“WORTH”, an exciting new collaboration from African-Australian hip hop artist Ruu. and R&B act Chelle Tamika, is this year’s first release from Campbelltown Art Centre’s Conscious program. This professional development program first came to my attention when P.Smid released “WESSIDE” in 2022. It’s fabulous to hear it’s still supporting and elevating local artists.
“This song is about my experience growing up Black in South-West Sydney, being (and feeling like) the only Black person in my area and experiences on Black culture and how it has been perceived and taken advantage of as I continue to live life,” Ruu. explained. “I hope the song allows the African-Australian community to embrace their culture stronger, and brings more internal discussion and support for each other, as it is needed as the music scene in Australia continues to grow.”
If you like what he does, make sure you catch Ruu. at one of his gigs this month:
Who said saxophones and hard rock don’t mix? Never one to play by the rules, RedHook are pushing the boundaries yet again with their latest single “Breaking Up With.”
“This song is pretty much the antithesis of our most popular single ‘Bad Decisions’. Rather than revelling in being a total piece of shit, this one is about breaking that cycle of self-hate, forgiving your past mistakes, and just deciding to be bloody kinder to yourself,” explained the band’s frontwoman Emmy Mack. “Lyrically, it takes the piss out of break-up cliches to signify ending that toxic relationship (with, you know, yourself) and starting fresh. I hope everyone who vibed with ‘Bad Decisions’ will also be shaking their hips in the moshpit to this one.”
Emmy also conceptualised the music video, which features a cavalcade of superstars from Pro Wrestling Australia.
“Last year, I was lucky enough to live out my WWE Attitude Era dreams at Sydney’s PWA Colosseum event, so I figured – why not throw the party inside a wrestling ring and get a bunch of my PWA superstar mates involved?” she said. “The shoot was bloody insane. I got to bust a hurricanrana on myself in the perfect visual metaphor for laying the smackdown on all of my toxic traits once and for all – RedHook 3:16 says I just whooped my own ass!”
“Breaking Up With” gives us a taste of a larger release set to be announced in the coming months. Watch this space!
Sometimes it takes a single release to put a song back on your radar. I reviewed Hayley Marsten’s fabulous sophomore album Girlhood last June. One of the songs that struck me most was the album’s opening track “Getting Better”. Hayley’s just released it as a single and I’m relishing rediscovering it. It was recently nominated for a Queensland Music Award in the country category, and while Hayley ultimately lost the title to Tori Forsyth she was thrilled by the acknowledgement.
“Getting Better’ is a song I wrote the night before we started recording Girlhood,” Hayley recalled. “I wrote it for me as a satirical version of how I think about my mental health. I thought it was a huge underdog when I submitted it so getting a QMA nomination is a really lovely pat on the back from the industry!”
“We shot the music video in Brisbane at the end of last year with my long-time collaborator Jazmyn Prodcues. I really wanted what I perceive to be the two parts of me in the song represented in the video. So we have me in my ‘therapy’ session kind of poking fun of the awkwardness that sometimes permeates that experience. We also re-created the album cover just for me to rip it all down in reference to the bridge line ‘and I hate every one of my songs’. Then the shots of me in Ezymart without a care in the world and the shots with my guitar and me surrounded the disco balls and glitter is representative of the feeling of perfection that I feel I’m constantly trying for that doesn’t really exist. The shots in the convenience store were filmed in a real and open EzyMart in Southbank with other customers milling around, so I had to park my embarrassment at the door for that one!”
Hayley will play the following shows to celebrate the release of “Getting Better.”
I’m feeling pretty nostalgic listening to Reckless Coast’s new single “Burn Street.” It’s indie-rock with a dash of pop, the sort of track that used to be all over radio in the 90s. I’m more than ready for this sound to return!
“‘Burn Street’ is the location of my first share house,” shared Reckless Coast’s lead vocalist Jaeden Ogston. “It was like a little family… picture the most ideal and perfect home/living situation and that’s what it was like. However, after only eight months, the lease came up for renewal and we all parted our separate ways. The share houses that followed never came close to being like Burn Street, and I realised that it would be the closest thing to a home I had.”
“Burn Street” comes from Reckless Coast’s debut EP, which is slated for a May 3 release. The band will waste no time bringing their music to the people; their Naked & Famous tour kicks off the following day.
Victorian country starlet Jade Gibson has just dropped a fantastic and fun new single “Down the Road.” The upbeat track reminds listeners that finding your person might take time, but it could happen when you least expect it.
