Summer Flake: Seasons Change

- Reviewing a new Summer Flake album is kind of difficult. Not because Steph Crase's music is hard to describe – it's pretty straight-down-the-middle, guitar-based indie-rock – but because on paper it seems like it could be kind of unremarkable.

Hope Drone: Void Lustre

- For a band as wracked by nihilism as Hope Drone, it sometimes seems a wonder they manage to put out records at all. Certainly it goes some way to excusing the four years it’s been since their last album, Cloak Of Ash. Summoning all their remaining strength the Brisbane black-metallers have surged back on to the recorded medium, a testament in stone amidst the dust of failure, an Ozymandian tribute to the pointlessness of it all. Actually that’s not quite true and it marks a key difference between the band’s latest material and what came before.

Common: Let Love

- As hip-hop approaches the half-century mark we’re beginning to see rappers age within a youth-centric genre. Albums like Jay-Z’s 4:44 or Phonte’s No News Is Good News have been jokingly labelled ‘dad rap’ for their mature subject matter and contemplative nature.

Review: Bangarra: 30 Years of Sixty Five Thousand at QPAC

Bangarra: 30 Years of Sixty Five Thousand, performed at the Playhouse Theatre, QPAC was a captivating display of Indigenous cultural identity in the form of dance. If you haven’t seen a Bangarra show before and are wondering what to expect, I can let you know that each and every show that comes out of Bangarra Dance Theatre is worth attending. The reason I state this is because of the high level of quality of the performances and the way that traditional Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander culture is represented. 

 

4ZZZ Top 20

1. Thigh Master - Mould Lines (Single)

2. No Sister - Influence (Album Of The Week)

3. Asha Jefferies - Bad Kisser (Single)

4. Felivand - Waitin' For You (Single)

5. Thelma Plum - Better In Blak

6. WAAX - Big Grief

7. Dumb Things - Today Tonight (Single)

8. The Chats - Identity Theft (Single)

9. Pixies - Catfish Kate (Single)

10. Mallrat - Charlie (Single)

11. Miiesha - Drowning (Single)

12. Tia Gostelow - Get To It (Single)

13. Sahara Beck - Don't Overthink It (Single)

Tropical F*ck Storm - 'Braindrop'

Braindrops is the follow-up album from Tropical F*ck Storm's 2018 debut A Laughing Death In Meatspace and similarly, written and recorded in the bands home 'Dodgy Brothers Studio' in regional Victoria.

Liddiard’s own description of Tropical F*ck Storm’s sound is nearly as interesting and evocative as the music itself. He describes the LP’s title track as “Fela Kuti in a car crash,” and talks of creating a sonic atmosphere that “sounds like chloroform smells”

Liddiard can be a bit more taciturn when asked to get specific on the group’s lyrical themes. “It's not always a good idea to be too straightforward.” Instead, Liddiard favours a “more nebulous and mysterious” approach.

“Everything we do, we try to do it in a weird way. The whole album is full of weird beats, and just weird shit everywhere,” Liddiard explains. He cites Doc at the Radar Station-era Captain Beefheart as a key sonic touchstone, and Braindrops certainly shares the Captain’s penchant for pounding abstract grooves. Tropical F*ck Storm has achieved a uniquely off-kilter sound on Braindrops. Liddiard partly credits this to the group’s use of unconventional equipment, “We use lots of techno gear to make rock and roll because rock and roll gear is boring, and all sounds like Led Zeppelin.”

Keeskea: Find Yourself Alone

- Vanessa Marousopoulos’ debut EP under the moniker Keeskea comes hotly anticipated by the two cities she calls home, Adelaide and Brisbane. If you’ve seen her in any number of local acts, including Bloom Parade and Sleep Club, you’d already be familiar with her particular brand of enchantment. With total control over the suite of tracks on Find Yourself Alone, she only grows more spellbinding.