Mistletone took over the entire Edinburgh Castle for a crisp winter’s day and night full of unfailingly impressive local luminaries and guest headliners, the incredibly charming Je Suis Animal from Norway (who declared themselves enamoured of Melbourne’s indie music scene).

Thanks to the lovely people at the Edinburgh Castle, all the punters, everyone who brought a mix CD or cassette, the DJs who made the beer garden heaps of fun, and especially all the bands.

Mess + Noise were there to document the day in pictures, check out their photo gallery here.

Inpress review:

From The Vine:

Photos, review – Castletones, Melbourne 2009

Posted in MUSIC by thawking on Jul 01, 11:00AM
Castle Tones
Edinburgh Castle, Melbourne
Saturday 27th June

It’s over a year since most excellent local label Mistletone held the first of its “Tones” parties. Autumn Tones was a modest affair at the Tote, but since then there’s been the logistically challenged but musically triumphant Winter Tones, the understated Spring Tones and the Espy-spanning extravaganza of Summer Tones. The evolution of these events has mirrored the growth of the label, which in barely three years – yes, it’s hard to believe – has grown into one of Melbourne’s most respected imprints.

It’s difficult to identify a Mistletone “sound” in the same way you can with some labels – if anything, the label is characterised by its diversity. If you had to specify one overarching genre it’d be left-of-centre, hypercolour pop music – Dan Deacon, Lucky Dragons, Evangelicals et al – but their roster also includes everything from the crashing psychedelia of Beaches to the world-weary acoustica of Ross McLennan.

The line-up for this event reflects that diversity, with appearances from a variety of the label’s own artists plus like-minded souls drawn from across the Australian indie scene (and, in the case of the headliners, from Norway). Kes Band are taking the stage in the bar – which makes for a remarkably spacious area considering how many people are inside (the show is sold out) – when we score a decisive but hard-fought victory in its battle against Connex and arrive at the venue. Like any music that involves mention of elves, Kes’s oddball psych-folk is always going to polarize opinions. Given that the bar is more packed for his set than anyone else who plays this evening, the verdict tonight is very much in his favour, and his trio’s set tonight is surprisingly raucous, the music less wistful and more muscular than it is on record.

Next door, the dining room has been converted into a second stage and works surprisingly well, with Lynchian red curtains providing the stage with a suitably luxurious backdrop and an air of even greater intimacy than in the bar. It’s a setting that suits Jessica Says. Jessica Venables’ debut album attracted plenty of interest when it was released earlier this year, and she’s a charismatic and engaging performer. Her songs are harder to warm to – anyone who can take as calculating a view of a relationship as to be able to write lyrics like “He thought he read me but he only skimmed / Still I got one or two songs out of him” is one to handle with caution, you’d think – but she’s clearly a talent.

More easy to appreciate is Laura Jean. She’s taking this appearance as an opportunity to try out a bunch of new songs, and they bode well for whatever else she’s got in the pipeline. Her voice is as alluring as ever, and once the mixing that makes her electric guitar way louder than that voice is remedied, her gentle folk tunes are a fine soundtrack to a couple of quiet drinks and a chance to catch up with friends, even if the largely downbeat mood sends more than one punter perilously close to the land of nod.

The first really exciting moment of the night is provided by Miniature Submarines, a new project featuring Love Of Diagrams’ Monica Fikerle. They sound kinda post-grunge, in that they take cues from the raw, unadorned guitar thrash of 1990s Seattle and build on them to develop a sound of their own – full of thick distortion and fuzz, but also with surprisingly delicate melodic interludes. In short, they tick all the right boxes, and they sound great – or, at least, they will do once they’ve rehearsed some more. Their set tonight walks the perilous line between the endearingly shambolic and the just plain shambolic, threatening to tip the wrong way when guitarist/vocalist Mark Nelson forgets the intro to the same song twice over. When they do get it together, they’re really impressive, and given that they’re a fairly new project they promise a great deal once the creases are ironed out.

Either way, they put some of their more well-known contemporaries on this bill in the shade, and keep us firmly planted in the dining room for the duration of their set. By the time we wander back into the bar, Ned Collette & Wirewalker are well into their set, and although the crowd watching seem to be enjoying every minute, Collette’s solo work lacks the epic, evocative grandeur of his finest moments with City City City. It’s singer/songwriter-y, really, and even the extended freak-out that closes the set can’t summon sufficient interest to keep me watching, not when Scott & Charlene’s Wedding are about to take the stage next door.

The dining room is emptying rapidly as Spider Vomit’s Craig Dermody and his indie all-star cohorts (St Helens’ Jarrod Quarrell, Panel Of Judges’ Dion Nania and Love Of Diagrams’ Luke Horton) set up, with most attendees heading next door to await the arrival of headliners Je Suis Animal. This is a shame, because this solo project is rapidly revealing Dermody to be a songwriter of no little talent. I’ve been playing his song ‘Footscray Station’ obsessively of late – it’s available in suitably raw live format on his MySpace – and it’s one of the best songs I’ve heard in ages.

Dermody’s music isn’t complicated or revolutionary in any respect – he’s a rudimentary guitarist at best, and his songs are constructed around simple open chord progressions. But the beauty of his music is in its directness, whether discussing the shitness of his job as a removalist or spitting out hilarious Ramones-esque lines like “I don’t wanna eat my fruit and veg / I just wanna sit around and smoke cigarettes”. It’s music that’s reminiscent of early punk, or early grunge, or any other music that’s arisen out of suburban boredom and alienation. Anyone who’s ever been bored or pissed off with their life and their job will doubtless relate to Dermody’s tunes, and most likely wonder why they never managed to express their frustration quite so eloquently.

After that, Je Suis Animal are a bit of a comedown – as with Kes, this sort of twee pop music really divides opinion, and it’s not really my bag. That said, the Norwegian/English group are clearly good at what they do, evoking the likes of Stereolab as they romp through a relentlessly upbeat set. And anyway, the variety on show tonight pretty much ensures that there’s gonna be something for everyone… and really, that’s the point. Another fine evening that confirms the rude health of Melbourne’s music scene, and one of its best labels.

Tom Hawking
(Pics: Leila Morrissey)