Artwork by Rick Milovanovic

PARQUET COURTS TOUR DATES:

Laneway Auckland: Monday, January 27 – Silo Park. Tickets & info here.
Laneway Brisbane: Friday, January 31 – RNA, Fortitude Valley. Tickets & info here.
Laneway Melbourne: Saturday, February 1 – Footscray Community Arts Centre/River’s Edge. Tickets & info here.
Laneway Sydney: Sunday, February 2 – Sydney College Of The Arts, Rozelle. Tickets & info here.
MELBOURNE: Wednesday January 29 @ The Corner w/- Total Control + Constant Mongrel. Tickets on sale now from The Corner box office. Presented by Mistletone, Triple R and The Music.
SYDNEY: Wednesday February 5 @ The Standard w/- Total Control + Bed Wettin’ Bad Boys. Tickets on sale now from Moshtix. Presented by Mistletone, FBi Radio and The Music.
Laneway Adelaide: Friday, February 7 – Harts Mill, Port Adelaide. Tickets & info here.
Perth: Saturday, February 8 – Esplanade Park and West End, Fremantle. Tickets & info here.

New York-via-Texas bros PARQUET COURTS dish up ragged, Americana-inspired garage-punk. To quote Uncut: “Parquet Courts channel Pavement’s collapsible spirit better than any band I’ve seen or heard in a long time… (but) there’s plenty more going on in these songs than mere homage to one band. Their wiry ramalams fall into a tradition that began with The Velvet Underground (with “Loaded”, more specifically), rattled on through early ’80s Fall, and manifested itself most recently in the brilliant Australian garage band, Eddy Current Suppression Ring.”

Little was said about Parquet Courts’ debut effort, American Specialties. Released exclusively on cassette tape, the quasi-album was an odd collection of 4 track recordings that left those who were paying attention wanting more. A year of wood-shedding live sets passed before the Courts committed another song to tape.

The band’s first proper LP, Light Up Gold, is a dynamic and diverse foray into the back alleys of the American DIY underground. Bright guitars swirl serpentine over looping, groovy post-punk bass lines and drums that border on robotic precision. While the initial rawness of the band’s early output remains, the songwriting has gracefully evolved. Primary wordsmiths Andrew Savage and Austin Brown combine for a dynamic lyrical experience, one part an erudite overflow of ideas, the other an exercise in laid-back observation. Lyrically dense, the poetry is in how it flows along with the melody, often times as locked-in as the rhythm section.

According to the album’s scratched-out liner notes: “This record is for the over-socialized victims of the 1990’s ‘you can be anything you want’, Nickelodeon-induced lethargy that ran away from home not out of any wide-eyed big city daydream, but just out of a subconscious return to America’s scandalous origin”. Recorded over a few days in an ice-box practice space, Light Up Gold is equally indebted to Krautrock, The Fall, and a slew of contemporaries like Tyvek and Eddy Current Suppression Ring.

Though made up of Texan transplants, Parquet Courts are a New York band. Throw out the countless shallow Brooklyn bands of the blasé 2000’s: Light Up Gold is a conscious effort to draw from the rich culture of the city – the bands like Sonic Youth, Bob Dylan, and the Velvet Underground that are not from New York, but of it. A panoramic landscape of dilapidated corner-stores and crowded apartments is superimposed over bare-bones Americana, leaving little room for romance or sentiment.

Parquet Courts recently released a new five song EP, Tally All The Things That You Broke, on What’s Your Rupture?.

Forced into morning, tempted into night. Tally all the things that you broke. Bending her branches. Snapping, sapping and writhing. For me alone. Yeah, I guess sunburn’s better than heartburn (barely). Guess I never figured that out. And I thought I knew a thing or two about the blues but you’ve got me wonderin’ now.

Watch the video for “You Got Me Wonderin’ Now”, below:

And watch Parquet Courts get sweaty and silly at Death By Audio, Brooklyn performing “Borrowed Time” from their debut LP, Light Up Gold, below:

Artwork by Alex Fregon

MATMOS TOUR DATES:

SYDNEY FESTIVAL: Wednesday January 15 – Matmos @ City Recital Hall, Angel Place. Doors 8pm. Tickets on sale October 28 from Ticketmaster. More info here.
SYDNEY FESTIVAL: Thursday, January 16 – The Soft Pink Truth DJ set @ Paradiso Lates, Paradiso Terrace Bar. The Soft Pink Truth is Drew Daniel (one half of Matmos)’s experimental house music side-project. Visit the festival website for up-to-date information. Free entry, starts 11.30pm.
MONA FOMA: Saturday, January 18 @ MAC Precinct – Macquarie Wharf Shed 2, Hunter Street, Hobart. Tickets & info here.
MELBOURNE: Sunday, January 19 @ Howler w/- Always, Andrew Tuttle + DJ Simon Winkler. Tickets on sale now.

Mistletone presents avant-garde electronic duo Matmos, bringing their live sonic experimentation and boundary-pushing sonic invention to Australia for the first time in their 15-year career.

Performing with joy and humour, Matmos experiment with noise to push the boundaries of pop music. Mining non-conventional sound sources and exploring bold ideas, Baltimore-based Drew Daniel and MC Schmidt have been producing music together since the mid-90s, delivering nine albums to date. Their latest release The Marriage of True Minds, based on experiments in telepathy, is an art object, a scientific report, a practical joke and a daring pop record.

Since forming in 1997, Matmos have released a dozen influential albums and have collaborated with Björk, Antony and the Johnsons, Liars, David Pajo, Oneohtrix Point Never, Terry Riley, & many others. Their live show features stunning visuals and uses the live stage as a looking glass for an audience into their current sonic palette.

