After One Crowded Hour topped last year’s Hottest 100 chart amid a spate of awards, Augie March’s status in Australia was catapulted above all expectations. The band’s hometown performance at the Forum on Thursday night was testament to this as fans packed the theatre’s grand halls for a special Live at the Wireless session for Triple J.

They were a little bit of everything, the crowd – some were clearly drawn by the novelty of give-away tickets, while others were eager for a sneak-peak at the upcoming fourth album, Watch me Disappear.

As the band launched into the set, it became clear they were under-practiced – front man Glenn Richards confirmed it had been six months since their last show. But the rawness of the material didn’t detract from the gig.

The album’s title track, Watch Me Disappear, began threateningly, building quickly towards a chorus that bordered on stadium rock. Pennywhistle‘s playful instrumentals made you smile, conjuring images of the Australian landscape, while The Slant overflowed with sorrow, underlined by Richards’ aching vocals.

Farmer’s Son reminds you of the plight of young farmers in today’s drought stricken rural areas and City of Rescue, with its fast paced a-little-bit-country snare brushing, makes you forget again. Most of the songs were themed around life in Australia, and Richards’ voice really gelled them into something special. It was a strong, poetic mix of rock, country and folk.

Richards and drummer David Williams were captivating in the sometimes lengthy changeovers between songs, whilst guest guitarist Dan Kelly tried his hardest to stay out of the limelight. The charming on stage banter made you feel as if you were watching a few mates roll off some tunes at your local.

As the band led the audience through the new album, the overall impression was cohesion. This is a release without an obvious hit, but it speaks with meaning and will deservedly be enjoyed by many more now that One Crowded Hour has brought broad attention to Richards’ skillful song writing.

It was a chilled out show, without excessive showmanship. No one really let loose, needing rather to focus getting the music right. It was also lot less polished than their studio work. A couple of false starts and a retake perhaps wasn’t the best way to show off the new album, but the crowd enjoyed what was on offer and mirrored the relaxed attitude of the band from the comfort of the theatre’s seating.

Luke Steele
The Toff in Town
August 5, 2008

The Sleepy Jackson are among the most revered alt-pop talents in Australia, so naturally when I heard that Luke Steele – the creative force behind the band – was coming to Melbourne as part of his first ever solo tour, I bought tickets with great anticipation.

Not much had been said about the direction The Sleepy Jackson would take after the band’s 2006 release Personality: One Was a Spider. One Was a Bird. But it was announced earlier this year that Steele would be pushing the band aside for some album collaborations with PNAU and Daniel Johns. These are exciting prospects, but Tuesday night’s performance was more of a retrospective than a groundbreaking insight into what the future holds.

What was most enticing about the gig was the promise of hearing Steele’s music boiled down to just an acoustic guitar and vocals. It was an exercise in making the complex simple; an intimate, unembellished affair.

You Are So Cold, Miles Away and Acid in My Heart worked perfectly in the minimalist performance. But it was the previously production-heavy tracks such as Good Dancers and Rain Falls For Wind that transferred across with the most style. Adjusting these songs as required, Steele managed to intertwine them with the melodies of the more acoustically suited tracks to create some impressive, seamless medleys.

Hearing tracks that are distinct in their recorded state become almost one and same gives you an insight to what Steele and The Sleepy Jackson do in the studio. Behind the group’s swirling vocal harmonies and string accompaniments sit some wonderfully simple songs.

On stage, these accoustic versions played out beautifully and propelled Steele’s vocals to the fore. From bass through to soprano, he pulled it off.

As expected, there was an eccentric side lurking beneath surface of Steel’s performance. Looping together some improv drum beats and guitar snippets, the music ventured from time to time towards the avant-garde, complemented by tales about marriage and children.

Then, after a relaxed hour of songs, with a few newbies thrown in, the audience was set adrift with a whimsical encore of What a Wonderful World.

There’s no great history of traditional, mainstream genre films in Australia. For the brave few who do try, there will always be comparisons to the Hollywood movies that came before. John Hewitt’s thriller Acolytes will probably suffer the same fate, but, comparisons aside, the film does exactly what you would hope a thriller would do – it frightens.

