Words: James Frostick
Artist image and cover art: Cait Burgoyne
On October 7, Naarm/Melbourne-based singer and producer Ela Stiles will release Songs On Harmonium With Voice – a seven-track album featuring old and new songs reconfigured into solemn and austere compositions. ‘Lover’ is the album’s first single – a haunting and enthralling work that sees Ela manipulating the sparse palette of sound to make it feel all-encompassing – a frisson-inducing swell that could fill any vastness, physical or incorporeal.
Hydra Fashion Week has just released a brand-new track composed in the midst of Naarm/Melbourne’s lockdown. ‘SICK (day #132)’ is a song steeped in a thick layer of melancholy, one that conveys the boredom, frustration and dispirited nature of being cut off from the world at large and the support systems we depend on.
Three years on from the release of its debut LP Benefits of Solitude, Melbourne/Naarm-based group Dag has just dropped a new two-track release called Breathe Deeply. Lead single ‘I Will Miss The Ocean (I Will Miss The Trees)’ is a pristine piece of introspective songwriting – an ode to how the little things can tether and ground us when life’s errant gusts threaten to carry us off course.Continue reading Listen: DAG – ‘I WILL MISS THE OCEAN (I WILL MISS THE TREES)’→
Words: James Frostick Band image: Kalindy Williams
Melbourne/Naarm-based trio Double Vanity recently dropped ‘Escalator’ – the second track from its forthcoming length album (out later this year via Psychic Hysteria). A lush and languid effort, ‘Escalator’ is an ode to life’s relentless upward trajectory and a reminder to stop and smell the roses once in a while.
Rory Maxwell – aka SERF – is releasing a fresh cut from his forthcoming debut album All You Need In Life Is Someone To Love And Your Family. On ‘Restoration’ SERF examines the pitfalls of technological over-reliance in the modern world via his enlivening brand of bedroom-crafted synth-rock.
Melbourne art-rock crew Hooper Crescent are following up their self-titled 2018 EP with Object Permanence, a full-length record arriving at the end of July. We’re stoked to be sharing the first listen of lead single ‘Logos’, a snappy number that examines the disconnect between creativity and capitalism.
Words: James Frostick Band image: Jamie Wdziekonski
After micro-dosing the masses with a couple of vibrant lead-up singles, Bananagun are mere weeks away from releasing their debut LP The True Story of Bananagun. Before the record’s kaleidoscopic splendour is truly revealed, the group has one more taster to offer. ‘The Master’ is an entrancing number that exhibits the band’s knack for penning psychedelic jams with equal portions of measured restraint and uninhibited release.Continue reading Listen: BANANAGUN – ‘THE MASTER’→
Melbourne/Naarm-based musician Will Weir is adding more form and substance to his new caustic post-punk project Big Bill and the Bigots, releasing the visuals for his most-recent single ‘Sunday Mourning’. Boasting unsettling vampiric imagery, the clip pairs perfectly with the unhinged Australiana imbued within the track’s rasping sonics.
Hard-hitting Melbourne/Naarm garage-punk crew The Backs are following up a couple of EPs with a new single – the first in a planned series coming out this year. ‘Godzilla 1954’ is a potent heater that shines a spotlight on the growing white nationalism movement in Australia and its undeniably destructive nature.
Earlier this month, Victorian gutter punks APCO dropped their hefty debut LP into our laps. While we’re still reeling from the record’s weighty punch, the group has followed up the haymaker with a snappy uppercut to the jaw in the form of the surreal and confronting visual treatment for lead single ‘Schizophrenimares’. Continue reading Video Premiere: APCO – ‘SCHIZOPHRENIMARES’→
Weirdo Wasteland is an Australian-based music blog that examines musical endeavour from the cultural fringe. The site regularly features reviews and interviews from the underground scenes from Australia and New Zealand. Weirdo Wasteland acknowledges the original custodians of the land upon which it operates. Sovereignty has never been ceded. To get in touch, contact: weirdowasteland (at) gmail.com
