Sui Zhen has released her critically acclaimed new album Losing, Linda via Dot Dash / Remote Control (AUNZ) and Cascine (ROW).
 
Sui Zhen zooms in on the intersections between human life and technology - how to exist in the digital age, as well as the ways in which we risk losing true sight of ourselves in the process. Her latest chapter, Losing, Linda, pairs her signature inquisitiveness with a surreal electronic pop that possesses a dreamlike quality: vivid, uncanny, and upon close examination, revealing of deep emotional and personal truths. It's an album that examines loss on multiple levels - from the death of our loved ones, to our widespread societal tendency to disappear within the ones and zeroes of modern life's tech-driven rush.
 
Losing, Linda's creation began back in 2016 when she took up an artistic residency in Sapporo, Japan. Zhen originally came to the residency equipped with demos conceived in the wake of her preceding breakout record, Secretly Susan - but real-life tragedy intervened, as her mother was diagnosed with cancer. In the process, a sense of overall mortality was unmistakably infused into the thematic structure of Losing, Linda. 
 
On Losing, Linda, Sui Zhen takes the theoretical form of Linda, a digital doppelgänger and avatar invoking the e-learning channel Lynda and its founder Lynda Weinman, as well as the humanoid robot BINA48. The character of Linda is personified on the album's cover by choreographer and colleague Megan Payne, whose literal embodiment of Linda interrogates the disembodiment of online life, and calls into question the possibility of death in the digital age.
 
The album is also accompanied by a digital ecosystem, aiming to create an online world for listeners where they can interact in real time with Linda. "It's somewhere between a ghost, a memory, and a digital assistant" Sui Zhen explains. In other words, a perfect evocation of what Losing, Linda represents thematically and musically: a trip through the real and the uncanny. Losing, Linda is a lovingly personal and humanistic document of our ever-changing world, the things we lose along the way, and the insights we gain from loss itself. You can see the first stage of the digital ecosystem here: https://livingmemory.suizhen.com.au 

Release: September 27th, 2019, Dot Dash/Remote Control
Words: Dot Dash

Not Just A Pub - A Fundraising Compilation for the Brisbane Hotel

"While known primarily as a music venue, The Brisbane has worked essentially as community hub in Hobart over the years hosting fundraisers, film nights, stand-up comedy, art lectures, working bees, art exhibitions & record fairs. It only seems right to call this compilation ‘Not Just A Pub’.

There's a lot of talk in our community of well-loved but gone venues - too many to mention here. These are the spaces that can define a period, a culture and life experiences, they are part of us. How many of us have met a significant other at a gig, found new friends, danced like crazy and heard music that has changed our lives? These places galvanise local identity and culture. The Brisbane Hotel is another one of these spaces, and has been a positive force in local music over many years.

The Brisbane provides the stage for so many new and established acts. It hurts to imagine what damage to local culture if this space wasn't able to host music anymore. But a lot of us in Hobart know what happens. We remember times when there were bugger all venues; there was nowhere to go except shit venues that said you had to dress like some Chickenfeed yuppie and listen to crap music; when all your mates move to Melbourne; tours miss coming to Hobart; no-one writes songs about your experiences. The Brisbane Hotel is asking for help from its community. Let it not become just another memory."

Release: Rough Skies Records, September 10th, 2019
Words: Julian Teakle

Just a year and a half since the release of his critically acclaimed LP Transangelic Exodus, Ezra Furman has returned with Twelve Nudes, yet another incendiary and inspiring classic from the singer/songwriter/guitarist/bandleader.

“This is our punk record,” says Furman. “We made it in Oakland, quickly. We drank and smoked. Then we made the loud parts louder. I hurt my voice screaming. This was back in 2018, when things were bad in the world. The songs are naked with nothing to hide.”

“I think we curate our reactions to current news because we’re overwhelmed by how bad it is, and I noticed I was suppressing how bad I truly felt. I wanted music that gave me permission to feel how it felt to live in a broken world, which punk rock does.”

Furman’s preceding album, 2018’s Transangelic Exodus, was “an angry and fearful and pent-up reaction to events too,” he recalls. “But it was a carefully written and recorded version; we took a lot of time with edits and overdubs. I knew I wanted I make this album quickly and not spend time thinking how to play the songs. Twelve Nudes is a ‘body’ more than a ‘mind’ record - more animal than intellectual, And by affirming negativity, it gives you energy, to reject stuff. There’s more space for positivity.”

“The record is political,” says Furman, “but it offers an emotional reaction rather than being specific or partisan. One of my goals in making music is to make the world seem bigger, and life seem larger,” he concludes. “I want to be a force that tries to revive the human spirit rather than crush it, to open possibilities rather than close them down. Sometimes a passionate negativity is the best way to do that.”

Release: Bella Union/Inertia, August 23rd, 2019
Words: Bella Union

Look Me In The Eye is the incarnation of a fresh direction for Mermaidens. Laced with themes of power and control, their evolved sound is confronting, lyrically introspective and fervent at every level. 

Recorded with long-time collaborator, audio engineer James Goldsmith at Blue Barn Recording Studio, the album sees Mermaidens pushing new boundaries in a body of work that is as severe and progressive as it is vibrant and exhilarating. 

At the heart of the record lies the thematic exploration of female voices, as co-lead vocalists Gussie Larkin (guitar) and Lily West (bass), with dynamic support from Abe Hollingsworth (drums) expose embedded motifs of exterior masks, human relationships and power dynamics.

Release: Friday September 6th, 2019, Flying Nun Records
​Words: Flying Nun

Melbourne-based, feminist brat-wave band Hearts and Rockets have just released their second long player, Power, on blue 12” vinyl, digitally and via all streaming platforms. 

The 14 track album Power is anchored by Hearts and Rockets’ unmistakable driving bass lines, buzzing analogue synth and clattering 808 drum machine beats, plus the addition of chorus-drenched guitar. On Power, Kalindy and Kurt reinvent the sound they created in 2017, all mixed and mastered by their career-long collaborator Mikey Young.

Hearts and Rockets have pushed themselves beyond the hazy Heat Wave days, taking the fun and energy of their debut album Dead Beats and adding some serious pop smarts. They’re set to take it on the road for a tour in September 2019 playing Melbourne, Sydney, Wollongong and Brisbane, then to Ballarat, Adelaide and Tassie in November.

Power’s effect is in its simplicity: Hearts and Rockets don’t mince words, and they don’t waste time. Their short-sharp and catchy tracks are fun, without being vapid. They’ll make you want to dance, and definitely sing along.

Release: August 23rd, 2019, Psychic Hysteria
​Words: Psychic Hysteria