ozsome ozcillations


OMG it has been well over two weeks since I last posted. Damn you, Christmas holiday season, filling my spare time with absurd agendas and onerous obligations, and plus also making me go on vacation AGAIN just when I've finally recovered from the last one! Xmas, I wish I knew how to quit you! Keep this up and before you know it, someone--I'm not sayin' me, now,  but someone--will snap, I don't know, like, declare war against you or something. And that'll show you, I just bet! You'll rue the day you ever tried to make me go to all those holiday parties and eat those festive cookies and drink all that Anchor Steam Christmas Ale (mmm).

Ok, enough with the shameless holiday blame-deferring, and on to the tunage. As promised, here are a few examples of the choice Aussie music I picked up during my visit to AU last month. (Okay, the last two tracks are obviously from elsewhere, but I'm sure y'all won't mind.)

Wolfmother "Dimension (Stereogamous Dimensional Kooky Mix)" - Wolfmother is a Sydney-based indie-rock three-piece that's been experiencing wild success in their home country ever since they released their initial four-song EP back in early 2004. They sell out shows everywhere they play, and their first self-titled full-length album was recently declared winner of the (soon to be) prestigious J Award for Australian Album of the Year. Their prowess hasn't gone unnoticed back here in North America--they reportedly slayed audiences at both SXSW and CMJ this year, and the word is that the question of their album getting a stateside release isn't an "if" question but "when."

Wolfmother's schtick is decidedly retro--it's basically a passionate and addictive polaroid transfer of your favorite early-to-mid-70s metal records (Blue Cheer, Black Sabbath, Led Zepplin, (early) Pink Floyd, Meatloaf, etc.) with a few on-point references to beloved contemporary retro-rockers like The Brian Jonestown Massacre and the White Stripes tossed in for good measure. If you're curious as to how well they pull this off, check out the full-album stream that Modular Records has set up for them. It's pretty killer stuff. If someone told me that this was a thirty-year old record that had recently been unearthed by a psych-rock obsessed cratedigger, I wouldn'tve doubted it for a second.

"Dimension" first appeared on Wolfmother's debut EP and turns up again on their new album, and on its own, it's a fine collection of meaty guitar riffs, howling vocals, and perfectly absurd lyrics. This remix is something else entirely, though. I've been playing it over and over these past few weeks since my return, jacking up the volume a notch with each repetition, and goddamn if it doesn't just keep getting better and better. Unfortunately, I'm beginning to reach the tolerance limits of my home stereo equipment, which means I'm probably going to have to invest in a hefty club-ready soundsystem to keep the joy increasing. This will probably result in angry neighbors, lawsuits, visits from uniformed police officers, and various degredations to the structure of my apartment building (it may just slip off of its foundations), not to mention deafness, but that's ok, it'll all be worth it, I'm sure. [Buy Wolfmother's various releases from the Modular Records store (keep in mind that all prices are listed in AU$$!). If you want this remix, you can find it on the fairly rare Club Kooky 10 compilation, available at the club and selected record stores in Australia (scroll down for listing)]

Paul Mac "Heaven Where You Find It (Featuring Lenka)" - It's no secret that numerous disco and house tunes have been infused with the soaring sound and and inspirational power of contemporary gospel music over the years, and it's no wonder, either: after all, both churches and nightclubs have their own regular congregants, who go to those sacred spaces in order to find sanctuary from the pressures of ordinary life and, in communion together, reach a higher plane.

This track, from Sydney-based producer Paul Mac's new album Panic Room, follows in that hallowed tradtion with a stirring track that blends beats and bass with a message about the courage required to love both onself and others without expecting perfection in return. With a chorus like "I believe Heaven is where you find it baby--you save me, and I'll save you," the song's obviously not operating as a strict Christian Fundie tract by any means, but even so, there's a good chance that it might open a few closed hearts even as it sets bodies in motion.

Paul Mac got his career started as a remixer for the likes of Silverchair, Powderfinger, and Savage Garden back in the mid-'90s. In 2001, he came out with his first solo album 3000 Feet High, which sold gold in Australia, and which established his modus operandi of producing catchy dancefloor pop tunes with a rotating stable of vocalists, some of whom have become quite well known throughout the continent based on their association with his music. Panic Room continues that tradition, with vocals by a variety of folks, including the Sleepy Jackson's Luke Steele, his returning star performers Peta Morris and Anna Dobson, and newcomers Ngare (from Papua New Gunea) and Aaradhna (New Zealand). And then there's this song, "Heaven Where You Find It" and the title track of Panic Room, which both feature the seductive talents of Lenka, singer for The Decoder Ring, a terrifically popular Melbourne-based dancefloor indierawk act that's taken Australia by storm over the past few years. [Buy Panic Room at Amazon (US), if you don't mind the import prices. While you're at it, pick up last year's album by The Disassociatives, the group Mac formed with Silverchair's Daniel Johns. It's cheaper.]

