Blog Archives

EDGE RADIO RECOMMENDED: Courtney Barnett - 'Tell Me How You Really Feel'

28/5/2018

Over the course of just a few years Barnett has become internationally renowned for her distinctive and acclaimed musical lexicon. Her debut album, Sometimes I Sit and Think, and Sometimes I Just Sit saw her top year-end lists and sell out shows to adoring audiences on five continents. She played the most iconic and revered festival stages, won the Australian Music Prize, APRA's Songwriter of the Year and four ARIA Awards. The album was even nominated for a Grammy and a BRIT Award. In the meantime she’s worked on music with the likes of Jack White, The Breeders and Jen Cloher as well as releasing last year’s masterful collaboration album with US songwriter Kurt Vile, Lotta Sea Lice. Even her label Milk! Records is revered worldwide.

So… how do you follow all that up?

In Tell Me How You Really Feel, Barnett has revealed an exhilarating shift and a bold step forward. From its title to the unsettling cover image – a blood-red tinted self-portrait in uncomfortably tight close up –Barnett reveals a new-found confidence and perspective. Whereas once she examined the world through the prism of self-analysis, Tell Me How You Really Feel shifts that focus to those she interacts with – the good ones, the bad ones, the loved ones. Those she knows intimately and those who are strangers.

There’s a muscularity to the instrumentation, a tenderness in her voice and a boldness to the lyrics. It speaks to Barnett entering a remarkable new phase of her musical evolution.

Release: Milk! Records, May 18th 2018
Words: Milk! Records/Remote Control

EDGE RADIO RECOMMENDED: sARAH mARY cHADWICK - 'sUGAR sTILL mELTS iN tHE rAIN'

21/5/2018

To listen to Sarah's Mary Chadwick's music is to be a quiet observer to her thoughts on love, death and mental health. Sometimes this anguish bears itself in sullen, quiet moments, but more often torment manifests at the break of Sarah's voice as she sing-shouts painfully vulnerable, self-aware lyrics. This is all front and centre on Chadwick's fourth solo album Sugar Still Melts In The Rain.

Chadwick is not a new face to Melbourne's music community. After moving to Australia from her native New Zealand to pursue a career in music, Sarah spent a decade fronting the grunge band Batrider. Eventually becoming tired of the collaborative requirements intrinsic to band life, Sarah shifted her focus to songwriting independently, drawing inspiration from "weird old New Zealand musicians" like Peter Jefferies, Chris Knox, and Australia's Pip Proud and the way they tinker away and work for decades for "little to no commercial success." This inspiration is obvious in Sarah's performance as she simultaneously savours and mocks the pedestal that her creativity affords her, acknowledging that "it's a position of power being on a microphone" and how "it's a desperate demand to be seen. It's funny and really sad."

Sugar Still Melts In The Rain marks her first release since 2016's LP 'Roses Always Die' and her first for her new label Sinderlyn (home to Homeshake, Jaye Bartell and Tim Cohen). It was recorded and mixed by friend, musician and filmmaker Geoffrey O'Connor in Vanity Lair and Phaedra Studios in Melbourne. The album came together quickly partly as a result of the duo's commitment to efficiency and partly due to Sarah's lack of attachment to the idea of "the perfect vocal take."

She knows she isn't a virtuoso; tongue firmly in check, she is quick to reference those limitations mockingly. Yet, it's within those boundaries that she thrives, disinterested in the perfect take in lieu of her best take - unique, somber and raw.

Release: Sinderlyn/Rice Is Nice, 11 May, 2018
Words: Rice Is Nice

EDGE RADIO RECOMMENDED: Speedy Ortiz - 'Twerp Verse'

14/5/2018

In the Fall of 2016, Speedy Ortiz went to Brooklyn's Silent Barn to record what they thought would be their third LP, but following election day they knew they had to change course. “The songs on the album that were strictly personal or lovey dovey just didn’t mean anything to me anymore - that’s not the kind of music I’ve found healing or motivating in the past few years, and I was surprised I’d written so much of it,” explains front person Sadie Dupuis. “Social politics and protest have been a part of our music from day one, and I didn’t want to stop doing that on this album.” So the band scrapped the album they made, Dupuis wrote more songs over the course of four months, and Speedy Ortiz created the urgent, taught, and pointedly witty Twerp Verse.

On Twerp Verse, Speedy Ortiz accelerate the band's idiosyncrasy through the wilderness of Dupuis' heady reflections on sex, lies and audiotape while adding surprising textures like Linn drums and whirled guitar processing to their off-kilter hooks. Dupuis, whose electropop solo project Sad13 debuted in 2016 shortly after her own move to Philadelphia, has become more instinctive in her songwriting - her home-recorded demos mirror Twerp Verse's songs in a closer way than any other Speedy record. The band's camaraderie and crate-digging is evident, with diffuse reference points like Squeeze, Hop Along, Prince, Paramore, and Brenda Lee being sucked into the band's chaos. Even when Dupuis sings of alienation and political weariness, the pop maelstrom swirling around her provides a defiantly charged, mussed-but-hooky optimism.

