Year: 2016

This week in the music industry: Th Live Music Office launched their brand new online mapping tool specifically designed to help musicians on tour, the first round of artists to showcase at the 2016 Australian Music Week has been announced and the entry deadline for the 2016 Vanda & Young Songwriting Competition has been extended. Live Music Map…

This October, Melbourne and Sydney will be able to witness the live spectacle that is Archie Roach as he announces two very special shows. The shows will follow the release of his latest record, Let Love Rule, due out on 23rd September. From that LP, Archie Roach has just released a single titled “It’s Not…

After consistently showing fans and industry alike that her talent is one that extends far beyond a hot single here, a great support slot tour run there, Montaigne has gone and certified herself as an artist to be bloody well watching flourish (like we weren’t already) with her debut album, Glorious Heights. Released today, the album has seen…

Dark, broody and shimmery at the same time, Melbourne electronic trio RKDA have been fashioning themselves into a dynamic act to be watching. Following on from the release of their debut EP CS, the group have been building strength behind some meticulously produced and sharply executed pieces of haunting and gorgeously melancholic music. Their latest single “Frontline”…

Holy Holy this week slid back on to our radar (and no doubt, yours) with their new single, “Darwinism”. The first single from Oscar and Tim‘s highly anticipated sophomore album, this new piece of music is an exciting look ahead to this next chapter of the band’s creative output. With the original idea being further explored and…

Over the past few weeks, Sydney has seen dozens upon dozens of big name concerts, with guests from around the world in town thanks to Splendour in the Grass. On any given night, there have been half a dozen SOLD OUT signs around the city for any of these acts. Amidst all the negative talk…

Sydney producer Basenji is going to be hitting the road around the country next month, straight off the back of a North American tour with Flume this month – talk about a warm up run. September will see Basenji playing universities all around the country, presented by V MoVement, on the perfectly titled ‘Homework Tour’. The shows are…

Omar Musa releases his new EP Dead Centre today, off the back of much excitement surrounding the Queanbeyan artist’s step back into the music realm after touring Australia and overseas with his acclaimed debut novel, Here Come the Dogs. A wordsmith with a razor sharp approach to the creation and execution of his art, Musa’s new music…

Though critics haven’t been overly kind to the latest comic book blockbuster Suicide Squad (though our own writer had nicer things to say about it), fans of the DC franchise wasted no time in packing cinemas to see the film, breaking a pile of Australian box office records in the process. Roadshow, who distribute the…

With Pokémon Go a fully-fledged global phenomenon, even as its myriad recent changes enrage fans, the Augmented Reality genre looks set to explode. We’ve put our heads together and have begun thinking about other brands and franchises we’d like to see get the Augmented Reality treatment.

Christopher Nolan’s highly anticipated World War II epic Dunkirk – his first film since Interstellar – isn’t out until July next year, but today we’ve been treated to our first look at the film. In typical Nolan fashion, the Director is bringing his own screenplay to the screen, which will be shot in a mixture…

Sydney rockers The Lazys have found a lot of success in Canada in recent years, and they’re going to continue capitalizing on that by returning to the great North in a few weeks for a massive run of shows that will take them through September. The tour is in support of their latest single “Howling…

Canberra isn’t typically known as a getaway destination but the short three-hour drive from Sydney makes Canberra sufficiently far away to give you that ‘going away’ feeling yet still close enough that a quick 24-hour stay is more than achievable. Also a plus are the pockets of luxury that you’ll find at our nation’s capital…

Take a good fish, add some flavour with smart use of good ingredients, and put truffle on it. Great, simple success. That seems to be Chase Kojima’s approach with this Sokyo dish which is being offered during Truffle Month at The Star. Each year through winter the immense property’s signature restaurants (which include Sokyo, Balla,…

Those unmistakable ripples of Streets’ fluffy Viennetta ice cream have been burned back into the hearts and minds of Aussies everywhere since an elusive image of a “Viennetta on a stick” product went viral a few days ago. It only to lead to sighs of disappointment when it was revealed that the holy grail of…

“Down Under, surfin’ on the Gold Coast. I’m looking for the truth in a blunt, and I ain’t got a home, let’s stunt…”, rhymed Childish Gambino on his 2014 tune “Retro [Rough]”. Since his appearance on the Big Day Out tour of 2013, the artist also known as Donald Glover has enjoyed a strong fan base out in Australia…

