Australia has always been a keen exporter to foreign markets. From traditional resources like coal, wool and copper, to the non-traditional, like Paul Hogan and wine. But, one thing that Australia’s always been pretty consistent in exporting is quality music. Currently, one of Australia’s biggest exports globally is our psychedelic rock scene. Having gradually risen…

Love Is An Ex-Country is the compelling new memoir from Arab American writer and academic Randa Jarrar. The book (much like its author) is provocative, powerful and utterly unabashed. Presented as a travel memoir, Love is an Ex-Country begins with Jarrar heading on a cross-country road trip, emulating a similar trip taken by celebrated Egyptian…

Friendless is back with another hypnotic dance floor banger, “DRIP”, featuring his long-term collaborator Jannah Beth. This follows on from the bonkers “Lemonade” which was released late in 2020. We are excited to have the exclusive premiere of this track before its release on Friday. From the opening beats, this is a track which sucks you…

Academy Award nominated writer/actor/director Josh Lawson is back behind the camera to follow up his 2014 debut The Little Death with the time-warped romantic comedy Long Story Short.  Ahead of the film’s local release (it’s set for Australian theatres on February 11th), Peter Gray caught up with the star to discuss the film’s origins, the…

There’s no doubt that 2020 was a gruelling year. It was especially tough for our friends in the music industry, but things are finally coming back to normal. Artists are making new music, gigs are back on – and what we’ve all been waiting for, festivals are officially allowed to run once more. The festival…

Passing is the feature-length directorial debut from acclaimed actress Rebecca Hall. She is best known for her astounding performances in Vicky Christina Barcelona, Professor Marston and the Wonder Women and Christine; as well as her appearances in blockbusters like The Prestige and Iron Man 3. Her interest in adapting the source material of the same…

Indie rock continues to be in fine form in Australia, with another band throwing their hats into the ring. Maple Mall are a four piece from the Illawarra region of New South Wales, who have just released their sophomore single “Coastin’”.  It’s very much early days for the lads from Illawarra – they only played…

The long-awaited Mass Effect Legendary Edition will launch on May 14, 2020. Mass Effect Legendary Edition will include content from all three mainline Mass Effect games, remastered and running at 4K60FPS HDR. All three games have received a visual facelift, with “remastered character models and tens of thousands of up-rezzed textures. Improvements to shaders and…

After proving a formidable plot point in last year’s The Trial of the Chicago 7 – however secondary it may have been – the killing of Black Panther chairman Fred Hampton in 1969, at the age of only 21 years, is given the right, timely treatment in Shaka King‘s equally impactful (perhaps even more so)…

The Blazing World is the type of film where the ideas of logic, plot or conventional storytelling need not apply; and that is absolutely fine with the story it is telling. Expanded from a short film of the same name, it is the feature-length directorial debut from established actress turned writer/director Carlson Young. The short…

Adelaide-based indie-rock quartet SEABASS have dropped “Always Kidding”, the title-track off their debut EP. It’s a beautifully emotive song, with warm harmonies, and a comforting nostalgic feel about it.  We’re excited to have the first look at the video for “Always Kidding”, which has a strong visual deftly complementing the tone of the track. The…

Built to work seamlessly across both 4G and 5G networks is the new moto g 5G plus from Motorola. And given how strong their smartphone offerings have been lately, it’s safe to expect big things from such a feature-rich set. Bolstering those blazingly fast speeds you’ve got a quad-camera set-up, led by a 48MP sensor…

The Tasmanian landscape and a whole host of engaging, charming and well drawn characters populate the stories that make up Born Into This, the debut short story collection from Adam Thompson; an emerging Aboriginal (pakana) author from Tasmania.  The collection comprises sixteen stories, often brief, but always impactful. In spite of this brevity, Thompson is…

Starting on a personal note, when I heard about the documentary Try Harder and its premise, I had traumatic flashbacks to my own time as a student. The relentless studying, the overbearing parenting, the exaggerated expectations, the regrettably embarrassing actions; it all came flooding back. That is when I knew that I had to watch…

“You’ve seen live streams before, but not like this,” The Hives lead singer Howlin’ Pelle Almqvist promised early as the Swedish garage rockers tried something a little different with a “Sydney show” last Thursday. The Swedish five-piece had launched a World Wide Web World Tour with six different dates across the globe including Berlin, London,…

