousands of miles apart.”

The Orbweavers are one of Melbourne’s most loved bands, and one of the best kept secrets of Australian contemporary music. Drawing on a love of history and science, The Orbweavers charm audiences with their evocative songs which tell stories of Melbourne’s creeks & quarries (“Merri”), greyhounds (“You Can Run – Fern’s Theme”), textile mills, industrial landmarks (“Match Factory”) and historic sewerage pumping stations (“Spotswood”). Writer Ben Eltham called their song “Spotswood” “The best song written about Melbourne since Paul Kelly’s From St Kilda to Kings Cross”, and Paul Kelly himself declared, “This song is so beautiful it hurts.” Having been singled out for a special commendation in the Australian Music Prize for their 2011 album Loom, The Orbweavers are currently recording their next album in their home studio in Melbourne’s inner north and will perform at Port Fairy Folk Festival in March 2015.

Mistletone is overjoyed to present Angel Olsen and her band, playing an intimate Melbourne headline club date at Howler on Wednesday, February 4 with special guests to be announced. Tickets on sale now from Moshtix. Presented by Mistletone, Triple R and Billions Australia.

This unmissable show will allow Angel Olsen’s fans to feel the full effect of Missouri-born singer’s personal, powerful and spellbinding performances which will include songs from her outstanding album, Burn Your Fire For No Witness (out now on Jagjaguwar via Inertia).

• “Olsen’s voice is enchanting; it sounds like the result of a spell that called for Leonard Cohen’s blood, Buffy Sainte-Marie’s larynx, and a still-operational old-timey microphone emblazoned with radio call letters. Her songs are powered by a strange, anarchic electricity, always flickering on the edge of blowing out. By the laws of the unique universe she creates on her records, Wanting, Waiting, and (probably the most popular pastime in her songs) Thinking are not passive stances but active ways of being in the world; unruly emotion is a virtue.” PITCHFORK 8.3 Best New Music

 

Many of the superlatives describing Angel Olsen refer to how seemingly little it takes for her to leave an audience speechless, even spellbound. But Olsen has never been as timid as those descriptors imply, and the noisy, fiery hints in her earlier work find a fuller expression on her newest LP, Burn Your Fire for No Witness. Here, Olsen sings with full-throated exultation, admonition, and bold, expressive melody. Also, with the help of producer John Congleton, her music now crackles with a churning, rumbling low end and a brighter energy.

Angel Olsen began singing as a young girl in St. Louis, where she explored the remarkable range of her voice and the places it could take her songwriting. Her self-released debut EP, Strange Cacti, belied both that early period of discovery and her Midwestern roots. Cautious and homespun on the one hand, the EP transported us to a mystical, unrecognizable world on the other, and it garnered extensive praise for its enigmatic beauty. Olsen then went further on Half Way Home, her first full-length album (released on Bathetic Records), which mined essential themes while showcasing a more developed voice. Olsen dared to be more personal.

After extensive touring, Olsen eventually settled for a time in Chicago’s Logan Square neighborhood, where she created “a collection of songs grown in a year of heartbreak, travel, and transformation.” The new songs go on to tell us to leave, or to high-five a lover who is lacking, or to dance our way up and out of sorrow. Many of them also remain essentially unchanged from their bare beginnings. In leaving them so intact, a more self-assured Olsen is opening up to us, allowing us to be in the room with her at the very genesis of these songs, when the thread of creation is most vulnerable and least filtered. Our reward for entering this room are many head-turning moments and the powerful, unsettling recognition of ourselves in the weave of her songs.

This act of meaning-making recurs as a theme throughout the album, as the sublimating response to the power of negativity. In the song, “Stars”, for example, Olsen wishes to “have the voice of everything” and in a moment of hatefulness and hurt realizes that the strength of fury results in the power she had been seeking all along. Thankfully for us, Olsen has decided to channel a lot of this newfound power into the ethereal, hypnotic performances of her new and revealing songs, sharing with us the full grace and beauty of her transformative moments.

“FORGIVEN/FORGOTTEN”:

“HI-5” LIVE ON LETTERMAN: