Year: 2025

Located just two hours south of Toronto, Canada, where the Buffalo River meets Lake Erie, Buffalo, New York is a city with one of the most fascinating histories in North America. It’s a place that has seen its share of turbulence. In the early 1900s, it was the 9th most populous city in the USA….

The surreal and genre bending Fantastic Film Festival Australia (FFFA) is back with an extremely exciting lineup. For the lovers of indie, alternative, arthouse, cult, visually bizarre, and outright weird (in the best way possible) films, FFFA brings to audiences the films that challenge the traditional tropes of cinema, putting unconventional and unusual to the…

Xani Kolac is a violinist, composer, and improviser with a seemingly endless list of ideas and directions for her work. With a focus on contemporary compositions, Xani is prolific and dynamic in her output. 2025 is proving to be a milestone year for Xani. She will be releasing two albums, a live improvised recording from…

The Handmaid’s Tale has always meant different things to different people; a cautionary tale, a grim prophecy, or a dramatised echo of historical truths. Over its run it’s drawn praise and criticism in equal measure, and now, as it enters its final season, it faces the daunting task of delivering a satisfying conclusion, while also…

With legacy sequels working in the favour of classic horror titles like Halloween and Scream, it only makes sense that another staple of the slasher genre gets its due, with the 1997 teen chiller I Know What You Did Last Summer getting a 2025 revisit; and if Jamie Lee Curtis and Neve Campbell can face…

Mercury Prize-winning UK outfit Ezra Collective are returning to Australia this May and June for three headline shows – and whilst Melbourne is already sold out, you can still snap up tickets in Sydney and Brisbane. Following a huge night at the BRIT Awards, where they made history as the first jazz act to perform…

By any measure, Bluesfest 2025 was a resounding success. Last year, there was an announcement that this could be the final year of the North Byron Bay event. However, the community rallied to support it, with over 110,00 people attending this year over four days. By the last day, it was announced that tickets were…

Geelong-based singer/songwriter FARAH has taken an incredibly challenging and life-changing event as the genesis for her powerful and moving debut single, “Gasoline”. Written in the wake of her cancer diagnosis and dealing with the related trauma, it explores grief, identity, and the slow process of becoming, and we are honoured to be premiering it ahead…

Ocean Colour Scene have been on a mammoth tour of the UK since late March. Supporting them has been Kula Shaker, and performed  in Liverpool last night. The last time I saw both bands on the same bill was at Glastonbury in 1997. It was worth the wait! It was a packed room at Mountford…

Saturday’s Bluesfest hosted a glorious sunny day for the sold out crowd. Thanks to the overwhelming support of this year’s event, it was announced that Bluesfest will continue into 2026, with specially discounted pre-early bird tickets available for sale at the festival. The overall mood is one of celebration of community, with a couple of…

I love a good road trip! There’s plenty to enjoy out of Sydney, too, and when I was given an opportunity to test drive the new Jaecoo J7 SUV, it seemed like a great opportunity to find a windy road through Australia’s natural beauty to make the most of the experience. I’ll talk more about…

Dope Lemon is set to return home for a run of shows in Australia and New Zealand through winter 2025. Laidback vocals and effortless grooves litter the catalogue of Angus Stone spin-off project Dope Lemon. Like disco just emerged from a Jamaican Dutch oven and found folk swinging from the palm leaves. If you’ve been…

I slowly open my sleepy eyes, and the first thing I see is a tilted mirror above me reflecting the soft rhythm of the ocean’s waves. I sit up in my gold-framed king-sized bed, mesmerised by the breathtaking view of the Indian Ocean unfolding through floor-to-ceiling windows. I can’t help but wonder if I’ve ever…

One thing that you can’t control is the weather. With recent heavy rains in northern NSW, many were worried that this year would be another muddy Bluesfest. However, the weather has been glorious for the last week, including the Easter long weekend. With gravel being laid to ensure no muddy patches, festival goers this year…

It Feeds follows the harrowing story of a young girl who insists that a malevolent entity is feeding on her. Ashley Greene (Twilight) stars as a clairvoyant therapist who must confront her own past traumas to save the girl before it’s too late, with Shawn Ashmore (X-Men) as the anguished father desperately fighting to protect his daughter…

This year could possibly be the final Bluesfest, but based on the overwhelming support for the Byron Bay festival makes it feel that next year’s event is possible. On opening day, three stages were in operation. Sydney band Velvet Trip opened the Crossroads stage with a psych infused indie rock set that had the crowd…

Happy Easter from all of us at the AU. We’re bringing the good vibes into the long weekend with ten more freshly released tracks added to our Discovery playlist on Spotify and Apple Music. This week returning New Zealand alt-pop band Yumi Zouma take home our Track of the Week with their new single “Bashville…

Though there’s usually always a sense of unflinching violence that laces the filmic work of director Justin Kurzel (Snowtown, Nitram, The Order), his debut detour into episodic television, The Narrow Road to the Deep North, is considerably more blunt in its brutality.  Perhaps because the prose at the series’ center – Richard Flanagan‘s winning novel…

Based on Richard Flanagan’s acclaimed 2013 novel, The Narrow Road to the Deep North is a savagely beautiful five-part series charting the life of Dorrigo Evans (played by Jacob Elordi as a young man and Ciarán Hinds as the older iteration), through his passionate love affair with his uncle’s wife (Odessa Young), his time held…

The type of show where the melodrama is ripe, the ranch settings are lush and the aesthetically pleasing cast go by such names as Yancy and Staten, Ransom Canyon has the right temperament to be the next easily digestible Netflix streaming obsession.  The type of generic show people put on to not pay attention to,…

Tom Morello – lead guitarist from the legendary bands Rage Against The Machine, Audioslave and Prophets of Rage – delivered a raw energy master class at Sydney’s Enmore Theatre last night. Morello is widely regarded as one of the most innovative and influential guitarists of the modern era, blending heavy metal, punk rock, funk, and…

Going into last weekend’s Coachella (the first of its two planned weekend events), it seemed that Lady Gaga was inevitably going to steal all the expected focus.  And, certainly, the Grammy-winner did the most, with a near-20 song set that largely celebrated her new album (Mayhem), but served as a memory lane stroll for her…

Scary Kids Scaring Kids have just announced a Aussie tour set for later this year, and they’ll be bringing fellow post-hardcore outfit A Skylit Drive along for the ride. During the 2009 Warped Tour, lead singer Tyler Stevens took some time away, with genre legends including Vic Fuentes (Pierce the Veil) and Craig Mabbit (Escape…

The Superjesus burst onto the Australian rock scene in the late 90s, fronted by the powerhouse vocals and captivating stage presence of Sarah McLeod. Debut EP, Eight Step Rail, quickly gained traction, followed by the critically acclaimed debut album Sumo, cementing their place as a force to be reckoned with. Known for their blend of…

The War of the Roses, a 1989 satirical black comedy from Danny DeVito which starred Michael Douglas and Kathleen Turner as a warring married couple and the bitter, fatal divorce that followed, never seemed like the most obvious choice to garner a remake.  But here we are, over three decades later, with Benedict Cumberbatch and…

As much as Warfare is detailing a true story during the events of the Iraq War in 2006, Ray Mendoza and Alex Garland‘s panic-attack of a movie goes beyond merely being “based on true events.”  Instead, it’s noting itself as a film based on “the memory of the people who lived it.” With that, the…

The country renaissance isn’t over just yet! After teasing a collaboration with their emotion-laden single Sylvia, Torres (the musical project of Mackenzie Scott) and Julien Baker’s album Send a Prayer My Way marks their soulful entry into the genre. The 12 track album traverses downtown bars and the wide open road as the pair croon…

Indiana Jones and the Great Circle was released on the Xbox Series X and Series S late last year and was pretty much one of the best games of 2024. It might have taken a few extra months, but the experience is now finally available for PlayStation 5 owners, with some fancy new visual upgrades…

Australian alt-rock legends You Am I are currently mid-way on their national Hi Fi Daily Double Down tour, celebrating thirty years since the release of their ARIA award-winning album Hi Fi Way. On this tour, they are performing in full Hi Fi Way, and the follow-up, Hourly, Daily, which received six ARIA awards.  Hi Fi…

Harley Luscombe is a Melbourne-based singer-songwriter who is very much in the early days of his solo career. With just two releases under his belt so far, we are super pumped to be premiering his latest single, “Lose My Soul”, ahead of its release on Friday. Harley has a voice that is rich, earthy and…