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just da "local" posts

for anyone who caught my chat with nina marie on pbs fm yesterday and wanted to know more about the music i played on the show – here’s some links. i’m going to be popping in on nina’s show recovery semi-regularly from now on, pretending that i know anything about music, and making lots of ill-informed generalisations about the internet. woo! pbs fm now has online radio on demand, so you can tune in whenever you like wherever you like.

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solo andata is: pristine electro acoustic transmissions from melbourne/perth/london/sweden
MP3: Solo Andata – A Ballet of Hands

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buy ‘fyris swan’ by solo andata from heftyrecords.com
website | myspace

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fabulous diamonds is: freak-folk dub vs my pal foot foot
MP3: Fabulous Diamonds – Track 02?
buy fabulous diamonds 7″ from mistletone records
myspace

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blastcorp and dsico are: futurepop production wunderkinds straight outta darwin and sydney respectively
MP3: Blastcorp – Stars Never Fall (Dsico hack)

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many more Dsico remixes and old bastard pop ditties here
buy Blastcorp releases at blastcorp.com
buy Dsico releases at spasticated records
Blastcorp website | Blastcorp myspace
Dsico website | Dsico myspace

bonus beats:
MP3: Dsico – Morning City Stirs (Blastcorp remix)

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now that the focus of the blog has shifted squarely towards long-winded rants about psychological concepts illustrated by pictures of captain picard and self-indulgent clap trap concerning the finer points of spontaneity and self-editing, i seem to be finding less time to write about some of the cool local (ie australian) music that i chance upon. i’d hoped to be doing more of that around here, through some perhaps misguided or naive notion of ’supporting the local scene’ or whatever. so here is a bit of a raggedy collection of the bands that i have found and enjoyed recently, mostly via that dreaded myspace. each of these bands deserves an inspirational blurb that i’m lacking the inspiration to write at the moment, but more so than that, they deserve your time, so set yourself aside an hour or so and go check them all out. please.

this list isn’t exhaustive or authoritative, its an almost random collection. but i think it stands as pretty good evidence that not everyone in australia is making the same old stuff.

Barrage – website myspace

Blastcorp – website myspace

Cleptoclectics – myspace

Nick Huggins / Touch Typist – website myspace

Oddfoot – myspace

Solo Andata – website myspace

Spoonbill – website myspace

Sunnyboy Bops – myspace

every week, a previously unreleased mp3 from the world of faux pas – remixes, retakes, demos, off-cuts, whatevz

existing at the intersection of twee glockenspiel pop, homespun banjo riffage, & “bug powder dust” – here lies “yumi and the sky” written and performed by adelaide’s zeal (aka rob jarvis), mutated by faux pas (aka me). also featuring the tidy banjo and glock stylings of aleks (aka aleks) of aleks & the ramps on certain likely instruments. this remix slays giants. bona fidey. dig the cornelius choirs and scandinavian vibes. woah! spread it like nutella!

MP3: Zeal – Yumi and the Sky (Faux Pas remix)

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previously:
001 – Faux Pas – The Roland Gift (a 60 minute max mix)

MP3: Nick Huggins – The First Letter of Your Name

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MP3: Nick Huggins – The Sea Adrift

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down in point lonsdale, melbourne, australia, a guy called nick huggins is recording delicate folk music, filling the spaces between acoustic guitar strums with banjoes, found sounds & air. his voice brings immediately to mind another pastoral troubadour / recording wizard from melbourne machine translations, and i wonder how many similiarities can be drawn between them: both of them working in home studios in “remote” locations (look, pt lonsdale is remote if you live in fitzroy or north melbourne), both of them tell fractured folk-ish poetry in immediately identifiable (not to mention sweet) voices, australian accents!, interesting & carefully rendered instrumentation and arrangements. & like machine translations, nick is also involved in something of a local network, recording and collaborating with friends, side projects, et cetera.

anyway, this is something that feels to me uniquely local. but it is also amazing, gentle music, ‘gently’ experimental but with a universal appeal. its intimate without having that intentionally lo-fi shoddiness that sucks life out of so much so-called freak-folk that i think i might otherwise get into. instead there is a careful devotion to the sound of each song. his older material is available to download from his website and he’ll also trade you a homemade cd if you give him “something special” of yours. these two tracks will appear on his next album “shipwreck”, for which he has already worked out a professional marketing plan: “Maybe i’ll leave them all on a train and see where they end up, like those people do with books. Send them off into the sunset.”

machine translations, incidentally, has a new album – his seventh – coming out later in the year.

Nick Huggins website
Nick Huggins MySpace

3 lucky people on the faux pas mailing list picked up free giveaway copies of the new aleks and the ramps single “they’re recording everything we say” (previously discussed here). woo hoo! i felt like santa doing a giveaway, so i’ll definitely be doing that again. if you want to sign up for the mailing list, head over to www.iamfauxpas.com.

like all things indie & ‘limited edition’, the single is not easy to find in stores, but hey
i just happen to have some extra copies of it, so if you want one, just get in touch with me and we can sort something out. its only $5 plus postage, & thats aussie dollars, which we all know is not real money. its more like monopoly money. note: my hand is not included in the price! note: i have more than just one finger and a thumb on my left hand, despite what that photo seemingly indicates! how else could i knock out banging synth-flute solos on my two-octave keyboard! (answer: with one hand)

featured on the single, alongside the rad stylings of the ramps, is a faux pas remix of the track “pisces vs aquarius”, which is the title track of their forthcoming album. and you can check out the remix, right now, right here, through the phenomenon of internet technology! check it out. there’s screaming, creepy organs, ping pong, folk guitar & synth bells! silver bells, silver bells, its christmas time in the city… i told you i felt like santa

ring a ling:
MP3: Aleks & the Ramps – Pisces vs Aquarius (Faux Pas remix)