Photos by Rachel Brandon
Delaney Davidson is a name we’ve been hearing around for a while now but have only been properly acquainted with tonight. With a charming, low voice, stylish instrumentation and intriguing lyrics, Delaney Davidson’s alt folk/country songwriting credentials are well and truly realised. His oddly meandering crooning style is upfront and with the bare bones of a song behind him in ‘Time Has Gone’, the essence is distilled down to its finest simplicity, which makes it all the more powerful. With blaring horns, searing violins and flairs of piano accordion, what’s there melodically is succinct and striking. Though it may seem well orchestrated for a song of its nature, the dynamics between the parts make it eerily sparse and slightly disjointed, which results in a memorable take on an old sound.
Auckland’s Autumn Splendour have a new video to share that was shot on Super 8 film and processed in Germany. We got the band to explain what they’re about and why they have an obsession with naming songs after themselves
King Khan recently retired The Shrines and The BBQ Show and started a new project – The King Khan Experience. He’s been getting compared to Jimi Hendrix his whole musical career and this new project finally takes up the challenge. In 9 new tracks released free by Scion Audio Visual Khan aggressively rips through a set of psychedelic garage-rock, forcing all sorts of weird sounds out of his electric guitar. Somewhere between Hendrix and Santana, The Datsuns and The Hives – The King Khan Experience is a fusion of all the best elements of past and present rock ‘n’ roll, but is perhaps not the most experimental work he’s ever done.
Blipping and tripping like a rave version of the Knife, Hugo Manuel of Oxford’s Chad Valley peaks early in his washed out rave-inspired chillwave pop. His gauzy vocals, glossy percussion and eerie-woodland-creature character wouldn’t be out of place in a Glass Vaults song. Manuel made his mark early on in his game touring Europe and went on to impress the folks on Pitchfork and many blogs, as well as earning a spot at UK festival T in the Park. ‘I Want Your Love’ is one of his most memorable songs, with its epically catchy chorus melody playing out in a seemingly endless cycle.
Over the past few months AIDS Wolf’s wonderful publicist (Foot Village and Deathbombarc‘s Brian Miller) has been drip feeding me information, videos and MP3s regarding the band’s forthcoming release Ma vie banale avant-garde. The album will be the band’s fourth full-length and their first double album, out October 4 via Lovepump United. So far all indications suggest that Ma vie banale avant-garde is a leap back to the more brutal days of Cities of Glass (2008) and Pas Rapport (2009), before the band adopted a more melodic sound on March to the Sea (2010).
Like a bleary, AM radio Best Coast, Dum Dum Girls or Male Bonding, Night Manager crawls through the dark bearing discordant pop with West Coast-style melodies. Swathed in static with a layer of affected weariness floating on top, their generally upbeat songs are full of ghostly oohs and almost angry stabs at their instruments – try ‘Air Jordan”s weird slanty meandering.
Back in June our friend Matthew Scheurich was shot with a bow and arrow while living in the Papua New Guinean jungle. The attack made international news headlines. He’s now back living in Auckland, New Zealand, recovering from his traumatic experience.
Bubblegum bedroom pop never sounded so fresh and joyous! Californian Zach Yudin’s solo bedroom project-turned-full-band-ensemble, Oregon Bike Trails, will be the newest release from pop purveyors Father/Daughter Records. With pitch-perfect choral harmonies and tinkling piano, this really is impeccable pop. Single ‘High School Lover’ hits its stride instantly with rousing, atmospheric vocals and gently rolling percussion
Melbourne’s finest space-punk raconteurs are back with a new single, titled ‘Fat Monk’, taken from their hotly anticipated second album Let Music & Bodies Unite, out through Sensory Projects in September. Strangely though, this new track reminds me more of Adrian Tregonning, Matt Kulesza and Daphne Shum’s other band No Zu, whom they perform live with rather than write material for (that’s left up to No Zu’s Nicolaas Oogjes).
With its relics from bygone eras, low ceilings, archaic equipment and elderly, chain-smoking bar staff, you could be forgiven for thinking The Montague Arms was a backwards village pub in one the...
Photos from a recent FOE gig - a friend of our friends Hold Your Horse Is - she’s gonna be big!!! Read the gig review after the jump.
Shots of North Carolina’s folk-rocking Avett Brothers’ stop in Glasgow - 22.08.11
Read the review of the gig here.
Take a look at the acts and art on offer at this year’s Latitude Festival in Suffolk. Included are the likes of Fight Like Apes, Lykke Li, Sea of Bees and Seasick Steve. Photos from our own...
Good time with Bad Guys. Photos from the May 29th gig at the Old Blue Last. Read the review by the Bad Guy himself, Stuart London after the jump.
Artrocker.com exclusive: for fans of White Lies and Crocodiles we’ve got some fresh pictures from their UK show at the Shepherd’s Bush Empire earlier this month, courtesy of Alessandro...
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