At the centre of Satoshi Kon’s final film, Paprika, is a parade like no other. Woven from dream fabric, a colourful melange of animated household items, frogs, pachinko robots and a dizzying array of additional miscellaneous figures – including the Statue of Liberty – sway and frolic through an inchoate dream city. The cavalcade of…
When House of Balloons dropped in 2011, The Weeknd didn’t seem like your typical popstar. Rather than a carefully orchestrated PR campaign, here was an immaculately produced mixtape that was fully formed, less a rough-edged debut than an assertive statement, something imbued with purpose yet cloaked beneath impenetrable anonymity. House of Balloons – and, to…
My earliest memories of Hot Chip are on the dancefloor. The place was Common People, circa mid-2000s. It was a scungy Brisbane nightclub for hipsters before that term had become the nebulous pejorative it is nowadays, the descendant of the Depot and the ancestor of a string of replacements (Gossip, Magazine, others). Common People only…
Is it weird that I associate Aussie alt-rocker Courtney Barnett with Aussie comedian Hannah Gadsby? They don’t look much alike but I don’t think it’s a crazy comparison to make. Both possess the straight-talking, cigarettes-and-VB aura of Australiana. They both spent at least some of their formative years in Tasmania. Each has succeeded in traditionally…
It’s strange the memories that stick with you. I saw Purity Ring in concert two years ago, but the structure of their setlist and the sound of their performance elude me. I do remember, though, the fragile papier-mâché lanterns decorating the stage. I remember the audience, enshrouded by half-darkness and glazed with sweat, swaying to…
The transition from acting to music is a familiar career path, particularly if you take into account the cast of Neighbours, but it’s rare to see a well-known film director dabble in professional musicianship. John Carpenter’s debut album, Lost Themes, shouldn’t come as much of a surprise, however, given he’s accumulated more than 22 credits…
Writing about TV on the Radio’s Nine Types of Light in 2011 – after it topped my albums of the year poll, I wrote: “I loved Dear Science, which was like the last half of a great house party, funky and fun but kinda morose at the same time. Nine Types of Light feels like…
The New Pornographers are one of those bands that I’ve always felt vaguely guilty for not liking. The problem wasn’t that I had some deep-seated hatred for the group that I was unable to express, but rather that the group’s impressive reputation and pedigree never translated into great music for me. Sure, Twin Cinema is…
Listening to Tomorrow’s Modern Boxes – the second solo album from Radiohead frontman Thom Yorke, which was tossed into the internet without preamble on Friday – for the first time, I experienced a moment of aural disconnect that’s characteristic of the millennial music experience. I’d received a message on the phone on which I was…
“90s Music” – the first single from Kimbra’s The Golden Echo – is a misleading introduction in more ways than one. The off-kilter danciness of the track reminds me of Kanye West’s “Power”, in that it’s the kind of pop song that manages to combine infectious glee with intentional abrasiveness; it simultaneously sounds like it…
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