Will Global Success Spoil DMA'S? It Hasn't Yet

As much as it can be argued that this internet thingy has devalued music – let alone the writing about it – you can’t argue it’s made the world one common market. The song made in a bedsit in Marrickville, or a garage in Geelong, or in Milwaukee, or Prague, or Pyongyang – ok, maybe not the one from Pyongyang – can be heard anywhere else. Your audience is now international, although it’s still up to the artist how best to reach and/or exploit it.

So now you get slightly odd cross-cultural spectacles like DMA’S shaking hands with Stephen Colbert on The Late Show the other week. Suburban Aussie boys in retro-German tracksuits, making English-accented music, in New York. Why not. Back here, they release the perhaps aptly titled In The Moment (I Oh You). Again, they have made something that sticks in your head heroically, but with the contradictions that sometimes seem inherent in their music and visuals. They sneer at the Oasis references – ok, how about you stop with the echo-drenched Mancunian vocals and big Noel-ish guitar lines then? The clips have an honest bleakness, but with a seemingly grim determination to show them having ‘fun’, even as the feeling of things slipping away comes through the song itself. Will global success spoil DMA’S? More, I hope they actually enjoy it while it’s happening.

Then you’ve got to consider that some kids in Gothenburg might not know their pop history, even if they live online through the iDevices. I got all excited/worried when the fable name of The Sun Days appeared on my screen. Then I looked closer, noted the space the spaces between the words and realised this was not the comeback single from the ‘80s thru ‘90s fey pop heroes. But Don’t Need To Be Them (Run For Cover) is female-fronted pop of the Swedish model. Think of something along the lines of The Cardigans – it comes with that askance Scandinavian detachment that may come from singing phonetically about emotions. It’s an odd charm that seems a little pugnacious as they try and be all sunshiney to convince you of what they’re feeling. You know, kinda like Peter, Bjorn And John.

Oh look, it’s Peter, Bjorn And John. It’s a perhaps surprising five years since they last sailed under their own banner. In the meantime, they’ve set up an ‘artist collective’ – they don’t do anything as old-school corporate as just forming a label in Stockholm – even taking over one of Abba’s old studios to prove they know their history. What You Talking About (Ingrid) is not a tribute to Gary Coleman (this might be disappointing to some, particularly lovers of obscure Simpsons’ Christmas episodes...) but has some of that polite challenge to it, and even something resembling a whistle solo to reference their own days as young(er) folk.

Further into multi-skilling, Alex The Astronaut is over-achieving just a little. Sydney girl, in New York on a college soccer scholarship (they have such things…?), studying maths, and making folktronica (that’s still a thing…?). Half Of 21^st Street (Independent) has a happy clanging jauntiness that drops into some almost Blasko-esque pondering at various points. It’s an inviting postcard from an innocent abroad, although she may know a bit more than she’s actually letting on. 

In her Bats For Lashes guise, Natasha Khan makes some utterly intriguing, at times cerebral, music. But for reasons of expediency and easy pigeonholing, she occasionally gets lumped with her more brightly coloured artistic sister, Flo Welch, mostly on the basis of a mutual listening to different records of their mutual spiritual Aunty Kate Bush. In God’s House (Parlophone) comes on a wave of quiet synths and her usual philosophies that may make you think. As she often does, she makes music that gets in your head and heart. 

The Lulu Raes admit their affection for that once known as Britpop – which made them fit in the supporting role to the abovementioned DMA’s at various points. Infinite Paradise (Sail Away) (Umbrella) is of a more fragile, more ‘indie’, take on the form. Whatever ‘indie’ means these days. They’ve got the songs, or so it would seem on evidence of this. Maybe it’s up to someone to give them the chance to make the most of them.

Playing to a pub audience, there’s a handy trick if you can just leave a half-a-beat of silence before the chorus kicks in. This allows the sweaty boys down the front to be distracting into paying attention and/or lift their Jack & Cola cans to get ready to sing along. The Love Junkies know this trick, and Nobody (Title Track) uses it well in the midst of a song that’s got a bit of old glam stomp to it, and also does that quiet/loud thing – but is a bit too self-aware to be merely grungey. Yet another Perth band which simply knows their business.