the herd’s starship troopers with ozi batla on vocals is one of the most powerful tracks i’ve heard in a long time. it got a limited release in the elefant traks cd sampler, and will hopefully get a full release on an Ozi Batla album, but in the meantime you can download it here.

blistering, essential listening.

i’ve been looking forward to the release of the new album from Melbourne group WAGONS so much that i went to Landspeed in Canberra and bought the cd without even listening on the basis that it:

a) looks like being good
b) produced by j walker
c) raved about by mono geeks
d) released on spunk

but then i find out that it is:

a) crap
b) more sinatra brat pack copyist way too ironic, than passionate beautiful gram parsons
c) overwraught strings
d) not at all good

you people out there that like it, explain why this johnny cash lite takes your fancy.

the canberra times’ weekly entertainment liftout – times out – is getting a rebranding and refit… it’s going to be called fly, they’re dropping the arts/culture content and targetting it to a younger audience.

fortnightly columnist graham walker hit me up with a few questions… i answered the following, but with the brevity of his column and the fact that he emailed half the djs in town, i imagine most of my comments will make it as far as the cutting room floor. so here’s my ramble.

> in the crystal ball, what do you see as the big picture future of Canberra
> clubbing?

the club culture is sure to grow as the city becomes more urbanised…
like other cities, canberra club nights will probably continue to become more niche – hip hop, deep house, breaks, drum’n’bass and so on.
i hope that in parallel, an undercurrent of musical diversity begins to develop… people open to a wide range of music and interested in hearing challenging music played when they go out and music they haven’t heard before.

> what do you see at its strengths and weaknesses?

strengths: technically skilled djs and producers. the key djs in canberra are the equal of any in the country, in many cases quite a bit better. you’ll struggle to find a dj more adept at blending wild and weird sounds than bec paton, anywhere. people have been saying that typhonic plays ghetto-tech better than seminal detroit dj godfather, while on the production end of things, guys like stalker, microworld and vance musgrove are making exceptional music.

weaknesses: tends to be a fairly one dimensional music scene. breaks nights, house nights, and so on. and like elsewhere, you end up with this handful of djs that are pretty jaded about the job, but still play everywhere because they’re the incumbents. it would be good to see promoters and clubbers being a bit more adventurous with what they check out. like canberra itself, the clubs do things alright, nothing particularly bad, but then again nothing particularly breathtaking either. i’d love to see more experimentation and wildness.

> which clubs and venues are going to play what roles (be honest and let me
> know if you want it anonymous)?

clubs like toast and red gecko are pretty essential to a vibrant club scene in canberra… they’re fostering a new generation of djs and live acts who simply can’t (or don’t want to) get gigs at the larger clubs (eg academy, lot, anu). those larger spaces are important of course – they may be the first point of entry into the music scene for a lot of people, but they offer a very superficial take on music.

the national museum of australia’s annual event, skylounge, has been an critically important event for canberra in terms of presenting electronic music as an artistic/cultural experience (rather than a hedonistic nightclub soundtrack) and allowing space for challenging, engaging music in canberra. rumours of its demise are very disappointing.

it’s quite exciting tho… djs like shunji, the grandson, rookie one, low ki, and producers like dot-0-dot, fuselage, present tense and many more, it’s set to be quite interesting whatever happens.

making music? electronic? noise? hip hop? whatever?
maybe you should enter the plover idle bedroom talent quest. it’ll be held at this is not art in newcastle this october and is open to pretty much anyone.
prizes are a 500 run pressing deal from dual plover as well as a paid sunday night gig at tina, the judge’s panel includes lucas abela (dualplover), david harris (system corrupt), nick kamavissis (fata), hannah furmage and gary bradbury (severed heads), it’ll be compered by swerve (dualplover)…

just submitted a new column to itm… it’s mostly just things i’ve rambled about on here, but possibly to a slightly larger audience.

i’ve gotta interview selwyn tomorrow… what do you ask a guy like that? what’s he gonna be like: difficult? too cool? nice, despite the public image? slow? smart?

what’s he like anyway – what’s interesting about him? i don’t even know if he came out of pop stars or idol!

i saw the sugary boomin’ on video hits the other morning and i’d like to see him getting a heavy refunk, like daniel merriweather whose tune is getting a serious caning in places where i control the music because of the calculators’ killer bottom end electro remix.

on a similar tip i’ve got to put together a couple of pieces on broken beat guru, domu. i interviewed him a couple of weeks ago which was cool, but i’ve now got to write up an in depth piece on where he’s at, plus a 500 worder on his alter egos… eek.

the people from blogshares have created a bizarre world.

