Thursday, September 25, 2008

NOW THE TIDE IS TURNING


This track can be found on a collection which deserves a home amongst the absolute classix of lo-fi. A big home, with a gazebo, a tennis court and a swimming pool. Nic Dalton was basically lo-fi before lo-fi was. The album is called Last Seen Near Trafalgar 87-89 and it's a bunch of four-track tunes he recorded mostly for his own gratification. In the liner notes, he explains "I wrote and recorded a lot of songs back in the mid-80s to early 90s. It became my favourite thing to do. You could say I was obsessed. I didn’t care that these songs were being recorded simply for their own sake. And it didn’t bother me that songs (most of them) didn’t get to be played live."

These songs have the same classic warm old-school fuzzed out shambling good times vibe of Ariel Pink at his best, but maybe if he was Australian and trying to sing like Joey Ramone.

[Buy Last Seen Near Trafalgar 87-89 from Half A Cow]



Jack Ladder - Best Kept Secret

Jack Ladder's second album, Love Is Gone, is out next month. You might have noticed two things if you'd seen one of his sixteen million sets as Sydney's default indie-folk support act prior to going overseas: one, he was doing that yodelly thing more; and two, he was playing an electric guitar. He follows up on that commitment to not-acoustic-guitar instruments on the first cut from Love Is Gone, with drums, bass, keys, a string quartet and backing vocals. It's nice stuff, particularly when he cuts loose at the end: "And you cry-y-y-y-y-y-y! Oh, oh!"

I once read an interview (in TV HITS \m/ R.I.P.) with the dude from The Real McCoy and he said the reason he was always power-stancing and just mad glaring in videos was because he needed to be ultra still in order to produce his trademark deep voiced douchebag act. All I'm saying is that if Jack Ladder needs a way to stop doing that weird thing where it sounds like his voice is breaking he need look no further than the masters of mid-90s German house.

P.S. Not saying he's a douchebag.

[Buy Not Worth Waiting For from Spunk]

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