Currently based in Baltimore, the duo formed in San Francisco in the mid 1990s, and self-released their debut album in 1997. Marrying the conceptual tactics and noisy textures of object-based musique concrete to a rhythmic matrix rooted in electronic pop music, the two quickly became known for their highly unusual sound sources: amplified crayfish nerve tissue, the pages of bibles turning, water hitting copper plates, liposuction surgery, cameras and VCRs, chin implant surgery, contact microphones on human hair, rat cages, tanks of helium, a cow uterus, human skulls, snails, cigarettes, cards shuffling, laser eye surgery, whoopee cushions, balloons, latex fetish clothing, rhinestones, Polish trains, insects, life support systems, inflatable blankets, rock salt, solid gold coins, the sound of a frozen stream thawing in the sun, a five gallon bucket of oatmeal. These raw materials are manipulated into surprisingly accessible forms, and often supplemented by traditional musical instruments played by the group’s large circle of friends and collaborators. The result is a model of electronic composition as a relational network that connects sources and outcomes together; information about the process of creation activates the listening experience, providing the listener with entry points into sometimes densely allusive, baroque recordings.

Since their debut, Matmos have released over eight albums, including: Quasi-Objects (1998) , The West (1998), A Chance to Cut Is A Chance to Cure (2001), The Civil War (2003) and The Rose Has Teeth in the Mouth of A Beast (2006) and Supreme Balloon (2008). In 2001 they were asked to collaborate with the Icelandic singer Bjork on her Vespertine album, and subsequently embarked on two world tours as part of her band. In addition to musical collaborations with Antony, So Percussion, David Tibet, the Rachel’s, Lesser, Wobbly, Zeena Parkins, and the Princeton Laptop Orchestra, Matmos have also collaborated with a wide range of artists across disciplines, from the visual artist Daria Martin (on the soundtrack to her film “Minotaur”) to the playwright Young Jean Lee (for her play “The Appeal”) to Berlin-based choreographer Ayman Harper. Most recently, they have been part of the ensemble for the Robert Wilson production “The Life and Death of Marina Abramovic”, featuring Marina Abramovic, Antony and Willem Dafoe.

The most recent Matmos album, The Marriage of True Minds, was released in 2013 by Thrill Jockey Records and is available locally via Rocket Music.

Artwork by Ben Montero

WITH A VISION to celebrate the depth of Melbourne’s indie scene, Mistletone will be opening Melbourne Music Week 2013 by shining a light on the connections between our city’s music community and like-minded international artists.

Our dream-team lineup for MMW Opening Night (Friday, November 15 at stunning pop-up venue, The Residence), features The Bats, Boomgates, Montero, Sonny & the Sunsets, Vishnu Keys + DJs Higher Power + LA Pocock.

Early bird tickets sold out in one hour; general admission tickets on sale now & selling fast! Doors open 7:30pm.

We at Mistletone are so proud to have curated this concert for Melbourne Music Week, which will also be a celebration of our 7 years as an independent label. Party times!

THE BATS.

From across the ditch, long-time indie-poppers The Bats have had a profound influence on Melbourne’s scene. Often acknowledged as the inspiration behind the current crop of jangly, indie-pop and ‘dole-wave’ bands, The Bats formed in Christchurch in 1982 and are regarded as one of the foremost exponents of NZ’s iconic ‘Flying Nun’ sound. Still in their original line-up, and more than 30 years in the making, The Bats remain one of the most influential bands of indie-pop worldwide.

As part of the celebrations for Melbourne Music Week 2013, Mistletone is honoured to present a brand new song by The Bats. December Ice is the A-side of a split 7″ vinyl release with Boomgates, a label collaboration between Mistletone + Bedroom Suck Records. December Ice is now available on digital release (click above to order on iTunes), with limited edition 7″ vinyl in stores from November 1. Avoid disappointment & pre-order your vinyl now via mail order.

BOOMGATES.

There’s no questioning the pedigree of local act, Boomgates. With band members heralding from Eddy Current Suppression Ring, Dick Diver, Trial Kennedy, Teen Archer and Twerps, this is one band who perfectly encapsulates the spirit of Melbourne’s music scene – in all its laconic excellence. Check out Widow Maker by Boomgates, the rad B-side to the split 7″ with The Bats, below:

MONTERO.

Local magnets Montero bring a sensory overload of old-fashioned showmanship, with Gibb-brothers style harmonies, soaring melodies, lush instrumentation and dreamy glam pomp. 70s Beach Boys meets Burt Bacharach, while Californian sunshine pop, and 80s power ballads. Montero’s debut LP, The Loving Gaze, has won the admiration of contemporaries such as Ariel Pink & Kurt Vile, and can be heard coming over the airwaves (Album Of The Week – 3RRR-FM, 2SER-FM + SYN Radio).

SONNY & THE SUNSETS.

San Francisco’s rollicking garage-rock raconteurs, Sonny & the Sunsets, are no strangers to Melbourne’s audiences, with a cool three 3RRR Albums of the Week nods to their name already. The musical brainchild of playwright, novelist, filmmaker, and comic book artist Sonny Smith, the Sunsets swoons out to a bubbling pot of 50s and 60s pop, country and folk, doo wop, garage rock and RnB, delivered with all the nonsense and energy of a midnight beach party.

Stream a new Sonny & the Sunsets song below, “Those Drawings I told you About”; their contribution to the San Francisco garage rock compilation curated by Sonny Smith, I Need You Bad (to be released on November 26).

VISHNU KEYS.

Vishnu Keys is the new solo project of Gerald Wells, a classically trained multi-instrumentalist, former opera singer and synth wizard who has played in Melbourne bands such as Baptism of Uzi, Treetops, TM Band and now Montero. Deploying his collection of vintage synthesisers to explore the possibilities of cosmic enlightenment, Vishnu Keys creates a synaesthetic blend of musical and visual frequencies. With a dedicated nod to the to the nuts and bolts philosophy of analogue sound production, Vishnu Keys is the six-armed love child of electronic music pioneers such as Klaus Schultze, Jean Michel Jarre and Delia Derbyshire. Prepare for a sensory wash of visual and audio goodness when Vishnu Keys offers up a holy union of colour and sound in a celestial welcome to MMW Opening Night.

DJ HIGHER POWER.

