Dynamite in Black and White
It's hard to imagine a tougher task than capturing Hot Little Hands on disk. Their sound ranges so much: one minute it's swimming with swampy cymbally synth, the next trumpets are blaring and you're at the fair. You could almost argue that if there was a signature HLH moment, it would be the sudden, and wonderfully nonsensical shifts in tone, pace, tempo, everything.
The Beagle And The Dove
I've never been to Brisbane, but I wanna go. Everyone I've ever dealt with there has been super friendly, and judging from their perky, upbeat bands (The Grates, Operator Please), it must be all sunshine and fun times up north.
Bouncing into town with a van full of instruments is another blast of sunny Brissie disposition - The John Steel Singers.
LP3
The trademark sound of this New York two-piece (three-piece in live shows, however) shines through yet again on the act’s third album, aptly titled LP3. Opening with the X-Files-like Shiller, the album is set apart from the previous two long players with its at times chilling sound, but don’t fret - the bouncy squeals we all love in Ratatat’s music still feature prominently throughout the record.
Volume 1, Wooden Shjips
Jamming good - San Francisco's Wooden Shjips have all the sea rhythm and outsized heaviness their name suggests. Loving on the strung-out sounds of ‘60s dead flower psychedelic rock, these guys make no beef with dropping out completely - ploughing a riff into the red ad nauseam and deep into the earth.
You Look Nice Today (podcast)
Are you familiar with the simultaneously glorious and dismaying feeling that results in the sudden realisation that you are just never going to be as talented as someone you admire, but, goddamn it, you are going to love them all the same? A dissonance compounded by a distinct lack of social graces, attractiveness or general hygiene on the part of the admired figure? Woody Allen should be a pretty good point of reference.
Low Tracks Era and Spotwelders Vol. 1
Fans of West Coast style - THC strength character, brainy arrangements, episodic movement, game loving bounce - are put on immediate need-to-know basis with two new releases by Melbourne's Aoi. Available free, source direct from the author, Low Tracks Era and Spotwelders Vol. 1. pack production clout and musicality enough to empty whole shelves of industry-sanctioned hip-hop; both literally - by repurposing the good stuff as samples - and retroactively - by showing up so much conventionally released, Kangaroo-hop as BS.
Self-taught Magic from a Book, Je Suis Animal
Je Suis Animal took all the interesting subjects of their arts degree and spun them into an album. It's the cinema geek in-jokes told through the strings, wind and melodica-esque cameos that turn this happily Norwegian pop into something suited to a silent film score.
Self-taught Magic from a Book is Lost and Lonesome's fiftieth release and has the right balance of lyrical storytelling and dance-around-your-room juice.
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