This song saw Jade reuniting with her long-time collaborator Tyler Bank and Naarm/Melbourne powerhouse producers MSquared (Michael Paynter and Michael Delorenzis).
Jade is a fixture on the local country music scene and has played some of its biggest festivals, including Tamworth, Deni Ute Muster, and Gippsland CMF. You can see why she’s being touted as the next big thing at the following shows:
4 May 2024 – Birallee Tavern, Bungambrawatha/West Wodonga 8 June 2024 – Beer DeLuxe, Bungambrawatha/Albury 6 July 2024 – SS&A Albury, Bungambrawatha/Albury 13 July 2024 – The Terminus, Mulwala/Yarrawonga 20 July 2024 – Birallee Tavern, Bungambrawatha/West Wodonga 27 July 2024 – Beer DeLuxe, Bungambrawatha/Albury 21 September 2024 – Beer DeLuxe, Bungambrawatha/Albury 28 September 2024 – The Terminus, Mulwala/Yarrawonga 2 November 2024 – Birallee Tavern, Bungambrawatha/West Wodonga 9 November 2024 – Beer DeLuxe, Bungambrawatha/Albury
Tarntanya/Adelaide emo outfit Wolf & Chain recently released an absolute anthem, “Not Giving Up.” This belter of an alt-rock track had me from its opening drum beats. If the members of My Chemical Romance, Panic! At the Disco, and 30 Seconds from Mars ever formed a supergroup, their music might sound a little something like this.
“It can often feel like you have two sides, where you have moments of being really down and hopeless, feeling like an entirely different person, not happy with who you are. But, at the same time, you come out of it and you are not that person and you have these moments of clarity that urge you to push through and survive,” the band explained of the song’s inspiration.
I hear there’s plenty of new music on the way from Wolf & Chain this year, so make sure you listen out for it.
After making a splash online with his breakthrough single “everything sucks” in 2021, Florida sensation vaultboy is making his way to Australia for the very first time. Ahead of his shows in the East Coast capitals, I caught up with vaultboy to chat about making music in the digital age, that King of Sad Songs tag, and what he expects from his time Down Under.
You’ll be touring Australia for the first time in June. What do you expect from the shows here? I expect to have a great time and hopefully not run into spiders. That is what I expect.
A valid answer. That is my real answer.
Will you get any downtime while you’re here? And if so, is there anything you are hoping to do? Yes, I’ll have a few days off before the show starts in Sydney. And I am just hoping to try some great food. And honestly, I don’t know if it’s possible because I have no idea where they’re located, but I’d love to see a kangaroo in person. That would be great. Maybe at a zoo. I hope they’re not just running around. That’d be a little terrifying. But we’ll see.
You’re visiting us after touring Europe, and then you’ll be heading to Asia. Your schedule seems very hectic. So how do you keep things fresh when you’re on the road for so long? I think on the road, the biggest thing is like, not going crazy after being gone so long and traveling so much. So making sure when you have time, take time for yourself, and do things that have nothing to do with your work. I’m hoping to try and find some time to go rock climbing at some rock climbing gyms in different countries. But yeah, just finding things to do that aren’t related to tour that make you feel like you’re just a human being and not just a performance machine.
I was actually introduced to your music when Spotify just randomly threw up “everything sucks” one day. How important has streaming been for growing your fan base? Really important. I recently did a post where I asked some fans where they had found my music and a lot of people found it on TikTok, which is super fair, but a good amount found me on Discover Weekly or on a playlist on Spotify. I once had a fan say they found my music from one of my playlists on Spotify. They just found one of the playlists I made on Spotify randomly. And that’s how they found out about my music. They didn’t even know that I made the playlist. So yeah, definitely streaming is a huge part of growth, I think. But that said, I think everything just kind of goes hand in hand.
Rolling Stone dubbed you the “King of Sad Songs”, but recent releases “closer” and “Where tf have you been?” have been pretty happy. What’s behind the change in tone? So my upcoming album has a bit of a theme that I haven’t really talked about too much. But the foundational theme that I went with for the album was duality. And so about half the songs are like lighter, let’s say a happier perspective. Or if it’s a sad song, it may be a sarcastic perspective, versus a purely sad perspective, you know, it may be kind of like a laugh at the pain type of perspective.
And so the first half of the album is that, and then the second half of the album is much darker. And some of the darkest songs – and I use the word dark not just sad – but some of the darkest songs that I’ve ever released.
