I Don’t Buy Records In Your Shop Now I Tape Them All | A Mixtape By Telafonica

April 14th, 2010 Stu

Telafonica are a Sydney band that operate more like an evolving, fluid collective rather that a rigid formation of players. Their original line-up has filtered into the diaspora, with core Australian members morphing into a four-piece that explore a long terrain, bordered by melodic pop on one side and experimental electronica on the other. Although the palate is broad, the influences are not always evident – hence, when Adrian from Telafonica suggested dropping a mixtape of tracks that acted as touch-points for the creation of their most recent album “Love On the Second Stair”, it was impossible to resist. Whilst many bands shroud themselves in unnecessary mystique, Telafonica take the opposite approach – here, by revealing their influences in such direct terms, and also at their web site, where work-in-progress conversations between members are carried out in the public domain. Stuart Buchanan

“In December of 2008, the Australian based members of Telafonica decided to specifically focus on the creation of a new album. They already had a handful of tracks in various stages of development that they had been playing in their live shows but were looking to see how to draw all these together, as well as create some new songs. One of the tactics used to give focus was the creation of half hour inspiration ‘mixtapes’ on CD to be shared around. In the end, only Blake and Adrian ended up compiling whole mixtapes, though Rebecca and Eliza contributed other tracks themselves as inspiration for specific Telafonica songs.

“The album was created and released in November of 2009 as ‘Love On The Second Stair’. This mixtape, developed especially for the Discontent blog, combines some of the tracks that were on the initial inspiration discs, along with other inspirations that came to the fore in the process of making the album, as well as some tracks from which samples were directly taken and used within the music that formed the finished album.

“There is obviously a wide range of things to be heard, from the most mainstream of mainstream to obscure side channels in the history of music. These reflect Telafonica’s bower bird approach to music construction, begging, borrowing and stealing from any and everywhere in order to compile their own postmodern, post-retro pop.

“In this mix, where a track appears in full, it has been either already made available by the original artists on the internet for free, or specific permission has been gained from the original artists to include their work. Obviously, a number of the tracks have not been made available for free and permission would be difficult (and costly) to secure. In those cases, the tracks have been used in a traditional sampling sense, with only very brief snippets occurring, and are generally processed in some manner.” Telafonica

DOWNLOAD: I Don’t Buy Records In Your Shop Now I Tape Them All | A Mixtape By Telafonica (69.7MB)

(nomo – all the stars)
(adam and the ants – kick)
(parts & labor – satellites)
(the martini bros – dance like it is o.k. (dj koze & the tease remix))
(the flying lizards – money (that’s what i want))
1. beem – RER
(the beatles – sgt pepper’s lonely hearts club band reprise)
2. balun – a surprise
3. whitewash – feather
(sigur ros – festival)
4. slareffenklang – you win
(bow wow wow – c30, c60, c90, go!)
(the jam – that’s entertainment)
5. ghoul – swimming pool
6. sufjan stevens – sister winter
7. hamilton yarns – newhaven to dieppe
8. go! team – junior kickstart
(the smashing pumpkins – tonight, tonight)
9. parades – exodus (telafonica treble remix)
10. underlapper – choking ibis

IMAGE: Cover Design by Telafonica

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Disorientation Session | Disorient’s Mixtape For FBi

January 8th, 2010 Stu

In June 2009, I gave away a free mixtape to new subscribers of FBi Radio during my ‘Disorient’ show. The mixtape, titled ‘Disorientation Session’, features a few tracks that you can find on the first two Discontent mixtapes (Mixtape One and Two), with additions from various artists that appeared regularly on the show’s playlists, or as earlier single posts on the Discontent blog. As an aggregator of the sounds found on the (somewhat short-lived) Disorient radio show, this will more than likely remain the only existing audio document.

