New music round-up
Our selection of the best new music across a range of genres from the week ending 6 March 2020.
The Kite String Tangle (aka Danny Harley) will be releasing his second album C()D3X on Friday 20 March; followed by a national tour taking in capital cities and some regional spots. The album contains previously released singles “P()L4R”, “Killing Time” and the recently released “North”.
C()D3X follows Harley’s ARIA nominated self-titled debut album released in 2017. Since then he’s completed three sold-out headline tours of Australia; released a stripped-back mini-album: The Kite String Tangle Presents: In A Desperate Moment which resulted in two sold out shows with the Queensland Symphony Orchestra: and sets at Splendour and FOMO. He also launched his own record label Exist. Recordings putting out releases from Lastlings and Golden Vessel and well as others.
Dates and venues for The Kite String Tangle’s C()D3X tour are:
Fri 29 May – Unibar, Wollongong
Sat 30 May – Oxford Art Factory, Sydney
Sun 31 May – Cambridge Hotel, Newcastle
Fri 05 Jun – Lion Arts Factory, Adelaide
Sat 06 Jun – Freo.Social, Fremantle
Fri 12 Jun – 170 Russell, Melbourne
Sat 13 Jun – Workers Geelong
Thu 18 Jun – The Northern, Byron Bay
Fri 19 Jun – The Triffid, Brisbane
Sat 20 Jun – Solbar, Maroochydore
Heavy Light, the seventh album by U.S. Girls is out in the world. The musical project of multi-disciplinary artist Meg Remy, Heavy Light recounts personal narratives into the melancholy flavour of hindsight, both personal and cultural. Remy makes this notion formally explicit with the inclusion of three re-worked, previously released songs: “Statehouse (It’s A Man’s World)”, “Red Ford Radio”, and “Overtime”.
Heavy Light was produced by Remy and recorded live with 20 session musicians – including E Street Band saxophonist Jake Clemons. Remy worked with co-writers Basia Bulat and Rich Morel to develop the core of Heavy Light, a set of songs conceived as a balance between orchestral percussion (as richly arranged by percussionist Ed Squires) and the human voice (conducted by Kritty Uranowski). The resulting album finds Remy casting herself as lead voice among a harmonious multitude, the singers of which lend not only their voices, but also share reflections on childhood experiences that are collaged into spoken word interludes throughout the album.
Traditional Techniques, Stephen Malkmus’ third solo LP without the Jicks (or Pavement), is available now. New phase folk music for new phase folks, the record finds Malkmus attuned to the rhythms of the ever-evolving lingual slipstream. It’s packed with handmade arrangements, modern folklore, and 10 songs written and performed in his singular voice. An album in an instantly familiar mode, Traditional Techniques creates a kind of trilogy with the loose fuzz of the Jicks’ Sparkle Hard (2018) and the solo bedroom experiments of Groove Denied (2019). Taken together, these three very different full-lengths in three years highlight an ever-curious songwriter committed to finding untouched territory.
Malkmus has also shared the video for his new single from Traditional Techniques, titled “Shadowbanned”. Directed by Jan Lankisch, the clip features friends and fans of Malkmus, such as Kim Gordon, Mac DeMarco, Sharon Van Etten and Jason Schwartzman. Check it out below.
International music legend Don Bryant will travel to Australia this May, touring with acclaimed Memphis band The Bo-Keys. The man behind countless iconic records, Bryant is most famous for his hit I Can’t Stand the Rain, which Beatle John Lennon declared as the “best song ever.”
Now aged 75, Bryant has joined forces with the The Bo-Keys to return to performing and recording. The Bo-Keys endeavour to keep the sound of Memphis blues, soul and R&B music alive, and have seen some of their tracks appear in feature films such as Soul Men, with Samuel L. Jackson and Bernie Ma, Grudge Match, and Barnyard.Don Bryant and The Bo-Keys will perform intimate shows in Sydney and Melbourne, before heading to the Blues on Broadbeach Music Festival on the Gold Coast.
Bryant’s new album You Make Me Feel drops on Friday, 8 May 2020, with the first track “Your Love Is To Blame” out now.
Don Bryant and the Bo-Keys’ tour dates are:
- Mary’s Underground, Sydney – Wednesday 13 May 2020; tickets here
- Spotted Mallard, Melbourne – Thursday 14 May, 2020; tickets here
- Blues on Broadbeach, Gold Coast – Saturday 16 May, 2020; free event
The Melbourne Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Miguel Harth Bedoya, performs Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov’s Scheherazade this month at Hamer Hall in Arts Centre Melbourne.
This extraordinary orchestral work brings alive the legend of a storyteller named Scheherazade who saved her own life and the lives of hundreds of women in her kingdom, by spinning captivating tales to a sultan for a thousand-and-one-nights.
Of all the musical adaptations of the Arabian Nights, Rimsky-Korsakov’s is one of the most powerful and affecting. The work’s four movements vividly depict not only the Sultan and Scheherazade (the latter is portrayed by the beguiling melodies of a solo violin), but the legends she recounts. Finally, love triumphs and Scheherazade is spared — thereby saving her own skin and marking up a huge early victory for feminism.
The MSO’s Scheherazade will play Hamer Hall on March 13, 14 and 16.
Other reviews you might enjoy:
David Edwards is the editor of The Blurb and a contributor on film and television