Partly inspired by the crimes of Western Australian serial killers David and Catherine Birnie, the film follows the lives of James, Mark and Chasley, three teenagers living in the outer fringe of Brisbane suburbia. It’s a fearful setting that juxtaposes the apparent safety of a well-manicured neighborhood with the haunting remoteness of a local pine plantation.

Afflicted by years of suffering at the hands of local bully Gary Parker, Mark and James happen upon an unlikely opportunity for vengeance. Discovering the body of a Canadian backpacker and eventually the identity of the killer, the pair begin to flirt with the idea that the killer’s fate is now in their hands. James convinces Mark and Chasley that the power they now hold can be used to blackmail the killer into ‘dealing’ with their bully.

But the tides quickly turn, seeing James, Mark and Chasley lured into the violent world of serial killer, Ian Wright.

Acolytes is a film that rigorously follows the formula of its genre; it’s fast paced, low on dialogue and has enough suspense to run your adrenal glands dry. The element of fear is unrelenting throughout the film, achieved through the scattering of sudden, blurry flashbacks, and a chilling soundtrack that leaves you skeptical of even the most visually tranquil scenes.

But the scare tactics also run deeper. Joel Edgeton is truly frightening as Wright – his calm and confident approach to his circumstances in the film helps build a character whose morose activity is clearly an obsession feeding off a desire for perfection.

Michael Dorman, Sebastian Gregory and Hannah Mangan-Lawrence also deliver strong debut performances as the three teens, in a film where believable emotion is vital to the story’s suspense and ultimate success.

There is a plot strong enough to keep you interested during the mellow moments of the film – not that there are many – but in the end Acolytes is a teen-thriller. It’s there to scare, without making you think too much.

For that reason Acolytes will never receive the acclaim of something hard-hitting like The Jammed, nor will it have the hype of Wolf Creek. But it does stand on its own as a piece that cements some credibility in Australian genre-films.

Click here for Laneway’s full coverage of the Melbourne International Film Festival.

On the eve of the release of their sophomore album Thieves, British India delivered a burly performance in the gloomy and modest confines of Richmond’s Corner Hotel.

In front of a mixed crowd of punters, the four Melbourne boys punctually and quietly took to the stage. It wasn’t a huge audience, but with three Melbourne shows in as many nights it was nothing to be disappointed about.

And so the set began: Kicking off with a couple of strong tracks from their new album, the band indicated their intentions to stick with the musical formula that worked so well for them in 2007. The songs – This Dance Is Loaded and God Is Dead, Meet the Kids – were given a somewhat muted response, expected from a crowd hearing something fresh and undiscovered.

It was the familiar territory of Teenage Mother that set the tone for the rest of the night and when it was promptly followed by the current single I Said I’m Sorry, there was no going back. The gentle sway that curiously followed the music early on gave way to frenzied dancing and some very entertaining crowd surfing.

On a whole it was their older material that rose above the new songs. The new stuff just seemed to get a bit lost between the hits everyone was waiting for. Last year’s breakthrough singles Tie Up My Hands and Run the Red Light were definitely the highlight of the show, providing the impetus for spouts of unruly moshing and hearty sing-a-longs from the crowd.

Dedications to Bob Dylan, Bill Henson and anyone who took less than 15 minutes to get to the gig left me pondering the meaning of a few of the songs, but such was the nature of the music that it didn’t really matter what it’s message was; it’s all about the energy it instills in you.

Although fundamentally the band never really diverged from the album versions of their songs, there was something vastly different about seeing them live. The clean sounds of their studio work made way for the thrashing sounds of distorted guitars interspersed with some screeching lead work. It felt rough around the edges and ended up feeling decidedly more punk than pop. Not a bad set at all.

Tin Alley
Polar Bear

Melbourne trio Tin Alley’s single Polar Bear kicks off with a killer riff that leaves you anticipating something in the realm of The Exploders’ fast and punchy My Country Brain. Instead, it drops off into a verse bereft of any of the grunt its intro so emphatically promises.

It sounds empty: lackluster vocals, bass devoid of melody, and scattered with frustrating reminders of a riff that really should have been carried all the way through this song. It’s certainly in keeping with the band’s self described “stripped down indie rock” style, but the track doesn’t come together in a way that keeps you interested – even during it’s more fluid and audibly richer second half.

Nonetheless I reckon it’s going to take a while to get that opening riff out my head.

Make up your own mind – check the track out here.