it’s a fantasy stockmarket for blogs that allows users to speculate on blog success by trading in shares based on success of the site (measured in links from established sites). the hilarious thing is that i discovered it by googling the name of my blog…

better lift my game i guess.

my posting’s been pretty lax in the past week or two. plenty happening, but i may need to hold off on a full debrief. plenty of TOP music though.

finally got the WAGONS album. and i’m not entirely sure where i stand with it. the singer’s got an ironic edge to his crooning that brings to mind sinatra (or one of the handful of kitsch brat pack copyists). the music can be a little overwrought too – loads of violins… but for all that, i am enjoying the johnny cash vibe. i’ll get back on this one too.

i’m organising the gigs at this year’s annual tina festival in newcastle… and i have to admit that i’ve taken my own sweet time getting around to programming the nights. but after hours of listening to demos over the past three days it’s beginning to come together. some names to look out for in the future:

ISAAC UNDER THE BLADE – newcastle-based post-rock/krautrock crew
4 LAYERS OF 9 – prefusey beats from half of faber castell
TWOTONE – new brisbane group on the bug label – deep minimal techno in the mille plateaux vein
CHRISM & FENRIS – lovely electronics, with an odd quirk
DOT-0-DOT – new canberran producer, treads the line of emotional electronics quite perfectly
CHROMER – the packaging almost put me off, but i’m glad it didn’t. brilliant electronics
UNKLE HO – one of the laptop jockeys from the herd in carnivalesque electro demo ep shock

lots more… these gigs will be fun i think (though a little stressful too).

it’s been a fairly drunken few days… long lunch on friday, a couple of sets of farewell drinks after work, a long dinner. it’s a wonder i made it to radio at all. and afterwards it was bass wars at toast, where a handful of sydney and canberra djs went head to head… i recommend checking dj anomaly – he played very cool photeky sorta broken drum’n'bass, including the very cool evol intent.

here’s how the radio show went:

unkle ho – (track 1 off demo) – cdr
urthboy – no rider – elefant traks
lordz of the fly – dancing is the business – hive
five deez – faceless (prefuse 73 mix) – counterflow
mia – fire fire – xl
dot-o-dot – we are well – cdr
himuri – start play guitar – couchblip
dead combo – you don’t look so good (otherfucker mix) – output
moodymann – mahogani 9000 – peacefrog
slideshow – slide – simple
adriano canzian – my boyfriend is very sexy – gigolo
dizzee rascal – (track 1 off showtime) – xl
tim wright – kick the door in – mute
dj zeph – (track 3 off sunset scavenger) – ear shot
cee knowledge feat sun ra’s arkestra – space is the place – counterflow
louie vega – ma mi mana – vega
soho jo – i like synthesizers – fat
bleepin’ j squawkins – dancing on the moon – clan analogue
radio 4 – absolute affirmation (si begg fragmented mix) – city slang
kasabian – club foot (jagz kooner vocal mix) – cdr
soulwax – ny excuse (extended) – pias
audio cephlon – wrapped up in nori – cdr
the roots – don’t see us (madlib bootleg) – black label

just back from a week of time off… skiing in perisher. was very cool, though i’m feeling so much pain, in muscles that i wasn’t even aware i had. i guess that’s the problem. anyway after a week off sick with a nasty bug and a week of leave, i’m contemplating going back to work. the only cool thing is that there’s sure to be a pile of envelopes stuffed full of cds and 12″s.

just got off the phone from talking to one of the guys from sodastream. they’re playing at toast on thursday night along with richard easton, plus chris + i warming up as usual.

i’ve heard so much about both of them… haven’t yet actually heard anything from easton, but he’s signed to the cool candle records, and sodastream have a lovely simplicity to their music. should be really great.

here’s what i played on the tuesday breakfast show on 2xx this morning.

doctor alimintado – born for a purpose/reason for living
sodastream – blinky
tzu – summer days
iron on – butter on the brakes
bit by bats – the suburban ballet
joanna newsom – sprout and the bean
belle + sebastian – wrappedzup in books
prince po feat mf doom + madlib – social distortion
koolism – last tango in paris
homelife – lowdell is missing
tv on the radio – don’t love you
the panics – lost in green eyes
deepchild – racist friend
eek-a-mouse – atlantis lover
flying burrito brothers – hot burrito #1
city city city – spread em
miss kittin – allergic
disko pigs – raw (ed’s bastard mix)
mc heffa feat ozi batla – warumpi
loose fur – chinese apple
five corners quintet – three corners (nicola conte sahib’s samba version)
sneeze – segrada familia
charlemagne – two steps ahead
pavement – summer babe
ollo – the lunatics (have taken over the asylum)
yellowman – nobody move nobody get hurt