Mistletone

Artwork by Aaron Billings

JESSICA PRATT TOUR DATES:

TUE JAN 6 – THE TOFF, MELBOURNE with Olivia Chaney (UK) + Emily Ulman. Presented by Triple R. Tickets on sale now from The Toff.
THU JAN 8 – SYDNEY FESTIVAL; City Recital Hall, Angel Place, 8pm with Alela Diane + Olivia Chaney. Tickets on sale now.
SAT JAN 10 – SYDNEY FESTIVAL; The Famous Spiegeltent, 5:45pm. Tickets on sale now.

Mistletone and Triple R proudly present the first ever Australian tour by California singer/songwriter, Jessica Pratt.

Jessica Pratt delivers dreamy, introspective folk tinged with melancholy. Her unadorned, acoustic bare bones sound is both gently powerful and inviting; she can disarm and mesmerise all in hearing’s distance with just her eerie voice and a delicately plucked guitar.

On Your Own Love Again track listing:

• 1. Wrong Hand
• 2. Game That I Play
• 3. Strange Melody
• 4. Greycedes
• 5. Moon Dude
• 6. Jacquelyn In The Background
• 7. I’ve Got A Feeling
• 8. Back, Baby
• 9. On Your Own Love Again

Artwork by Aaron Billings

OLIVIA CHANEY TOUR DATES:

WED DEC 31 – WOODFORD FOLK FESTIVAL; performance 3pm, The Grande. More info & tickets at the Woodford website.
THU JAN 1 – WOODFORD FOLK FESTIVAL; performance 6:30pm, Concert. More info & tickets at the Woodford website.
SAT JAN 3 – THE JUNK BAR, BRISBANE with John Smith (UK). Tickets on sale now from Try Booking.
TUE JAN 6 – THE TOFF, MELBOURNE with Jessica Pratt (USA) + Emily Ulman. Presented by Triple R. Tickets on sale now from The Toff.
THU JAN 8 – SYDNEY FESTIVAL; City Recital Hall, Angel Place, 8pm with Alela Diane (USA) + Jessica Pratt (USA). Tickets on sale now.
SUN JAN 11 – SYDNEY FESTIVAL; The Famous Spiegeltent, 5:45pm. Tickets on sale now.
TUE JAN 13 – ELLINGTON JAZZ CLUB, PERTH. Tickets on sale now from The Ellington.

Mistletone is very proud to present the otherworldly folk tunes of English singer/songwriter Olivia Chaney, touring Australia for the first time ahead of her much anticipated debut release on the esteemed Nonesuch Records.

A self-taught multi-instrumentalist, Olivia Chaney performs her own sophisticated, poetry-tinged compositions alongside traditional British folk songs, showcasing her substantial musical chops on guitar, piano and harmonium. Her rich, pure-toned voice has drawn comparisons to Joni Mitchell and gained the admiration of critics worldwide, with LA Weekly calling her “Multi-talented … completely dizzying, a sound that didn’t seem to be of this earth.”  The Independent simply called her “A star in the making.”

Based in London, Olivia was twice nominated in the 2014 BBC Radio 2 Folk Awards, for the Horizon Award for best emerging artist, and Best Original Song for “Swimming in the Longest River.” Chaney will release her debut album in early 2014; further details about the album and its release will be announced shortly.

Olivia Chaney graduated from the Royal Academy of Music and learnt the guitar from her father’s renditions of Bob Dylan, Fairport Convention, and Bert Jansch, among others. Since then she has built a loyal and growing following, both in the UK and internationally, through her acclaimed live performances, as a solo artist and also in collaboration with a diverse range of artists, including Alasdair Roberts, Zero 7, and The Labèque Sisters.

In February 2013 she self-released her eponymous debut EP, which has found her further fans with media and public alike. Co-produced with Leo Abrahams, it included “Swimming in the Longest River,” as well as “The King’s Horses,” a track that “confirms Chaney’s arrival as a major talent,” according to BBC Music.

Artwork by Steph Hughes

SHARON VAN ETTEN TOUR DATES:

Mistletone, The Music, 4ZZZ, 2SER & Triple R present the return of Brooklyn singer-songwriter Sharon Van Etten and her stunning band.

