Fucking hell. Have you seen the first round (!!) line up for the Australian leg of Modular’s Nevereverland party?

Klaxons
Hercules & Love Affair
Van She
Ladyhawke
The Presets
Cut Copy
Whitest Boy Alive
The Bumblebeez
Muscles
Tame Impala
The Bang Gang Deejays
AJAX
The Lost Valentinos
Mission Control
Temper Trap
Canyons
Pepperoni
Andee Van Damage 

And again; Fucking hell. Is that probably the best line-up for a festival all year? How am I going to cope with so many of my favourite artists playing on the one bill? Seeing as she’s signed to Modular in Australia, will Robyn be a last minute addition? Could someone please make the latter happen?

Whilst I’m on the topic of all things Modular, some interesting news on Muscles has cropped up this weekend. He’s ditching his MySpazz account and urging fans to sign up to his official newsletter should they want updates on what’s going on with his new single and album project. Go to his bit on teh interwebs and sign up to “Muscles Mail” to stay in the loop.

When are Girls Aloud going to be signed to Modular?

THE BANG GANG DEEJAYS
D Is For Disco, E Is For Dancing
(MODULAR) A+

That is the cover art for the new Bang Gang Deejays compilation/disco/mixtape CD, titled D Is For Disco, E Is For Dancing (ho ho ho!) Someone drew that you know. Someone drew it with one of those pencil things (ask your parents) and spent a considerable amount of time on it. It shows because the imagery is very, very good. It really does make it all the more upsetting that someone probably spent the same amount of time in front of Photoshop coming up with this particular visionary masterpiece which was unveiled this week. And by ‘visionary masterpiece’, I obviously mean ‘absolute crock of shit’.

But back to the Bang Gang double-disc set.

Never has there been a more appropriate time to cry “Poppers O’Clock” at a CD then now, and with this very disc. D Is For Disco, (ademwithan)E Is For Dancing is a compilation which not only throws itself into your ears as a solid party record, it’s also a fine example of what a lot of “the youth” around Australia are taking a lot of drugs to dancing their little hearts out to in those discotheque’s week in, week out. There’s even some pop music on there (hello M.I.A, The Presets, Cut Copy, The Tough Alliance, Late Of The Pier, et cetera,) but it’s probably best not to tell the kiddies about that.

The CD also plays as the launching pad of the new Bag Raiders remix of Cut Copy’s next single from In Ghost Colours, “Far Away”, which is all sorts of delicious. Plus, it has the Crookers Remix of that “Day ‘N’ Nite” song I once saw someone cut their foot open on a wine glass to.

The Bang Gang Deejays comprise of six of Australia’s best, er, Deejays, and this is their second CD release after last years equally as impressive Light Sound Dance (LSD, FYI, would you look at that), whose only downside as a compilation was its inclusion of a Wolfmother “track”. THANK GOD THERE’S NONE OF THAT POPPYCOCK ON HERE THEN.

I’m having a chat down the blower with one of the Bangers, Jaime Doom in the next few days, so expect that up on the site next week some time. Visual aid of Doom here; hanging out with Kylie’s back-up dancers in someone’s garden, no doubt.

All in all, this is a pretty strong snapshot of what I’ve been listening to over the last 8 months or so when I feel like sniffing some poppers dancing around the lounge, or when I’m getting ready (read: looking for a Van She t-shirt, then slapping it on) to dance in nightclubs with people half my age. You’ll obviously like it too if you’re much of the same.

No remix of Girls Aloud’s “The Promise” on here though. Bit of a pity, I’m not going to lie.

You can view the full, wondrous 2 disc tracklisting here.

Banggangofficial | Upcoming Tour Info

Cut Copy have pulled their fingers out of their laptops and finally made a video clip for their single “Hearts On Fire,” which is one of the greatest Australian singles of our time and also a song with the single greatest use of a saxophone in the last 20 years.

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Incredible. It’s the kind of clip you’d assume the ever-moist Janet Jackson would fantasize about, isn’t it?

