i make gotye website new pretty! – based on a poster by this guy, who is from these guys, who based the poster on a film clip by this guy which utilised characters designed by some other guy. its official, half of australia now works for gotye. check out wally’s first post in his brand new blog section. now if only i could do something to make my own website prettier..
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the latest edition of sample wednesdays over at the palms out blog is an mp3 expose of songs sampled by beat conductor turned ben folds fan rjd2, mostly songs sampled in tracks from his first album. i already knew about the elliott smith sample thanks to declan, whose great triple r radio show ‘against the arctic’ can (and should) be downloaded online each week from research and development.
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a history of simian, riddled with mp3s – a great primer despite a glaring inaccuracy in the opening paragraph (simian were/are from the uk not new york). but yeah this is worth reading, particularly if, like me, you mourn simian and are in denial about the ‘mobile disco’. simian fans should head there if only to grab the track “in siam” a weird psychedelic jumble of a track that pre-dates the first simian album but incorporates parts of one of my favourite simian tracks “one dimension”. i miss simian. this blog is so five years ago, hey.
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i remixed local melbourne banjo-doom poptarts aleks & the ramps a couple of months ago (you can listen to and download that remix here). not to be out done, the band themselves has puked out a great cheesy remix of ‘brain’, probably my favourite track from the debut ramps album. its at their myspace. you can also read a couple of great interviews with aleks from the ramps here at mess&noise, and here at wireless bolinger. the mess&noise interview in particular is essential reading for ramp fans.
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and in conclusion: HERBIE HANCOCK AND HIS FAIRLIGHT….
some very favourite people of mine gave me a subscription to audiotechnology magazine for my birthday, which is very exciting. audiotechnology is a great read if you are a gear nerd, and its great to have a locally focused magazine that regularly does interviews with local acts, quizzing them about their live & recording setups and habits. for example a recent highlight was an interview with marty brown from melbourne’s much-loved art of fighting, talking about his completely analogue home studio out in the backyard, where the last clare bowditch record was made:
“I think Clare’s songs are often domestic, in that they’re not about unicorns and drug experiences… To bring out the ‘domesticity’ I wanted to capture the sound of the place where we record, which is at our home. So I made a concerted effort to get as many sounds from the location onto tape as possible – not only the studio space but also the next-door neighbours dogs, the Greek Orthodox church down the road, our squeaky studio door and the rainbow lorikeets. In fact, the start of the album involves me walking from our house to the studio; unfortunately, it sounds a little like a radio play, but I wanted to have it there because that was the sound at the start of each day’s recording. To me, these features make the album sound just like us playing music in our shed – which is what we do!”
marty goes on to talk about all kinds of interesting stuff – he goes through some of his gear, he talks about the songwriting process, and discusses at length his completely analogue computer-less (gasp!) setup. a bit of trivia: the interviewer in this article is greg walker, who i’m assuming is greg walker aka machine translations. though i could be wrong, it is within the realm of possibility that there is more than one musical greg walker. but here’s a machine translations clip for good measure:
any regular audiotechnology readers would be familiar with regular columnist stav:
his oddball tips on mixing and engineering are always interesting. after his column on ‘reverse mixing’ i briefly became obsessed to listening to everything i did in reverse. i don’t know if it helps with my mixing any, but it is kind of weird – in reverse it sounds like the same song but different, its definitely strange being able to hear a track that i’ve heard 1000 times, and suddenly feel like i’m hearing it for the first time… and stuff going backwards just sounds cool
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today – another local film clip from another local pop exponent that i’ve previously blubbered about on this here blog. the debut LP from nick huggins “shipwreck” is currently available on iTunes and will be released for real (thats official industry parlance) in september.
watch nick get dragged around in a couch by a very determined three year-old.
this is a great song too:
hey! a quick thank you to thegoodfolks that have been giving this track a spin on their radio shows in the last week or two. the proper zeal EP comes out in around a month or so, so hopefully you’ve been enjoying this track as a teaser. if you haven’t heard it, download it now and play on repeat. its a winter jam!
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this blog is just turning into youtube central, and i’m not gonna stop now – here’s the great film clip for zeal’s song salt, which bob put together himself in his bedroom with an inkjet printer, a pair of scissors, and some time off from uni. its cool and my favourite bit is where the hand comes out and plays the theremin. oops i just spoiled it. i’m now currently trying to convince bob how it would be a great idea to make a faux pas clip that involves cats riding synthesisers through space.
this clip screened at the st kilda film festival earlier this year as part of their music video program:
this is something i posted online a few months ago (before this weekly series started), but its worth posting again now that there are a couple more of you sniffing around this blog… the more i listen to this, the happier i am with how it turned out. it can and will be described as banjo troubadour drama re-interpreted as tribal jam with timbales that shakesdown into sleepy dawn folk. BOOM.
check aleks & the ramps here. you should also check out this article on aleks & the ramps at the mess+noise website, which makes for great reading oooooooh
/// New 6-track Vanderbilt EP features two Faux Pas tracks plus remixes by Crumbs, Aoi, Pasobionic and Lewis CanCut. Its a free download, get it here.
/// My album Noiseworks – featuring “Vanderbilt”, “Chasing Waterfalls” and “Silver Line” – is available here.
/// I’ve been working on remixes for local bands Rat vs Possum, Flying Scribble and Akimbo. These are good people.
/// I’ve started making some new songs – if you want to have a sneak peek at what they sound like, here is the place to start.
Tim Shiel lives in Melbourne. He makes music under the name FAUX PAS, and is also a broadcaster on public radio station 3RRR FM. This blog began in 2005.
1981: Born in Melbourne Australia, life feels empty and without meaning
2005: FAUX PAS created – life still meaningless
2010: Tim writes brand new three-line biography
Press photos:
“Cool Quotes”
“Psychedelic. Balearic. Straight up pop. Call it what you want, this is memorable music.” keytarsandviolins
“Lush, dreamy future pop that just begs you to dive in headfirst, your heart in close second. Just be careful how many times you dip in – you might find yourself blissfully lost in here.” mess+noise
“Impressive elastic strands of plaited sense associations; extract of flashy disco, pastoral swoon and computer exploration.” threethousand
“A total cottage industry – one guy recording, pressing and releasing his own music – and it’s an example of how to do it right from the bottom up.” Stylus
“A manic journey of sounds, bound by neither genre nor era.” Beat
“Cuts-and-pastes big samples with delicately rendered instrumentation. A party jam. Four stars.” Pitchfork
