4 Remarkable Artists: Australian Music
For those uninitiated GITs among us – the internet is a remarkable place to find amazing musical talent. Instead of living your musical life through the auspices of top 40 charts and the Saturday morning music video shows on the eediot box, you should be heading online for your fix.
Sites like Last.fm and Grooveshark are amazing ways to peruse before you purchase.
Type an artist’s name into the Last.fm search box and you get presented with the artist’s bio and a list of artists that are “similar”. It soon becomes a fascinating game of 6 degrees of separation. See how many clicks it takes to move from Britney Spears to Slayer.
Anyways, as an example, I punched in Radiohead and out popped a batch of other artists that tickled the proverbial fancy – Muse and Sigur Ros – both of which I love. Point proven. New music search 101. Done.
To listen to these “new finds” you can do it through Last.fm, for a bit, until they want you to subscribe. It’s a fantastic service and well worth the sub. Alternatively you could use a great service like the aforementioned Grooveshark. Plug in the artist, album, or song and click your finds off the list. You can then stream high quality audio straight from their site. Sweet.
Then go buy the album. Sorted.
So getting back to the aim of this post – listing 4 Remarkable Australian Music Artists – be they old or geriatric.
Sia Furler is an Adelaidian singer-songwriter who came to mainstream ears after the release of her single Breathe Me. This garnered airplay as part of a Six Feet Under season finale and showcased an awesome talent for songwriting. This has since been recognised by Christina Aguilera who has had Sia co-write some of the songs on her new album. Don’t hold this against Sia – she’s well worth a listen.
As a bit of an aside – Hummingbird beer (beer apparently for the lasses) held their own “hottest 100” songs by females of all time. Sia was one of the few Aussie girls to make it. Breathe Me made it in at number 81. Nice.
Our second selection is some classic Oz from a great band called Karma County. This one’s more of a suggestion – a bit of a “get this album or else” kind of suggestion. The album in question is their first full lengther – Last Stop Heavenly Heights.
In my very, very humble opinion this is in the top 5 Australian albums of all time.Nutshell wise, this album is all about an amazing rhythm section (including the smoothest of all instruments – the double bass) combined with sparingly used guitar all melded together with a velvet toned voice. Unique and unforgettable.
It really is too hard to pick highlights off the album because of the sheer brilliance of all of the tracks – but if I had to choose I’d be downloading “Too many foxes” and the phenomenal “Postcards”. Grab the album off iTunes here.
I saw our third pick many moons ago when she was a “crew cutted” bass player in her sister’s band, The Mercy Bell. I though that they were the bees knees at the time and for the greater part it was due to the lunacy of the bassist on stage.
I looked Butterfly Boucher up quite a few years later and found her to have grown up and moved to the USA to make her musical way. And it appears she has. With songs appearing in Grey’s Anatomy, Shrek 2 and many other shows.
Now with 2 solo albums to her name (Flutterby and Scary Fragile) she’s been largely ignored by Australia. Such a shame. This should change – she’s a great talent.
And finally we reach our last recommendation: Tumbleweed. Well not so much a recommendation as a bit of an indulgence.
We were tossing up whether to pick groups like: Lovers Electric (whose vocalist is Butterfly Boucher’s little sister), The Church, Midnight Oil, Magic Dirt, The Mark of Cain, or any number of amazing Australian bands – but then I found my copy of Tumbleweed’s Theatre of Gnomes EP. Seminal.
Seminal Oz rock and so many memorable tracks.
Big hair, grinding riffs, more hair and so much soul.
Hit the bargain bins and find yourself any of their gems – they might just be worth something now that they’ve reformed.
If you’ve got any ideas about who you reckon should have been plugged let us know – comment – don’t be shy.
Cheers.
Davey Whale.
