Mistletone

Happy bithday to us! Mistletone turned the big 01 this month! Huzzah!!

Just released on Mistletone is Isolation Loops, the debut album from New Zealand artist Bachelorette (alter ego of Annabel Alpers). Recorded in the wilds of Canterbury NZ over a couple of months in a hut built by her great grandfather, Isolation Loops was recorded and mixed entirely by Alpers. The results is a wondrous home-made excursion into cosmic folk and catchy-as-anything psych pop. To celebrate the release Bachelorette will be making the trek to Australia in November for a national tour. Here are the dates:

Melbourne Thursday November 1 @ East Brunswick Club

Adelaide Friday November 2 @ Urtext

Sydney Saturday November 3 @ Ruby Rabbit

BLACK DICE! BLACK DICE!! BLACK DICE!!!

We’re crazily excited about the October release of Brooklyn experimentalists Black Dice‘s fourth album Load Blown. This record will blow your mind! Recorded over an 18 month period, Load Blown is a sprawling mix bag of imagination.The beats drip and roll, tar-pit voices sing into an oil can, and the guitars crank like calliope. Some tunes crackle and burble like submerged television, others bump and click along like a Summer Jam concert series from another dimension. Definitely Load Blown is a trip worth taking! If all goes to plan the band will head our way in the first part of 2008.

To celebrate our favourite time of year Mistletone will be releasing a xmas compilation featuring some very special artists’ takes on the “holiday song” tradition. Artists include Mystic Chords Of Memory, Evangelicals, High Places, John Maus, Pikelet, Barrage, Francis Plagne, Ned Collette, Jack Ladder, Hands On Heads, The Sticks, Ross McLennan and more. All profits from the album will go to an animal welfare charity because our furry little friends often get a raw deal at that time of the year. We’ll be launching the record in Melbourne with a Mistletone Xmas party at the Tote on Sunday December 23. Circle your diaries and stuff your stockings!

Mistletone’s funnest friend Dan Deacon has been busily conquering all in his path since his TOTALLY AWESOME album Spiderman Of The Rings dropped in June. After temporarily becoming estranged from his touring buddy, the trippy green skull, Dan has resumed his month long sold-out US tour with Girl Talk. Dan will be bringing his crazy, crazy party to Australia over the summer with a wild series of party-hearty shows in Melbourne, Sydney and Brisbane so get ready for Dan Deacon mania!

Speaking of tours, Mistletone is bringing San Francisco psych pop maestro and all round good guy Kelley Stoltz back to Australia for a full national tour in February 2008! For the shows Kelley will re reuniting with his gun Aussie band (Mikey Young, Mark Nelson, Kjirsten Robb and Julian Wu). Also look out for a new Kelley Stoltz album out early next year on Sub Pop records.

If you still haven’t heard the new self titled album from Melbourne pop/experimental wiz Francis Plagne you really should stop what you’re doing and hunt it down now! Since the albums release last month, the record has been receiving praise a plenty. This review from writer extraordinaire Mark Gomes sums it up excellently:

“Wunderkind teen experimentalist, Francis Plagne, dons stripes of genius on his second album split-published by Mistletone and venerated ex-pat, Synaesthesia Records. A pleasurably schizoid, patient mix of abstract sound assemblage and skewed melodic hooks, Francis Plagne neatly stiches-up 70 years of winning pop and conceptual music discoveries in just 70 minutes. Dialling through the Out-sounds spectrum as if taking a leisurely Sunday walk, Plagne’s ability to skip across and combine field recordings, extended instrumental technique, electronics and harmonic song is staggering, but never pretentious – making for one of the year’s most intriguing and go-ahead local releases.”

Melbourne peeps can check out Francis live this Saturday night at The Afterdark and next Thursday September 27 at Bar Open.

The first quarter of next year will see new albums from Kes, Ross McLennan, Beach House, Evangelicals and Dan Deacon and a couple of very tasty international tours. Stay tuned!!

Adios, Ash & Sophie