DJ Higher Power, a/k/a Hannah Brooks (Early Woman), glam siren razor blade and inscrutable aestheticist, sparks ecstatic moments between sets, playing the finest in Witchy Poo, Bleeding Ballads and Adventure Rock.

DJ LA POCOCK.

Host of Triple R’s drive time program Set It Out, LA Pocock is a man of many flavours. LA Pocock will bring Opening Night home, traversing the realms of subterranean synths, psychedelic rhythms & outsider pop.

For more info about Melbourne Music Week, and the brand new, pop-up flagship venue and entertainment precinct: The Residence, visit the website.

Mistletone is amped to present the first ever Australian tour by stellar Toronto trio, METZ. Handpicked by METZ themselves, Sydney guests are 90s-nostalgic, cinematic punk rocker TV Colours and three-headed Melbourne punk/sludge/stoner/ hardcore/doom beast Batpiss, making the trip up the Hume to Goodgod on Wednesday, December 4. Batpiss are also main support for the Melbourne show at Howler on Thursday December 5, along with amped-up Melbourne quartet Deep Heat. And in Brisbane (just announced!), they’ll be joined by a super special surprise local guest. Killer lineups which perfectly set the scene for METZ’s visceral live show, as the Sub Pop shredders get set to pummel Australian audiences with all the raucously artful force at their disposal.

METZ AUSTRALIAN TOUR DATES:

SYDNEY: WEDNESDAY DECEMBER 4 @ Goodgod Small Club with TV Colours + Batpiss. Tickets on sale now from Moshtix. Presented by FBi.
MELBOURNE: THURSDAY DECEMBER 5 @ Howler with Batpiss + Deep Heat. Tickets & info here. Presented by 3RRR.
BRISBANE: FRIDAY DECEMBER 6 @ Electric Playground with secret main support + The Mercy Beat. Tickets on sale now from Moshtix. Co-presented by The Fans Group.
PERTH: SATURDAY DECEMBER 7 @ Slanted & Enchanted. Tickets & info here. Presented by Life Is Noise.

Watch Metz perform “Can’t Understand” at Pitchfork Music Festival 2013:

Here’s a little get-to-know about METZ’s special guests in Sydney & Melbourne….

TV Colours (Sydney)

TV Colours is the solo project of Canberra-based artist Bobby Kill, who started releasing material in MP3 form on the Dream Damage website around 2009, culminating in a split 7 inch with fellow Canberra group Assassins 88. Purple Skies, Toxic River is TV Colours’ debut LP and took six years of false starts to finally get finished. Crawlspace described the LP as “genuinely beautiful more frequently than you’d think possible for a rough punk band from Canberra”.

Batpiss (Sydney + Melbourne)

Formed in Collingwood in 2011, Batpiss released their debut album Nuclear Winter early 2012. Playing their own mix of heavy sludgy punk hardcore over hundreds of gigs, they have built a solid fan base that knows that a Batpiss show is always loud, heavy and straight in your face. Since day one, it has been a non-stop gig orgy for Batpiss, supporting bands such as OFF!, The Bronx, Guitar Wolf, The Meanies, Blood Duster, Bits of Shit and Grong! Grong!.

Deep Heat (Melbourne)

Straddling the intersection of hypnotic garage, dreamy 1990s pop and Scandi-influenced indie punk, Deep Heat incorporates tessellating, chorus-drenched guitar hooks and layered triple vocals, underpinned by buzzy and energetic percussion/bass. With a pedigree that includes Teen Archer and The Diamond Sea, Deep Heat trade the energy and melody of early Wipers with the angsty ardour of mid-’90s to create an urgent wiring of raging post-punk and dark indie rock.

METZ

The three men of METZ — Alex Edkins, Hayden Menzies and Chris Slorach — have been around long enough to know that if you can’t fit it in the van, it’s not worth bringing. Or on the plane, as the case may be for their maiden voyage to Australia. Over the last three-and-a-half years, METZ have slayed in basements, skate shops, clubs, and festivals around the world, sharing stages with Mission of Burma, Death from Above 1979, Archers of Loaf, Mudhoney, Oneida, Constantines, and NoMeansNo.

It’s a formidable task to try and capture such a powerful live band on record. Luckily, Graham Walsh (Holy Fuck) and Alexandre Bonenfant were more than up for it. Isolating the band in an old barn for a week with a portable recording rig, they successfully documented the unrelenting live force of the band, and managed to add some new and staggering sonic textures to the recording. Waves of organic feedback and fuzzed-out drones build the classic tension that eventually drops into each track’s relentless, dissonant pulse.

And somehow, the raddest thing about it all is the songwriting. It’s not just riffs. It’s something that some heavy bands don’t get, but METZ do really well—and they do it collectively. With their debut album, released last year on Sub Pop via Inertia, METZ articulated with deafening clarity, that a new power trio is just what the world of good music needs. It’s a hell of an experience, listening to this band; stand back, and watch jaws drop within the first four measures of their set. This is post-hardcore sludge-punk, distilled into pure, but artfully rendered chaos by one of the most brutalising bands in the world today.

• “The technology to crank your guitar up to huge, ear-busting levels can be purchased over the counter, but bands that can pull off volume while inducing claustrophobia are something special. Metz are such a band. The Toronto-based trio’s Sub Pop debut is pure pummel and ugliness in the best sense. The drums thunder away like they’re being bludgeoned at the bottom of an elevator shaft. The bass and guitar pound minimalist patterns through a curtain of fuzz and grit. The songs sound live– not in the sense that they were recorded as-performed, but in the way that represents what loud bands actually sound like when they turn up at a grimy club with cement walls. High frequencies bounce through the stereo field. The vocals seem feedback-baked and half-strangled. There are moments when Metz betray a minor debt to grunge, but most of the time, they’re out on their own bizzaro wavelength, singing about rats, mental instability, or whatever else conjures up appropriate levels of anxiety” – PITCHFORK Top 50 Albums of 2012

Early Woman pics by Heather Lighton

Early Woman‘s debut single, I’m A Peach b/w Feathers, is available on 7″ vinyl and digital release via Mistletone/ Inertia. Click above to purchase via iTunes or buy the 7″ via Mistletone mail order.

