Music

Larry Heath meets Canadian artist Mo Kenney while in Australia to talk about her time down under, which included a performance at Woodford Folk Festival… we learn a bit more about what’s coming next for Mo on her long awaited second album – working with Joel Plaskett – and also find out the artists, like…

The house show of Sydney Festival this year is an incredible production going by the name of LIMBO. The full review will be online shortly, but in the meantime enjoy these photos from opening night at The Spiegeltent. Performances continue nightly (except Mondays) until the close of the festival. Photos by Prudence Upton.

the AU review sits down with two parts of Born Ruffians just before they hit the stage at the Oxford Art Factory in Sydney, on their Falls Festival sideshow. PART ONE: PART TWO:

You often hear an AU contributor rate a gig as a highlight of the year, but by the time the year is over, what still sits on that top 5 list? Well, we asked our contributors just that and from all those responses we bring you the AU’s top thirteen international tours of 2013! Read…

New Years Day 2014, Sydneysiders were treated to an incredible display of rock and roll at The Vic in Enmore. You Am I turned the venue’s car park into a mini-festival to show their appreciation for the local locals. The lo-fi gig lived in the band’s pub rock tradition and saw The Mountains, The Love…

Following years of successful cabaret “house shows” at the Sydney Festival’s Famous Spiegeltent, it should come of little surprise that this year’s production LIMBO is set to follow in the footsteps of critical and box office smashes like Cantina and Smoke & Mirrors. Well, we certainly can’t predict a sell out season, but we can…

We’re weeks away from experiencing the wonder that is Soundwave Festival around Australia, and one of the local bands to be a part of the bill are Melbourne’s Deez Nuts. Philippe caught up with the band to talk about the festival, their latest album and more… There were a lot of guest spots that appeared…

In the now classic song* by Sydney band The Beards, it’s exclaimed “There’s Nothing Better Than Having a Beard”. What Canadian troubadour Ben Caplan proved in his Sydney Festival opening set, accompanied by his band The Casual Smokers, is that a) this is true and b) it’s even better when that beard can play some…

Larry Heath sits down with Austin Jenkins and James Petralli of Austin Texas band White Denim during their first ever Australian tour in January 2014, not long before they hit the stage in Sydney, supporting Hanni El Khatib, in a Falls Festival sideshow.

Vampire Weekend played the Hordern Pavilion on Wednesday night. Gwendolyn Lee was there and brings us these photos.

With the main summer festival season just kicking off around the country once again, we are bringing you our top 5 favourite Australian festivals of the last year, as voted for by our contributors. Though the list is dominated by the larger national touring festivals, a number of the local state specific festivals racked up…

the AU review presents Canadian artist Mo Kenney performing the track “The Happy Song” LIVE, exclusive and acoustic on the AU sessions. Filmed in Sydney, Australia at AU HQ on 8th January 2014. Mo Kenney is currently touring Australia with the following dates remaining: Thursday 9th January at The Basement, Sydney Friday 10th January at…

Canyons are willing to get up, about and all crazy in a live setting most of the time (as are most bands on the Modular label), but the last year has seen a different type of performance from them as a group. Throughout this year, the outfit has performed 100 Million Nights – a slightly…

From mirrors in the streets, to bullets in your teeth, Sydney Festival will have it all when it kicks off this Thursday night. But let’s face it – there’s just too much to choose from! So to help, we’ve listed 14 performances and attractions you can’t miss at Sydney Festival 2014! LIMBO January 8th to…

After some 115 shows around the world, including an impressive (and slightly humbling – we’re rarely so spoilt) two stops in Australia, Brooklyn group Grizzly Bear have brought their Shields tour to an end with a spectacular two hour set at the Sydney Opera House. The crowd lapped up every minute of the set, which…

Not long before he released his new record, Don’t Tell the Driver (available now), I caught up with Mick Turner, best known for his work as part of Dirty Three to talk about his music, his art, touring with Bill Callahan and much more… Mick will be playing Sydney Festival on January 23rd. You’re a…

With a big night before in check, Field Day offered enough dance music to keep the celebrators happy while offering a few more chilled out options for those still recovering from New Year’s Eve. Its size, slightly smaller than a regular festival, meant that it was easier to get around and criss-cross genres throughout the…

Tomorrow will see the release of Dublin based singer/songwriter James Vincent McMorrow‘s much anticipated record Post Tropical – the follow up to the highly acclaimed Early In The Morning. He’s currently in Australia to kick off his tour for the record, playing Falls Festival, Southbound and sideshows in Sydney and Melbourne next week. Just before…

Earlier this month, Larry caught up with Lee Ranaldo from the iconic group Sonic Youth, who will return to Australia next month for the local premiere of his new work Hurricane Transcriptions (Last Night on Earth) exclusively at the Sydney Festival. We talk about the composition, his recent work with his band The Dust and…

He’ll be representing Aussie Hip Hop in a big way at next month’s Big Day Out festival, so we took some time out to chat to the man known as Pez to talk about the BDO, his recent appearance at the Queenscliff Festival and much more… read on! How did your performance at the Queenscliff…

As we all celebrate the holiday season, there are bundles of must see attractions to keep families busy around the country. One such destination is the Museum of Contemporary Art’s exhibition Yoko Ono: War is Over (If You Want It). It’s as much as look back at her life in work as it is a…

Pond has built themselves a reputation as one of Australia’s top live acts, and it’s not hard to see why, delivering a whole lot of noise on par with the depth of the album recordings. Support band Doctopus did a good job of warming up the crowd – with plenty of electric guitar, stage banter…

It’s time to enter the top twenty of our favourite tracks of 2013, as voted exclusively by the writers and photographers at the AU review. So strap yourself in, there is some damn fine music enclosed… 20. Jagwar Ma – Come Save Me 19. Savages – She Will Pete Dovgan: A post punk classic. Intense…

The time has come for us to reveal out top ten songs of the year… here we go! 10. Daft Punk & Pharrell Williams – Lose Yourself to Dance Chris Singh: The dream-team that began with ‘Get Lucky’ get even more rhythmic on ‘Lose Yourself to Dance,’ ending up with the funkiest modern disco jam…

Earlier today I caught up with Adrian Fitipaldes from Sydney five piece Northlane to talk about their massive year, their plans for 2014 – new music, Big Day Out and a world tour – and I find out what his favourite record of 2013 was. Listen on! The full list of announced Northlane dates for…

As we all start to look towards a week – maybe even two or more away from the office – it’s that time of year when many of us hit the road with our friends and families and get away from anything that reminds us of work. We head to the beaches, we head to…

We start the next batch of our top 40 tracks of 2013 with the band that won out the album of the year, LA trio Haim. If you want to see what kicked off the top 40 yesterday, you can have a look back at the first set of tracks HERE. 30. Haim – If…

Yesterday we brought an end to our top 40 albums countdown, and now it’s time for our top 40 tracks of the year! As with the albums, this list is voted on exclusively by the AU contributors, and the track simply must have been released on an album (or as a single) in 2013! So…