Little Fish

Your independent Australian music hour on JOY 94.9

Month: January, 2012

January 30, 2012

Feels like ‘home’.

If  the phrase ‘home is where the heart is’, needed further evidence, then the latest release by Melbourne’s Yeo will have the jury sold. Despite a significant change in direction from previous endeavours, Yeo’s ‘Home’ holds all the nostalgic familiarity that the name suggests.  It’s beautiful.

While each track stands up on its own, the album as a whole is a winding journey that it seems wrong to cut short. If you ever have some thinking or imagining to do, I’d definitely suggest go for a walk and listening to this album from start to finish.

Give it a go and download or stream the album here.

Yeo dropped by the JOY studios to talk everything from the new album, to how Selma Blair is an underrated babe. He even brought his guitar and gave everybody a live taste of the album. Hear it here:

I believe that music this good needs to be seen to be properly heard, so last Tuesday I made sure I got to see Yeo launching ‘Home’ at The Butterfly Club as part of Midsumma. I, along with just 50 others, crammed into the tiny bar to witness the  perfect soundtrack to a hot summer night. And it was hot. Showing extraordinary foresight, Yeo presented everyone with a custom-made tea towel, featuring the lyrics to my favourite song on the album: At your own pace. At his own suggestion, many of the audience members used Yeo’s towels to wipe sweat from their brows in the heat. Feeling that the tea towel was too good for my sweat (and for my dishes for that matter), the tea towel is proudly displayed, unused, in my kitchen.

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January 17, 2012

Something good from two bad bitchez.

Melbourne’s Kristina Miltiadou is in the midst of creating one of the best modern day love-ins that I’ve ever come across. If musical collaborations were sex, she’d be responsible for a generation of top-model children.

Every week, Kristina collaborates with different musicians to cover songs from all different genres. The project she calls ‘Covers’ is gaining momentum like the first time I went skiing. Apart from making Friday’s even better, her weekly posts are proving to Melbourne’s tight-knit music scene what a versatile and talented artist she is. Plus, she has shit loads of spunk.

Speaking of which, one of her recent collaborations with Sydney’s Fingertips will leave you speechless like a smack in the face that you wanted. It’s wow. Fingertips left her infectious industrial pop in Sydney last weekend and went down on Melbourne in the form of a collaborative cover of rapper Iggy Azalea’s My world.

Before the magic happened, both Kristina and Claire (Fingertips) joined me in the studio for a chat. Relive it here:

After they left the studio (where I was lucky enough to see a rehearsal during tracks), they set off to their secret location to film what is now this.

I know. Fierce right?

So, if this version of ’My World’ blew yours, check out more of Kristina’s covers here. 

And if you liked Fingertips’ stylings on this track, make sure you check out her single. The glitter-on-babe action will make your night.

It’s a shame that pop music holds connotations of Idol winners and idle losers, but with more stuff like this out there, pop music will actually be, well, popular.

For now, make sure you keep an eye out for more of Kristina’s covers as they come up. This girl says she’ll make music until she’s told to stop. I don’t hear anyone speaking up.

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January 10, 2012

A track worth trying when you’re crying.

It doesn’t seem right that the same song you listen to in order to fix yourself emotionally, should then be played in Woolworths while you’re trying to choose cans of tuna. And whilst the Adeles of the world have their place, with such saturation, all that these ‘blockbuster-breakup songs’ end up meaning is more money.

When you’re seeking comfort in a song, you’re looking for understanding without explanation. And when you find it, you don’t want to have to share it with everybody else in the supermarket. So, when I need music to work it’s magic, I find it’s best to look somewhere new.

This time though, while I was searching for the perfect cheer-up-tune, I found a track I actually wanted to share.

Forget her is the third track of the most recent EP (No Control EP, 2011)  by The Box Rockets, and as far as a breakup song goes, it’s pretty bang on. You won’t wallow in a pit of despair, but it makes you feel like there’s someone there to listen during the early hours of the morning when your tea’s gone cold. It’s the gentle bro-mance punch-hug that you need to help you build a bridge.

Check it out here

The melody is almost conversational, and the lyrics are down to earth and comforting. But for me, it’s all about that darker, more emotive guitar hook winding its way throughout the track that makes it medicinal.

If it hasn’t worked yet, try pressing repeat.

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January 7, 2012

Falls Festival 2011/12

I’ve never had a good New Years Eve. A few have flirted with good, but just failed to commit to being amazing. One year was ok, but I was more focused on thinking I was made of aluminium foil than I was on the countdown. And one year I missed the countdown entirely, as I was rejecting timepeices, and instead, telling the time only by the movements of the sun (which was distinctly absent at midnight). This year, though, I made having a good New Years Eve, my New Years resolution. Unlike vegetarianism, being straight-edge and getting organisational skills, this resolution was one I actually managed to keep. So, if you attended Falls Festival last weekend, you would have witnessed my first. ever. good New Years Eve.

Falls Festival threw together an interesting mix tape for 2012. My first thoughts on the lineup was that it seemed to be stuck in a timewarp somewhere around 2006. The Kooks, The Acrtic Monkeys, Josh Pyke and Missy Higgins  all brought  memories and crowds to the festival and certainly satisfied. And in terms of my bands-to-see-before-I-go-deaf list, the lineup productively crossed off a sizable chunk.

But whilst I was excited to see those artists I had forgotten I loved, I was equally, if not more impressed by those acts new to the festival circuit.

As I arrived keen and punctual to the festival gates on December 28th, I was affirmed in my belief that; sometimes the support act can put on the best show. Luckily I arrived in time to see local band Saskwatch get up there and blow my mind. Their funk and soul grooves were so infectious that, the way the crowd got into it, the set could have easily been moved to a New Years Eve slot.

Photo credit: Anthony Smith

The weekend’s performances brought to my attention the current increase of strong female vocalists within popular music.While a few years ago saw a trend in male vocals front bands, it seems that the table are turning. Saskwatch‘s vocalist Nkechi Anele has one of the best soul voices I’ve heard in a long time, and her strong vocals were, I believe, something the music industry has been missing.

Similarly, Kimbra - A.K.A Babe of the moment – put on an incredible show. And while I knew that she would, my expectations were surpassed. This girl can sing.

Photo credit: Anthony Smith

Other acts that were highlights were up-and-coming folk artist Emma Louise, who provided the perfect relief from the heat with beautiful, etherial music while everybody sat down in the shade.

Photo credit: Anthony Smith

Oscar & Martin, who always impress with their quirky electro folk pop, started a rave of woodland nymphs at the front of the Village Stage.

Alpine,  potentially Melbourne’s answer to Paris’ Nouvelle Vague, made me get up early and dance erratically to their blend of dissonant harmonies, pretty vocals and staccato rhythms.

Photo credit: Anthony Smith

And finally, I’d like to give special praise to Strangetalk who put on an incredible show, despite sharing a timeslot with The Kooks. Having seen the band multiple times and experienced mixed reactions, their Falls set has renewed my faith in their live show as an incredible party.

Photo credit: Anthony Smith

Falls Festival marked a turning point in my history of shitty New Years Eves, and in hindsight, I cannot think of a better way to start a year full of musical escapades than to the soundtrack of Australia’s finest.

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