For all the attention that was paid to her 2012 break-through album Tramp, Sharon Van Etten is an artist with a manifest hunger to turn another corner. Her last Australian tour in early 2013 turned heads, and saw her perform a stunning rendition of  ‘Give Out’ live on Channel 7’s Sunrise program, and delight triple j listeners and a global audience with a spin-tingling cover of Nick Cave’s ‘People Aint No Good’ for Like A Version.

While most musicians are quite happy to leave the production end of things to someone else, with her fourth studio album Are We There (released April 2014 via Jagjaguwar/Inertia), Van Etten knew it was time to make a record entirely on her terms. She found a kindred spirit in veteran music producer Stewart Lerman whose expertise gave her the freedom to make Are We There the way she imagined.

Always direct, and never shying away from even the most personally painful narratives, Van Etten’s songwriting continues to evolve. Many of the songs deal with seemingly impossible decisions, anticipation, and then resolution. She sings of the nature of desire, memory, of being lost, emptiness, of promises and loyalty, fear and change, of healing and the true self, violence and sanctuary, waiting, of silence. The artist who speaks in such a voice is urging us to do something, to take hold and to go deeper.

The album gained radiant praise from media and fans worldwide, including an invitation to perform on The Late Show With David Letterman. Watch that fantastic rendition of “Every Time The Sun Comes Up”, below:

Artwork by Celeste Potter

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.

Parquet Courts left delirious punters reeling in their wake after last year’s brilliantly bombastic Laneway Festival shows and sweaty headline gigs in Sydney & Melbourne. One reviewer wrote of their Sydney show: “The partying gets harder and the screaming gets louder, until it ends abruptly, with no encore, leaving behind a convincing case for Parquet Courts as the best band in the Northern Hemisphere”.

The ever-prolific Parquet Courts delivered another impeccable album this year in Sunbathing Animal (Remote Control), which took a huge leap forward in terms of songwriting and vision whilst heightening the heaviness, mania and punk rock drive that has made the band beloved of music nerds everywhere. Still rooted firmly in the unshackled exploration and bombastic playing of their earlier work, everything here is amplified in its lucidity and intent. The songs wander through threads of blurry brilliance, exhaustion and fury at the hilt of every note. Parquet Courts sounds more like themselves than ever, a pinpoint accurate reading of the same American punk expansion they all but defined on Light Up Gold.

And with impeccable timing, Parquet Courts just announced a new album, Content Nausea, under the name Parkay Quarts, which drops digitally on November 11, and on vinyl early December, via Remote Control. As well as the country-swaggering first single, “Uncast Shadow of a Southern Myth” (named Best New Track by Pitchfork – listen below), the new album contains a “gender-bending” cover of Nancy Sinatra’s “These Boots are Made For Walkin'”, a karaoke favourite of singer-guitarist Andrew Savage. Parquet Courts truly are the band that keeps on giving.

Artwork by Alex Fregon

THE CLEAN TOUR DATES:

Sunday 18 January – MONA FOMA, Hobart: PW1, Stage 1, 9pm. Tickets on sale now from MONA FOMA.
Tuesday 20 January – Sydney Festival: The Aurora, Festival Village, 5:15pm. Tickets on sale now from Sydney Festival.
Thursday 22 January – The Corner, Melbourne with Lower Plenty + Ausmuteants + Twerps DJs. Tickets on sale now from Corner Presents.
Friday 23 January – The Rosemount, Perth with Doctopus + Hamjam. Tickets on sale now from Oztix.
Sunday 25 January – The Brightside, Brisbane with Ariel Pink, Dan Deacon, How To Dress Well + more. Early-bird passes for The Brightside’s 2015 Australia Day Eve party on sale now via Oztix.

Mistletone, Beat, Triple R and RTR present The Clean, touring Australia for the first time in four years, and the third time in 25 years; and playing Perth for the first time ever in their 35 year career. Having recently toured the USA to celebrate the first ever vinyl edition of their classic Anthology on Merge Records, The Clean is a band whose influence extends so far beyond their New Zealand home that even if you have never heard of The Clean before, you have surely heard of some of the bands (Pavement, Yo La Tengo, and Superchunk, not to mention the current crop of jangly Australian indie bands) who are indebted to The Clean’s unique blend of homemade garage rock, hook-filled melodies, and psychedelic experimentalism. Tickets on sale now!

