On January 2, we welcome Portland Oregon’s Castanets (Asthmatic Kitty) for Over Ambition #6. Here promoting his fifth record, ‘Texas Rose, the Thaw, and the Beasts’, Ray Raposa will bring his weirdly wonderful brand of dark folk to The Troubadour. He’s joined by American slow-core ‘basement soul’ collective Tiger Saw, Novocastrian popscapist Alps and local psych-folk wonders Oh Ye Denver Birds.
Osaka’s Vampillia (coined the ‘The Brutal Orchestra’) appear at The Club House, Friday 18 December, presented by Making Hey. Fresh off tour with Jarboe (ex-Swans), the collective’s second Australian appearance comes in support of highly anticipated debut full-length Sppears, released on iscollagecollective. Sppears comes hot on the heels of the acclaimed 09 EP Romance, a collaboration with Tujiko Noriko, and emperor of noise, Merzbow.
Combining the darker tones of classical music with hardcore-noise and Japanese opera, Vampillia’s stage act is an experience not to be missed. With a line-up featuring a full 5-piece band, strings, DJ, and pianist with 3 vocalists, the 10-piece produces a sound that can only be described as finely orchestrated chaos. The collective’s warbling drug-queen guitarist, death-growl vocals, and wood saw maestro combine to almost make Vampillia as much a spectacle as a band. On stage, it’s an intense and renownedly unpredictable orgy of noise and destruction.
Joining the bill are Osaka’s master of classical electronica, World’s End Girlfriend; local avant-pop icons, The Rational Academy; shamble post-punks Turnpike; and Yout Dem’s DJ Swede Tooth. Tix $12, available at the door.
Seattle’s Tiny Vipers – or Jesy Fortino as she’s known to friends – heads ‘Over Ambition #5’, Saturday October 3 at The Troubadour, presented by Making Hey and Half Back Flank. Fortino’s first ever Brisbane performance comes in support of new LP, Life on Earth, her second release on Sub Pop/Stomp.
Creating and performing the music for her new album with a singular approach, Life on Earth is Fortino’s private vision unfolding, at times crystal-clear and at other times shrouded in a mystical fog. People and times past wander through these songs like ghosts looking for a home.
Transcending the mere folk tag, Fortino leaves behind her contemporaries. Drawing on an array of influences, from country to the underground, Fortino’s unique, reductionist approach to accompaniment breathes an eerie sense of wonder through the themes that inhabit her lyricisms: love found and lost, places come and gone.
The persona of Life on Earth stands like a mountain watching the world go by; the future annihilates the past, consuming it like a fire. Yet this is no bleak dirge. There are triumphs hidden behind the sorrows. A shining hope permeates the threat of doom. Tiny Vipers’ performance is renowned as truly transfixing spiritual experience. It’s left a trail of audiences hushed and solemn the world over.
Joining the bill for Over Ambition #5 are local shamble-pop collective BIGSTRONGBRUTE, minimalist folk songstress McKisko, and country-folk horde, Lion Island. The show kicks off at 8pm.
The fourth in Making Hey’s “Over Ambition” series celebrates the launch of two new releases from a couple of the most exciting and gritty lo-fi pop acts from around these parts, with Newcastle’s Alps introducing Alps of New South Whales, and Brisbane’s own Kitchen’s Floor finally taking the wraps off long-awaited debut LP Loneliness is a Dirty Mattress. This instalment comes to the Step Inn’s front bar, Friday August 28.
Out through Beat is Murder, Alps of New South Whales comes as the third full-length release for Alps – or Chris Hearn as he’s known to friends. It’s the second in a trilogy of concept albums, following 2006’s Alps of New South Wales, on which each song was recorded in a different country around the world. Alps of New South Whales is all about the—you guessed it—whales, with all ten tracks taking their names from a different species. With its lofi, shoegaze, psych and minimalist underpinnings, reverb drenched, droning, tape-hissed, delay-bound, the record takes a trip to the deepest depths of its subject’s own watery habitat.