EARLY WOMAN TOUR DATES:

FRIDAY OCTOBER 25: Early Woman single launch at Boney, with special guests A G E N D E R — new project for Romy Hoffman, ex-ROMY / Macromantics — schizo, synthy paranoid punk with a dash of dysmorphic desire); Dead Calm — new project for Esther Edquist (Superstar) — “Heartfelt, deep, deep house, felt hearts in the house of deep water, Emotional & Moving Pictures of Life”; plus Beaches DJs. Tickets $10 + booking fee on sale now.

FRIDAY NOVEMBER 22: Mess+Noise Lunchbox show at Melbourne Music Week’s flagship venue, The Residence. Free entry, 1pm start, over 18s event. More info on the MMW website.

• “Proving not only that there are still plenty of good band names out there, but that there are still great supergroups left to come out of the Melbourne music scene, Early Woman dispatch any notions of slick professionalism within moments. Flaunting their gold lame and wandering vocal melodies proudly, singer and guitarist Hannah Brooks (Young Professionals, St Helens) and keys hammerer Bjenny Montero lead the band through a captivating set boasting cheap synth sounds, slap back vocal echo, and some brilliant bass plying from Rob Bravington, all of which keeps us in thrall to their brash take on early garage rock and girl groups. Songs like Believer are full of ideas and rusty pop hooks (even if they are all cribbed from Paul Kelly and John Maus, as Montero suggests). Future single I’m a Peach is a standout, but closing song RoadKnight (named for singer Margaret Roadknight) is the clincher” – THEMUSIC.COM.AU
• “I’m A Peach is dreamy — as is its B-side, a raw yet classically pop tune called Feathers. While the former is a pleading, foot-stomping and swaying rock song, the latter is a Phil Spector-esque tender track with a Californian glam heart. They’re each other’s anti-thesis but they’re both really good. – OYSTER MAGAZINE

Early Woman is an improbable collaboration between two individually unique artists and musicians, Ben Montero and Hannah Brooks. Infamous comic/ poster artist Ben Montero and journalist/documentary maker Hannah Brooks began working on music together in mid 2012.

Coming from polar opposite musical backgrounds – Brooks in bands such as Young Professionals, Spider Vomit and St Helens; Montero in Treetops, The Brutals and his current eponymous project Montero – yet occupying a similar Scorpionic frequency, they started writing, using the few instruments that they had; a piano that came with their apartment, and a guitar Brooks borrowed from her mother.

Fragments of each other’s songs became their songs. Seasoned enough to know what they wanted and headstrong enough to question each other’s convictions, they brought out the best in each other; stripping away each other’s shields, heroes, egos and pasts, creating something distinctly their own. Disparate pieces synchronising. Kismet!

Raw, yet aspirational, Early Woman’s songs are carved from another time, roughly chiselling away at vintage forms and classic pop/rock’n’roll tropes. Sad, sensual and dreamy, the songs reverberate with a primal sincerity and an undeniable melodic authority.

Joining the Early Woman lineup, producer and multi-instrumentalist Robert “Bobby Brave” Bravington’s dexterous bass runs complement Brooks’ primitive rhythm guitar and Montero’s garage baroque organ swirls. Completing the band is neophyte drummer — and architect by trade — Caitlin Perry. Less than a year since forming, Early Woman have already made a bold mark, playing shows in Melbourne and Sydney with esteemed acts such as Beaches, Scott & Charlene’s Wedding, Lost Animal, UV Race, Darren Sylvester, Super Wild Horses, Love of Diagrams & Peak Twins.

Both I’m A Peach and Feathers were recorded at Bobby Brave Studios, where the band is currently recording their debut album.

With three part harmonies and cello by Jessica Venables (Jessica Says), Feathers is dreamy and tender; part California folk-rock, part Spector. It’s a dreamy drivein makeout anthem recalling the loneliest echoes of sixties teen music.

I’m A Peach is the musical antithesis of its B-side; a supplication, alternating between hurt and hope, throbbing with raw rage and desperation, whilst yearning for salvation.

Artwork by Ben Montero

SONNY & THE SUNSETS TOUR DATES:

MELBOURNE: FRI NOV 15 @ MELBOURNE MUSIC WEEK OPENING NIGHT at The Residence w/- The Bats, Boomgates, Montero, Vishnu Keys + DJs Higher Power + LA Pocock. Tickets on sale now & selling fast! Doors open 7:30pm.

SYDNEY: THU NOV 21 @ Pop-Friendzzzy w/- Surf City, Community Radio + Adults @ Goodgod. Presented by Popfrenzy. Tickets on sale now.

BRISBANE: FRI NOV 22 @ California Design Up Late. See the Queensland Art Gallery in a different light when Sonny & the Sunsets play an Up Late Friday night event during California Design 1930–1965: Living in a Modern Way, an exhibition of more than 250 iconic designs from mid-20th century California organised by the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA). Up Late offers a unique opportunity to see the ‘California Design’ exhibition after hours, enjoy live music in the Gallery’s beautiful Watermall and sample from a Californian inspired menu in the surrounds of QAG’s Sculpture Courtyard. Tickets and details here.

Sonny Smith will also be a guest speaker at Melbourne’s Face The Music conference, details below:

MUSIC = ART: Saturday 16 November, 12.20 – 1.10pm @ Arts Centre Melbourne. Sonny Smith joins panelists Caroline Kennedy and Darren Sylvester and moderators Simon Winkler & Lauren Taylor to discuss the work of musicians who create art and artists that create music. As a vehicle for expression, can the microphone be replaced by a spray can, a tattoo gun, lasers, lump of clay or a camera? We sometimes see these worlds collide, blur, cross-pollinate at art shows or in elaborate stage shows and sometimes two callings exist in isolation. Presented by Melbourne Music Week and Face The Music. Bookings & further info here.

