Last Saturday was the date for what felt like the grandest of house-parties. VICE hosted the Australian launch party for the new online-music-streaming-one-stop-shop, Rdio. The entire Beach Road Hotel in Bondi held an evening of controlled chaos, voyeuristic adventures and heroic live sets.

There are a heap of one off gig announcements happening all around the country this week, with the likes of Das Racist, Shadowqueen, Iowa, Kitchen's Floor, Jonti, Gold Fields and much more all hitting the stages in various bars and venues. There is also the return of the highly popular Women of Soul nights happening at the Cherry Bar!

WOMEN OF SOUL

Nick Lalak takes us on a visual journey of the aural adventure that Battles provided the Metro Theatre crowd, with support from Canyons and Pink Flod.

Now in its 8th year, the Peats Ridge Festival seems to be getting bigger and bigger. World renowned as one of the leading sustainability events, "Peats" is one of the must do NYE events on most of Australian bucket lists. A gathering for all things eclectic, the event creates a environment like no other.

I blame the digitisation of music, and its push for a singles-oriented market, for the host of bands who have been releasing albums this year that aren’t records in the true sense of the word, but merely a collection of tracks with no unifying purpose, featuring a couple of incredibly catchy singles buffered by mundane filler.

To celebrate the release of their debut LP 'Keep Your Dreams' (out now on Modular Records), Canyons will be premiering their six-piece live band for the first time EVER at the Civic Hotel Underground, Sydney on Thursday December 15 – (with DJ support from Steele Bonus), before performing selected dates around the country in WA, NSW and VIC.

Peats Ridge Sustainable Arts and Music Festival today announces a massive 26 new acts to their already bulging festival line up.

Revived American rocker and master lyricist, Jim Ward, world breaking Canadian band Yukon Blonde, Melbourne band of the moment - Aria Award nominated Oh Mercy, hot Aussie favourite - Canyons, and bursting local act New Navy are among the newly announced.

Australian duo Canyons recently announced their long-awaited debut album, Keep Your Dreams, set to be released in November on Modular - all around the world! Here's the first taste of the record: "Circadia / Under A Blue Sky", an epic track, which "unfurls itself expansively with seething synth lines, before giving in to the call of the wild and going full throttle into a haze of sandblasted saxophone, tribal drums, and jungle incantations."

Sugar Mountain Festival - Saturday 30th April 2011 - The Forum Theatre, Melbourne

FIRST LINE-UP ANNOUNCEMENT

The Sugar Mountain Festival will provide a welcome boost to Melbourne’s thriving arts scene on Sunday 30 April 2011.

Playing a sideshow to Big Day Out, the New York electronic music duo Ratatat, who consists of Evan Mast and Mike Stroud, played an amazing set at Manning Bar. I missed out on seeing them at Big Day Out so their Manning Bar show was a must.

Pictured: DAPPLED CITIES