Jack Steel aka Yarkhob
Dialectrix
HUSSLE HUSSLE
One of Sydney’s favourite hometown hip hop emcess, Dialectrix has just dropped his third album and is playing two shows in Perth this weekend. See him at Mojo’s Hussle Hussle this Friday, August 9 from 8pm with support from Marksman Lloyd and Wisdom2th, Paulie P and L-Street. Entry is $15 at the door. Also catch him this Saturday, August 10 at Ya Yas with support from Empty and Mei Saraswati. Tix are $15.
HUGE NEWS
Club Huge is taking off from this Sunday to Thursday, August 11 -15 at The Bakery. Part of the Totally Huge New Music Festival, works from the International Computer Music Conference program will be featured along with performances from local beatmakers. The lineup includes: H+ and Chris Arnold, I.n0JaQ and Andrew Nonlinearcircuits, Yarkhob and Feeding Ear, MotET, Kucka and Ourobonic Plague and Masonik and Té. More information and tix ($10) from nowbaking.com.au.
Knick aka Bro Safari “For me, the inspiration was working with UFO and I like to think it went both ways,” Knick says of the LP. “We’ve known each other for a long time, he’s an old drum ‘n’ bass head from the ‘90s and we both really respect each other’s music and creative input. “ The entire time that we’ve been collaborating, we’ve been doing it via the Internet just sending stems back and forth. We didn’t actually have a plan to make an album. We were just working together and realised we had 16 songs or something, so it made sense to package them as an album and at that point, we cut out about five tracks. They produced some of the work on the LP together in the same geographical space when UFO made the journey to Austin to work on two of the standouts from the record - Drama and Animal. “That was when we were in the final stages of polishing things off. We tried not to over think it and it all came very naturally. We just made what we wanted to make and that was inspirational enough - just being able to make what we want and set the tempo where we want.” Animal was only put out as a free download in a move that Knick says was part of a strategy to spread the Bro Safari word. “I’ve kinda built this whole Bro Safari thing on free downloads,” he explains. “At the start I just want people to hear
my music and the best way to do that is to give it to them free with no hoops to jump through. They just have to go click a button and it downloads to their computer. And over time, I just kept doing that and people were really responsive and more so, they were really appreciative. “It worked so well that when it came to the album, the end goal was to get people to listen to it, and you know, it’s not really about money, because to be quite honest, there really isn’t that much money in selling records.” In terms of what to expect from this expert of convergence in his live set, Knick says it’s all about giving us what we want. “I approach DJing a little bit differently to the way I make music in Qwerk the studio,” he says. “I feel like it also depends on where I’m playing. I tailor my sets to be appealing to everyone - that’s what I want - I don’t want to get up there and just play weird stuff just for the sake With its five unique bars, dual-level dancefloor and of being different. I want to get up there and rock table service, the opening night of new club Parker, the party - it’s that simple.” is definitely worth checking out this Saturday, August 10. With patrons advised to dress with individual style in mind, promoters are tipping this one as the new place to ‘be’ minus any dickhead » BRO SAFARI factor. ACEBASIK, Chiari, Qwerk, Oli, KNO Agents » SATURDAY, AUGUST 10 @ VILLA are on the bill from 10pm. Tickets on the door.
DIGER ROKWELL
JON HOPKINS
Ash Hosken, the co-founder of local music collective ‘The Community,’ returns with a new EP and with it fuses his love of house music alongside a production knowledge gleaned from four previous albums. The release is dedicated to the number four. Four tracks all lasting four minutes with a 4/4 time signature, but this isn’t peak-time hands in the air dance-floor fodder; it’s a lot more complex than that. It’s easy to see from where the title of opener Coast was garnered, the warm organic sounds and deep house groove conjure an anticipatory crowd watching the sun setting over some distant ocean, eager for their night-time island clubbing adventure to begin. Grateful evokes the recent works of Bonobo and with its pitched down vocal stabs and minor key layered chords surprisingly Burial too. Title track Innersense is another classy deep house number with layered synths and soothing pads and with final track Rain, said to “Catch the vibrations of a Perth winter,” we are again exposed to the elements, sounds of precipitation accompanied by broken beats a subtle bassline and haunting refrain. Demonstrating his love of analogue instrumentation, this natural, free from artificial colourings, beat driven offering is easy on the palette and hopefully a prelude to a more substantial longplayer in the future.
