You Too

Future Suture
Ned Collette
Dot Dash, 2007
4 stars

A more challenging album than last year's fantastic Jokes and Trials, Future Suture benefits from its complexities. Starting off slowly - perhaps a little too slowly - with First Love, the pace soon picks up and by the time the gorgeous Forty Children rolls around (a fantastic melding of finger-picked guitars and orchestral strings that has recent touring partner Joanna Newsom's influence all over it) Ned is right back at his very best. Lyrically, Ned now sounds more world-wearied than before. Touring America earlier this year must have been a real eye-opener if Ned's Dream is anything to go by - in twelve months the gently reflective melancholy of Jokes has grown into a kind of politically-informed skepticism. The contrast between these troubled themes and the more upbeat summery tracks like first single The Country With a Smile really works though, and Future Suture is a richer, more profound and better album for it.

Artwork: B

Published in mX, Monday 22 October 2007.

A Bedroom Without Walls

There The Open Spaces
Sleeping States
Misra, 2007
4 stars 4.5 stars

Anyone who has ever tried to make music in their bedroom, no matter their ambition and/or success, will listen to this album with one phrase repeating in their head - why didn't I ever think of this. Sleeping States is London twenty-something Markland Starkie, and There The Open Spaces is the result of countless hours playing his guitar, singing, playing his guitar whilst singing, and recording in his bedroom. And bedrooms around the world are probably where most of the pressings of this album will end up - no, not in that way - because this is the perfect album to fall asleep to. Starkie's soft, sweet croon and his often crudely recorded electric folk guitar will make the most cupboardish of rooms feel a hundred miles wide. The way centrepiece Contact Lunacy comes together is nothing short of breathtaking, and I Wonder takes a great kraut-ish groove and turns it into one of the nicest folk-pop songs I've heard for ages. But it's the details - bumps, clicks and ambient bedroom noise that flicks on and off with the layered tracks of each song - that really make these precious, spacious and intimate songs what they are.

Artwork: A

Published in mX, Thursday 18 October 2007.

Special and Awesome

Guns Babes Lemonade
Muscles
Modular, 2007
3.5 stars

Wooo! Yeah! What a great record. A one-man dance machine from regional Victoria, Muscles injects his debut with so many good vibes that it practically drips honey. Wooo! Multi-layered nasal vocals, sugary synths and trancey basslines feature throughout and, though cheap and easy, it never becomes tacky. Yeah! Guns Babes Lemonade sounds like that hour at a music festival just before the sun goes down, when you're dirty, half-pissed and everything is just good. An album about having an awesome time, plain and simple.

Artwork: B+

Published in mX, Thursday 11 October 2007.

Dark Blue

Blue
Andrew McCubbin and the Hope Addicts
1am, 2007
3 stars

With all the young'uns hogging the local independent spotlight this year, it would have been easy for the third release from Andrew McCubbin and his Hope Addicts to slip by unnoticed. Then again, screaming "this is 2007" with this album was never the point - the songs on Blue are the type of timeless gems that could have come out of any beer-soaked Melbourne band room in the last twenty or so years. This is an album of shady melancholy and momentary bursts of light - McCubbin's half-sung half-whispered words speak of lust and longing, and the cascade of wooden instrument-weilding musicians that accompany him produce a rich sound that is at once grand and understated. Blue defies fashion, making for a great listen both now and in the years to come.

Artwork: C-

Published in mX, Monday 1 October 2007.