The Clean photo by Gemma Gracewood

What can be said about The Clean? In 1978, they were the seeds of New Zealand punk and the reason for the founding of the mighty Flying Nun label. A truly magical band who are as vital as ever, The Clean have carved out a big sandbox for everyone to play in. Their influence resonated not only in their homeland but around the world, and can be heard loud and clear in the new generation of indie bands who have The Clean deeply etched into their DNA.

So what’s the sound? It’s completely theirs but draws on everything from the psychedelic paste of Barrett/early Floyd to vintage Velvets propulsiveness to almost everything else under the sun. They created both full studio sound and lo-fi recordings before, during, and after the various waves of the 4-track revolution, making both recording modes work with no loss of the band’s identity. As far as other influences, you can hear Arthur Lee, Shirley Collins, and the Rolling Stones, among others, but it’s never a kind of forced appropriation; while some bands seem to say, “Look at my record collection,” in the case of The Clean, it’s organic, seamless, and inimitable.

Hamish and David Kilgour formed The Clean in 1978. Hamish played drums, and David picked up a guitar and figured out how to play it as he went along. Various other folk passed through the Kilgour brothers’ orbit during the first two years or so before Robert Scott (The Bats) joined on bass. Hamish, David, and Robert all wrote songs and sang in The Clean, who made their first recordings for the renowned New Zealand label Flying Nun in 1981.

Recently released on vinyl for the first time by Merge Records, Anthology serves as a celebration of The Clean. This definitive collection kicks off with The Clean’s call-to-arms debut “Tally Ho!”; the story of the infectious track’s $60 recording bill is now legendary. From there, it continues with the early EPs Boodle Boodle Boodle and Great Sounds Great in their entirety. The hits—“Billy Two,” “Anything Could Happen,” “Beatnik,” and “Getting Older”—and live favorites like “Point That Thing Somewhere Else” and instrumentals “Fish” and “At the Bottom” all serve up memories of the joyous noise that characterized The Clean of that time. These recordings, mostly made by the band with Chris Knox and Doug Hood at the helm of the 4-track, capture the bright, raw sound of a classic garage band.

After a brief breakup, the band recorded Vehicle, their first full-length, in 1989. Vehicle was made in three days and engineered by Alan Moulder (later to become one of the top producers of the alternative era, recording the Smashing Pumpkins, Nine Inch Nails, and My Bloody Valentine). The sounds of Vehicle and the two albums that followed it, Modern Rock (1994) and Unknown Country (1996), make up the bulk of discs 3 and 4 of the vinyl Anthology. The Clean used organ and other keyboards to mix bouncing pop tunes with continued experimentation.

The Clean’s story is on-again/off-again purely by design. It suits the trio’s creative desires and keeps them clear of the machinery that threatened to interfere with that process from the moment they threatened to get awfully popular awfully quickly over thirty years ago. The Clean’s modern age has seen them splitting time and hemispheres: David Kilgour has a reputable solo catalogue, and recently released End Times Undone with his band The Heavy Eights on Merge Records; Robert Scott has The Bats and a new solo album, The Green House, out on Flying Nun; and Hamish Kilgour has been an endearing and enduring fixture in New York City, playing with assorted combos and recently releasing his solo debut, All Of It And Nothing, via Ba Da Bing Records.

Artwork by Ben Montero. Layout by Carl Breitkreuz.

ARIEL PINK TOUR DATES:

SAT JAN 24 – MELBOURNE: SUGAR MOUNTAIN FESTIVAL. Tickets on sale now.
SUN JAN 25 – BRISBANE: THE BRIGHTSIDE with The Clean, Dan Deacon, How To Dress Well + more. Early-bird passes for The Brightside’s 2015 Australia Day Eve party on sale now via Oztix.
TUE JAN 27 – SYDNEY: OXFORD ART FACTORY with special guest Nick Allbrook (Pond). Tickets on sale now from Moshtix.
THU JAN 29 – PERTH: THE BAKERY, NORTHBRIDGE with special guest Nick Allbrook (Pond). Tickets on sale now from The Bakery.

• “The go-to influence for a generation of young, obtuse music makers” – PITCHFORK

Mistletone, Fasterlouder, RTR-FM and FBi Radio present LA indie-pop auteur Ariel Pink, touring with his seven piece band of merry men this January, hot on the heels of his superb new offering pom pom (out Friday November 14 via Remote Control).

