favourite short form
-
0Wolfgang Voigt (Gas) – Gas Box
By gestational week 24, a foetus can turn its head in response to sound outside the womb. Filtered through skin, fat and fluid, if its mother were listening to loud minimal techno the baby might hear something like Wolfgang Voigt’s Gas. Amid the amniotic whoosh and murmur, the music’s thuds would imposter as the thumps of her heart; verifiable, because Gas’s beats can pass for ...
-
0Ela Stiles – Molten Metal
In 2014, after years playing in bands, Sydney’s Ela Stiles knew what was next. “I made an acapella record because I wanted to do something entirely on my own,” she told blog Fractured Air. The tracks on side A of her first solo album were sketches not songs – captivating fragments that showcased a voice influenced by singers of traditional English folk such as Anne ...
-
0The Drover’s Wife review – plot twist leaves Australian classic spinning on its axis
A selection of short stories by Henry Lawson was published in 1959 called Fifteen Stories. Australian author Colin Roderick wrote in the introduction: “[Henry Lawson] never attempted to draw people he did not know … it was the world of the drover, the prospector, the miner, the rouseabout, the shearer, the railway worker, the swagman and the sundowner, the cocky, the timbergetter, the underpaid apprentice, ...
-
0Max Richter’s Sleep (Opera House)
10.15pm would usually be a wrap at the Sydney Opera House, but not tonight. New Order has just finished performing in the Joan Sutherland Theatre and the smell of chicken soup is filling the foyer as a new crowd comes up the stairs. ...
-
0Babes in Toyland – Pain In My Heart
It’s odd that journalists ever thought Babes In Toyland were a Riot Grrl band. ...
-
0Gillian Welch (The Enmore Theatre)
It’s no fun explaining Gillian Welch to people who’ve never heard of her. Country, bluegrass, folk, old-timey – all are approximations that flop far short of her magic. “I’m not really into that stuff,” people say, then glaze over when you protest. This is why it feels so good to be at one of Welch’s sold-out Australian shows. Everyone gets it; everyone’s got it bad ...
-
0Liars (Carriageworks)
“There’s no earthly way of knowing / Which direction we are going / There’s no knowing where we’re rowing / Or which way the river’s flowing.” Liars’ pre-show sample is Willy Wonka singing as the Oompah Loompahs row far too fast down the chocolate river. Of course it is! What else? Willy was silly and sinister, in equal measures, just like Liars. Just like the ...
-
0Iron and Wine, ‘Faded From The Winter’
“Needlework and seedlings / In the way you’re walking / To me from the timbers / Faded from the winter.” Could there be a more beautiful way to articulate the particular delicacy of a woman as she approaches, perhaps for the first time, but probably for the last? The phrasing is careful, as fine-boned as she is. Any other way to describe her shape or ...
-
0Spiritualized, ‘Stay With Me’
Spiritualized – ‘Stay With Me’ It might begin as a bit of casual noodling and a waltz you could slow dance to, but it’s coming for you man, layer on layer. Cross yourself as a churchy harpsichord starts to rain down, then: a pause, a power socket found, and a spear of feedback that opens into a deluge of amplified guitar, as thick and warm ...
-
0Lee Ranaldo’s ‘Hurricane Transcriptions’ (City Recital Hall)
“Allow not nature more than nature needs” Lee Ranaldo’s ‘Hurricane Transcriptions (The Last Night On Earth)’ can at first only be seen, not heard, rather like a storm viewed from a window, as Sydney’s Ensemble Offspring violinists scrape their bows all-but inaudibly. Gradually, an inhalation begins to pulsate and the volume increases, arching into the aching weep only violin and cello can co-create. A bass ...
- 1
- 2
- 3
- 4
- Next Page »