• “Smith and the gang have some garage rock fun: Smith whoops like an ape, claps his hands to match his vocals, and then a delighted Tahlia Harbour playfully sings along with the instrumental outro. Both musically and lyrically, the album presents some of the Sunsets’ best work yet” – PITCHFORK review

Mistletone is proud to present the return of San Francisco’s rollicking garage-rock raconteurs, Sonny & the Sunsets. Sonny & the Sunsets are no strangers to Oz audiences; they opened Golden Plains 2011, were special guests on The Clean’s Australian tour, and headlined Mistletone’s sold out “Sonny Tones” party in Melbourne, where they are a firm favourite with three 3RRR Albums of the Week to their name.

Sonny & The Sunsets are the energetic accompaniment to the dynamic workings of Sonny Smith: playwright, novelist, filmmaker, comic book artist and all-round awesome human. Swooning out to Sonny’s sardonic, laid-back style, The Sunsets provide the perfect ensemble for Sonny’s vintage callbacks; a bubbling pot of 50s and 60s pop, country and folk, doo wop, garage rock and RnB, delivered with all the nonsense and energy of a midnight beach party.

While Sonny & The Sunsets draw on a variety of retro inspirations, their albums stand as intangible classics of their own. The latest and greatest Sonny & the Sunsets album, Antenna to the World, was recently released on Popfrenzy.

SONNY SMITH BIO:

Sonny Smith began playing Jimmy Yancey covers on piano in little mountain town clubs of Colorado when he was 18. These piano gigs led him to Denver and then into Central America where he busked up and down the Telemanca Coast with a couple friends in a band. At this time he was working on screenplays which ultimately broke apart into long-winded songs with characters, dialogues and plots. Sonny’s early CDs include This Is My Story, This Is My Song, released in 2002, followed the next year by Sordid Tales of Love and Woe, Sweet Lorraine featuring Jolie Holland on harmonies. In 2000, he wrote and directed his first short movie “Kid Gus Man.” In 2005, he garnered a residency at the Headlands Center for the Arts to write and perform the play The Dangerous Stranger, and received a residency in 2006 from the LAB in San Francisco to produce part two of the saga, “Stranger Danger!” Sonny also wrote “Steppin’ Out,” a column for the New Mission Newspaper, in addition to publishing stories in various literary magazines. In 2005, Watchword Literary Magazine commissioned Sonny to produce One Act Plays, a CD that includes Edith Frost, Neko Case, Miranda July, Jolie Holland, Andy Cabic, Virgil Shaw, Mark Eitzel, John Dwyer and Mekons’ Rico Bell, among other talented artists. Following this was the release of Fruitvale, a collaboration with Wilco’s Leroy Bach and other Chicago musicians that features songs Sonny wrote about his then neighborhood in Oakland. In 2009 he released Tomorrow is Alright (soft abuse/secret seven) with his band Sonny & The Sunsets, a loose collective of musicians including Shayde Sartin & Tim Cohen of The Fresh & Onlys, Tahlia Harbour of Citay and The Dry Spells as well as Sub Pop recording artist Kelley Stoltz. The Sunsets now include Ryan Browne, Tahlia Harbour, and Kelley Stoltz. In 2009 he acted in a short film by Robert Arnold All Animals. In March of 2009, he gained another residency through The Headlands Center for the Arts to begin a large project called “100 records” in which 100 artists make 7” record covers of fictional bands that he supplies the music for. The show debuted for a seven week run at Gallery 16 in San Francisco in April 2010. It then travelled to Okay Mnt Gallery in Austin, Texas and will finish in New York at Cinders Gallery. Artists involved were William Wiley, Alika Cooper, Chris Johansen, Alice Shaw, Paul Wackers, Rebecca Miller, and about 90 more… Tomorrow Is Alright was released on August 31, 2010 via Fat Possum. The album’s single, “Too Young to Burn,” made its way around the blogosphere and caught the attention of many. After multiple tours and various collaborative/solo releases, Sonny and the Sunsets released their 2nd full-length, Hit After Hit, via Fat Possum on April 12, 2011. On April 23, 2012, Sonny & The Sunsets signed with Polyvinyl Records for their 3rd album, Longtime Companion (AKA Sonny & The Sunsets’ country album). Longtime Companion was released June 26, 2012. Another Sonny & The Sunsets album, Antenna To The Afterworld, followed in 2013 on Polyvinyl and was locally released via Popfrenzy.

BC by Montero from Christian J Petersen on Vimeo.

“This gloriously psychedelic video is the world premiere for “BC,” a new song by Australian musician/comic artist/animator/renaissance man Ben Montero, and the first single from his upcoming debut album The Loving Gaze, which is out on September 20 via Mistletone. The song is an ode to the power of music — as Montero says, “Romantic pop songs can be your life coach. Healing and trusting music. Don’t be afraid to use all your power and magic and don’t let the cynicism of others get into your bloodstream.” The video, meanwhile, is the work of Christian J Peterson of Seattle-based studio I Want You, and is just as gloriously warm and colorful as the song itself” – FLAVORWIRE

MONTERO TOUR DATES:

FRIDAY 27 SEPTEMBER: MELBOURNE LP LAUNCH @ HOWLER with special guests Andras and Prudence Rees-Lee. Tickets $12 + booking fee on sale now.

SATURDAY 5 OCTOBER: SYDNEY LP LAUNCH @ GOODGOD’S BIRTHDAY NIGHTS! Montero headline the Smash Hits! party at Goodgod along with Standish/Carlyon • The Murlocs • Bed Wettin’ Bad Boys • Alex Cameron • Mining Boom • Four Door • Major Napier • Black Vanilla • Yo Grito! • Silky Doyle • DJ Principal Blackman. Earlybird – $15+bf / General Admission $20+bf, tickets on sale now.

FRIDAY 11 OCTOBER: INSTORE @ POLYESTER RECORDS, MELBOURNE. Free, all ages, 6pm start.

FRIDAY 15 NOVEMBER: MELBOURNE MUSIC WEEK OPENING NIGHT @ The Residence. Opening Night curated by Mistletone, with The Bats (NZ), Sonny & the Sunsets, Boomgates + special guest. Tickets on sale now.