I’m particularly fond of this mixtape as its sensibility stretches back to the earlier days of the Fat Planet radio show – a focus on more innovative and often experimental music from around the world, before the beats and bass kicked in.  I particularly like the way that Salem’s screwed, slow-core can nestle near Villa Diamante’s warped take on South American cumbia and AGF’s truly distressing cover version of Rhianna’s ‘Disturbia’.  An eclectic and surprising session, I hope you agree.

DOWNLOAD: Disorientation Session: Disorient’s Mixtape For FBi (105MB)

1. Dalt Wisney – Sci-Fi Dot Fiends [Pakistan] 2:03
2. The Craters – Samba Party [U.S.] 2:40
3. Ghoul – Fuck Math [Australia] 1:54
4. Salem – Brustreet [U.S.] 5:02
5. 7VWWVW – Mammal Theme [Scotland] 5:55
6. Villa Diamante – Tonolec vs Kromestar [Argentina] 2:56
7. Berrettaz – Pense A [Côte d'Ivoire] 2:44
8. AGF aka Antye Greie – Disturbia [Germany] 4:07
9. Filastine – B’talla (feat. Rabah) [U.S.] 3:10
10. I Buried Paul – Favola [Brazil] 3:17
11. Fletcher – Dreadlox Dub [South Africa] 6:17
12. The Peronists – Cumbia Maligna [Argentina] 3:39
13. Atomhead – Unsuspecting Broken Receiver [Belgium] 2:09
14. Growing – Green Flag [U.S.] 6:16
15. Sleepmakeswaves – Exits To Nowhere [Australia] 3:41
16. Rothis Bournias – Last Days Part Two [Greece] 7:07
17. Inverness – Bats [Brazil] 3:13
18. Flica – Mid [Malaysia] 4:53

Note: All music on the mixtape is licenced via Creative Commons or has otherwise been made freely available by relevant artists & labels. If you like what you hear, please support the artists -visit their site, buy their music.

Cover image by Irving Liaw (under CC Licence).

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New Weird Australia | Volume Two

September 12th, 2009 Stu

nwa2-470

Grant Hunter’s cover artwork for the free download compilation, New Weird Australia Volume Two – featuring our country’s endearing emblematic marsupial with black claw outstretched and a murderous fleck in his eye – perfectly illustrates the ‘Jekyll & Hyde’ binary of the Australian story.

On one side, the world is sold on paradisal visions of Australian reefs and plains, care-free surfers racing down golden sands, and the classic long-shot of a sun-blemished Uluru. On the flip, with just as much fervour, we mythologise and peddle stories of perpetual gangland warfare, malevolent outback serial killers and dingoes eating babies for their morning snack.

If only the same warped duality could be brought to bear on the world’s vision of our musical worth. The exported track record is however largely one-sided – our place as the shiny, electro party-starter of the Southern Hemisphere is unrivalled, along with a seemingly endless passion for rock, culled from a 40-year old tombstone. Ask the world to identify a prominent Australian undercurrent and they will remain largely tight-lipped. Hence New Weird Australia – a project aimed as much at curating a contemporary library of alt-Australiana, as promoting that collection to the rest of the globe.

For Volume Two, we once again represent a strong geographic diversity with music from Tasmania, Western Australia, Queensland, Victoria, South Australia and New South Wales. We embody genre diversity from 21-year-oldWilliam Gardiner’s neo-classical work to the sprawling sample ephemera spread by Newcastle’s Cock Safari; from Maddest Kings Alive’s shoegaze chip-tunes to a seemingly perfect drift plain soundtrack, hewn by Solo Andata’sPaul Fiocco. There are also multiple exclusives from Kharkov, Lucia Draft, Mieli, No Art, Karoshi, Transmissions and Jason (Pretty Boy Crossover) Sweeney’s Panoptique Electrical project, and new work from Broken Chip, Ghoul, Oceans, Sam Price and Splendid Friends.

In mapping and redefining the local terrain, New Weird Australia represents a new breed of Australian musicians that cast an essential shadow over Australia’s sunny disposition.