Across its 17 tracks and 69 minutes, pom pom is unfiltered Ariel Pink, a pied piper of the absurd, with infectious tales of romance, murder, frog princes and Jell-O. The record sees the Los Angeles native strike it out alone, returning to the solo moniker he has adopted for well over a decade when cementing his name as a king of pop perversion.

From demented kiddie tune collaborations with the legendary Kim Fowley (songs like “Jell-O” and “Plastic Raincoats In The Pig Parade” were written with Fowley in his hospital room during his recent battle with cancer), to beatific, windswept pop (“Put Your Number In My Phone”, “Dayzed Inn Daydreams”), scuzz-punk face-melters (“Goth Bomb”, “Negativ Ed”), and carnival dub psychedelia (“Dinosaur Carebears”), pom pom could very well be Ariel Pink’s magnum opus.



”Although this is the first ‘solo’ record credited to my name”, Ariel expains, “it is by far the least “solo” record I have ever recorded.”

The announcement coincides with Ariel Pink’s new single “Black Ballerina”. which was made Best New Track by Pitchfork overnight; they called it “equal parts witty, strange, and catchy, just like all his best work”. Click here to read yesterday’s feature from the New Yorker.

check out Ariel Pink on the cover of US Arena Homme magazine:

Mistletone and Thump are proud to present for the first time in Australia, acclaimed electronic musician Forest Swords. Performing as a duo and integrating immersive HD projections, Forest Swords live show is a truly overwhelming experience.

FOREST SWORDS TOUR DATES:

FRI MAR 13 – Unsound Festival, Adelaide. Tickets and information from Adelaide Festival.
SAT MAR 14 – Howler, Melbourne with special guests Kangaroo Skull + Andrew Tuttle. Tickets on sale now from Moshtix.
SUN MAR 15 – Oxford Art Factory, Sydney with special guests Cassius Select + Noise In My Head DJ. Tickets on sale now from Moshtix.

Liverpool’s enigmatic Forest Swords makes textured, gauzy music as indebted to the region’s rich musical heritage as it is the windswept and beautiful coastal environment from which it was born. The result is something completely organic, sounding like a mix of Massive Attack’s sample strewn claustrophobia, King Tubby’s sweating dub, with hints of Ennio Morricone’s legendary guitar soundscapes.

Clattering beats, thunderous grooves and cavernous melodies rub shoulders with hip hop/ R&B shuffles and heavy drone to create a smeared, blurred take on electronic music that sounds weighty, chilling and triumphant. Forest Swords’ deep epics were first seen on the Dagger Paths EP, released via No Pain In Pop/Olde English Spelling Bee in 2010.

His debut album Engravings, released last year via Brooklyn electronic label Tri Angle (Holy Other, Evian Christ, The Haxan Cloak), saw Barnes refine and streamline his unique sound to huge critical acclaim, receiving praise from the likes of Pitchfork, Resident Advisor, The Guardian, Mixmag and FACT.
His shows, as seen at festivals across Europe including All Tomorrow’s Parties, CTM and Unsound, utilise propulsive soundscapes, visuals and live bass, combining to create a striking, immersive, and euphoric live set.

Dan Deacon photo by Shawn Brackbrill

DAN DEACON TOUR DATES:

Sunday 18 January – MONA FOMA, Hobart: PW1, 10pm. Tickets on sale now from MONA FOMA.
Thursday January 22 – Sydney Festival: The Aurora, Festival Village, 11:45pm. Tickets on sale now from Sydney Festival.
Saturday January 24 – Sugar Mountain 2015, Victorian College of the Arts, Melbourne. Tickets on sale now from Sugar Mountain.
Sunday January 25 – The Brightside, Brisbane w/- Ariel Pink, The Clean, How To Dress Well + more. Early-bird passes for The Brightside’s 2015 Australia Day Eve party on sale now via Oztix.

Mistletone is euphoric to announce that Dan Deacon will return to Australia for solo performances at Sydney Festival and Sugar Mountain. Our favourite instigator and electronic experimentalist Dan Deacon celebrates creative connections with his fan base through euphoric shows that include large-scale audience participation. Always a rad champion for DIY culture, Dan will debut his amazing smartphone app in Australia which enables the audience to be a part of the sound and light show as it happens around them.

