Off the back of their #1 album Plastic Beach and the amazing Stylo video featuring Bruce Willis, the Gorillaz have released a game Escape to Plastic Beach. It’s a multi-level, multi-format game that takes you on a journey to the Gorillaz headquarters on Plastic Beach. The game also includes an MP3 download of the single Superfast Jellyfish currently getting huge airplay on triple j and Nova (thanks guys!)
Escape to Plastic Beach starts by recreating the events from the Stylo music video in a free-to-play 2D online game that sees Murdoc, singer 2D and Cyborg Noodle on their journey from the mainland to Plastic Beach. It continues underwater with Murdoc’s daring underwater rescue of the band, and then beyond taking you direct to Plastic Beach HQ in a challenging 8 level 3D pay-to-play game
Those of you who have bought the CD/DVD Experience edition of Plastic Beach had an exclusive preview of the 3D gliding game chapter as part of the extra content offered via the CD (see below)
CD/DVD Experience buyers will also be able to access the entire game in full, for free via their copy of Plastic Beach. Players can also save their high scores in the members area of Gorillaz.com.
We’ve been fortunate enough to witness Operator Please perform tracks from their upcoming album Gloves on several occasions (including our massive annual trivia event – pic below – also featuring Miami Horror, 360, & Pez). But you, you thus far deprived masses, have been forced to wait patiently, cursing the lonely hours of 2010 as they pass Operator Please-less.
Thankfully the band are putting an end to your suffering… They’re heading out on tour for the first time since Sept ’08’s UK, European, & Japanese gigs, and they’ll present you with the super catchy glam pop-rock for which we’ve come to know and love them. But we promise you the new tunes are on a whole new level!
Operator Please’s Gloves Off Tour hits all major capital cities throughout June – kicking off in Perth and finishing up in their home town of the Gold Coast in early July. All their dates will be supported by triple j Unearthed faves Tim & Jean from WA plus Sydney’s Chaingang.
Gloves is released in Australia and digital only internationally on April 23.
So without any further ado… The Harbour Agency, Scorpio Music, triple j, Video Hits, MySpace, & SPA presents:
So, this week we had the MGMT album leak (ed: it sounds like The Kinks to me) but let’s continue to dwell on their magical hit song that is Time To Pretend. That song has legs. Jónsi, my current musical fixation, gave me another reason to hit play over and over again when he did a cover of the song at BBC Radio 1 Live Lounge.
With its twinkling piano, it’s a bit chillier and bit more forlorn than the anthemic orginal.
Last year another favourite frontman going solo did a rather memorable cover of Time To Pretend. Paul Dempsey did a collection of covers on the Counterfeits and Forgeries bonus disc to Everything Is True. Like Jónsi’s, the tinge of regret and loneliness comes through on this one but set to forthright acoustic guitar.
Jónsi’s album Go is out next Friday. Paul Dempsey’s Everything Is True is specially priced over at iTunes and JB Hi Fi. And, you probably already have MGMT’s Oracular Spectacular.
One of the best parts of working at a label is discovering new artists, hearing new tunes trickling out of the A&R dept, and getting to play them loud!
And so we discovered the incredible Nervo sisters from Melbourne via London… Mim and Liv Nervo are two of the world’s most sought-after songwriters and producers, having written tracks for electro-pop royalty: Ke$ha, David Guetta (yep, When Loves Takes Over is her baby), the Pussycat Dolls, and Miley Cyrus and having worked with Roger Sanchez, Armin Van Burren, Deadmau5, and Kaskade. They even decided to mix with the crem-de-la-crem (darling) our recent annual trivia event.
The girls started out as young models (you can see why!) but quickly hauled butt into the music world – and are finally releasing their own tunes to the eagerly awaiting masses! This Kind Of Love was spun by the Nervo girls at the EMI Grammy’s afterparty, the Sydney Gay & Lesbian Mardi Gras with David Guetta, and Melbourne Fashion Week, and is arriving in your local club very soon.
Keep your ears peeled / fingers feeling for the pumping bass.
Music Matters is a collective of people across the music industry, including artists, retailers, songwriters, labels and managers, getting together to remind everyone of the significance and value of music in our lives. Life just isn’t worth living without it and we need to keep the flame burning!
They have commissioned some incredible film-makers across the world to work with their favourite musicians to create some short films about the importance of music in our lives. Here is an amazing piece on our national treasure Nick Cave by Sarah Cox and Emma Lazenby. Sarah has worked with Aardman Animation (of Wallace & Gromit fame) on a number of projects including Don’t Let It All Unravel for the Live Earth concerts. Emma lives in Bristol where she designs, animates and directs for Aardman Animations and ArthurCox. She has recently finished a short film Mother of Many, which won the Bafta for Best Short Animation at this year’s awards.
They said “We have both been long time Nick Cave fans, Sarah even went to see The Birthday Party in 1983 at the Hacienda. Once we got started however we felt the enormity of the responsibility in depicting someone’s life, particularly someone we admire so much. We sort of wish we had selected someone whose opinion we didn’t value quite so much.”
So without any further ado…
There are lots of other beautiful films which we’ll be posting in coming weeks!
Saturday March 13 was a pretty special day for me, giving my 7 and 1/2 year old daughter Paris her first taste of being part of the music industry. We arrived at midday to make sure everything was set up, bins stocked check, posters still up check, rider prepared check. So we hit the pavement around the Mall to give as many fliers out as possible. Paris giving away as many as myself due to the cuteness factor, I can’t compete with that. Paris with a big smile on her face, her competitive streak showing.
