While you can take the volume and electric guitars out of the songs, with Gareth Liddiard on stage, the intensity of The Drones cannot be diminished.

Last night at the Vanguard, Liddiard performed the third of four shows on his current solo tour playing material from the last three records by The Drones. The show gave Liddiard a chance to play a few songs the band don’t typically play in their live sets as well as providing quieter, though no less harrowing, interpretations of some The Drones’ most enduring songs.

The intensity of the songs was tempered with Liddiard’s affable, funny and engaging manner between songs. Some of the introductions provided context for the songs (such as Careful As You Go’s genesis as a request from someone at the Canberra War Memorial) while others simply made us laugh (I Don’t Ever Want To Change’s irony being lost on the young).

But it was the songs I went to see and I was not disappointed. Playing for nearly 90 minutes meant I got to hear a lot of what I hoped I might. Careful As You Go and Penumbra, both from last year’s insanely excellent, Havilah, were welcome as they were the only two off the record I had yet to hear live. I’ve got the whole set now! And Shark Fin Blues…well what else can you say about it? One of the finest songs of the last decade.

While the set was full of memorable moments, it was a couple songs from Gala Mill that really resonated with me (same as last time, apparently). Words From The Executioner to Alexander Pearce and Sixteen Straws, both songs that deal with the lives of convicts in the early years of the colony, are so incredibly powerful to hear live. The tales, sung with Liddiard’s cracked and damaged vocals, cut right to the core of humanity’s morality, corruption, and search for redemption. Amazing stuff.

Just another memorable evening with the songs of The Drones then. Fucking hell…this band…

Setlist
Cold And Sober
Careful As You Go
Shark Fin Blues
The Drifting Housewife
I Don’t Ever Want To Change
Words From The Executioner To Alexander Pearce
Locust
Jezebel
Penumbra*
Oh My**
Your Acting’s Like The End Of The World**
Sixteen Straws

* with Dan Luscombe
** with Dan Luscombe and Ben Salter

Ben Salter of The Gin Club opened the show. And while I wasn’t completely taken with his songs, his voice was in fine form. Unfortunately, the incredibly loud talking back at the bar (which actually did make it difficult to enjoy the set) got the better of Salter who “confronted” the chatting. It was kinda awkard. I’m not sure his set ever really got back on track after that.

Photos from the gig here.

Did you see Tiny Mix Tapes’ 5/5 review of Havilah this week?

Dark, atmospheric, hypnotic, beautiful: this is how I like my electronic music. Autechre, Aphex Twin, Boards of Canada, Massive Attack, Portishead, Squarepusher, et al all fit the bill nicely. I was late to the party with The Knife’s 2006 record Silent Shout but once it worked its way under my skin I became a faithful convert. So when news began to filter out about Karin Dreijer Andersson’s new project, Fever Ray, I was intrigued but unprepared for Fever Ray’s self-titled debut record.

Fever Ray is an uneasy record. It creeps around your head, imploring you to follow it into the darkness. And you do. And sometimes it kind of makes you feel a bit unsettled. And sometimes a bit confused. But it never stops being a completely enthralling listen. One of the finest records of the year so far (which is meaningless in February, I know).

The two videos so far released for the record (incuding the most bizarre/brave/odd debut single by anyone ever, If I Had A Heart) capture the mood of the album perfectly. You’re never quite sure what’s going on but you know you may want to get the hell out of there. There will likely not be many videos better than these two released this year (though the new Depeche Mode clip is awesome too). Watch…

MusicOMH really likes the record too.

The Basics are back!

The three boys from Melbourne have returned with a brand new single called With This Ship (which you’ve probably heard live if you’ve seen the band over the past year or so). With This Ship does carry a bit of a new sound for The Basics and I’m interested to see how people react to it. I for one love their 60′s influenced rock ‘n’ roll but I can understand that it was probably pretty limiting for them artistically.

So at this point in time I’m reserving judgement. With This Ship hasn’t really grabbed me yet but I hope it does…that melody does get stuck in my head which has to count for something, right? You can stream the single and it’s (Tim Heath penned) b-side here. The single is out now in Australia on CD and 7″ and the rest of the world digitally.

Check out the video clip here. Does it remind anyone else of the video for All Around The World by Oasis?

