Top Ten Local Bands Of 2009

When it comes to music, we know just about all we could ever possibly want to know when it comes to the likes of P!nk, Justin Timberlake and those “Girls” from the Pussycat Dolls. But let’s face facts – music is about discovery, not force feeding label stars down your throat.

Thankfully WATCH OUT FOR | MUSIC’s Queen of the Local Scene, Lisa Dib, has been getting all Sherlock Holmes on yo’ asses and has tracked down the Ten Best Local Acts she discovered in 2009. Never heard of them – don’t worry, you will – Lisa is rarely wrong when it comes to this kind of thing.

Skye Harbour

Ah, be still my beating pop-rock heart! I discovered Skye Harbour [Read Our Interview with Skye Harbour here] in one of my many long and occasionally fruitless (tear) trawls through MySpace Music. I fell immediately and truly, madly, deeply in love with latest single Further Away, which, for those who haven’t had the pleasure, is a flurry of snappy snares, whirling keys and frontman Josh’s gorgeous, melodious vocals. I honestly haven’t heard a local band that sound this good in a long time: “I must know more”, I thought.

I waited on seat’s edge for their next gig, visiting their MySpace every day for every second I could sup of the sound (until I realised you could download Further Away for free from Triple J Unearthed; foolish Lisa!) and, lo and behold, when the night came, they did not disappoint. Not for a moment was I bored, jaded, distracted- a condition one always wishes for at gigs, but rarely is blessed with.

Since then, I have become…well, I don’t like to use the word ‘obsessed’ but if the obsessive fangirl shoe fits….

Check ‘Em Out on MySpace
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Aluka

Look, I know we’ve only known each other as long as that last paragraph, but I feel like I should be honest with you: I’m not cool. My music taste, though diverse, can be painfully shameful (to others, that is; I happen to have no qualms in admitting, and revelling in, my adoration for Johnny Mathis and Gene Kelly) and can often cause much frustration when it comes to the local music scene. I am a finicky fan, make no mistake. So it was with upmost glee that I happened to stumble upon Aluka, a three-piece female a capella group from Melbourne Town.

Think of a modern Andrews Sisters. Think of silky harmonies and some of the finest female vocal talent one might hope to encounter. Think of beautiful doo-doos and wah-a-heys. The girls were once part of Clare Bowditch’s band, and it is with great luck and serendipity that they have branched out into their own sumptuous project.

Check ‘Em Out on MySpace

Oh, Deanna

I can see this is where my readers will divide, like a Red Sea of discerning pop fans. Oh, Deanna weave adorable indie-pop tunes, some slower (The Lamp Spoke to Me), some jazzier (Lady in the Lake) and some plain genre-melding bites of sunshine (Late Night Shopping). Where I feel the aforementioned partition might arise lies with frontwoman Deanna Rumsaviche’s vocals.

The singer/guitarist/ivories-tinkler has the sort of tiny, Lisa Mitchell-style voice that one often finds in diminutive indie girls. Now, I adore it. But, much like the case of Miss Mitchell, I feel others may find it insipid, milksop, watery. Judge for yourself. I, personally, cannot get enough of the indie pop-cum-ska-cum-classic rock of Late Night Shopping, and find Rumsaviche cute as a button. A really cute button, too; with a puppy on it.

Check ‘Em Out on MySpace

Oliver Clark

If you’re like me, you love a bit of musical comedy. Done right, mind; none of this I’m So Australian doss. Oliver Clark dons the velvet suit and Neil Diamond burr to become the so-bad-it’s-good lounge act in the smoky nightclub of your dreams. His album, Ten Thousand Kisses, is a slew of jazz-pop tracks, decent enough in their own rights to graduate from “musical comedy bits” to “songs”.

Live, Clark is a charming, sideburned, wide-grinned comedy Lothario of infinite talents. Singing! Tap Dancing! Velvet! Awkwardness! For those who like their musical stand-up with a dash of class.

Check  Him Out on MySpace
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Fingertips

Having laid low in ’09 to focus on songwriting and perfecting their indie-pop rock tunage, Adelaide’s Fingertips have already won my attention with the jittery Eat, Move, Stay Alive and promises of greater, exciting sounds to come. Fingertips sees a disciple of the Adelaide indie scene (Shane Shepard, ex-Mad Shapes, Thinktank, Tiger Stripes) team up with lovely radio DJ Claire Knight (Adelaidians might know her from ‘Clarence Does Radio’) to forge an electric power-pop partnership. These may just be the duo to watch out for (pun certainly intended) in 2010.

