The ethereally-voiced, Tin Tin-haired Jonsi Birgisson arrives in Sydney today after helping close out an unforgettable four days of Splendour in the Grass last night.
For those holding out for his Sydney and Melbourne headline shows, you are in for a hypercolour entrancing cross-artform collaboration with 59 Productions, who have been called “the most exciting purveyors of video for theatre in the world”. They are responsible for projection design for multi-award winning Iraq war drama Black Watch, brand new projections for Les Miserables, as well as countless operas and theatre productions around the world.
The design for the show is partly physical and partly ephemeral, using a combination of set elements, animated projections, light, and shadows – which are synchronised with Jonsi’s euphoric tunes and ecstatic dancing.
The nature-themed projections continually morph… HD thunderstorms rage and flames flicker across a forest stage. Blue lakes pour out from the venue walls. Feathered sketches of wolves hunting deer, hummingbirds, and tumbling flowers float amongst his five piece band.
But truly, words can do this experience no justice. Watch the trailer of Jonsi’s live production (above) and head to jonsi.com for more live photos. While you’re there, download your free copy of Tornado from Jionsi’s debut solo album Go from jonsi.com/tornado.
Iron Maiden’s mascot Eddie The Head has seriously evolved since appearing as a teen street-punk zombie on their self-titled debut album 30 years ago. Today’s Eddy – illustrated by long-time Eddie artist Melvyn Grant – is a bulked-up extra-terrestrial killing machine on the artwork for The Final Frontier.
Check him out below: he’s cuddly as ever though!
So HELL YES… there’s a new Maiden album coming! The Final Frontier arrives on Friday August 13. I’ve definitely noticed an increase in Iron Maiden tees (including my own) being proudly worn out on the streets since the album announcement.
For a taster, Iron Maiden are giving away the album track El Dorado from www.ironmaiden.com.
The Final Frontier sounds like it will be a return to peak 80s form: it was mostly recorded earlier this year at Compass Point Studios with long-time Maiden producer Kevin “Caveman” Shirley. So Bruce Dickinson and The Boys were in the same head (and physical) space, as it was where they previously recorded Piece Of Mind (’83), Powerslave (’84) and Somewhere In Time (’86).
Bruce said: “The studio had the same vibe and it was EXACTLY as it had been in 1983, NOTHING had changed! Even down to the broken shutter in the corner… same carpet… everything… It was really quite spooky. But we felt very relaxed in such a familiar and well-trodden environment and I think this shows in the playing and the atmosphere of the album.”
Here’s the full tracklisting for The Final Frontier:
1. Satellite 15… The Final Frontier 2. El Dorado 3. Mother Of Mercy 4. Coming Home 5. The Alchemist 6. Isle Of Avalon 7. Starblind 8. The Talisman 9. The Man Who Would Be King 10. When The Wild Wind Blows
As the album title suggests, there is nothing subtle about The Count & Sinden’s tunes… 4 minutes of a minimix and I’m already bouncing off the walls. If you remember the #1 UK dance track Beeper, you know what you’re in for… (hit me on my beeper, hit me on my beeper, beeper-beeper-beeper-beeper, hit me on my beeper, etc…)
So perhaps keep the minimix for today, and take the album for a proper spin on an ‘enhanced’ hedonistic Saturday night when it arrives in Australia on August 20.
1. Do You Really Want It – ft. Trackademicks 2. After Dark – ft. Mystery Jets 3. Desert Rhythm 4. Hardcore Girls – ft. Rye Rye 5. Roll Out – ft. 77 Klash 6. Elephant 1234 7. Hold Me – ft. Katy B 8. Mega 9. Addicted To You – ft. Bashy 10. Panther 11. Llamamé – ft. Coolio Iglesias 12. You Make Me Feel So Good
Follow The Count (@hervespace) & Sinden (@gsinden) on Twitter and give the current single MEGA a whirl.
It is indeed, MEGA.
The Count & Sinden will play Parklife nationally in September.
For those who listen to Triple J you would have heard them playing a new track from The Cat Empire called Beyond All from their 4th studio album Cinema due out June 25. This is a little taster the band have given Triple J and their online fans in the lead up to the first single which will be released May 14.
The incredible Please Be Seated mixtape by 360 features his original electro-infused-Aussie-hip-hop take on tracks by MGMT, Justice, Lisa Mitchell, Broken Bells, Tinie Tempah, B.o.B, and Ellie Goulding. Who would have predicted that Lisa Mitchell’s Coin Laundry could be mixed into a scathing (though ultimately foot-tappingly-addictive) critique on treatment of war veterans and homelessness!?
