For a long time, this wide brown land of #Straya almost seemed to revel in its cultural cringe. But in these days of a webly interconnected world, success is relative. Be happy in your pond, or try and conquer the world – it’s up to you. Equally, you can trade on your ‘Australian-ness’, or ignore it altogether. Both ways work, or don’t, as the case may be.
Rolling Blackouts Coastal Fever call what they do ‘tough pop/soft punk’. But in its laconic conversations through a heat-haze they could only be from here. An Air-Conditioned Man (Ivy League/Sub Pop) also has those oft-mentioned hints of their forebears in it. The Go-Betweens are absolutely present, right down to a spoken-word interlude – a la Cattle & Cane - that almost sounds like it should be delivered by Robert Forster – feel free to run with that idea on your next tour for a cameo guest spot that will get crowd members of a certain age absolutely losing their shit. Thank me later. Thing is RBCF make pop songs of rare quality, managing to be wistful and observational, albeit with a slightly jaundiced eye.
Sarah Blasko is now making what is almost art in a pop music format. It’s like the ‘Living in your heartbeat…’ that centres Read My Mind (EMI) has let her see and express things both inward and outward almost more personally than ever before. In some hands it could almost be overdone, but she manages to keep it utterly sincere, utterly of the moment, utterly of herself. It feels like a European sensibility to it, making it a music that could have her as our Kate Bush or Florence Welch – if she wanted to be. But you feel the love of that child, and a short walk to a sunny park might be all she really requires. And good luck to her for that.
What Slum Sociable do could come from anywhere as well, but they are ‘ours’ and make a music like little else from anywhere else. Do Something About It (Liberation) has what some want to call a jazzy element to it, but in its restraint and almost contradictorily smooth narcotic stumble there is a real thoughtfulness and feeling that belie its basis in electronics. It’s a minimalism that would also speak to the world - a world which probably wouldn’t give a rats whether music of such quality came from Boston, Birmingham, or Belgium.
Conversely, Halfway are in the ‘definitely Australian’ school. The touch of alt-country in it leavened by nostalgic storytelling, which also retains a slight pissed off feeling that things went and changed when they weren’t looking, that really has a local accent to it. The Old House (ABC Music) just not being where ‘it used to be…’. The understated ‘have-a-scratch and good look round’ matter-of-fact chat of it just lets it settle on a line of local music of quality and distinction that certainly would include those aforementioned Go-B’s, a couple of tablespoons of Paul Kelly’s gravy, and some of Weddings Parties’ quietly pugnacious mood of that guy sitting at the end of the bar who you’re not quite sure you should strike up a conversation with or not.
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But if you want one of the great all-time injustices of Australian music of world class, you must be aware of Even - and the fact the world doesn’t know more about them, and fall at their feet at the mere mention of their name. Twenty years on, the sheer pop classicism they seemingly so easily make continues. Keep things simple and apt, The Opener (El Reno Music) is – naturally - the opening track of their new album Satin Returns, and does all it says on the tin. As Ash Naylor’s guitar rings and cascades in from the intro, consider it an overture to a record full of the kind of pop music you should hear on the radio, but probably won’t.
Meantime, there are those quietly taking over the world. Alex Lahey’s snarky charm and charming melodies are travelling the world as we speak, which leads to the UK’s venerable New Musical Express – who still have a role as tastemakers, at least their local market inviting our artist to have a sing in their basement. This allows her to throw some tuneful shade at our westernmost capital. Perth Traumatic Stress Disorder (Nicky Boy) makes a change from the many who tend to have shots via the Sydney-Melbourne sibling rivalry, or the varietal charms of Brisbane. It’s wry without trying too hard to be clever, the mixed feelings for the most isolated capital on earth probably more due to somebody in it than the metropolis itself.
Batts are also currently out of here, touring portions of the old world with Cub Sport as we speak. She’s another who might be in the gutter but staring up at the stars – although her slightly sci-fi visions don’t quite overreach to albums about rockstar retirement villages on the moon, like where Alex Turner is currently making his bucketfuls of money. Tanya appears to think Saturn or Mars might be far enough away from earthly concerns like Shame (THAA Records), but there’s a strength in her vision and delivery that makes you feel she knows exactly what she’s doing.