Martin Koszolko, the polish-born force behind the outfit, has an undeniably approachable feel about him. Sophisticated in his attire, yet easygoing in his approach to life, he is instantly congenial to conversation. From behind his wire-framed glasses he speaks with the wisdom and insight of someone twice his age. It could be the refined polish accent, but there’s a sense that whenever he speaks, it’s probably going to be worth listening to.

“The perfect music for me is a song that uses as many different influences as possible, and has as much versatility as possible,” says an introspective Koszolko, from a basement cafe in RMIT University.

“I know some people are just into one genre and they like to approach things from a purist’s perspective, but if you love many styles I think it’s natural to include elements of all of them in your music,” he says.

Koszolko has come a long way since his days of studying philosophy in Poland. It was there that the origins of Koshowko emerged from an interest in the music production capabilities that a couple of his friends were demonstrating with their cheap PCs.

“I just thought wow! You can do it all yourself. I just wanted to do exactly the same,” he says.

“There was a lot of disappointment at first,” recalls Koszolko, regarding his initial experiments with electronic music production. “The computers were slow and the software was not powerful enough, which meant I couldn’t achieve what I first thought I could.”

“But now I can do everything with my computer.”

It shows. Koshowko shifts seamlessly from 80s style synth-driven pop, to soulfully sung dub with plenty in between. These sounds are achieved through sleek production that brings an assortment of diverse musical influences to each song. It all comes together to give a strong sense that Koszolko could pull off any sound he directs his efforts towards.

It probably has something to do with the fact that he chose to study sound engineering after balking at the prospect of furthering his philosophy degree.

“Everybody who is studying philosophy has got to realise you are going to become an academic… and I just wasn’t ready to commit to a PhD. Maybe when I’m forty I’ll go back,” says a pensive Koszolko, clearly relieved to have pursued a life away from twenty thousand word theses.

And that’s how he ended up in Melbourne. Sound engineering got him involved with media and that landed him in a position with RMIT University in the applied communications department.

For Martin, Melbourne quickly provided him with opportunities to collaborate with the city’s abundance of musical talent. It wasn’t long before he was tentatively accepting an invitation to perform at Fitzroy’s First Floor. The result, after what he calls a period of nervous over-preparation, was a stunning debut that marked the beginning of the Koshowko live act.

“It was just so great to get the good feedback,” Koszolko says of the experience. “It’s always important for people to understand what you are doing and I just loved the aspect of real people and real interaction”

That was five years ago. Only a year after he had migrated from Poland. “Back then it was much more experimental and down tempo. It was me with a few synths and my computer.”

These days Koshowko is a three (sometimes four) piece, that incorporates woodwind and an array of vocal stylings into its act. The ever-changing line-up allows for an impulsive live act that is never the same. But local gigs can be hit and miss.

“Melbourne has such an unpredictable variety of music venues. Particular streets will have their own audience, yet you can never be sure that an individual venue will turn out the way you expect.”

“Only last October we had a full house for our EP launch… yet a few days later we performed at the much more widely promoted Electrunda festival in front of almost nobody.”

“We like playing in Fitzroy the best because we know it is more accepting of music. There’s something always on. Outside of Fitzroy it becomes harder to find things to do musically. ”

For now Koshowko is concentrating on the re-release of its Anarchy Monarchy EP. The initial release was stalled due to a spur of the moment mini-tour of Germany in November last year.

Thematically, Anarchy Monarchy draws upon Martin’s philosophical background but also touches on the familiar topics of love and relationships.

“The lyrics vary from something very emotional and basic to something very ironic and complex,” says Koszolko. “My music is written in a way that is not an order, but as food for thought”

“When I was 18 I thought I had the answers to save the world. Now I realise that sometimes I don’t have the answers for even my own life. So I think the last thing I would like to do with lyrics is preach. But of course you have your own approach to life so you want to write what’s close to your heart.”

Looking to the future, there’s a lot a collaboration and remixing work in the pipeline for Koszolko. He is also releasing a cover on the upcoming Severed Heads tribute album. But for Koshowko it could be another EP.

“I think for a band like us who are just taking off, channelling your work into an album will technically take over a year to create, and people will lose interest in you. But EPs can provide your audience with a constant supply of fresh work… Hopefully we can keep ours interested.”

For more info visit the Koshowko website. Anarchy Monarchy is out through iTunes.