5 Songs You Should Definitely Rediscover
With Recordings Of The Middle East returning to the iTunes Charts on the back of Gang Of Youths' phenomenal rendition of Blood on Triple J's Like A Version last week we look back on five songs from the last decade that you should probably definitely rediscover.
Parades - Loserspeak in New Tongue
In 2008, Parades, exploded in the Sydney scene; Australia's very own answer to the niche wave of hyper intelligent international indie artists such as Explosions In The Sky and Sigur Ros had arrived. Releasing one single, one EP and a critically underrated debut album foreign tapes the band split in 2012. Members are still scattered through some of the finest boundary pushing music being made in the Australian market today (for example Error Margins and PARTY DOZEN).
Loserspeak in New Tongue perfectly envelops Parades sound. At times sparse, others explosive, always intricate and involved. There's a lot going on here at any given moment highlighted for me by Jonathan Boulet's manic drumming; the perfect platform to launch gorgeous call and response harmonies galore.
Kid Sam - We're Mostly Made of Water
No-one ever described Kid Sam better than themselves: melted, subverted, deconstructed troubadour tall cousins Kishore and Kieran Ryan. A band built on tension and grit the duo traversed the well trodden path of the Australian storyteller like a delicate dance to be deconstructed and put back together upside down and inside out only to remain uniquely Australian. Imposingly reserved on stage Kid Sam quite literally played pots and pans all the whilst building out one of the most refined sounds I've seen produced from a two piece.
We're Mostly Made of Water is Kid Sam at their best; brooding, building and breaking into moments of near chaos before being brought back to that calm sense of control throughout all their releases.
Kendrick Lamar - Rigamortis
Yeah right, I want you to "rediscover" the man sitting on the throne, getting blasted on high rotation on seemingly every radio station in the world and providing the anthems for one of the most important political movements of our time? Well, yeah kind of? There's no point introducing Kendrick Lamar, he is where he is today for good reason... But..
It's 2011 and Kendrick Lamar has just released Section .80 his first hybrid walking the middleground between mixtape and album, a trend most recently rebirthed in Untitled Unmastered, and every hip-hop writer in LA has included Kendrick in their "next crops" lists. It's a blistering, raw release that screams watch the throne.
Rigamortis puts everything Kendrick went on to make a name for himself out of front and centre. The ownership of hip-hop fundamentals in riding a beat, unrivaled ownership of voice and a sense of danger through self-belief. Oh and that beautiful brass hook that will stay in your head for weeks.
Gareth Liddiard - Strange Tourist
A giant of the Australian music industry for almost 20 years Gareth Liddiard is by no-means an unknown name. The Drones and more recently Tropical Fuck Storm frontman has cut a fierce path of unrelenting sounds nestled in fundamentally sound song writing that rattles, writhes and evolves it's way through a unique and potent career. Debut solo album Strange Tourist was no departure from that path, sophisticated in it's savagery of the solo artist.
Title track Strange Tourist is a seven minute epic built on nothing but guitar and narrative. Liddiard spits, barks and bites his way through the tale of B the junky, depression and death. It's a Homeric novel of a song and calling card to the unnatural talent that is Gareth Liddiard.
Gang Of Youths - Evangelists
See what I've done there? Finished the article with the band that caused it? That's what I'm about, full circles, closure.
It's by no-means been an easy or fast rise to where they are now for Gang Of Youths; five years of frustration, turmoil, touring, an unrivaled commitment to staying uncool and true to the music they believe in has led to one of the hardest carved paths to success in the narrative of Australian music.
Debut single Evangelists displays it all. The scope, importance and talent that has seen Gang Of Youths become one of Australia's most deeply adored and critically acclaimed bands. A sprawling epic written on the back of a driving drum beat, soaring instrumentality and the open heart of frontman David Le'aupepe. It's all there, it always has been.
