THE TONGUE
(elefant traks)
For all you downloading those tracks from the stateside agenda, I encourage you to flip the script onto one of the phatest hip-hop albums produced, written and conceived in Australia ever!! SHOCK AND AWE surmises all the thoughts that you wanted to fashion within one hyper intellect hip-hop album. Its guaranteed to make you think, laugh, smile and embrace life in a new dimension. Check the 'making of' youtube vid.
(words by steve)
Yours Truly, Jens Lekman
(words by dan)
Jens is very good at flying under radars, he has even deleted his Myspace account for all the impersonal and false bs that can go on - so he is not exactly following the ‘how-to’ guide for indie stardom.
In other words, this guy has substance; and his style of romantic, witty, funny and often melancholic sample laden pop is irresistible. Jens has previously been notorious for being honestly uncomfortable (or uncomfortably honest). It can be awkward to watch, but it’s essentially captivating watching a man fumble and restart songs on Swedish national television like a teenage boy working up the courage to ask that cute girl out (See youtube.com). He even hits dead notes on his guitar regularly, making him all the more real and sincere.
If you are unaware of this truly marvellous man, you unfortunately just missed him playing down the west end. Beautiful string and horn sections over nice boppy beats and samples, all along with one of the deepest and fantastically quirkily accented vocals around (he is Swedish, ladies..). The night became an interactive event, with Jens getting the lyrically educated audience to sing and whistle while he played and harmonized over the top.
Jens said it was beautiful. It was.
The Book of Everything: How-To guide.
Lesson #1 How to appear on a U.S late show.
Very few of us will appear on Conan or Letterman, unless you play in Jet (Ugh) or you can peel a banana with your feet/have a singing dog. In the mean time sit back and see how it should be done.
Cue Les Savy Fav with ‘Patty Lee’ on Conan (trust me it’s sexier than Jagger in his prime and more disturbing than old man Jagger gyrating today).
Regular John (Sydney) - Marrickville 2204 EP
(words by dan)
Regular John stand stark against a backdrop of mediochre and repetitive Australian music, over filled with hippie roots $hit and middle of the road poseur Triple J rock. It seems the only genre that is shaking it up a little is the hip hop and electro scenes.
What has been lacking, particularly in guitar based music, is a band that plays at a blistering pace and with a wall of noisey intensity without entering hardcore and emo (Λ) territory. Regular John appear to truly feel their angst and man do they deliver it in a groovy, proggy and damn noisy package. It’s danceable, and loud.
Ranting duel vocals fight against a formidable barrage of fuzzy guitar, only entering radio friendlier pop territory on Who We Are, which in itself isn’t ‘that’ quiet, spieling “these chemicals, don’t bring miracles, it’s who we are”. This is fine stuff, the soundscapes are stunning, the regular transitions from intricate reverb driven riffing to heavy chord play create truly soulful and sonically intense hard music.
Playing it safe seems to be the modus operandi of many in the rock world today, but when you look back to the revolutionary bands of any era they were not afraid to be ugly. I don’t mean intentionally in your face a’ la The Sex Pistols but more like it seems musically and artistically they had no other choice. Shit, even the Stones were considered ugly at one stage.
Regular John play dirty loud art music and it’s great, (listen to The Zommunist Party) the chance of revolution is all but murdered by commercial structures, but we can always pretend we are in the midst of the rise of the counter culture.
Where: myspace.com/regularjohnmusic |