Mistletone is honoured to release the debut album by Montero, The Loving Gaze, on vinyl and digital release only via Inertia. Release date: September 20.

FROM CYNICISM TO BELIEF. From the negative to the positive. From weakness to strength. From black and white to full colour. Montero’s debut album The Loving Gaze holds out a hand to you, the listener; inviting you on a journey that’s both expansive and inward, ever inward.

The masterwork of habitual Melbourne dreamer, iconoclast, enthusiast, songwriter, comic book writer, visual artist, animator and frontman extraordinaire Ben Montero, The Loving Gaze is a willing escapade from the everyday. This timeless album is an embracing of “bigger day” daydreams and sonic ambition, with a grasp on 1970s auteur rock classicism that’s rarely seen. Yet this is not a retro album; it’s entirely of this moment. Warm and cyclical. Kaleidescopic, rich and strong, yet still containing the roughness of instinct.

The inspirations Montero drew upon include late 1970s Beach Boys and Dennis Wilson, The Carpenters, Burt Bacharach, Eric Carmen, The Association, California sunshine pop, power ballads, 1980s TV theme song melodies, obscure psychedelic pop discoveries and the Brill Building songwriters who started looking inwardly for inspiration. Ben also credits contemporary kindred spirits such as Destroyer, Ariel Pink and John Maus, not as musical influences, but as role models for “letting the colours out”; growing into your inspirations and true loves, and realising your powers, without regard for outside opinions.

Montero’s own musical metamorphosis — from a self-doubting 20-something, whose gifts were perfectly manifest in the imperfect vehicles of his early bands (Treetops, Holiday Maker, The Brutals, The TM Band), into the strength and surety that entering your 30s brings, the ability to convey and express your inspirations with authority and conviction — is gloriously apparent in the synthesis of day glo melody, musical depth and imagination on this stunning album.

But lest you think this epicness emerged fully formed, it came after many years hidden away in bedrooms with an acoustic guitar and a Tascam, filling up garbage bags with tape after tape. Ever uncomfortable in repressive band circles and writing for other people and not truly for himself, Ben hid behind a fringe, a bass guitar and cynicism. These songs were written when Ben got through a difficult time by visiting a local church drop in centre, where they allowed him to play piano for people having recovery meetings. With no-one else around, Ben played with melodies and chords and began to write songs purely for himself, letting go of the idea that being in band was the only reason to make music.

With the newfound confidence to be a leader, not a follower, came a band with the smarts and sensitivity to realise Montero’s visions. The luxury of beautiful vocals to be heard on this album (and in Montero’s celebratory live performances) come from years of harmony singing between Montero and longtime collaborator Gerald Wells, who also plays synths. With Chapter Music founder and solo balladeer Guy Blackman on piano, Cameron Potts (Ninety Nine, Baseball) on the drumkit, local producer Robert “Bobby Brave” Bravington (Early Woman) on bass and Geoffrey O’Connor (Geoffrey O’Connor, Crayon Fields) on guitar, Montero is a powerful, sensual supergroup. So don’t be shy. Raise up your eyes and accept The Loving Gaze.

• “Soft rock. Tender like a gram mammy’s bosom… Like Bowie at his most expansive all mixed up with Herb Alpert’s weirder moments” – THE THOUSANDS
• “Stemming from the same school of retro-pop fetishism as US masters Ariel Pink and John Maus, Montero set their ship on a smoother and sexier course with the effortlessly dreamy Passions. The lovelorn themes provide a stylistic allegory, “destined to repeat our history”, and everything comes together for a sultry launch into the stratosphere” – BEAT MAGAZINE

Video: Ceiling Rose by The Orbweavers. Director: Noko Washiyama, DoP: Brian Cohen.

The Orbweavers return with a new single – Ceiling Rose b/w Match Factory – which is out now on digital release via Mistletone / Inertia. The band is also creating a limited edition illustrated CD single containing two tracks, complimentary with entry to both Melbourne shows.

THE ORBWEAVERS TOUR DATES:

WEDNESDAY SEPTEMBER 11: THE PRESS CLUB, BRISBANE. BIGSOUND LIVE 2013 showcase, The Orbweavers onstage 11:30pm.

SUNDAY SEPTEMBER 15: NORTHCOTE SOCIAL CLUB, MELBOURNE (matinee show), with Shiver Like Timber (Sydney) @ Northcote Social Club. Tickets on sale now (be quick!). This is a matinee show, doors open 1:30pm.

FRIDAY SEPTEMBER 20: CARAVAN MUSIC CLUB, MELBOURNE (seated), with Jacky Winter. Tickets on sale now.

FRIDAY OCTOBER 11: BRIGHTON UP BAR, SYDNEY with Shiver Like Timber @ Brighton Up Bar.
Tickets $10 + booking fee on sale now.

SATURDAY OCTOBER 12: YOURS & OWLS, WOLLONGONG, with Shiver Like Timber.

SUNDAY OCTOBER 20: WHEATSHEAF, ADELAIDE.

SATURDAY OCTOBER 26:  GRAND POOBAH, HOBART.

The Orbweavers delve into local urban history and deliver new material drawn from Melbourne’s built and natural environments. Ceiling Rose is a song about secrets and dreams, waking and worrying in the night, drifting between states of consciousness. A symbol of secrecy and confidentiality since ancient times, the ceiling rose is an enduring decorative feature in Australian interior architecture, and forms the central motif of this new single.

Match Factory is a dedication to Melbourne suburbs Cremorne, Richmond & Abbotsford, industrial and working life, and remnant buildings such as Dimmeys, the Bryant & May factory and Yorkshire Brewery silos. A song about loss and leaving, Match Factory was written walking through the northern river suburbs of Melbourne around the time of the ‘super moon’ in June 2013.

Since releasing Loom (Mistletone Records, 2012), The Orbweavers have been warming hearts and selling out shows with evocative songs and stories of creeks & quarries (Merri), the yearnings of a bridled greyhound (You Can Run – Fern’s Theme), and Melbourne’s historic sewerage pumping station (Spotswood), while continuing work on their forthcoming third album.