After introducing itself as a film that promises there’ll be no sugarcoating its subject matter – the first thing we hear are the audible moans and verbal berating from a pornographic film, and the first thing we see is the extremely graphic imagery of a young girl’s privates in the shower – Ninja Thyberg‘s confronting…

With Nomadland currently doing the rounds and collecting its share of awards in the lead-up to a presumed heft of Oscar nominations, a film like Land being release is curious timing.  It’ll inevitably be compared to Chloe Zhao’s inward masterpiece and, in its own way, it’s something of a more digestible, audience friendly take on…

Domestic travel is on the cusp of a resurgence with states across Australia beginning to relax lockdown measures. International travel? That’s a different story. With many countries around the world struggling in the fight against COVID-19, we’ve been given conflicting information on when international travel will resume to a sense of normalcy anytime soon. Some…

The notion of a biological clock and its exclusivity to women is a road travelled many a time over the course of cinematic history.  Such an idea pertaining to men however is another story entirely, and one that has seldom been explored.  Enter, Together Together. Written and directed by Nicole Beckwith (returning to Sundance 6…

Do you know how it feels to describe a dream? A moment where you are not really sure what you just witnessed and yet you remember seeing certain things and oddly enough, you remember feeling everything about it? That is basically how it feels like watching Mayday, the feature-length directorial debut by writer/director Karen Cinorre….

Knocking follows the story of Molly (Cecilia Milocco), a woman who is returning to the outside world after being discharged from a psychiatric hospital after she was admitted due to her involvement in a past traumatic event. She moves into an apartment complex and is starting to experience things that she has not come into…

It doesn’t take much for director James Ashcroft to create the most horrific of situations from the simplest of ingredients laid bare in the early stages of the eerie Coming Home in the Dark.  A loving family, an idyllic New Zealand locale, and a duo of passing strangers provide all that is needed for Ashcroft’s…

An agonising drama if ever there was one, Mass details the type of conversation that instantly makes you feel sickeningly uncomfortable.  And then to watch it unfold in a suffocating location for 110 minutes is a test of endurance that audiences may be unprepared for. The tragedy at the centre of the conversation is one…

In How It Ends, the joint-directorial effort from Daryl Wein (Lola Versus) and Zoe Lister-Jones (The Craft: Legacy), the question is proposed of what would you do if you knew the world was coming to an end?.  It’s a question that has familiarity to it, but Wein and Lister-Jones have the smarts and wit to…

When a filmmaker decides to venture into the topic of filmmaking as a narrative, their efforts can be fascinating in terms of storytelling. When the horror film Censor had been announced as an entry for Midnight Madness at the 2021 Sundance Film Festival, it was particularly intriguing for a few reasons. Firstly, the topic of…

There really is no way for yours personally to say this in a pithy fashion so it is best to just say it straight. One of my most anticipated films this critic wanted to see was In the Same Breath by director Nanfu Wang, a talented documentary filmmaker whose work in indicting the government workings…

There’s a series of odd interludes dispersed throughout Pascual Sisto‘s unnerving thriller John and the Hole that suggest the story at hand has been passed down over time as something of a fable, one that impressionable young children may construe as a challenge on how they view their own relationship with their supposed elders.  It’s…

For nearly over a century, Freshwater locals and visitors flocked to the iconic Harbord Beach Hotel. Now the venue has been reborn a fresh new look and additional dining experiences, opening doors as Harbord Hotel for one of the biggest openings Sydney will see this year. With an expansive main bar, a sun-soaked terrace and…

After more than five years, Jarryd James is back with his hugely anticipated second album P.M. and it doesn’t disappoint. Bursting on to the scene in 2015 with huge hit single “Do You Remember”, James’ long play builds on that with exquisite R&B tracks full of mood, texture and reflection. Recording P.M. took James some…

With more than 150 TV series, almost 450 movies, and 4 original creations straight outta the gate, Disney+‘s latest expansion is set to double the streaming services offerings from the end of February. Covering more general entertainment than the Disney, Star Wars, and Marvel focused content we’ve seen so far, Star is promising a lot…