(cross-posted from newweirdaustralia.com)

New Weird Australia Volume Two, September 2009, NWA002

DOWNLOAD ZIP FILE (AUDIO & ARTWORK):
Standard Quality, 192 kbps (103MB)
Higher Quality, 320kbps (159MB, via Rapidshare)

1. OCEANS, 02 + 03 (5:11) From ‘album’
2. GHOUL, Swimming Pool (Remix) (3:04) From ’Swimming Pool’
3. WILLIAM GARDINER, Sonance Arboreal (4:39) Previously unreleased
4. SAM PRICE, AutoHackney (5:28) From ‘Rand’
5. BROKEN CHIP, Summer Stars (5:06) From ‘POWWOW Seven’
6. KHARKOV, Crustacean (3:12) Previously unreleased
7. COCK SAFARI, 8MH (6:36) Previously unreleased
8. LUCIA DRAFT, Not Interested (1:16) Previously unreleased
9. MIELI, Hometime (3:34) Previously unreleased
10. KAROSHI, Re-Animate Me (2:44) Previously unreleased
11. NO ART, Fight In The Nocturnal House (3:56) Previously unreleased
12. TRANSMISSIONS, Staring At Lightning Strikes, Catching Every One (2:45) Previously unreleased
13. PANOPTIQUE ELECTRICAL, We Was Them (7:32) Previously unreleased
14. MADDEST KINGS ALIVE, Measels (4:05) Previously unreleased
15. SPLENDID FRIENDS, Holy Shears (1:42) From ‘Summer Moon Illusion’
16. PAUL FIOCCO, Torsions and Drifts (13:34) From ‘Torsions And Drifts’

Compiled by Stuart Buchanan & Danny Jumpertz
Artwork by Grant Hunter, granthunter.daportfolio.com

Click artist title for background information and links.
All music donated by the artists for use in this compilation only, all rights reserved.

New Weird Australia is a not-for-profit initiative established to promote eclectic and experimental Australian music. Free compilations are available to download every two months from www.newweirdaustralia.com. Contributions from Australian musicians and designers are welcomed and encouraged – submission details and terms can be found on the ‘New Weird Australia’ site.

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Ghoul | A Mouthfull Of Gold EP

January 2nd, 2009 Stu

ghoul.jpg

One thing that I’ve been guilty of lately is the lack of insight into the musical scene in my own backyard. With taste buds fixed firmly on multiple flavours from all corners of the globe, it’s easy to be blinkered to the plate of pancakes right under your nose. Let me rectify that in ‘09.

The surface veneer of Sydney’s music scene suggests a few things to the casual street press reader: belated attempts to recapture the essence of ‘pure rock’, post-punk, electro and many more tried and tested genres besides. Forgive Sydney such hipster ambitions, its true soul lies elsewhere. Striking an ice-pick blow to such a veneer can reveal a great deal more complexity.

Ghoul strike out from beneath the surface with an EP (“A Mouthfull Of Gold”) that stands in defiance to everything around it, and as each track on the free release ticks by, each seems to stand in defiance of its neighbour. The sparse, electronic minimalism of ‘Swimming Pool’ is the best platform to showcase Ivan Vizintin’s semi-falsetto vocals (swiftly drawing inescapable references to Antony Hegarty), contrasting with the baffling yet engaging lo-fi blues swagger of ‘Serbian’. Elsewhere, we find proto-industrial sounds on ‘Fuck Math’ whilst ‘Mouthfull Of Gold’ rounds off a tight, abstract synth excursion with a brief clutter of post-rock. It’s an unpredictable clutch of sounds, a remarkable and undoubtely refreshing EP – one that certainly helps to reaffirm our faith in Sydney’s potential to confound rather than conform.

Ghoul – Fuck Math | mp3

Ghoul – Swimming Pool | mp3

Download the EP for free at myspace.com/ghoulsydney. Ghoul play live for nix with nine other bands as part of Oxford Art Factory’s ‘Ten For Free’, this Saturday (3rd): info oxfordartfactory.com.

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