The Orbweavers are Marita Dyson on vocals, guitar and violin, Stuart Flanagan on vocals and guitar, Daniel Aulsebrook on trumpet, Paddy Mann (Grand Salvo) on bass, Jen Sholakis (Jen Cloher, Sailor Days) on drums and Stuart Lindsay on koto and organ.

PRAISE FOR THE ORBWEAVERS

• “A particularly special Melbourne band” – THE AGE MELBOURNE MAGAZINE
• “Everything about The Orbweavers is effortlessly charming” – BROADSHEET
• “A bare-bones record that barely rises from a whisper but still has the power to move you” – TRIPLE J HOME & HOSED
• “Warm melodies weave throughout the songs creating rich acoustic textures that are comforting and familiar” – THE THOUSANDS
• “The best song written about Melbourne since Paul Kelly’s From St Kilda to Kings Cross“ BEN ELTHAM ON SPOTSWOOD
• “This song is so beautiful it hurts” – PAUL KELLY ON SPOTSWOOD

Follow The Orbweavers……….

on Soundcloud

on Youtube

on Facebook

on Twitter

Artwork by Carl Breitkreuz

Mistletone is amped to present the first ever Australian tour by METZ. Special guests to be announced, tickets on sale now!

METZ AUSTRALIAN TOUR DATES:

SYDNEY: WEDNESDAY DECEMBER 4 @ Goodgod Small Club. Tickets on sale now from Moshtix. Presented by FBi.
MELBOURNE: THURSDAY DECEMBER 5 @ Howler. Tickets & info here. Presented by 3RRR.
PERTH: SATURDAY DECEMBER 7 @ Slanted & Enchanted. Tickets & info here. Presented by Life Is Noise.

Toronto power trio METZ play like one brutally heavy instrument with three heads, slashing heavy-gauge strings, bending guitar and bass necks in weird unison, along with what is probably the loudest drumming you’ve ever heard. It’s a return to everything that’s good about loud, ecstatic live music; a frantic nod to Nation of Ulysses, Shellac, The Pixies, The Jesus Lizard, and Public Image Ltd. at their most vicious, while still carving out some heavy new business. They play the instruments, the amps, and the room.

The three men of METZ — Alex Edkins, Hayden Menzies and Chris Slorach — have been around long enough to know that if you can’t fit it in the van, it’s not worth bringing. Or on the plane, as the case may be for their maiden voyage to Australia. Over the last three-and-a-half years, METZ have slayed in basements, skate shops, clubs, and festivals around the world, sharing stages with Mission of Burma, Death from Above 1979, Archers of Loaf, Mudhoney, Oneida, Constantines, and NoMeansNo.

It’s a formidable task to try and capture such a powerful live band on record. Luckily, Graham Walsh (Holy Fuck) and Alexandre Bonenfant were more than up for it. Isolating the band in an old barn for a week with a portable recording rig, they successfully documented the unrelenting live force of the band, and managed to add some new and staggering sonic textures to the recording. Waves of organic feedback and fuzzed-out drones build the classic tension that eventually drops into each track’s relentless, dissonant pulse.

And somehow, the raddest thing about it all is the songwriting. It’s not just riffs. It’s something that some heavy bands don’t get, but METZ do really well—and they do it collectively. With their debut album, released last year on Sub Pop via Inertia, METZ articulated with deafening clarity, that a new power trio is just what the world of good music needs. It’s a hell of an experience, listening to this band; stand back, and watch jaws drop within the first four measures of their set. This is post-hardcore sludge-punk, distilled into pure, but artfully rendered chaos by one of the most brutalising bands in the world today.

• “The technology to crank your guitar up to huge, ear-busting levels can be purchased over the counter, but bands that can pull off volume while inducing claustrophobia are something special. Metz are such a band. The Toronto-based trio’s Sub Pop debut is pure pummel and ugliness in the best sense. The drums thunder away like they’re being bludgeoned at the bottom of an elevator shaft. The bass and guitar pound minimalist patterns through a curtain of fuzz and grit. The songs sound live– not in the sense that they were recorded as-performed, but in the way that represents what loud bands actually sound like when they turn up at a grimy club with cement walls. High frequencies bounce through the stereo field. The vocals seem feedback-baked and half-strangled. There are moments when Metz betray a minor debt to grunge, but most of the time, they’re out on their own bizzaro wavelength, singing about rats, mental instability, or whatever else conjures up appropriate levels of anxiety” – PITCHFORK Top 50 Albums of 2012

Get Off – official video created and animated by Chad VanGaalen

METZ Full Performance (Live on KEXP)

Every new song has to start somewhere. The first new song in 13 years by Melbourne band Snout began with a hunger strike at a detention centre, writes Jo Roberts. (Read Jo’s story via TIM magazine below).

Download Turn All The Lights Down Low by Snout from Mistletone’s Bandcamp via the link above, and pay what you choose. All proceeds will be donated to the Asylum Seeker Resource Centre. The Asylum Seeker Resource Centre (ASRC) protects and upholds the human rights, wellbeing and dignity of asylum seekers. They are the largest provider of aid, advocacy and health services for asylum seekers in Australia.

Turn All The Lights Down Low by Snout

Dripping language finessed to remove the distressed from their pants
Lay in wait fascist seeds when you need a ride home from the dance
And you’re making me laugh with that neck of giraffe on your plate
Rotten roast you’re the toast my election night host and my date
Oh
Turn all the lights down low

Well philosophy’s fine and it’s right for the times that’s for sure
And a flexible spine is the look to unhook any door
But it’s ever so hard for the grownups to stop chasing votes
Complicated big world for the people who come here on boats
Oh
Turn all the lights down low

Always up in the night getting fit for a fight i can’t win
And the sweet Labor right so polite with a kick to the shin
Oh,the advantage of height in a person so slight is not wise
How i crave, how i crave some integrity, save me from lies
And when you think that they’ve loved you all that they can, no no no
Oh
Turn all the lights down low
Credits:
released 13 August 2013
lead vocals, bass- ross mclennan
guitar, b vocals- greg ng
drums- ewan mccartney
produced by james fitzpatrick, paul martin, and snout
mixed by james fitzpatrick and snout
mastered by simon grounds
promotion- mistletone records
cover photograph by steve mccartney
thanks to sydney road community school

all participants have provided their time for free.

