August was a great month for albums, with high quality LPs dropping every week, both here and internationally. The Upside News takes a look at releases from Mac DeMarco, Destroyer, Bad//Dreems and The Bohicas.
Album Review
Existential angst has never been so much fun. Furman is a restless soul who makes a virtue of the fact, managing to channel this into music with an infectious, frenetic energy.
The Age of Entitlement is an album for the ages. Taking on Australian politics in 2015 with the same clarity and passion as Midnight Oil did in 1982 with 10,9,8,7,6,5,4,3,2,1, The Basics present a fine collection of engaging songs delivered with feeling, humour and acumen.
This is one of the most anticipated releases of the year and, so long as you don’t come expecting a rehash of the previous Tame Impala material, the album certainly doesn’t disappoint.
The Upside News looks back at ten ‘nostalgia’ releases of the last 12 months and ranks them. The criteria for inclusion is a recording that offer something new, while also dipping into past glories; either a mix of old and new songs, or presenting old material in new ways.
A high-octane record that is beautifully raw and honest, while revelling in moments of baroque bombast.
The songs are cleverly constructed and easy on the ear: warm acoustic guitars, catchy rhythms and some nice string arrangements in the mix.
Is there anything new popular music can say about romance? Boy meets girl has been done to death, but boy and girl meet another girl, now that’s not your average love song.
In the streaming era, so much music is designed to resist the consumer’s urge to skip or shuffle; so it’s really quite refreshing to hear music that expects something of the audience, where the reward lies in repeated listens rather than the obvious, but fleeting, hook.
A feast for the ears, Why Make Sense? displays an abundance of creativity in the production mix. But there’s also striking restraint here, with enough space that the listener never gets overloaded. What separates Hot Chip from many other electronica acts is that they do, indeed, sound like a band.
Upside Adelaide 