Seagull: A Voice In The Ward
- Seagull is the creation of Melbourne singer-songwriter Chris Bolton. An alt folk outfit that has been around for almost a decade and a half now, the project has become known for Botlon’s emotionally rich story-telling and detailed, atmospheric instrumentation. The typically melancholic mood of Seagull’s music is amplified on their new record, A Voice in the Ward, which Bolton penned a lot of the lyrics for while in a psych ward.
Chinese Burns Unit: Cash In The Dull Days
- For those with a keen eye, you’ll notice how similar of a style the Cash In The Dull Days album cover is to ones for Frenzal Rhomb, Totally Unicorn, and a slew of their striking, vivid, and slightly nauseating tour posters. Glenno of Chinese Burns Unit regularly puts his penmanship to use creating Australia’s punk iconography. The band's own new release is an unblemished contribution to the culture.
Xiu Xiu: Girl With Basket Of Fruit
- The latest album from Xiu Xiu Girl with Basket of Fruit is an uncompromising record which highlights the relevance and the perpetuation of brutalities, particularly those affecting women, and ultimately meditates on our species impeding doom for failing to address these events adequately. It could possibly their most considered attempt at a cohesive conceptual album with a loosely interwoven symbolism running through it’s mostly cacophonous and rage filled storyline.
Pet Shop Boys: Agenda
- Neil Tennant and Chris Lowe have not suddenly got “political”, as some have thought with the release of their latest compilation of new tunes. Pet Shop Boys have been political since they released Please in 1985, with songs about the rise of the yuppie class (Opportunities Let’s Make Lots Of Money) and the decay of the inner city and working class areas (Suburbia).
Better Oblivion Community Center: Better Oblivion Community Center
- 2019 began with some strange babble surrounding something called, “Better Oblivion Community Center”. Google searches would show planetary pamphlets with hieroglyphics and a hotline with a cultish recorded message. Fortunately, this was not the birth of another Scientology, but a new alt-folk band consisting of brilliant songwriters, Phoebe Bridgers and Conor Oberst. The former is the new indie-folk wunderkind, occupying the role Oberst held over a decade ago.
Mira Calix: Utopia
- I first came across Mira Calix via her 2008 release Elephant In The Room a bafflingly cool blend of classical instrumentation and electronics on Warp and an impressively forward-thinking outing, even given the label's reputation for pushing boundaries and picking leftfield winners early in their careers (like Aphex Twin). Fast forward ten years and Mira Calix has spent the intervening decade eschewing recorded music in favour of working with installations and...
11am Zedlines
This is Dan and Khwezi with your 11am Zedlines.
Image Credit: Flickr
Senate calls for Great Barrier Reef Foundation to return money
A Senate committee examining the government's decision to award $443.3 million to the Great Barrier Reef Foundation has recommended unspent funds from the controversial grant be returned to the commonwealth and reserved for future reef projects.
The committee chair, Peter Whish-Wison says “this grant was a desperate attempt to cover up this government’s legacy of reef mismanagement, years of chronic underfunding and disregard for climate change.”
Second Queensland Goanna attack this month
Attacks by an aggressive goanna have landed a man and the paramedic who came to help him in a Queensland hospital.
This marks the second goanna attack in the state's south-east in the past three weeks, after what has been described as a savage goanna attacked and eight-year old girl while she walked through a South Stradbroke Island campground.
In the most recent incident, the man suffered deep cuts and scratches to his leg after he was attacked on his property.
A growing number of Chinese companies have been delisted from the ASX
A record six Chinese companies were delisted from the Australian Securities Exchange last year, with controversial health firm Traditional Therapy Clinics the latest to be removed.
The delistings in 2018 came in the same year that no new Chinese companies were listed on the ASX and a whole lot more that applied to be listed were rejected.
Most of the delistings have been as a result of poor reporting and other governance issues.