It’s been a long wait for the eventual release of Brisbane DIY, house party favourites Kitchen Floor’s debut LP. Months of sporadic recording with Audio Pollen’s co-founder, Joel Stern, has produced the raw, jarring, raucous artefact of local no wave, “Loneliness is a Dirty Mattress”, out through Sydney’s R.I.P. Society Records.
Joining in the celebration are local instrumental pop stalwarts, The Deadnotes, and Melbourne’s sample-acoustimatic maestro, Whyte Lightning. Having hosted Portland psych-folk royalty Grouper; hardcore symphony freaks, Vampillia (Osaka); and Perth’s high priestess of drone, Mystic Eyes; as well as gearing up for the Brisbane launch of Tiny Vipers’ Life on Earth (Seattle – Sub Pop) on October 3, the Over Ambition series continues to showcase all that’s interesting and diverse in sound cultures both locally and abroad. Over Ambition #4 kicks off 8pm, Friday August 28, at the Step Inn front bar, with tickets available at the door.
Osaka’s Vampillia (or ‘The Brutal Orchestra’ as they’ve been dubbed) heads number three in Making Hey’s ‘Over Ambition’ series, Wednesday April 29, at the Step Inn. The collective’s first ever Australian appearance comes in the lead-up to the long anticipated release of Romance, a collaboration with Tujiko Noriko, and emperor of noise, Merzbow.
Combining classical music with hardcore-noise and Japanese opera, Vampillia’s stage act is an experience not to be missed. With a line-up featuring a full rock band, a strings trio, DJ, pianist and 3 vocalists, the 9-piece produces a sound that can only be described as finely orchestrated chaos. On stage, it’s an intense and renownedly unpredictable performative extravaganza.
Joining the bill are local improv noise icons, Black Vitamins, the collaborative project of Blank Realm and Lloyd Barrett. Heart Flew Like an Arrow and The Rational Academy’s beat-slinging noise-alter-ego, White Bears of Norway, complete a remarkable line-up. The show kicks off at 8:00pm. Tix available at the door.
In what promises already to be one of 2009’s must-see live shows Portland’s Grouper—or Liz Harris as she’s known to friends—heads number two in Making Hey’s ‘over ambition’ series, Saturday March 7 at the Judith Wright Centre of Contemporary Art. Harris’s appearance comes in support of her latest full-length Dragging a Dead Deer up a Hill (released on Type), which has pulled rank in Pitchfork’s Top 50 Albums of 2008.
While earlier work saw Harris dredge the murkiest depths of reverb-drowned, ambient dirge-psychedelia, negotiating with while never fully surrendering to melody, her work of late is revelation. Dragging a Dead Deer goes a long way in emerging the weighty melodic power that Grouper has kept in the shadows for so long. The new work is a darkly mesmerising folk-dream-pop whirlpool. At once, it is melancholic and optimistic; regressive and revolutionary; mysterious and revelatory. It’s this seeming dissonance and chaos that make the undeniable harmony and control at work in Grouper’s music so defying. Grouper’s performance is set to be an otherworldly, almost spiritual experience.
Joining the bill for the first of their considered live appearances of 09 are local avant-pop icons, the Rational Academy. Melbourne’s improv sounscapist composer, Ian Wadley, completes an unforgettable line-up. Doors open at 7:30.
Has the distinct lack of noise gigs post-Festivus been getting you down? Well chin up fancy-face! Returning to our fine city for the first time since featuring in Rhys Catham’s ‘100 Guitars’, Perth’s queen of drone, Mystic Eyes (aka Lisa MacKinney), is set to lead an all-star local line-up Thursday 22nd at the Step Inn.
