Blogging is not the be all and end all of my writing activities believe it or not. Having worked as a freelance journalist for five years now my work has been published in print form in BMA Magazine, Oyster, 3D World, triple j mag, The Canberra Times and online at inthemix, Mess & Noise, FasterLouder, The Cool Hunter and Pedestrian. This page is a litle place for me to collect some samples of my writing which don’t quite fit on the main blog of Hyperbole.

Australian Music Correspondent

I should probably just get it over with so we can move on, right? Okay. G’Day! Yep, we’re all walking, drawling, brawling cliches down here in the colonies, I won’t hide it. But the reason I’m here is not to embarrass my Australian countrymen but rather to spotlight some of the elite talent that’s rising up from down under at the moment and is definitely worth your listening attention.

BEAUFORT
Let’s start with Sydney one man show Beaufort, masterminded by local renaissance man James McFay, who as well as creating some terrific electro-pop tunes on his laptop makes himself a quadruple threat as the writer, director and star of new indie flick Tiger, which is kinda like Lost In Translation starring attractive hipster models falling in love across Japan. As well as overseeing the film, McFay’s prepared the whole soundtrack as his synth-pop alter ego Beaufort, mixing together bombastic rave tunes with soft-pop synth ballads and instrumentals ripe for a Tokyo skyline. Seriously. This kid is embarrassingly good.

TIGER CHOIR
Tasmanian triumvirate Tiger Choir have been saddled with some rather persistent comparisons to beloved indie heroes Animal Collective since day dot, and with good reason. As well as their tribute-band worthy title, Tiger Choir specialise in the kind of fantastical and jubilant jungle pop made famous by the American freak-folk auteurs. But there’s a definite spark of individuality to their new self-titled EP, one that shows Tiger Choir as much more than creative AnCo enthusiasts and really just the three kids with a love for ambitious, looping indie-rock, psyching out in a garage somewhere on Tasmania’s exiled island at the arse-end of Australia.

BLUD
Nestled away in far-away Perth on the dusty western coast of Australia is Blud, a three-piece of fresh-faced youngsters showing so much early talent that you’re just certain they sacrificed a virgin somewhere along the way. Already grabbing some ears with national radio play on revered indie network triple j, Blud mix high drama, Freddie Mercury-aping vocals with buzzing electronics and a bafflingly entertaining piano fetish. Name-checking Michael Jackson and Pablo Picasso as influences, what makes Blud even more scarily impressive is that they’re not even out of high school.

The Black Ryder: As Real As It Gets

Having spent the best part of a languid Friday afternoon with Aimee Nash and Scott Von Ryper, the creative partners that comprise Sydney’s The Black Ryder, I can say without fear of hyperbole that The Black Ryder are the real deal. That conclusion was one I came to as soon as I meet the duo for the first time at a local bar, where they’d been holed up drinking for a few hours, and was only reinforced as the pair reminisce over old war stories about supporting a meltdown-prone Jim Reid in the UK and doing some guerilla flyering for a Peter Kember show. And I guess it didn’t hurt that they got me drinking too.

Perhaps it’s for that reason that our conversation over the next few rounds was quite scattered, with Nash and Von Ryper talking openly about anything and everything, from shooting their first video on the ghostly outskirts of Canberra, to their distaste for The Veronicas and how their rotating roster of house guests (heroes and friends alike from bands like Black Rebel Motorcycle Club, Brian Jonestown Massacre and Swervedriver) came to feature their debut album, Buy The Ticket, Take The Ride.

With the album now out in the public realm, Nash and Von Ryper talk with a noticeable calm about the record, indicating that after spending so long putting it together, they’re relieved to have it complete.

“It has been a pretty long road for us, with a lot of bumps along the way,” Scott says peering out from his behind his thick black sunglasses. “We actually started the band the day that we got kicked out of The Morning After Girls, our old band. The Black Ryder was born that day,” he explains.

“That was fucked,” chimes in Aimee, reminiscing with a sigh about the duo’s waltz through that band’s frequently revolving doors. “We had just completed a really big tour overseas, and the day we get home we get an email telling us we’re out of the band,” she says still incredulous to the drama. “But it got us moving, you know? That day I just said to Scott, ‘Alright, we’ve got three songs just kicking around, let’s just put them out there, who cares how, let’s just get them out there’”.