The band arrived to an eagerly awaiting crowd. Angus and Julia decided they actually want to perform and fortunately enough Mall Music pre-empted this, setting up a PA and guitars. Our resident MC Cameron Walsh introduced Angus and Julia to the impromptu performance. With two stools, mics, and a PA, Angus & Julia with little preparation performs an amazing acoustic version of And The Boys. Julia’s voice as amazing live as it is on the album, which stopped all walks of life from their Saturday shopping rituals, curious enough to pause and take in this haunting voice echoing from out of the store. The performance was totally Angus and Julia Stone, intimate, unplugged in that laid back Northern Beaches style.
Angus and Julia were happy to chat and sign for all their fans for close to two hours, reveling in the interaction and appreciating all the support from the core fans of the Northern Beaches. Paris waited patiently for her opportunity to have her poster signed. The smile on her face was incredible when Julia wrote “Paris, you rock” and gave her a big hug thanking her for all her help. Angus & Julia have just picked up another fan for life!
It’s all been very quiet on The Cat Empire front of late… which is highly unusual. These guys are incessantly touring the planet and have played live for more Australians than any other band this decade…
So where have they (and their trademark horns, lengthy key solos, scratched decks, and constant blog posts about keggers in Winnipeg and film choices on flights to LA) been hiding out?
We uncovered them at Sing Sing Studios in Melbourne with Steve Schram (the only one you won’t recognise in this photo) cooking up a storm. New tunes are due for release in July 2010… woo hoo!
Last week Australia was taken over by two of the most iconic groups of the last two decades – Massive Attack and The Pixies. Both were significant tours for us at EMI… Massive Attack, because it was the first time they’d hit Australia in seven years and we were hankering to see the incredible tracks from Heligoland and Splitting The Atom live on the Sydney Opera House Steps. The Pixies, because we proudly launched our Abbey Road Live service to great success and demand (oh, and who the hell doesn’t want to see The Pixies!?)
Abbey Road Live lets punters walk away from a show with a high quality numbered and limited edition CD of the concert they just saw! (alternatively it can be ordered online if weren’t there, but numbers are limited). The CD set includes the date and venue of the performance and isn’t just a “sound board” recording – these discs are fully mixed and mastered on the fly and are true collector’s items.
Here the Abbey Road Live team are burning the CDs on the spot for the massive queues after the incredible Pixies gig at Sydney’s Hordern Pavilion on March 16:
Speaking of… our friend Chris Little of Mark Agency was there for the show. Here’s his take:
As I walked through security fifteen minutes (or in Pixies time ten songs) late, not owning a single Pixies’ album, poster or tour shirt, I wondered if I were the best person to be writing a review for this indie icon?But on the upside, you can take comfort in the fact that this won’t end up another piece of drooling groupie garbage. Regardless, I was here and the Pixies’ second gig at the Hordern Pavilion was three quarters full (even with the side seating curtained off) and well underway.
The crowd, made up of a few young hipsters and a majority of foot tapping, hip shaking old school fans tried hard not to show their excitement and blow their FTW attitudes. But after all they had come to see the Pixies and since reforming in 2004 I was interested to see their energy levels some six years later touring on the back of their re-released classic Doolittle.
After a few songs it became evident that the playful visuals projected onto the huge backlit screen behind the band were perfectly crafted and timed to the clinical performance by the band on stage. It seems that some 20 years plus of touring results in an ESP-like understanding between band members as well as a finely distilled set list blending classics: Monkey Gone To Heaven, Gigantic, There Goes Your Man and others, with lesser known tracks to keep the crowd as animated as any indie crowd can be. The band even embraced the theatre of a second encore under full house lights.
Hey, Mr Grieves, Debaser and of course the anthemic Where Is My Mind, which was left until near the end of their second encore were standouts. Loud, tight drumming, solid bass, shrill guitar riffs and the familiar vocal ping-pong of Frank Black/Black Francis and Kim Deal made for a worthwhile, albeit predictable live show for fans and relative newbies alike.
Over the last several months, the streets of Sydney have been graced by a site for sore eyes…
Each morning the stunning Chariot of the Sun greeted us as we entered our HQ – hibernating in our office carpark by night, radiating mystical energy like an otherworldly spacecraft locked away in the dark, waiting to be unleashed upon the roads of Australia by day. And unleashed it was… see the Chariot of the Sun visiting Australia’s great icons – the Gold Coast, Byron Bay, Bondi Beach, and the Harbour Bridge.
Today therefore is a bittersweet day for us, to see the Chariot find a new home down south in Caroline Springs, Victoria. Its new owner Mario Chrisanthou must now take the Chariot’s reigns and tame the beast… Godspeed Mario, Godspeed!
Here are the Chariot’s final moments at EMI HQ. Farewell oh Chariot of the Sun, we will miss your pounding subwoofers, skull feature door-locks, extremely wide turning circles, and the comforting growl of your engine beneath our feet as you cocooned us in your warm embrace.
Sometimes when I like a song soooo much, I have to ration my listening, lest I give myself overkill. Currently somewhere between uncontrollable high rotation and self-imposed limited rations is Jónsi’s newest single Go Do. It’s coming from the Sigur Rós’ lead singer’s upcoming solo album Go. The songs on Go are playful, energetic, dramatic and with the majority of lyrics in English, I can take a break from both my Icelandic and Hopelandic Language 101 studies.
Included on the Go Do EP released today over on iTunes, are album tracks Kolniður and Grow Till Tall. We have them streaming on the soundcloud for you to take a listen in all their glory. Jónsi also kindly shared the track Boy Lillikoi awhile back to introduce his solo work.
So there you go, your Friday listening sorted. Because once you hear Go Do you will likely need to listen again approximately every 15 minutes. Lather, rinse, repeat.
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