An artist who co-produced Coldplay’s last album perhaps wouldn’t normally be mentioned too kindly on these pages, but don’t let his association with the mediocre monarchs of gloom rock put you off; Jon Hopkins fourth studio long-player is an exquisite marriage of complex beat driven electronica and lush ambient stylings that’s well worthy of an extended listen. The album is one of two distinct halves, though the analogue synthesis and sound design techniques present on both makes it a coherent whole. Part one is akin to James Holden’s work, the kicks are stifled and muted, always bubbling underneath the main refrain, but with enough muscle to keep the listener locked into the groove. The highlight being the epic nine minute workout that is Collider which builds, crackles and fizzes with a relentless intensity. During part two, Hopkins displays the results of his work with ambient auteur Brian Eno and King Creosote (who guest vocals on the title track). It’s here where his classical training and studio production knowledge allows the beautiful layered soundscapes to shine though the occasional sculptured laid-back beats most notably on the excellent Sun Harmonics. A pleasantly surprising and accomplished release which may be in many a reviewers end of year ‘best-of’ lists, and for good reason.
INNERSENSE THE COMMUNITY RECORDS
» ANDREW NELSON
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GET READY FOR THE LAUNCH
IMMUNITY DOMINO RECORDS
» ANDREW NELSON
The Rugged Man
RUGGED EMCEE
Underground hip hop legend RA The Rugged Man is coming to Perth for the first time on Saturday, September 21. This New York emcee pioneered the indie-rap hustle, pressing his own vinyl, racking up one of the most impressive resumes in rap history and has collaborated with Wu-Tang, B.I.G., Kool G Rap and The Alchemist. He’ll be playing at The Rosemount with support from Dazastah & Layla, Leonidas and Sever. Tickets are $35 plus booking fee from Heetseeker.
MIDNIGHT JUGGERNAUTS
Midnight Juggernauts
UNCANNY VALLEY
one of the talking headshots as found footage. I was thinking, ‘I wonder if our video influenced the director in her clip.’ I hope that’s the case!” It’s fascinating to watch early abstract Midnight Juggernauts have a new creations become re-creations of human limbs faces, before suddenly the scope widens into album out and have recently been and full-blown landscapes. That’s the point where the foraging into the world of CGI. JODY Juggernauts chose to end their examination of the pioneer days of CGI. “I think people were wondering MACGREGOR reports. ‘Why doesn’t it continue on beyond the ’80s into Although Uncanny Valley is full of proggy the ’90s and today?’ But I think the era we’re in now synth and cosmic vibes it is definitely a party people are familiar with the signposts of, like, after atmosphere kind of album, with Systematic in the mid-80s. Up until then it was all computer trials particular the kind of song I’d rather be listening to in computer labs but then it was all showcased in in the middle of a dancing crowd than alone in an Hollywood blockbusters. I don’t think the clip would empty living room. “That’s a fun song,” says frontman have been the same showing a scene from Terminator 2 and then a scene from Avatar. We kept it more Vendetta Vendetta, “it’s like an ELO pop tune. It’s conceptual, where it’s first attempts at human likeness good to have a song which people can sing along to and first attempts at emotion in that wireframe so maybe we need to disperse some lyric sheets or skeletal world.” have a video with the dancing ball over the lyrics at At t h e e n d o f t h a t v i d e o d i g i t a l the bottom of the screen. We’ve been trying that song approximations of reality are replaced by the reverse out; it’s been getting a good response.” – footage of the Juggernauts captured using the Ballad Of The War Machine sports an Kinect motion controls on a hacked Xbox that turns excellent video filmed guerrilla-style while they were them into digital models. “We like the idea that it in Russia, playing with props and dancing in the streets was harking back to the wireframe footage from the in soldiers’ uniforms. Memorium has a much more beginning, but it’s a totally new approach where it’s serious video, befitting a song about lost memories all created in real-time with the motion sensor. It’s that ends with a kind of funeral waltz. To accompany not some programmer who’s been processing for six that they put together a nostalgic mini-documentary months in his basement on some old computer, it about the early days of computer graphics, showing was us at a friend’s house on a Saturday morning just the progression from the basic wireframes and lines recording that in an hour or so and then that looks of the 1950s through to the environmental models beautiful and amazing. That’s computer technology of the 1980s. “Reading through CGI message boards today. We put down the year ‘2013’ because it’ll and seeing all these computer programmers who probably look quite primitive in years to come.” were involved in some of the productions discussing it, it’s been good to see that it connects with a lot of the people who were actually involved in the original » MIDNIGHT JUGGERNAUTS works. It’s funny, three or four weeks after the video » SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 7 @ CAPITOL & AMPLIFIER BAR came out Miley Cyrus put out a video which used X-Press – First on the street, Wednesdays