Ryan Adams & The Cardinals rolled through Australia last month for the final time (allegedly). All the shows were recorded including the fantastic gig here in Sydney at the Enmore Theatre. This show is now available for download.

Download:
Ryan Adams & The Cardinals – New York, New York (live in Sydney)
Ryan Adams & The Cardinals – Let Us Down Easy (live in Sydney)
Ryan Adams & The Cardinals – Oh My Sweet Carolina (live in Sydney)

Download the entire gig here. Perth, Brisbane, and Melbourne recordings are also available. And like Sydney, they are all straight from the soundboard.

Next month Handsome Furs will be releasing their second album, Face Control. While I respect (and love some of) Spencer Krug’s work in Wolf Parade and Sunset Rubdown, I’ve always been a Dan Boeckner man and I really enjoyed 2007′s Plague Park. Its sparse mix of Dan’s vocals and guitars with Alexei Perry’s synths/beats/whatever was an engaging and rewarding listen.

Will things continue along the same path with Face Control? It seems so. The first single from Face Control is I’m Confused and it’s at least sixteen kinds of awesome. Here’s what Quinn had to say (whilst drunk so forgive errors in Bruce’s discography) on Tumblr after I posted this song and stating that I find Dan way more engaging than Spencer.

No disrespect to Spencer, but I sort of feel like the difference between Dan and Spencer is like the difference between “Born to Run” and Nebraska. Yes, the latter is more complex, carries immense weight, and very well could be the finest sequence of songs ever… but nothing gets me pumped like Dancing in the Dark. And that’s the feeling I get from this song.

AGREED.

Download:
Handsome Furs – I’m Confused

And you know what I’m confused about? The discrepancy between such a provocative promo campaign for the album (see above) and the hideous album cover.

I think a lot of people were taken off-guard by Mick Harvey’s announcement a few weeks ago that he was (amicably) leaving the Bad Seeds. His shows in Sydney at the ATP Festival were his final appearances with the legendary and influential band. Being a part of Nick Cave’s merry men for over twenty years meant he wasn’t going to be an easy man to replace.

However, yesterday word came down that Ed Kuepper of The Saints and the Laughing Clowns would be filling the void in the Bad Seeds. Kuepper looked absolutely electric on stage with both those bands at ATP (even if the Saints themselves seemed a little lost) so I am cautiously optimistic that he will fit in nicely with the current Bad Seeds sound (which I love).

Kuepper’s first shows with Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds will reportedly happen in the latter part of 2009 when the band once again hits the road.

You’ve likely no doubt heard about the Dark Was The Night compilation by now. With a ridiculous tracklisting that is a veritable “who’s who” of the last few years of independent music this compilation was always going to draw lots of attention. Of course, as this is a charity album, that is kind of the point. All proceeds from Dark Was The Night benefit the Red Hot Organization which raises money for AIDS relief around the world. So even if this album sucked, it would still be worth your coin. Luckily, it doesn’t suck.

I’m not generally a fan of compilations whether that be albums put together like this one or soundtracks. The lack of a focus tends to lose me and I seldom feel like listening to the whole thing. So Dark Was The Night had some work to do to win me over despite its all star cast. But win me over it did.

Most (all?) of the songs that appear here are previously unreleased songs (Arcade Fire’s Funeral outtake, Lenin), new songs recorded specifically for DWTN (the tracks by the National brothers Dessner who “curated” this album), or new versions of old favourites (Conor Oberst and Gillian Welch redoing Bright Eyes’ Lua).

After a few listens I’m surprised that it’s some of the bigger names who’s songs seem a bit undercooked. Arcade Fire’s Lenin was wisely left off Funeral, while the Decemberists plodding contribution, Sleepless, is a total misnomer: it will actually put you to sleep. Cat Power once again does her cover thing with a totally unsurprising rendition of Amazing Grace.

Luckily there is still a lot here that warrants repeated listens. David Byrne’s collaboration with Dirty Projectors which opens the album is full of life. Likewise, The Books and Jose Gonzalez bring Nick Drake’s Cello Song into the twenty-first century without destroying it…in fact, it’s a really, really great cover. Spoon’s sparse Well-Alright has a Chuck Berry-esque swagger while TV on the Radio’s Dave Sitek’s cover of With A Girl Like You exemplifies how deep the talent pool in TVOTR really is.