“It was a good thing for us in the end,” Scott confirms. “It taught us to be a bit more guarded and to get things done our own way. We recorded the album in our home studio and we set up our own label to put it out, because that’s the only way it could really work. I don’t think I’ve ever even spoken to EMI [distribution partners] about the material on there. We had complete control over everything. It’s like a dream now.”

The Black Ryder’s Buy The Ticket, Take The Ride is out now through The Anti Machine/EMI

Itche-E & Scratch-E: Australia’s original astro-ravers come back to Earth

In between the lineup of au currant youngsters and international heavies aboard this year’s national Big Day Out festival, you would’ve been forgiven for performing a double-take at the addition of long dormant rave veterans Itch-E & Scratch-E. After all, the duo of famed producers Paul Mac and Andy Rantzen had been dead quiet since their 2001 opus It Is What It Isn’t, leaving the Australian dance music community to fend for itself whilst the duo got to work on other projects, both creative and commercial. But nonetheless, this throwback to when whistles and candy necklaces were an acceptable accessory for a Saturday night out was genuine, and after nearly ten years out of the game, Itch-E & Scratch-E returned at the summer festival with hands in the air and their lasers set to fun.

Having spent so long on the sidelines, one would imagine that such a high profile comeback would do horrors on the duo’s nerves, and according to Mac, that’s a fair assesment. “Of course we were scared about it, we were shitting ourselves,” he says as gleeful laughter erupts between the pair. “I thought about it and figured that if the Big Day Out kids were around 20 years old then they would’ve been about five when Sweetness & Light came out. So that was definitely on our minds. But I think it was kind of good because we hate recreating the old tracks because it’s just too difficult, so it gave us this clean slate to prepare a new album of material and play that. So whether they had heard our hype or they were just there to see Girl Talk afterwards, everybody got something new.”

By all reports, Mac and Rantzen’s Itch-E & Scratch-E resurrection was one of this year’s festival highlights, with crowds evidently ready to welcome back the pair of star-gazing clubbers. The run of festival shows served as validation of Rantzen and Mac’s original decision to emerge from the wilderness and start working.

“It was late last year and I guess we just got the feeling that people were actually interested in hearing us again,” Rantzen explains of their reconciliation. “We had been approached several times about reforming for some one-off nostalgia shows, but we thought that it would be more interesting to come back together, see if we could still make a track and try to do something new. In the end we managed to make about eight or nine of those, so I guess we did it.”

With the Big Day Out now a feather in their cap, Mac and Rantzen are turning their attention to the year ahead, in which they plan to make up for lost time with a new album, the delightfully titled Hooray For Everything!! which is due out in May.

Taking the recording process as organically as they could, Mac explains Hooray For Everything!! was built over some endless late nights that would find the duo boozing on at the studio.

“We would only get together in the studio about once a week and that ended up becoming our favourite part of every week, it was just a lot of fun,” he says as they both chuckle over shared hangovers. “What I’ve been doing lately has either been something Top 40 based or a commercial thing on a deadline, so I really felt that freedom of being a 20 year old in my first band again and just not giving a fuck”.

As they prepare for their grand homecoming though, one thing still troubles the duo, and that’s how their return to the clubs will be heralded following their years in the wilderness. After all, since 1995 when Mac and Rantzen rocked the ARIA awards, winning the fledgling best dance release that year and also thanking “the ecstasy dealers of Sydney” in their acceptance speech, Australian dance music culture has blossomed, with electronic acts like The Presets and Empire Of The Sun receiving certified pinup status.

“It’s a weird feeling for us,” Mac confirms with a grin. “We never felt like we were part of any scene or movement in Australia, we were just trying to make amazing music. But now it’s a big deal, things have really exploded.”

Backing up Mac’s assessment, Rantzen pays homage to the artists who’ve fostered the dance music market in the country, saying that he and Mac would never have “written a single note of new music” were it not for acts like Cut Copy, Pnau and the aforementioned Presets. “15 years ago we never would’ve predicted that the word ‘electro’ would be in common currency, so we owe these guys for our resurgence,” he says. “Coming back to a scene so big is just crazy for us.”