• “Some of the most frenzied and inspiring shows I’ve seen in recent years” – LA Times

Mistletone is proud to present the triumphant return of Perfume Genius. Seattle native Mike Hadreas – aka Perfume Genius – brings his four piece band to Australia in February to perform songs from his profoundly beautiful new album Too Bright, out now on Remote Control. Tickets for all shows on sale now.

PERFUME GENIUS TOUR DATES:

• MELBOURNE: Sunday February 15 @ The Corner with special guest Aldous Harding. Tickets on sale now from Corner Presents. Presented by Triple R.
• SYDNEY: Wednesday February 18 @ Oxford Art Factory with special guest Aldous Harding. Tickets on sale now from Moshtix. Presented by 2SER.
• BRISBANE: Thursday February 19 @ The Brightside with special guests Seja + McKisko. Tickets on sale now from Oztix. Presented by 4ZZZ.
• PERTH: Friday February 13 @ Perth Festival – Chevron Festival Gardens, 8:00PM. Tickets on sale now from Perth Festival.

• “Hadreas’ sexuality is obviously a huge part of his work, but he’s above all a human—one who’s spoken about battling addiction and sickness and sadness, and one who possesses the ability to write about it in a way that feels universal. A huge part of what makes the work so strong is the generous human spirit that bleeds into it, and Too Bright is the best example to date of the lengths he goes to confront his fears and demons. These songs feel less like songs and more like treasures, ones that fill you with power and wisdom” – PITCHFORK Best New Music (8.5 out of 10)

Over the course of two astonishing albums, Perfume Genius cemented his place as a singer-songwriter of rare frankness, creating songs that, while achingly emotional, offered empathy and hope, rather than any judgment or handwringing. Sparse, gorgeous and with Hadreas’ quavering vocals often only accompanied by piano, they were uncommonly beautiful tales of a life lived on the dark side – scarred, brutalised, yet ultimately, slowly but surely reclaimed.

The third album from Perfume Genius, Too Bright, builds on the exquisite piano ballads Hadreas has become known for, but is less self-conscious and less concerned with storytelling and easily-digested melodies. It is a brave, bold, unpredictably quixotic exploration of what Hadreas calls “an underlying rage that has slowly been growing since ten and has just begun to bubble up”. Recorded with Adrian Utley of Portishead and featuring John Parish on several tracks, it is a stunning about-face which brings to mind audacious career-shift albums like Kate Bush’s The Dreaming or Scott Walker’s Tilt, records which walk the tightrope between pure songwriting and overt experimentation.

• “Too Bright creates a captive audience in its effusive refusal to let you look away. It kicks down the furniture of song structure and ferociously retches up its choruses, gripping onto your gaze with its dazzling contortions, its unapologetic too much-ness. Stare at the sun just a bit too long and you’ll get spots on your vision; listen to this album a while and it might start to reshape the way you see” – FACT MAGAZINE ★★★★ 4 stars

• “A slick, slippery piece of disco-funk… further evidence that Bundick is really good at this lush, sculpted dance-music thing” – STEREOGUM

“Why” is the funky new single from Michael, the forthcoming debut album by Les Sins, the dance project of Toro Y Moi’s Chaz Bundick, out October 31 on Mistletone/Inertia. It features vocals from Berkeley, California singer-songwriter Nate Salman asking “Why you wanna go and do that?”.

Inspired by cartoon and movie soundtracks, this largely instrumental album explores classic dance and pop music traditions. Catchy, repetitive vocal hooks gel with beats and synth work influenced by house, techno, French electronic, and ’90s hip-hop production.

Chaz Bundick made the album over two years and recorded everything in his home studio. Touchstones like Timbaland, Mr. Oizo, and Daft Punk, and contemporaries such as Motor City Drum Ensemble offered inspiration, but most influential on the making of the album was the sage advice of a design icon.

“My favorite graphic designer, P. Rand always said, ‘Don’t try to be original, just try to be good,’” Chaz says. “When making this record that was/is my mantra—it was just constantly looping in my mind. I believe ‘good’ is timeless and once you can recognize that you’ll see the world in its fullest.”