While it may not be a perfect compilation, I for one am having a hard time playing anything else in my house this weekend. Check out a few of my favourite tracks below…and then check out the tracklisting if you need more convincing that there are at least a few things you really want to hear on this thing.

THIS DISC
1 Knotty Pine – Dirty Projectors + David Byrne
2 Cello Song (Nick Drake) – The Books featuring Jose Gonzalez
3 Train Song (Vashti Bunyan) – Feist + Ben Gibbard
4 Brackett, WI – Bon Iver
5 Deep Blue Sea – Grizzly Bear
6 So Far Around the Bend – The National
7 Tightrope – Yeasayer
8 Feeling Good (popularized by Nina Simone) – My Brightest Diamond
9 Dark Was the Night (Blind Willie Johnson) – Kronos Quartet
10 I Was Young When I Left Home (Bob Dylan) – Antony + Bryce Dessner
11 Big Red Machine – Justin Vernon + Aaron Dessner
12 Sleepless – The Decemberists
13 Die – Iron and Wine
14 Service Bell – Grizzly Bear + Feist
15 You Are The Blood (Castanets) – Sufjan Stevens

THAT DISC
1 Well-Alright – Spoon
2 Lenin – Arcade Fire
3 Mimizan – Beirut
4 El Caporal – My Morning Jacket
5 Inspiration Information (Shuggie Otis) – Sharon Jones & The Dap-Kings
6 With A Girl Like You (The Troggs) – Dave Sitek
7 Blood Pt 2 – Buck 65 Remix (featuring Sufjan Stevens and Serengeti)
8 Hey, Snow White (Destroyer) – The New Pornographers
9 Gentle Hour (Snapper) – Yo La Tengo
10 Another Saturday (traditional) – Stuart Murdoch
11 Happiness – Riceboy Sleeps
12 Amazing Grace (traditional) – Cat Power and Dirty Delta Blues
13 The Giant Of Illinois (Handsome Family) – Andrew Bird
14 Lua – Conor Oberst + Gillian Welch
15 When the Road Runs Out – Blonde Redhead + Devastations
16 Love vs. Porn – Kevin Drew

Later on this month, Gareth Liddiard (lead singer of The Drones) will be embarking on a short solo tour of eastern Australia. We’ve already got our tickets for the Vanguard gig (with dinner!) and I can’t wait. I saw Gareth solo early last year and the gig was pretty fantastic. Support in Victoria comes from Tendrils while the Sydney and Brisbane gigs will be supported by Ben Salter of The Gin Club.

Dates:
Fri 20thFeb – Thornbury Theatre, Melbourne
Sat 21st Feb – Theatre Royal, Castlemaine
Fri 27th Feb – The Vanguard, Sydney (tickets)
Sat 28th Feb – The Troubadour, Brisbane

Download:
Gareth Liddiard – I Don’t Ever Want To Change (live acoustic)

Havilah has just come out in the UK and it will be released in the US and Canada next week. I’ll be interested to see what the reviews look like as it was pretty much unanimously lauded here in Australia (as it deserves to be). PopMatters published a review yesterday which gave it an 8/10 but the review itself gets a 10/10 as it names drops this blog. Score.

After a small flurry of critical acclaim in 2005, the Drones quickly slipped off the radar, and their fine third album, Gala Mill, barely got a mention around the web. Friends who wrote for blogs asked me, “Should we care about these guys?” then moved on to Yellow House and newer, easier stuff. A cadre of Australian bloggers continues to laud the group. A Reminder‘s annual poll of Aussie music bloggers picked Havilah as their top Aussie album of 2008, but this small minority unfortunately hasn’t been able to raise general awareness of the band to the level many believe they deserve.

And finally, I mentioned in my Laneway review that Gareth and Fiona’s home, Havilah, was in danger of being destroyed by the fires in Victoria. Well, apparently the house survived. Barely. Thanks to Blake from Sosueme for commenting and letting us know.

Is it really Radiohead when only two fifths of the band are on stage? Regardless, I seemed to enjoy this performance a lot less than most people did…but maybe that’s because I’ve only seen it on the internetz. It seems a bit gimmicky to me without adding anything really substantial to an already great song. Anyway, the band won Best Alternative Album for In Rainbows and Best Packaging for the snazzy deluxe edition I am currently staring at.

