Chris Cornell's Final Music Video Shows He Was A True Old School Rock Singer

Going past the undoubtedly tragic and slightly sordid details of his death, let’s celebrate how art – and indeed, the artist can sometimes endure. Your feelings about the whole increasingly meaningless term ‘grunge’ aside, Chris Cornell was an old-school rock singer. A voice that came up from his toes, via the groin, through his heart and guts. That’s why he even got to do a Bond movie anthem. The Promise (Lakeshore) is possibly the antitheses of one of those. His last released work, theme song to movie of the same name, is Cornell expressing the ache of broken people – for purposes of the cinema exercise actually dealing with the Armenian genocide, but here a broader sadness for the dispossessed. Released this week to coincide with International Refugees Day – the execrable Peter Dutton obviously not getting the memo about that remembrance - it’s not just empty gravitas, proceeds from the song going to Cornell’s own foundation for children. Good work. 

Flight Facilities aren’t just a music, they’re more an aesthetic for living. Their first new thing since they became Australia’s gift to the world as far as ‘80s neon synths go is Arty Boy (Future Classic). It bubbles like a just-opened bottle of West Coast Cooler, but somehow becomes timeless pop music – even while a discussion of the young Arnold Schwarzenegger takes place. Emma Louise’s guest voice adds even more sweetness and light to it, even while their tip-toeing along a tightrope between homage and pastiche to Blancmange’s Living On The Ceiling – not to be confused with Lionel Richie’s Dancing On The Ceiling – bobbingly froths by. Lovely. 

On the other hand, you can just do it for the exposure being part of a bigger budget Hollywood production. Pharrell nips down into his gold-plated home studio, grabs a thumb-drive from his rack of leftover tunes, and Bob’s your aunties’ husband: here’s the theme to Despicable Me 3. No, There’s Something Special (Sony) isn’t all that special, but add a clip with Mr Williams disembodied head floating around with those so-damn-cute minions, some cod-philosophical spoken word work in the middle, and the kind of success to keep all these corporations’ Cayman Island bank accounts ticking over seems assured. Rightly or wrongly.

But the small and sincere is always preferable. The Tall Grass takes the slightly-broken harmonies of two of Sydney’s most fondly regarded turn-of-the-century alternative combos – Crow’s Peter Fenton and Bluebottle Kiss’ Jamie Hutchings – remove some of the jaggedness of those band guises, to offer a fond but honest remembrance of a fallen comrade, in this case Midget’s singer Chris – the eponymous subject of Moller (Independent). Anecdotes are musically swapped, and glasses raised to an era, a music, and a Newtown past. It has a spirit of time and place, and is just unpretentiously good. 

The band’s called Noire, so what were you expecting? There’s a languid breathy longing to Real Cool (Spunk), and music that leaves spaces washing over you in waves. Straight outta Gympie, now settled in the perhaps more natural surrounds of the Sydney milieu, this is that music of awakenings that are sometimes slightly uncomfortable - with music of a similar unease. They happily namecheck influences such as Air and Mazzy Star, and that kinda makes perfect sense of what they’re aiming for. 

Having settled some long-festering legal tomfoolery – let’s face it, how could you argue with such a lovable fella as LCD’s James Murphy? – Death From Above return minus that lawyer-insisted suffix of 1979, with their music pretty much intact. Freeze Me (Habit) still has that slightly worried and angst dance-punk stew to it, with a rattly cascade of house piano in the middle of all this fist-shaking just to keep that Canadian ‘Let’s not worry about it too much, eh?’ attitude just to keep it that bit grounded, while encouraging you off your chair and onto the neon-lit disco floor.

Oh, you’d a like a ‘supergroup’ of sorts then? Let’s call it Filthy Friends, just to confuse the issue. Participants? Well, there’s Sleater-Kinney’s Corin Tucker to get that constituency easily on-board, mainly collaborating with Kurt Bloch of The Fastbacks to add that further necessary feeling of the Pacific Northwest’s individual musical attitude. But then there’s that Peter Buck fella from R.E.M. - along with Scott McCaughey and Bill Rieflin of that fabled combos later-era touring unit – and you’ve got an affectionate jam band that spools off the carefully trashy Patti Smith-ish pop of The Arrival (Kill Rock Stars) with all the clumsy grace you’d expect. 

You can see what Pickachunes are trying to get at, just by listening to Friends & Family (Monday). Dancy electronics, with a slightly darkish tinge at the edges, perhaps somewhere down the Presets or P’nau line. And all that’s rather neat, but then the truly perfectly-named Miles G. Loveless adds the video that has a touch of the Belanglo forest threat and creepiness to it, but in trying to be edgy it all looks like it’s trying just that little too hard. Although you do get the feeling young Miles might have some better toons in the locker, and look forward to hearing them.