I was in Ballarat the other day.....
Ballarat Bitter...never had it, didn't even know it existed till I saw this.

Not big on the iphone camera. This is just random effects. They should call this hipstamatic effect The Boards Of Canada. I hate the way it framed this one. I liked my $50 phone better, at least I'd mastered that. It used to give me the vision I wanted. I was in synchronicity with that device.

90s Nostalgia

Am I gonna get swept up in nostalgia for the great 90s 60s nostalgists Mazzy Star and their new LP? Probably. Which is a bit weird considering I never bought their 3rd album. I mean I loved those first two records, She Hangs Brightly & So Tonight That I Might See, played them to death. By the time of the third record it seemed their time was up but 17 years later it seems perfectly acceptable to give Mazzy Star's Seasons Of Your Day a listen. That says more about our relationship to time in 2013 than it does about me. Mark Fisher has some interesting thoughts about time over here.

Now here's some more nostalgia but this time for the future, well when 'ardcore was like the future in the 90s. Manix have a new record out called Living In The Past as pointed out here at Blog To The OldSkool. Pete from said blog is swept up in the nostalgia and has ordered a copy. Now why does Manix's comeback seem more naff than Mazzy Star's? I guess because Mazzy Star were always living in the past and you never thought Manix would ever be. In their time Manix, 4Hero, Reinforced Records et al were the antitheses of nostalgic revivalist culture. Like the Sex Pistols reunion Manix's comeback seems contradictory to their original intent. Living In The Past though is guaranteed to be more modern than Seasons Of Your Day.  We've all gotta eat I suppose.

Oneohtrix Point Never - R Plus 7

Remember when you just wanted to play Daniel Lopatin's records over and over again because they were lovely, atmospheric, epic and sometimes anthemic. Rifts (Oneohtrix Point Never), Days Of Thunder (Skyramps), Artificial Midnight (Infinity Window) and Returnal (Oneohtrix Point Never) were all classics and you thought they'd never stop coming. Now his records are just ok and interesting. But are they though? If a record was interesting I'd wanna keep dropping the needle on it wouldn't I? I want to love R Plus 7 (and the previous album Replica) more than I can. When S Club 7 is on its fine I don't wanna smash the stereo in but at the same time it doesn't fill me with the desire to rewind or add it to my I-Pod. There was a good few years where Oneohtrix was the sound in my eardrums. Particularly in the morning on the train, on the platform, on the escalator and walking the windswept and rainy streets. But he's moved on and Lopatin is not giving me what I need any more. Lovely has turned to slightly irritating, serene to jittery (not in a good way) and neo-kosmiche to pretty much vapourwave.  Then towards the end of R Plus 7 with tracks like Chrome Country and Still Life there's a flicker of the Oneohtrix I once knew which keeps me hangin on a little longer hoping for a full blown return to form next time.

These tunes also included on
the compilation below.

Artificial Midnight-Infinity Window
Serene Atmospheres. Lopatin in
collaboration with Human
Teenager's Taylor Richardson.

Essential compilation. Includes
the above record.

Days Of Thunder-Skyramps
Scintillating collaboration with
Mark McGuire from Emeralds.

Melbourne IV - Primitive Calculators/Whirlywirld/The Little Bands...

Is this the best song ever to come out of Melbourne? It doesn't get any better! 

'I had a boyfriend, his head was ugly.....'

But hang on...This is surely the best version of Hey Joe ever recorded. Fucking brutal!
"I'm gonna head through Gippsland, down to Omeo,
I'm gonna go where a man can be free!

Ain't gonna hang from no Coolabah tree!
Ain't nobody gonna make no Tom Dooley outta me!
Ain't nobody gonna push too hard on me!

Melbourne III - Real Life

Melbourne II

AC/DC in Melbourne goin up Swanston St!
There's even a lane in Melbourne called AC/DC Lane.
I know they're not a Melbourne band.
Didn't they live here for a couple of years though?

Melbourne I

I'm leaving Melbourne soon which is a place I have lived for the last 22 years!  I thought I'd give the world a little hint of what Melbourne is like in regard to pop culture. I have a list inside my head about this city which will make all you internationalists realise either shit Melbourne what have you done? or thank you for the music Melbourne

Let's start with the 60s

My fave Aussie song of all time! Produced by Molly Meldrum & written by Johnny Young!

 I am the Real Thing!

Into the 70s

A much shorter version than the one on the Ball Power LP.
Ball Power being the best Australian Rock Record ever recorded.

Tim Hecker - Virgins

Was It Hemingway or Forster who said 'I write so I know what I think.' Anyway I feel I've got nothing to say but sometimes putting pen to paper reveals what is really going on in my brain. It's not like I'm not listening to a lot of music, maybe I'm listening to too much. I'd like to just focus on one or two records to write about but maybe nothing is outstanding enough. I am enjoying Tim Hecker's new album Virgins. Its got more exquisite drones that sometimes go berserk. Virgins is a fine proper follow up to his 2011 classic Ravedeath, 1972. I feel like this is music about architecture, skyscrapers and progress. Is it a paean to the 20th century's man made technological triumphs yet tinged with sadness that those heady days are behind us? It could be about nothing. I don't know maybe its about poverty in the 3rd world or mobile phones. It might be holy I mean check out the title. Perhaps this music is made for the joy of its own sonic delirium. Anyway its definitely monumental, its big, its urban and full of vibes I can't quite put into words. There are pianos, other acoustic instruments, synths and electric currents. Occasionally I'm put in mind of Maryanne Amacher along with other drone-ologists. Do I have to use the word decay somewhere in this paragraph? I don't want to! Abstract is a much overused term in music discourse of the last 20 years but on Virgins and Tim Hecker's other work it actually fits like a glove. This is a sound world I want to be part of again and again. Play it again Sam!

There you go who knew I was gonna write a review of that album.

Children Of The Sun

Heard this in a restaurant the other day and thought it was like 60s Scott Walker doing a lost Doors track. It took me a while to find what it was but here it is!

Don't forget this bewdy from the 80s.

And this one! Wow.

The Drowners - Flying Saucer Attack

Played this the other day and couldn't believe how fresh it sounded 20, can you believe that?, years later.

The original is not bad either. The only Suede song I liked I think, well it's the only one I remember. Brett Anderson: Turd or Hero? It's a fine line innit?