Download:
Radiohead – 15 Step (live with the USC marching band)

The band are back on the road for a handful of days next month in South America and Mexico before disappearing back into the studio to work on LP8.

Another year, another enjoyable Laneway Festival. After a disastrous festival in Melbourne last weekend, Laneway really needed things to go smoothly in their largest market and, thankfully, everything did go well yesterday in Sydney.

I arrived with only two bands on my Must See List (The Drones and No Age) and a whole bunch of bands I was keen to check out bits and pieces of. So after gathering the troops (Jonny, Joe, Gemma, Angus, Cass, Geoff and assorted others) I made my way through the day at a leisurely pace.

Talons were my first band of the day. These guys rock and somebody better put out that album. From there I caught the last few songs by the John Steel Singers on the Reiby Place stage. I don’t mind them but I don’t find myself particularly excited by them either. I should also mention that the Reiby Place stage is just terrible for sound. If you are not up front near the stage the sound just dies the further up the alley you go.

There was a bit of a lull in the schedule at that point so up we went to the VIP room to watch Papa vs. Pretty from the comfort of air conditioning and comfy couches. How those boys have grown up! Acne! After that I caught a few songs by Tame Impala (meh) before catching a few songs by Born Ruffians. I really didn’t dig their album (too tedious!) but I actually enjoyed what I saw of their set.

Up next was a pretty painful clash: Spiral Stairs vs. No Age. No Age won out and I am pretty glad I made that choice. Despite hearing they are pretty ordinary (bad?) live their set delivered exactly what I wanted: messy distortion and great tunes. One of only two complete sets I caught on the day and well worth the effort to get close to the Reiby Place stage.

Hunger then set in so back up to VIP we went where we lounged for a while listening to Angus tell stories. Fun times. Another painful clash followed: Four Tet vs. Stereolab. In the end I decided to catch the beginning of Four Tet’s set despite thinking he was terrible when I saw him open for Radiohead in 2002. Well, in the years since Four Tet has developed a much more engaging live laptop show and it was with great trepidation that I left his set early to check out Stereolab. Bad choice. You could barely hear Stereolab. While I liked some of their stuff I was kicking myself for ditching Four Tet.

Then there was more VIPing, more watching Angus twitter updates at The Grates, and then my highlight of the day, The Drones. I go on about them a lot but, fuck, they are such a special band. Despite playing in heavy wind on a stage with shitty sound the band just killed it. I was expecting a simple “hits + four new ones” set but the band surprised me with a cover of Kev Carmody’s River of Tears which I had never heard them do electric before. It was harrowing. Also playing Luck In Odd Numbers at a festival takes balls.

Setlist: Nail It Down / Oh My / Shark Fin Blues / The Minotaur / Luck In Odd Numbers / River Of Tears / I Don’t Ever Want To Change

After The Drones it was a battle of four headliners…none of which I was super keen to see for a variety of reasons (saw Pivot relatively recently, for example). So instead I sampled (oh SNAP) from three of them buffet style before settling in The Hold Steady. First up, five minutes of Girl Talk. That’s really all you need to see, yeah? Next, Daedelus on Joe’s rec. That colour pad thing was neat…but that’s about all I got out of it.

So The Hold Steady it is! I still think they are one of the most overrated bands going today but I must say I enjoyed their set more than I thought I would. Maybe it was because they seemed like totally unpretentious guys who were simply having a lot of fun on stage. Added bonus: standing behind Patience and watching her tweet and tumbl throughout the set.

While ATP may provide some stiff competition for best music festival in Sydney in the coming years, Laneway did it well again this year. And a big thanks to Magda for the hookup!

Some photos here. And if you were there, what were your highlights? I heard great things about Still Flyin’ and Tim Fite…

One note about The Drones set. Dan Luscombe, their guitarist, let the audience know after the first song that Gareth and Fiona had received a phone call that morning informing them that their house in Victoria was likely going to be destroyed in one of the many devastating fires wreaking havoc around Australia at the moment. I thought it was pretty impressive that the band were still kicking ass despite this terrible news. Hopefully things turned out alright for them.