She’ll be joined by noise jammers, Secret Birds; doom beasts of the deep, No Anchor; shoegaze popsters, Loomer; and drone-ambient heartachers, Heart Flew Like an Arrow. The show kicks off our ‘over ambition’ series for ‘09, a monthly affair. Tickets are $8 at the door, or $6 if you opt to join the over ambition mailing list on the night.
It’s tough to kick out the improvised jams, and at the same time maintain a balance between edginess and accessibility, but not if your name is Jon Tjhia or Alex Nosek and you’re part of Melbourne ambient pop duo, ii (pronounced ‘eye-eye’).
Collaborators for over seven years, adlibbing instrumental pieces that tread the more lovable regions of pop seems to come as naturally to these two as breathing. Although, thankfully, ii just aren’t content with what comes naturally. It’s the curious, exploratory nature of their vision that sees the duo draw on elements of concréte, electronica, post-rock, drone, and (ironically perhaps) minimalism to build subtle yet awe-inspiring soundscapes.
ii appear live at Tongue and Groove Café on Friday August 22, featuring the stylings of local found/made instrument maestro, Ross Manning. Support comes from Blank Realm, Yeow Meow, and a trio comprised of Lawrence English, Leighton Craig, and Eugene Carchesio. Tickets are $8 ($6 concession), available at the door.
SOUNDS LIKE A HAUNTING
Perth-based performance art collective, The Ghost of 29 Megacycles, is set to expand minds in Brisbane when they float in on June 7th, en route on national tour. This follows the release of the group’s new EP, 10000 Flying Girls, a work mastered by New York minimalist, Taylor Dupree, and out through Frosty You Haunt Me.
TG29MC’s live show is a breathtaking AV experience. Their often ‘ghostly’ sound-scapes, filled with wonder, and fuelled on innovation in texture and instrumentation, reveal hidden dimensions in the projected visual components. The already intriguing experimental visual work explores new perspectives on the accelerated transformation of urban environments and is comprised of film that the group has composed, as well as pieces from local Perth filmmakers. The aural, visual and performative elements of TG29MC’s craft culminate in an encounter not to be soon forgotten.
The Ghost of 29 Megacycles appears at Tongue and Groove Café on June 7th, joined by local favourites, The Rational Academy, as well as Secret Birds and Elk. Tickets are $8, and are available at the door from 8pm.
FASTER THAN THE MUSIC
Vialka are part of a diminishing breed of bands whose art closely imitates life. This currently France-based nomadic duo has been traversing the globe, touring through over forty-five countries, averaging one-hundred shows per year for the past seven years (you do the math). And now Vialka are once more gracing Australian shores.
As if the duo’s prolific schedule wasn’t enough, Vialka have collaborated with a rollcall of underground artists too long to list, notably including Damo Suzuki (of CAN fame), and have recently added a new baby to their troupe. Marylise Frenchville and Eric Boros’s frenzied, almost super-human lifestyle translates directly into their musical stylings—a frenetic, post-punk, turbo-gypsy-folk explosion that draws inspiration from traditional and underground music from around the planet. The sense of haste, excitement and anxiety that is imbued in Vialka’s art almost lets the listener into a day in the life.
The same translation applies to Vialka’s stage act, which has become a thing of legend. It is finely orchestrated, uninhibited chaos. Eric’s melodic, virtuoso guitar playing feeds Marylise’s percussive spectacle, skilfully tumbling through complex syncopation into jazz-punk stabs and neo-folk flows. The two share vocals in a renownedly unpredictable, high-energy, sometimes-cabaret performative extravaganza that leaves any audience breathless.
Vialka are trekking down under on the back of their aptly named 2007 release Plus Vite Que La Musique (a French expression, literally translated to “Faster than the Music”). The duo plays one Brisbane show only on Wednesday April 16 at the Tongue and Groove Café, presented by Making Hey. They will be joined by a local line-up including Do the Robot and special guests. Tickets are strictly limited, and are available from makinghey.com ($10 / more at the door if available). Come, leave your preconceptions at the door.