The pro’s of getting the chance to review a show announced the day it’s performed is that you don’t have to wait two hours in line, in the freezing wind and rain, to see one of Australia’s best live bands. Luckily for me, I was reviewing, so got to bypass the 50m long line and…

If you’re a songwriter wanting to be in with a chance of winning a cut of a huge $65,000 cash prize, the Vanda & Young Songwriting Competition is the one for you. Offering the three winning songwriters prizes of $50,000, $10,000 and $5,000 respectively, the competition accepts entries from songwriters hailing from all over the world….

Brian McKnight is set to return out to our side of the globe in October, full live band in tow. With his previous Australian tours back in 2013 and 2011 selling out and reaping in praise, McKnight is now going to be returning with a new album in Better, as well as a swag of his…

Times are only getting sweeter for Alex Lahey. First, she dominated her set at Splendour in the Grass. Then, she released her debut EP B-Grade University last week to a huge amount of love and praise. Now? Now, the Melbourne musician celebrates a freshly-inked worldwide publishing deal with Native Tongue Music Publishing (home to artists including APES, The Snowdroppers, Gin Wigmore, Marlon…

Pack your bags and head West this December, because Southbound has come in hot with a brand new artist announcement for their three day/night festival! Along with some great homegrown talent in San Cisco, Tired Lion, LUMBERJACK and  Kučka, Southbound has dropped the news that some international visitors including Catfish and The Bottlemen, MSTRKRFT, Phantogram and more will also be hitting the stages in…

Here’s something definitely a little different for your Thursday. What do you get when you take a world-renowned touring act and partner it with a borderline obsessive love for fermented Korean cabbage? Fremantle’s Formidable Vegetable Sound System and their new single, “Kimchi”, that’s what. Zany as hell and pretty much to the point, the group have released…

Omar Musa has been wearing many hats recently; the poet and author has been touring  through the US, Asia, South America, Europe and across Australia with his debut novel Here Come The Dogs – a poignant and acclaimed piece of work that has seen him reach a wider audience. Now, he’s donned his musician hat, bringing…

It’s really excited to see some of Australia’s best talents being appreciated overseas. A few of the talented artists doing their own thing, and getting recognised for it are Ta-ku and Wafia, hailing from Perth and Brisbane. They’ve just teamed up for an EP titled (m)edian, set for release this weekend and have given us another preview, the…

We’re still waiting for Massive Attack to release the followup LP to their 2010 record Heligoland, but it’s looking like they might be choosing to release a string of EPs and singles instead. Following up from their Ritual Spirit 4-track EP released at the beginning of the year, they duo have just dropped a pair of new singles. One…

Magic: The Gathering fans will descend on Sydney today for the official Magic Pro Tour event. Running from today, Friday 5 August to late on Sunday 7 August, the event will bring together the very best Magic players in the country to compete for a place in the World Championships.

Lawbreakers, previously known under the codename BlueStreak, is an upcoming 1st Person shooter video game developed by Boss Key Productions, founded by Cliff Bleszinski & Arjan Brussee back in 2014. Lawbreakers was originally intended to be a Free to play IP. But as more and more interest garnered in the project, a full release title…

Attention Harry Potter fanatics and all lovers of fantasy – this one’s for you! Warner Bros. confirmed yesterday that a sequel to Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them, which comes out later in the year, is already in the works. They also confirmed a worldwide release date of November 16th, 2018. The script will be written by…

Some Orange Is The New Black fans may be stoked for this as Australia’s own Ruby Rose is currently in negotiations to star in upcoming horror, sci-fi film Meg. Rose will be joining fellow actors Jason Statham (The Transporter, Crank) and Fan Bingbing (X-Men: Days of Future Past) with Jon Turteltaub to direct the film. Lorenzo di…

Reaping success at film festivals in New York, Toronto, Locarno, Sydney and Melbourne, Chantal Akerman‘s No Home Movie has been the talk of the town among the film industry. Proudly presented by the folk at Golden Age cinema, they will be exclusively screening the final movie by Akerman on Sunday August 14 in Sydney. So if you’re keen…