I’ll be catching these guys live next month and to coincide with said event, I’ll be speaking to Tim from Cut Copy down the blower. Will keep you posted. In the meantime, just in case you missed my chat with Jules from The Presets, clicky clicky…

CUT COPY
In Ghost Colours
(MODULAR)  A+

If you were somewhat underwhelmed by Cut Copy’s ace 2004 album “Bright Like Neon Love,” then there’s every chance that their sophomore effort contains that little something you may have thought was missing the first time around. Four years later (almost to the date!) since their now iconic debut record was released, Melbourne’s favourite indie-electro kids have truly trumped any connotations thrown at them of possibly being one-trick ponies. “In Ghost Colours” is a much more enjoyable, mature, delightful, melody-filled record than anything we’ve heard from the trio before, and boasts a refreshing slab of delicious electronic cuts, whilst containing more truly pop-infused tracks than they’ve ever attempted before.

“Feel The Love” lustfully opens the record with harmonious strums of the guitar and celebratory oooh oooh’s, which are immediately followed by a remarkably joyous chorus and sharp use of the vocoder. “Out There On The Ice” merges quite nicely into current single “Lights & Music,” which is fabulous but isn’t even this albums best moment. “Unforgettable Season” conjures up images of The Strokes or The Teenagers and, alongside previous single “So Haunted” (also included on the new album,) is Cut Copy’s most truly brilliant and convincingly Indie moment in their discography.

The long players most defining moments spawn itself over three tracks; the interlude “Voice In Quartz,” sliding into the truly mesmerizing first single “Hearts On Fire” (which contains the greatest use of a Saxaphone since any-given-scene in an 80’s Rob Lowe movie,) and the pulsatingly catchy “Far Away,” which carries the bands finest and poppiest chorus to date.

“In Ghost Colours” is the finished product of years of fine tuning, clever production, intensely astute writing and memorable lyrics. And all that hard work and effort shows; this is the years first sign of true album perfection. Van She; you are officially being given a run for your money..

As the Summer (or winter, depending on where you are geographically) season draws to a close, we inch closer and closer into the third month of 2008; it’s already going by so quickly.  It feels like just yesterday I was seeing in the New Year when in actual fact it was 55 days ago… oi vey!

I haven’t really popped up any sort of list containing the songs that have, thus far in, tickled my musical fancy, so I thought now was as good a time as ever.  In chart form, here are the 10 best songs 2008 – whether they be singles or album tracks – has brought us so far.

01.       Van She – Strangers
02.       Van She – Changes
03.       Axle Whitehead – I Don’t Do Surprises
04.       Róisín Murphy – You Know Me Better
05.       Pigeon Detectives – I’m Not Sorry
06.       Cut Copy – Lights & Music
07.       Ashlee Simpson – Outta My Head (Ay Ya Ya)
08.       Sam Sparro – Black & Gold
09.       Goldfrapp – Caravan Girl
10.       Duffy – Rockferry 

I cannot wait for people to hear Van She’s “Strangers” because it is so sublime.  The synths during the chorus are magnetic and fierce.  “Changes” is just as ace and is also single material (and now that I’ve realised how similar the words “strangers” and “changes” sound when said over the phone, I’m back to being unsure as to which of the two songs are going to be the NEXT Van She single. Boo!) – sounded exxxxcellent live on the weekend and the boys told me it was their favourite track from the new record.

Axle’s debut “I Don’t Do Surprises” still impresses me, as does the man himself.  I spoke to him on Friday afternoon and the interview will be online later this week; went really well and he was incredibly charming.  Miss Murphy’s “You Know Me Better” somehow manages to become a stronger song the more I listen to it; and I already loved it immensely.  I’m aware that the Pigeon Detectives song in my list was released in 2006 and then again last year, but I’ve only just discovered the guys in the last 2 months and that song is so brilliant, I just couldn’t leave it off.

Cut Copy’s new single is a delicious taste of what’s to come from their hotly anticipated sophomore album, and Ashlee Simpson’s bonkers “Outta My Head (Ay Ya Ya)” sounds like a stripped down homage to Madonna’s “Burning Up.”  I love it!  Both Sam Sparro’s “Black & Gold” and Duffy’s “Rockferry” were introduced to me by the lovely xolondon, who has just written a stellar review of the new Goldfrapp album, which the track “Caravan Girl” comes from.

Anyway, what are your favourite tracks of the year so far?