SNOUT RETURN TO ROCK THE BOAT

Every new song has to start somewhere. The first new song in 13 years by Melbourne band Snout began with a hunger strike at a detention centre, writes Jo Roberts.

ROSS McLennan is a pedant. Especially, he says, when it comes to “clarity and truth”. It’s no wonder then that the Melbourne singer-songwriter and his partner, Denise Becker, have been long-time supporters of asylum seekers. The double-speak surrounding what has become one of the bleakest chapters of human rights in Australia is endemic, to the point that the term “illegal immigrants” — despite its inaccuracy — has been dressed up as fact through fear mongering and sloganeering.

Becker spends a lot of time visiting asylum seekers at the detention centre in  Broadmeadows in northern Melbourne, near where she and McLennan live with their two young children. It was there in April that 27 Tamil men began a hunger strike. They were among 55 recognised refugees refused visas after ASIO, without explanantion, branded them a threat.

It was during the hunger strike that McLennan began writing the song that would become Turn All the Lights Down Low.  Curiously, the song very early on presented itself as a Snout song, the band that McLennan fronted from 1991 until they disbanded in 2002. Never mind that since Snout’s demise, McLennan has recorded three critically acclaimed solo albums of symphonic, choral, other-worldly pop. Turn All the Lights Down Low came into the world, as an upbeat, hook-laden, ‘60s rock-infused, jump-around-the-room Snout song.

“I was pretty happy when I wrote it and I thought once I’d done it, I thought it was a Snout song for two reasons,” explains McLennan. “When I used to write for Snout it was always in mind of a cultural kind of thing, where you’re existing in relation to your audience and you’re trying to write things that enhance people’s lives, as full of shit that might be. Its purpose is to connect. The thing that enables you to write things like that is the idea that you might have a chance to connect to people like that.

“That sort of fed into the idea that if I did it as a Snout song, I could burn up the last bit of goodwill [for Snout] on this message.”

The message, loud and clear, is politicking at the expense of human rights.  Take verse 2, for instance:

Well philosophy’s fine and it’s right for the times that’s for sure
And a flexible spine is the look to unhook any door
But it’s ever so hard for the grownups to stop chasing votes
Complicated big world for the people who come here on boats

“It’s a human rights issue that’s close to our hearts, and I think it’s just that sense of frustration,” says McLennan. “It’s not even just about refugees, to me it’s about being a fairly pedantic person and being hung up on clarity and truth.”

Which, let’s face it,  isn’t a bad thing to be hung up on.

“Not at all,” concurs McLennan. “It can be quite upsetting though; any thinking person looking at the level of debate, you could sit there all night going ‘but this doesn’t make sense and that didn’t make sense and that person didn’t answer that question and now they’re just scapegoating that person’.

“I don’t think of myself as being able to really debate these things, but to be able to get something that I feel has nailed it in some kind of, loosely speaking, poetic way, makes me feel better. I like a good metaphor. I’ve said all the things I wanted to say in a way that amuses me and it makes me feel a lot better, and hopefully it’ll do the same for some other people.”

It’s not the first time McLennan has written about Australia’s xenophobia. On his first solo album, 2003‘s Songs From the Brittle Building,  there was John Howard the Actor (in which he empathised with the well-known Australian screen star for sharing his name with the then-PM), while on 2008‘s Sympathy For the New World, he responded to the 2001 asylum boat sinking tragedy that claimed 353 lives (including 142 women and 146 children) with Now, about Siev-X.  That horrific episode represents the largest loss of life of any capsized Australia-bound asylum seeker boat, a tragedy darkened all the more by still uninvestigated claims of two naval vessels allegedly discovering, then abandoning the scene, leaving potential survivors to drown.

McLennan has heard the stories of some survivors first-hand. He can barely finish a sentence when trying to speak about it; somewhere in the back of the throat, words are still caught by horror and disbelief.

Perhaps it’s part of the reason why Turn All the Lights Down Low allows him to vent. To this song he can bring musical levity without demeaning the gravity of the song’s heart. For instance, the song title itself has a couple of meanings. One refers to the flattering lighting favoured on date nights.

“Imagine you’re on a date with Tony Abbott. Do you really want the lights up nice and bright?,” asks McLennan. “Soft lighting is the key.”

“Also in the back of my mind is a mourning thing, like a half-mast thing. During the writing of the song I wasn’t thinking about it as clearly meaning that, but it does mean that for me now.”

The song was recorded with Snout’s most long-term lineup, McLennan, drummer Ewan McCartney and guitarist Greg ‘Soul Train’ Ng, who have united for the all-too occasional reunion show over the years.

But the recording has, excitingly, opened the door to the potential of a new Snout EP.

“There’s talk, there’s whispers, about doing something more substantial later,” says McLennan. “We have this idea of doing an EP, just for fun, and we’d probably put [Turn All the Lights Down Low] on there. It sort of freed up a lot of songs. Because I write lots of stuff and I write lots of different kinds of things and a lot of them just sort of languish because I think ‘well, that’s a Snout song and I’m not in Snout any more’. But you know, having got together and actually thought about the idea of new material, it does open the door a crack. We’ll see what happens.”

Snout play the Rock the Boat show with the Basics (featuring some guy called Wally de Backer on drums), Joelistics, Even (acoustic) and MC Alan Brough on Thursday August 22 at the Northcote Social Club for the Asylum Seeker Resource Centre and Adam Bandt’s election campaign. Tickets here.

Turn All the Lights Down Low is available for purchase at the Mistletone Records Bandcamp here.
All proceeds go to the Asylum Seeker Resource Centre.