STACK Nov #133

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The agonisingly gorgeous, bittersweet energy of Tiny Little Houses is
the sort that wriggles into the spot just under your lower two ribs and
won't go. The group's EP, titled You Tore Out My Heart (apt) is making
waves for Ivy League's newest signatories; the Melbourne four-piece
will bring their precocious sounds to their home state this month with a
number of shows, including a slot within the pretty insanely cutting edge
line-up for Paradise
Music Festival (Nov 27).
Check .
au for details.
engagement with her audience when
she plays live, something that evaded
her when she began as Banoffee
despite having performed with
several bands previously. “I’ve always
had almost like a cave of percussion
instruments and things that I could
hide behind, and with Banoffee I
didn’t,” she explains. “I remember
when I supported Architecture In
Helsinki a couple of years ago, my friend Ben
O’Connor came – who I really respect, he’s a
great manager – and he said ‘I loved your set,
but you have got to look up! You look at your
feet the whole time. These people have come
to see you and you’re giving them nothing!’ So
I actually put in effort to start looking out, and I
realised that I enjoyed it more as well. If I don’t
look up, regardless of what people are doing,
I’m going, ‘They’re hating it, it’s terrible, God,
get me off here.’ So I started engaging, and that
made people like it more, which made me feel
confident, and be able to give them more. But I
feel so proud of myself when I do it. I can give
myself a proper good high five when I get off.”
visit NEWS MUSIC
092 NOVEMBER 2015
M artha Brown’s sunlit, humble countenance
is so engaging that it’s basically impossible
not to slip into familiarity with the Melbourne
musician. She’s abashed with formal self-
promotion but totally, casually articulate when
it comes to describing her approach, and her
conversation with STACK begins in comfy
territory where she gets to talk about the
influences of her sister Hazel and friend Alice
Glenn. “They’re pretty amazing,” she says
warmly. “I’m very lucky to have them. I think
without the women around me, I wouldn’t be
doing what I’m doing, that’s for sure. Me and
Alice do my clips together, and Hazel ran my
label and was my manager for a while. I’m not
even sure I would’ve released a first EP without
Hazel’s help especially, just because it’s really
hard to have self-belief, as I’m sure we all
know.” Brown speaks openly and often about
self-belief, and it turns out her physical process
of shaking off doubt dovetails just so with the
clip for gorgeous single With Her (a delicately
marching lament with piano and synths behind
Brown’s wistful, blushing lyrics). “[The clip] is a
reflection of what I was doing the whole time I
was recording this EP,” she says. “I would go to
the pool, and, you know, you can’t listen to music
while you’re in the water, you can’t do anything.
So, super luxurious concentration on my own
body flowing through the water, and how that
felt. And I guess that’s sort of how I had to think
about everything when I was writing this EP:
just about my own body going through it, for me.
‘Cause after you’ve released something and you
start again, it’s so weird; it should be really nice
when people encourage you. But for me it came
across as, ‘What are you going to make next, is it
going to be better? Will it be as good? I liked the
last one, but don’t disappoint me now, I might not
like this one,’” she chuckles. By all accounts, her
new EP Do I Make You Nervous? is disappointing
exactly nobody. She’s also building up a palpable
FROTHY FOR
BANOFFEE
tiny little houses
raury
Rapturously
noisy with a
lazy grace, Crazy
Rack is bright,
smudgy and just
super cute. The
second album
from Sydney guys
Palms pushes
forward more
fearlessly into that magical, disparate style they're so
fluent at. Also, the cover art (a photograph drummer
Tom Wallace happened to snap as he strolled past an
op shop on the central coast) is amazing. Flip to our
reviews section for Doug Wallen's write-up.
palms
continued
Just as you suspected (you oracle, you),
Courtney Barnett (pictured) has razed
the annual Australian Independent Record
Labels Association (AIR) Awards. The
Melburnian triumphed in the top three
categories – Best Independent Artist,
Album and EP – and her label, Milk! Records
(begun by Barnett in 2012), received the Best
Independent Label award. Other champs included
#1 Dads (Breakthrough Artist), Seth Sentry (Best
Hip Hop Album), Frank Yamma (Best Country
Album), C.W. Stoneking (Best Blues
And Roots Album) and King Gizzard
& The Lizard Wizard (Best Hard Rock,
Heavy Or Punk Album).
Congrats, legends!
AIR AWARDS' TOP DOGS
Do I Make You Nervous?
by Banoffee is out now through
Remote Control.
You Tore Out My Heart
by Tiny Little Houses is out
now through Ivy League.
Sometimes a new artist sticks
out like a blackberry-brie tart on
a plate of dry Jatz. Single Forbidden
Knowledge will prime you for the
kind of shrewd insight that Raury is
capable of; his prose is delivered in
this poetic way which begins with
personal reflection and expands
into philosophical and sociological
themes, which are all generated by
hope and love. Backed by soulful
instrumentation and beats that evoke
Raury's idols Andre 3000 and Kanye,
All We Need is an ambiguous and
fascinating album.
Crazy Rack by
Palms is out now
through Ivy League.
All We Need by Raury
is out now through Sony.
See
for all
the victors