KIMBRA : Sweet Relief
Hey. There’s a new Kimbra track. It’s not great. It struggles to rationalise the intimacy of the subject matter with some busy production from Kimbra and Redinho. If the visionary pop sensibilities that Kimbra is capable of achieving are here, they’re buried under some not-super-interesting instrumentation. It works as a standalone, experimental pursuit. But there’s an air of aimlessness that paints it all as a forgettable outing.
DAN SULTAN : Magnetic
A soul gospel belter, Magnetic sees Dan Sultan cut loose and soar. The composition splits the difference between safe and strange, crafting deft tension with Bo Diddley-esque jabs of guitar staccato, eventually clearing into a Yeezy-like orchestral sea of stars. Dan is on a bit of a roll lately, starring in the supremely excellent A.B. Original cut January 26. The trajectory is up.
BAD//DREEMS : Mob Rule
This is like if Weird Al had a crack at crafting a parody of Australian rock, molding an approximation of sounds somewhere between Hunters’ The Slab and the shit bits of the pub rock canon with a shocker of a shout along chorus. The munted We Didn’t Start The Fire attempt in one of the verses takes the choccy cake, however. Credit where credit’s due: great work sourcing permission for the Kathe Kollwitz etching for the single artwork – but might be a bit of a stretch applying it to your kinda non-committal ‘political commentary’. “I never liked it at all” isn’t exactly a harsh whack to racism, is it?
SINGLE OF THE WEEK
NULL : In Unity
Delivering big-beat nostalgia with a side of nostalgia for the more chilled moments of the Donkey Kong Country soundtrack, Null doesn’t hold back with the fairly ridic In Unity. Reckon we might be due for a bout of late ‘90s action movie remakes, and this could be a solid pitch for soundtrack duties should they choose to remake, fuck, I dunno, Swordfish? Remember how Hugh Jackman had to hack into a bank while getting a gobby? Timeless.