"You need to employ a self-preservational sense of humor to speak truth in an increasingly baffling world," says Dupuis on the album title Twerp Verse. "I call it a ‘twerp verse' when a musician guests on a track and says something totally outlandish – like a Lil Wayne verse – but it becomes the most crucial part. I like ‘twerp’ as a diss, but in this meaning, the twerp is doing a service--shaking things up by being bold, not complacent, never silent.” Tuned smartly to the political opacity of the present, Twerp Verse rings clear as a bell.

Release: April 27th, 2018, Carpark Records
Words: Carpark/Stop Start

PROGRAMS WE'RE LOOKING FOR...

8/5/2018

We're always looking to for new an interesting ideas when it comes to programs. But sometimes we know exactly what the airwaves are missing. Below is a list of programs we're looking to fill, so if you or someone you know might like to help up fill the gaps then by all means get in touch and we'll get you all trained up and ready to take on the airwaves.

Return to OZ - New Independent Australian Music
Return to Oz was a long running and hugely successful independent Australian music program showcasing the latest and greatest from our wonderful country. Sadly no one has been at the helm for over a year now. We'd love to see someone take up the mantel and make sure Hobart isn't missing out on a great dedicated Australian music program.

Independent Australian Heavy Metal
Tasmania has a thriving metal scene that is worthy of representation. In the past we've had some great programs showcase the genre in many different ways. We'd love to get back on the horse and have a dedicated Aussie Heavy Metal program. Do note that this type of program generally will need to be after 8pm at night.

Indigenous Program(s)
Edge Radio would like to dedicated program to promote discussion around the issues that affect the first Australians. Ideally we'd love to have a separate current affairs program and an Indigenous music program. However the two may be combined.

If you're super keen make sure you have a read over the FAQ on the Apply for a Program Page. On that page you can also fill in the form to express your interest in volunteering. Easy as, hey? Also, don't forget to checkout the training dates. All new presenters will be required to complete the training course to get a program.

EDGE RADIO RECOMMENDED: TFS - 'A Laughing Death In Meatspace'

7/5/2018

The phantasmagorical debut album by Tropical F*ck Storm, ‘A Laughing Death in Meatspace’, delivers a fraught vision of algorhythmic apocalypse.

An end-of-days consciousness streams its way from Nagambie to Silicon Valley, across nine seething tracks.

Filtering Gareth Liddiard's barbed and byzantine lyricism through abrasive guitar slashes, drum adrenalin, raunchy bass and electronic undercurrents, this extraordinary debut dive-bombs into the realms of mortality and immortality, moralising and amorality; the passing of time, and how little we have left.

Raging, rapscallion, funny, fast and furious, these songs are lurid tales urgently told, bringing everything from internet shaming to the kuru “laughing death” disease of the PNG highlands to Russian chess great Gary Kasparov’s portentous loss to IBM computer Deep Blue into sharp focus.

Live, Tropical F*ck Storm are a force of nature, conjuring chaos at every blistering performance, with zero shits to give for corporate music hegemony. "Kneel down by the advertising, don’t you make a single false move” calls out the chorus of Fiona Kitschin and Erica Dunn echoing the dismay of our time as we bear witness to the sinister seductions which social media surveillance has entangled us.

A Laughing Death in Meatspace doesn’t show us the way out; it howls along with us as we peer into the maelstrom ahead.

Release: TFS Records/Mistletone, May 4th, 2018
Words: TFS Records/Mistletone

EDGE RADIO ANNUAL GENERAl MEETING MAY 23RD

1/5/2018

Hey yall!

Quick update because you're awesome. Some of you may not know that our Annual General Meeting is coming up on the 23rd of May at 6:30 pm at the Uni Bar (on the Sandy Bay campus)! Oooh exciting! As usual, we will have our formal election for the new Committee of Management for 2018. Make sure you are present at the meeting so you can vote!

This is an awesome opportunity to reflect on the last 12 months at Edge and have your say in the future of the station! We will discuss the good, the bad and everything that's been happening at Edge. This is a great opportunity to get your thoughts and ideas out and about!

How to nominate for the committee of management? If you are passionate and really care about the station email the Community Coordinator about your interest in becoming part of the committee. Make sure you include your name and a short description of why you want to be a member of the committee.

If you have any questions about the AGM shoot me an email. Looking forward to seeing you there! We promise Bono won't be there.

Gabby
Community Coordinator
gabby@edgeradio.org.au

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