Month: September 2017

There are times in our lives we look back on certain things and reminisce, how much we would love to go back and do it all again, for me, other than visiting the (U.S.A and the U.K) that was the Mass Effect Trilogy and playing as the stubborn, stern, but lovable Commander Shepherd. If you’re…

Sondheim, as always, has to make things difficult. If it’s not in his chords then it’s the subject matter of his musicals. However Assassins, one of the more rarely performed of the Sondheim repertoire, finds itself locked and loaded in good hands with Dean Bryant at this latest production at the Hayes. Superb casting all…

Alice Ivy‘s rise has continued to be peppered with brilliant sounds, the latest of which coming today in the form of “Be Friends”. The single is another impressive offering from producer and songwriter; rooted in sunshine-hit synth goodness, “Be Friends” captures some of the best energy we’ve heard from Alice Ivy on a track yet….

Filipino songwriter and pop artist Kiana Valenciano presents herself confidently on record. She’s been performing and releasing music for some time now and has been successfully building a profile for herself in her homeland of the Philippines, with a social media following exceeding 200,000. Sitting across from me in Singapore last week, though, Valenciano is polite and…

The Yours & Owls Festival is just around the corner, with Wollongong set to host a whole slew of fiery Australian and international bands over an unforgettable weekend. Don’t be mistaken here, though, once the live bands finish on stage, the crew behind Yours & Owls are keeping the party going at the Wollongong Tennis Club…

When Ecca Vandal aims high, she aims damn high. With “Future Heroine”, the Melbourne musician continues to twist genres and put her fiery stamp on a music scene that may be changing and becoming more fluid. Bolstered by her unmistakeable aggression and confidence, Ecca has continued to prove why she is one of the country’s most dangerously talented…

There’s something surprisingly relaxing yet equally daunting as watching an orchestra accompany a contemporary artist. As I sat looking down at the side of the Sydney Opera House stage, you’d have been forgiven if you forgot that fronting the Sydney Symphony Orchestra was Megan Washington. On night one of her current tour showcasing the tracks…

By the time Sunday afternoon rolled around, it’s suffice to say that everyone was a little worse for wear. Despite some questionable decisions over the past few days, the crowd was buzzing with positivity; lashings of glitter on everyone’s faces, and The Rev’s Bloody Marys to make everything a little less painful. Easing us into…

Dressed in vibrant yellow, Maribelle enters the room with effortless cool. The young artist has been enjoying recent acclaim off the back of her debut EP Overtake, a record that put her in front of a global publishing deal with Universal earlier this year. Still in her early twenties, Maribelle has already made good headway in charting…

At the age of nine, a young Joe Mungovan would never have imagined that begging his parents for a drum kit for Christmas would pave his way to becoming a musician. Now, the Kiama native has released his latest track ‘Steppin Outta Line’. Having previously shared the stage with acts such as The Preatures, Cosmo…

Do you remember the last time you played an entry in the NBA Live series? Me either. More or less off the radar for about a decade at this point, the series is back in the public eye this year with NBA Live 18, a basketball sim with a clear desire to leave the series’ average reputation behind.

For some character actors the journey enables them to continually keep learning and growing. Ian Bohen began working when he was 16 years old and has worked as an actor fairly consistently throughout his life. His filmography boasts stints in a number of tv series including Mad Men, Chicago P.D. and Breakout Kings but he’s…

Rayman Legends: Definitive Edition for Nintendo Switch, now the eighth system the game has been ported to, may still be a great game and one of the best platformers since the original Rayman titles and those other Nintendo titles with the ex-plumber, but it’s far from the Definitive version.

