Welcome to show 1 of Wide Open Road for 2013. As it is summer (where you are – we have snow and ice and freezing temps here in London) WOR thought it might be fun to throw a few longer specials together to tide you through the long, hot days. The first of these centres on Australian Post-rock.
Post rock is one of those labels that really is either linked directly to specific bands (hello – Mogwai) or is a catch-all carry-all for soft loud dynamics, lots of guitars and simply loud, loud, loud music.
Wide Open Road 2013 Show 1 – summer special – Post rock by Djringfinger on Mixcloud
We start the show with Melbourne’s Art of Fighting, off their ‘Empty Nights’ EP and the last track, ‘Waiting’. The tempo changes and loud/quiet dynamic of this song really make it work for me. Is aw them do this live at Livid (maybe) with a trumpet player. Brilliant.
We move onto Because of Ghosts, another brilliant Melbourne band, who released their Ep ‘Canada’ in 2007 and this track was the lead song. Canadia, a song more aligned with the Godspeed end of the oeuvre is awesome, check out their entire catalogue though and if you can get the originals, the artwork is phenomenal. Next we go across the ditch to New Zealand and Napier’s Jakob. This track is from Subset of Sets and I heard it whilst I was in NZ on holiday in 2002 on NZ music TV in our hotel room. I went straight out and got the record. I love this song.
I found out about Sophie Hutchings like most things these days through the intermernet. This song is tragically beautiful and so incredibly fragile. It is from the ‘Night Sky’ released is 2012 on Preservation Records. Curious fact – her brother is Jamie Hutchings from Bluebottle Kiss. Normally, I am quite dismissive of this guy’s music, but this time, I am really proud. The track is by Ringfinger (yes me peeps) and it’s my first true post-rock song from the Loss project (http://www.fabricationdebruit.com/loss). This is the instrumental version with an amazing violin piece from Hannah Watson from Chicago, IL. The next track is a live Dirty Three piece from the debut album, performed on Triple J. I saw them recently in London and it blew me away, just the sheer power and majesty and crazy-fucked in the head intros of Warren Ellis.
For something new we have sealifepark from my patch, NSW. I really like this band from the early 2000s. Both their EP and albums are awesome. This comes from their debut and is another rocking piece of post-rock. Over to my adopted home state of WA and we have Radarmaker from 2006 with a track from their ‘Aristocracy and the Horse’ EP. Once again, Australia seemed to serve some amazing post-rock influenced by but never copying the prevalent trend.
2011 and a band nominated for a best heavy metal album (?), sleepmakeswaves is from Sydney and this is from their 2011 opus ‘ …and so we destroyed everything’. Camerons Webb’s Seaworthy have been make beautiful, distinctly Australian music for ages now, this is from the 2012 record ‘Bellows and Breath’. Silver Ray are a Melbourne band and this is from their EP Majestic. The track by Melbourne band ‘This is your captain speaking’ is from their 2005 album ‘Storyboard’ Ides of Space were a Sydney band, more often than not produced by Wayne Connelly and this was from the compilation record of their first few EPs called ‘There are no new clouds’. Finally, we have Laura, probably my favourite post rock band from Australia. This is a great track from the ‘Radio Swan is Down’ record. Simply, totally, amazingly superlative.
Art of fighting – Waiting
Because of Ghosts – Canadia
Jakob – Nice day for an earthquake
Sophie Hutchings – By night
Ringfinger – Lies… (instrumental)
Dirty Three – Better go home now (live)
Sealifepark – Panelbeater
Radarmaker – arm v fiery antenna
Sleepmakeswaves Now we rise and we are everywhere
Seaworthy – Bellows Whispered Breath
Silver Ray – Majestic
This your captain speaking – Henry and Maximus
Ides of Space – Switchboard
Laura – Is there no help for this widows son?