Music Vs Physics "Letters and Words" - While in Sydney, I luckily (and almost literally) stumbled across Red Eye Records, which turned out to be a true music geek's paradise if I've ever seen one. I discovered Music Vs Physics' album Oblong Data in the store's hip-hop section, and on a whim, decided to buy it and hope for the best. Happily, it didn't dissapoint me when I finally managed to give it a spin after my return to San Francisco. This Melbourne threesome creates the sort of brainy, idea-packed hip-hop that you might expect to hear from linguistic philosophy graduate students or championship Scrabble wizards. There's not a hint of down-low urban grittiness to their stuff, but that's to their credit, in a way--they've got skills, and they're using them to craft beats and verses that goof on high-end wordplay and map out the Mensa mindset to intriguing effect. It doesn't hurt, though, that Beatrix, the female MC featured in this song, also has a lovely singing voice; all the songs that feature it shine just that much brighter. [Buy it from Red Eye Records.]

Goldfrapp "Slide In (DFA Remix)" - If you're a true blue music fiend, you probably grabbed this super-rare DFA remix (only 100 copies pressed to vinyl) when it popped up over on BigStereo earlier this month. And that's great, that's cool--Travis and the other good folks at BigStereo deserve mucho props for getting the song up and out to the masses, especially when you consider how many people were apparently chomping at the bit to get their mitts on it the moment the news that such a remix was in the works entered the ether. However, some of you may have noticed that it was a somewhat low-fidelity 64 kbps file. Now, I dunno why that was, 'zactly--maybe it was all the BigStereo folks could find at the time, maybe they reduced the filesize to make it easier to store on their servers, or perhaps they were asked to only make a lo-fi version of the track available. Whatever the case, I figured I'd go for broke here and offer a markedly, richer, fuller version of the track for your amusement. As a sort of holiday present, let's say. And we'll see what happens....

This version of the track isn't perfect either--it's quite obviously a vinyl to mp3 rip, and as such could've been recorded with a bit more care than it was (like, maybe they could've avoided bumping the needle at the outset of the song)--but it'll definitely do for the vast amount of folks out there, at least until Goldfrapp or the DFA deign to give it an official release so everyone can buy a copy for themselves. Like Travis BigStereo (for lack of a better name), I'm not terrifically impressed with the Goldfrapp part of the song, mainly because I've never been that sold on Goldfrapp to begin with--but I love how the track gradually mutates into a wonderful anarchist panopoly of percussive sound and rhythm. Its a remix approach that I can't help feeling I should be growing weary of by now...but am still knocked out by, for the time being, hurrah.

Nathan Fake "Silent Night" - And I didn't think I'd be putting up any holiday songs up in here this year, but then I ran across this glitchtronic gem by UK experimental electronica auteur Nathan Fake, and couldn't resist. Once again, it's already been put on offer by another mp3 blog or two*, but in case you missed it, here you go. I'm going to get another couple tracks up before the end of the week, but just in case I don't make it, here's a little something to simultaneously put you in the holiday spirit and annoy your family/friends/neighbors/pets. Enjoy. [Buy it from Juno (UK).]

*The mp3 blogging scene is getting so crowded these days that I realized awhile back that there's just no point in fussing over the conundrum of not being the first to cover this or that band or song. We're all playing to a vast audience across the world here from a thousand stages, so there's always going to be people among that audience who were distracted by something shiny the first time a song made an appearance.

((((-_-))))

So on Christmas Eve Molls and I are flying off again--another vacation, this time to a resort in Mexico. I could protest that I'm sick of flying, sick of travelling, etc. etc, but I kinda doubt that many of you would buy it. I'll be gone for a week, and will be back in the new year. As I said above, I'll try to get a couple more tracks up before I split, I really will. I've got tons of music to share, but no time to write about it. Cue sad violins, closeup on my frowning face. Pauvre Moebius....

Sorry, no travelogue yet. When the world stops spinning like a...a crazy fast spinning thing...I'll get photos and related stories up in my Fickr account and you will all be amazed/astounded. I promise. Australia was great, New Zealand was great. Had lots of fun: attended weddings, toured rainforests, snorkled the Great Barrier Reef, saw Auckland and Sydney, visited pretty beaches, drank great beer, and much more. Many thanks to NZ's Stinky Jim (dj/label owner/music writer extraordinare) and OZ's DJ Seymour Butz** (of Club Kooky and Sauna Sessions) for their help; they both passed on to me some amazing music I never would've run across on my own.

As always, if you like the tracks offered in this post, have any questions, or just want to say heya, drop me a line below. Cheers.

**no, not the American porn producer/Showtime documentary star. By a longshot. Though, then again, perhaps there are similarities.