Project Cars 2 is an interesting experience. While it’s first outing presented players with stiff controls, a lack of car variety and overall depth, Project Cars 2 attempts to rectify these issues, while bringing back the racing simulator into the mainstream. But can it top the likes of Gran Turismo or Forza Motorsport? While the…

Edith Podesta truly writes from all the world’s perspective. The parts of the world that are crying, the parts that are growing, even the parts that are howling. A modest plot that even we feel potentially gives too much away in the blurb seems innocent, heartwarming perhaps. Very David Williamson in design, but not even…

I Just Came To Say Goodbye is more than a farewell to bad relationships, bad childhoods and bad dreams. It’s a stupendous sound off of every emotion you’ve spent, every moment you’d traded off and every secret you’ve denied. Worth the lining up, and the extra red from the La Boite’s house bar, the cacophony…

MANE has continued to flourish – the young singer and songwriter from Adelaide has been catapulted from the local gig circuit on to stages through the UK and Europe this year, solidifying her status as one to watch. We’ve been enjoying MANE’s stuff since the House of Horror EP brought her to wider attention but in her newest…

Australian Music Week will be returning to Cronulla this November for three nights of epic live music throughout the town’s venues – with conferencing and various industry sessions peppered throughout each day, the event will be drawing hundreds upon hundreds down to this corner of NSW for some unmissable opportunities both on stage and off. This…

I don’t gotta dance, I make money move. So goes one of the most belted out lines on a hip hop track this year. Cardi B‘s “Bodak Yellow” quickly emerged as a frontrunner for Hip Hop Earworm of 2017, placing the Bronx native on the radars of industry and hip hop fans in the US and beyond….

Central Coast musician Jacob Borg dives deep into some emotional musical territory the likes of The National have well traversed with his new Berlin Bar Hounds single, “Heights”. Driven by steady percussion that builds alongside a swelling keys and guitar arrangement, “Heights” is presented as a lofty cut of indie rock music, but definitely centres itself and…

Melbourne music fans, take heed. Returning for its 12th year this November, the Age Music Victoria Awards are hitting 170 Russell for their lauded after party, sure to impress. I mean, with the likes of Harvey Sutherland & Bermuda, Gold Class and Cable Ties on board, it can’t fail. Co-presented by RRR 102.7FM and PBS 106.7FM, the official after…

I’ve now played Super Mario Odyssey twice. The first time was at E3 in Los Angeles earlier this year. The second was at Nintendo’s Australian headquarters in Melbourne earlier this week. From these two brief sessions, I can tell you this — I love Super Mario Odyssey so much.

DreamWorks Animation is back with a new film, and what can we say about this little animation company, soon to celebrate a successful 20-year run? They’ve come an exceedingly long way since their first animated feature, Antz, in 1998, a film that felt so forced to catch up with Pixar (who released A Bug’s Life around the…

I thought I was prepared for The Evil Within 2. “Psychological horror,” I thought, “I can do that.” The moment that the first nightmare broke through a mirror and attempted to chainsaw me to death, I realised just how wrong I was. The playthrough started with series protagonist Sebastian Castellanos making his way through an…

XCOM 2 is, at its heart, a game about loss. It’s why save-scumming, the act of loading an earlier save in an effort to avoid catastrophe, is so frowned upon in the game’s community. Losing valuable soldiers isn’t just a part of the game, it fills out the unscripted narrative of your personal XCOM 2 experience….

Dishonored: Death of the Outsider takes former-apprentice assassin Billie Lurk, a character the series has heretofore considered little more than a side-kick, and catapults her into the spotlight as a lead. The final game in the current Dishonored series hands Billie an unenviable task — find and kill the Outsider.

Ahead of Make Nice: Un-conference for Creative Women, which kicks off tomorrow in Sydney, we caught up with the event’s Keynote speaker Ann Friedman, an acclaimed freelance journalist who writes about (among other things) gender, media, technology, and culture. How did you start out as a writer? What were some of your first jobs? I am one…

How can you resist a show named Terror? But don’t be fooled, it’s a quiet terror. It creeps up on you long before you realise its there. But once you see it, what’s most terrifying is asking yourself would you do it? At first, it seemed risky to have a court drama. Many a time…

Paddington’s embodiment of English charm, The Lord Dudley Hotel, is hosting a unique gin and food pairing series with England’s longest serving Gin distilling family, Hayman’s Gin. From 1st to 31st October, the series dubbed the ‘Hayman’s Supper Club’, will invite Sydneysiders to a specially curated experience of gin cocktails expertly paired to English style…

A BIGSOUND heavy hitter this year, Carmouflage Rose is continuing to stride forward in announcing a new tour off the back of his popular hit, “Late Nights”. The song also has a music video too; directed by Kevin Barr, the clip comes soaked in style and neon lights as Carmouflage Rose digs into to those house party vibes. Check…