COLD WAVES

Geoffrey O'Connor - Now and Then

Pretty amazing turnaround for our boy Geoffrey O'Connor here: he's best-known, of course, as the pop maestro behind indie superstars Crayon Fields, and his last solo album - as Sly Hats - sounded exactly like what you'd expect from the solo project of the Crayon Fields' indie pop maestro. Nothing wrong with that! It was an excellent album. But this is DIFFERENT, and INTERESTING (neither of those are euphemisms): instead of warm, acoustic tones and references to '60s guitar pop, we've got the cool emotional ambiguity of '80s stadium-fillers. It's a totally surprising move, ditching the Zombies for Spandau Ballet, and it surprisingly works: the sombre pace and crystalline guitars sound kind of perfect underneath Geoff's voice. He still can't not be sweetly emotive, but this new sound pallet lends a dreamy melancholy that's tough to get out of your head.

[Geoffrey O'Connor MySpace / Facebook]

[Geoffrey O'Connor out 2011 through Chapter Music]

HOLD FAST, DRAW NEAR

Jessica Says – I’ll Set The Night Upon You

I enjoy this song because Jessica Says’ superior enunciation makes this song sound like some mad Elizabethan parlour jam, the kind of joint they’d smash out in Pride & Prejudice while “taking a turn” about the “room”. Rad. I mean, you only want to check this out if you have a gigantic tolerance for twee because this shit is cuter than, for example, a long-eared jerboa.

Which is not to say that the record, We Need To Talk, is ever OTT or, you know, not adorable. Much like the long-eared jerboa, which took a good thing (hamster-mouse-creature) and added comically over-sized ears and feet to create a truly CLASSIC look, Jessica Says (REAL NAME: Jessica Venables) plays up the strengths of her charmingly naïve songs with sparse production that keeps them well away from saccharine bedrock. She’s helped by an endearingly posh accent and a surprising growl on the big notes. As with the Sly Hats, who she’s spent some time playing with, these are intelligently-written songs that reward repeat listens with often startling lyrical touches. Classy.

[Jessica Says MySpace]

[Buy We Need To Talk from Remote Control]

Love extrapolates REM sleep

Sly Hats - Terrified
A few weeks ago in Melbourne there was a movie preview of Michel Gondry's new The Science of Sleep and The Crayon Fields played there, atop a rooftop cinema, what a terrific idea. I cannot imagine how awesome this must have been; this film is very good, a chaotic and insightful romp through sleep and dreams and existence. It was uncanny how such a subjective process (dreams) can be portrayed in such a similar light to my own ideas and my own actual dreams (though unfortunately they're not filled with brilliant props and special effects like Gondry's vision). In the weeks leading up to seeing the film I had been having some extremely fucked up dreams (unusual for me). So I went home and had dreams of my own, the movie made me dream differently than usual. Anyway, music:

Geoff O'Connor's new album under Sly Hats is about night; Liquorice night, to be precise, and it's certainly a dream filled or dream inducing listen. I love it. it's a hazy sleep-filled eyed dawdle through lots of different pop, very loungy, very sweet and twee and lovely. This song sounds like the woods in Winnie the Pooh. What are they called? I don't remember. They are beguiling and getting lost in them I'm sure is most enjoyable.

Liquorice Night is out on June 2 on Nervous Jerk/Remote Control Records.