Check ‘Em Out on MySpace

Tim & Jean

There is the craving to revert to the snub-nosed Cred Police agent that I know I can be; the kind of wanker that wears their musical winnings like a badge of cool authority, as if liking Death Cab ‘before they got commercial’ is some kind of cause célèbre. Tim & Jean are likely to become that sort ‘I liked ‘em before they got big’ band that many fans disown when commercial success is lucky enough to be bestowed upon them.

Their track Come Around has been slotted into the illustrious Triple J playlists and, more notably, they have been allotted to support UK electro act La Roux on their upcoming Aussie tour dates. They’re also gracing most of the summer music festivals and supported American ambassador of ambient Moby earlier this month. Not bad for a two-piece fro WA that many of us might never have heard of. Their aforesaid track Come Around is a delight; Justice-esque vocals (think D.A.N.C.E, at times), those euphoric synths, omnipresent but entirely catching handclaps; just utter danceability.

Bottle it and sell it raves. For anyone heading to the La Roux shows in March, it’s worth getting there early for these guys.

Check ‘Em Out on MySpace

We Grow Up

Scooting past the various indie-folk comparisons (everyone from Mumford & Son to the Decemberists), We Grow Up are a truly accomplished band all on their own. They describe their aspiration as ‘writing pop songs with substance’ and, boy howdy, I think they’ve got it.

The track that made me realise We Grow Up were different from many of the Bright Eyes-photocopy indie groups I have encountered was Celia; a haunting accordion-laced sonnet that showcases the earnest exquisiteness in frontman Jonathan Mortimer’s voice. “Celia went down to the river, in sight of God, in spite of man” he sings, We Grow Up’s lyrics propensity mushrooming in talent with every track on their 2008 second album, Night Kitchen.

Check ‘Em Out on MySpace
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Dirt Child

Don’t worry if skip-hop isn’t your thing; Belle Brooks- aka femcee Dirt Child- is still sure to entertain, perhaps even enlighten. The chick-rap cat that’s “straight outta Mudgee” is taking some of hip-hop’s land back from the posturing, pseudo-macho bling-bling bob-heads that can’t spit a single sentence without some mention of how rich they happen to be, ya’ll, or ‘something something something pussy’ or ‘I smoke lots of weed and drive a big car which validates me as a person’ or, usually, all of the above, plus some rhyme about being crunk, or something.

This may sound like a hateful dirge; no, sir- I’ve no beef with urban music. Long ago, wasn’t rap a kind of street poetry, about being disenfranchised, disconnected, poor? Is this just a cultural stereotype, or has hip-hop turned into a freakish mutation of blasé beats, woefully-written lyricism and always, always, always a g-stringed hoochie for visual effect?

Anyway, I’ve gone down Rant Road, when we should be on Dirt Child Drive: DC shoots out her fair share of somewhat sexist rhymeage, venturing into the crude at times, but manages to outweigh it with crafty song structure and witty, rolls-off-the-tongue verse. “Didn’t need trends to fit or expensive shit/ Offensive pricks got a condescending quip/ When I speak my mind, they all tense a bit/ but fuck censorship, there’s no sense in it/ I cause offence so quick with what I say to ‘em, got a dirtier mouth than A2M”

Check ‘Em Out on MySpace
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The Wayward Fancies

Talk about lar-verly! Sweet country-folk seemingly straight out of O, Brother, Where Art Thou? brought to us by Melbourne duo Alison Ferrier and Julianne Negri. Oh, those pretty violins, papery guitar strings, the Ferrier and Negri’s respective pleasing, simple harmonies. The multi-instrumental melodi-esses utilise all those rustic bluegrass sounds; steel guitar, ukulele, banjos, fiddles…The Fancies take me to a place and time I’ve not been, but miss terribly.

Check ‘Em Out on MySpace

Echo & the Empress

This kind of sweet, plinky-plonky indie-pop would normally infuriate me on my worse days; those black times where one finds more solace in Mudvayne or Placebo (Dig and Haemoglobin, respectively, for me) than this particular vein of piano-based pop. But Skye Walter (guitar, vocals) and Beth Keough (piano, vocals) imbed such richness and diversity in what we assume are pop-folk songlets.

Heartaches, for instance, is beautiful in waves one, at times, cannot measure, whereas To and Fro employs less foreboding keys and more minimalist beats (what sounds like perhaps one drum on its lonesome) while the girls allow subtle cheekiness to flow through their smooth vocals and into our hungry ears.

Check ‘Em Out on MySpace
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