The Please Be Seated mixtape is filled with all types of these unpredictable gems – and you can download all six tracks from 360music.com.aunow now now for free free free.
Tracklisting is below:
Electric Feel – 360 x Justice x MGMT
Do You Have A Dollar? (Coin Laundry) – 360 x Lisa Mitchell
The Ghost Inside ft Pez – 360 x Broken Bells
Starry Eyed – 360 x Ellie Goulding x Jakwob
Pass Out – 360 x Tinie Tempah
Nothing To Lose – 360 x B.o.B
Please Be Seated is a precursor to 360’s Falling and Flying album, which arrives very soon. In the meanwhile, follow 360 on twitter and kick back with a beer.
Last week I took A Place To Bury Strangers out to radio before their Sydney Oxford Arts Factory show on Thursday. We did triple j, FBi and 2SER.
These pics are from FBi. They spoke with Shag (Thursdays 3-6pm).
Everyone was really interested in talking to them about their “wall of sound” noise and how they come up with their sounds. They’ve produced effects and guitar sounds for the Trent Reznor and the Edge. Guitar nerds love it.
The opening track It Is Nothing off the new album Exploding Head has over 100 guitar tracks on it!
Hands up who has been waiting for a new Yeasayer album since the stereo died down after spinning 2007/8’s magnificent middle-eastern-infused-brain-melter All Hour Cymbals for the first time?
“More tunes!” we said… “More tunes now!”
It’s been a torturous wait, but we were richly awarded late last year when Yeasayer delivered Ambling Alp, a very different percussive electro-pop number off the new album Odd Blood. If All Hour Cymbals was an album for lazy afternoons evaporating in a haze of smoke, spirits, and sitars, then Odd Blood is a wholly different drug-induced haze – a LSD-laced sun-bleached space trip. The landscapes in the Ambling Alp video make me think that this is exactly the type of quirky pop listened to on David Bowie’s desert homeworld from The Man Who Fell To Earth.
Now it’s time for single #2 from Odd Blood, which the band are kindly giving away using the widget below. The track O.N.E follows in the same vein as Ambling Alp – catchy vocals, sunshiny synth melodies, and a serious pop sensibility. Go forth and download:
The first taste of the upcoming album Gloves is a ballsy punk pop number – a fresh, new, and ever-so-slightly glam tune that is seriously turning heads (well, ears are attached to heads). UK Pop music bible Popjustice also gives it the tick of approval, matter-of-factly declaring: “It is good”. Can’t ask for much more than that!
What’s more is that they want to give you the album on cassette tape! If you get in early that is… You can pre-order 3 different sized Gloves:
Whilst at Avatar Studios recording his upcoming album Life Is Sweet! Nice To Meet You, Lightspeed Champion (AKA Dev Hynes of the Test Icicles ) recorded live versions of several tracks – which he’ll be be making available for you to download over the next four weeks.
In classic Lightspeed style the kickoff is an unexpected corker, a cover of Elvis’ Devil In Disguise – featuring the studio admin staff and whoever else wanted in – to celebrate Elvis’ 75th birthday. To get your live version of Devil In Disguise, click the download button on the widget below, but over the next four weeks the remaining tracks will all be available for download from Domino’s Soundcloud page.
He explained: ‘Due to a popular band having leftover studio time at New York’s historic Avatar Studios, I had the opportunity of going into Studio A to record some music, Obviously I decided an Elvis song would be best. I got my friends from the band Spacecamp down and together we recorded an “almost” live version of Devil In Disguise with the help of whoever was in the building that felt like singing… including the receptionist.
We Want War is the bombastic, epic (read seven minute) new single from These New Puritans’ forthcoming brilliant new album Hidden, out January 15.
Crazy video, crazy song and played LOUD, it’s like some indie industrial orchestral aural attack with BIG DRUMS and BIG SWORDS! Yes peeps, BIG FREAKING DRUMS – six foot to be exact – and BIG FREAKING SWORDS. The video was directed by Sydney-based motion-ographer Daniel Askill.
We Want War is a great intro to the sound of new album which is more broodier and steelier and interesting and experimental than we last heard with Beat Pyramid – which was, that’s right, Triple J Album Of The Week!
This band REALLY push the boundaries while still keeping this listenable and this album is super impressive.
AND! You can also download the Album Preview MP3 – a mash up of what’s to come on the new record, by heading to thesenewpuritans.com
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