I think the biggest reason for that though, is you know, I put out two really sad songs that are on the album last year and then we put out a couple of the happier ones and I think part of the reason I’m excited about these happier songs coming out is because when the album hits they’re getting mostly sad songs. All the unreleased ones are mostly sad so I am not releasing a perfect one-to-one ratio for the singles, but I’m a very multifaceted person. I feel a lot of different emotions, a lot of very positive and negative, and this album I think I did a good job showcasing both.
Your single ‘closer’ sees you reunite with Salem, who you worked with on “don’t shop when you’re hungry” last year. Why do you love collaborating with her? She’s so easy to work with. Like, she’s a great gal and she’s fun to hang out with. She put out an album last year and now she’s looking forward to the music she wants to make now and I think it was just a good time for us to work together, because when we wrote “closer”, it was around the same time as “don’t shop when you’re hungry”. So we were kind of in that creative zone. She’s so talented, like so much more talented than people think she is. She’s an insane songwriter. And yeah, just super fun and easy to work with. I really try to work with people that I like. I’m not like trying to just collaborate with a bunch of random people just to get a feature or trying to get a big song. I really want to work with people that can be my friends and that I know are good people that I feel really good associating with, you know what I mean? And she’s one of them.
You’ve released a couple of EPs over the years, but you mentioned a full album is in the works. What can you tell us? Yes, my debut album is dropping on May 10th. And it is called everything and nothing. And it bangs. It’s going to be so good. And no one is ready for it.
Finally, do you have a message for your Australian fans before you get here? Yeah. We live on the opposite side of this globe that is floating in space. And so I’m excited to finally venture out there and get to hang out with all of you. So bring all your friends to the shows. And let’s have a good time!
Vaultboy plays the following shows along the East Coast in June. Tickets are on sale now, but with venues this intimate, you’d better get them while you can.
When I think about my favourite songs from the ‘80s, “At First Sight” by The Stems is always near the top of my list. It’s criminally underrated and still sounds fresh as a daisy while so many other tunes from the decade have dated. Unlike so many bands from the era, they’ve resisted the urge to tour the scene relentlessly, which makes their recent announcement of a 40th anniversary run pretty special.
Original members Dom Mariani, Julian Matthews, and Dave Shaw haven’t toured Australia since 2019. This time around, they’ll be joined by Ashley Naylor, of Even and The Church fame. Together they’ll celebrate four decades since they made their debut in 1984 supporting The Saints and The Triffids.
This isn’t simply a nostalgia tour either. While there’ll certainly be an element of that, the band are preparing to release a brand-new single and a live LP. Stay tuned fans, and make sure you get your tickets to the following gigs:
Bobi Andonov has floored me with his latest single “Between the Lines.” It’s bold and sexy, with some of the best falsetto you’re likely to hear from a modern artist. I can definitely hear a Prince influence shining through those passionate vocals and funky guitar licks, but as a major fan of the Purple One I appreciate the nod to his genius.
“This was one of the initial compositions within the project, marking the inception of the ‘Jekyll and Hyde’ trilogy. While numerous songs delve into two-person relationships, be they love affairs or tumultuous scandals, we aimed to craft a narrative portraying an intensely complex relationship with oneself. Such internal dynamics can prove to be the most disastrous, co-dependent and damaging relationship that any individual must navigate,” Bobi explained. “Drawing inspiration from artists like Jai Paul, Dijon, Blood Orange, as well as the funk sounds of David Bowie and Prince, this groundbreaking experiment laid the groundwork for some of the core elements of the entire project.”
Ready to hear the rest of the project? You don’t have too long to wait. Bobi will release his EP, SAINT, on May 9.
Image used with permission from Warner Music Australia
A grand finalist in last year’s Toyota Star Maker competition, Robbie Mortimer is making good on his promise. His latest single “Blow the Speakers” is a high-energy country anthem that sounds like Robbie has been doing this for years. Robbie had nothing for praise for his partner in crime Jared Adlam, who co-wrote the song and produced it at his Machine Lab studios.
“Jared truly brought the best out of me as an artist and songwriter,” Robbie enthused. “Nothing was too hard. There were no silly ideas, just opportunities to make a high-energy country anthem and we did just that. I’m proud of what we created together.”
Robbie has a stack of gigs coming up as a feature artist for the Professional Bull Rider’s Association Monster Energy Tour. He’ll also play a few cool country festivals in the coming months. Here are all the places you can see him play.