Here are numbers 11 – 20…

11.       Goldfrapp – A&E
12.       Van She – Talkin’
13.       Girls Aloud – Can’t Speak French (Jeremy Wheatley Radio Edit)
14.       Kylie Minogue – Carried Away
15.       Courtney Love – Never Go Hungry Again
16.       Duffy – Mercy
17.       Courtney Love – Happy Ending Story
18.       Lykke Li – Little Bit
19.       Utah Saints – Something Good ‘08 (Van She Radio Edit)
20.       Rihanna & Klaxons – Umbrella (Live @ The BRIT Awards)

2008 is shaping up to be the year of local Australian music. The first proper retail single from the brilliant new Cut Copy album “In Ghost Colours” – their first since 2004’s “Bright Like Neon Love” and will be released through Modular in Oz on the 26th of March – is called “Lights & Music,” and is what you would very much call a proper electropop synth-mad stomper. After hearing a fair chunk of the new album and catching them live on New Years Day at Hot BBQ, this is just another Aussie release I’m hotly anticipating.

Here is the song in question (in YouTube video format,) which sees a proper physical CD single release on March the 1st.

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A floor destroying chorus and what could possibly be the funkiest use of synths in Cut Copy’s history. I spoke to Mitchell, the Copy’s drummer, back in December, so expect that chat to end up on here at some point over the next few weeks. I can tell you now though that we talked about the recrafted version of “Hearts On Fire” that was going to end up on the new record… Bring on March 26th I say.

This makes the first three truly great songs of 2008 all by Australian artists. It’s going to be one helluva year…

THE HOT BBQ, JANUARY 1ST 2008 @ BIRRARUNG MARR

A New Years Day party in Melbourne that wasn’t overcrowded, full of dickheads, polluted with hilariously streaky orange fake-tan or abominable queues for the toilet/bar/various stages? If those are the type of issues that have stopped you from venturing out to any given festival come New Years Day, then maybe you should give The Hot BBQ a go next year. The Future Entertainment and Triple J venture was – on paper – one of the best New Year Celebration parties Melbourne has seen since the glory days of the near-vintage Welcome. In theory, it was a whole lot more. The most entertaining of stages was the Prime Aussie Beef arena; if you’re going to place Van She and Divinyls (my two favourite Aussie acts of all time) on the same stage as Bumblebeez, Cut Copy and Lost Valentinos, then it is to be expected that I would proceed to lose my shit throughout the day.

Lost Valentinos executed a killer set in the sun, with vocalist Nik Yiannikas rollicking around the stage, jumping into the crowd and sitting on the floor of the dance floor. Following the rockers were DJ Feadz and vocalist Uffie. Feadz played for a good 25 minutes solo before Uffie, emerging in an oversized t-shirt, sneakers, a bottle of champagne and nothing else, took her brand of cheeky, cuss-riddled electro tracks and played them to an adoring crowd. Here’s my thing with Uffie; I really do like a few of her songs but am left feeling quite cold after seeing her live. It’s almost as if she’s a very, very pale poor mans, ghetto’d up version of Swedish genius Robyn. Don’t tell me you haven’t thought it too…

Bumblebeez kicked some serious arse (as per usual) with an energetic set full of ridiculously brilliant stage thrashings courtesy of the amazing Chris Colonna, and the obligatory (and consistent) drink-spilling from the loud and stylish Pia Colonna (they’re brother and sister, you know.) Beez highlight must go to their use of Britney Spears’ “Gimme More” instrumental to rap over during their set. Amazing! Sydney indie-pop-rockers Van She delivered the kind of gold they’ve been renowned for live-wise. Kicking things off with the classic “Sex City,” new songs such as “Strangers” (incredibly massive, their best song to date,) “Talkin” and “Changes” are a fine testament as to the sort of greatness we can expect from their debut album come April. Nick and Matt (pictured) were as vocally in-tune as ever, Michael and his synths were on fire, and Tomek continues to prove why he’s one of this countries greatest drummers with each live show.  Cut Copy knocked out a CORKER set, playing old and new tracks, including the likes of “Hearts On Fire”, “Far Away” and “Lights & Music”. Crowd = Went Nuts.

Closing things off were Divinyls. After catching the guys at their Geelong show at the Wooly back in December, I was ready – and up for – anything they threw my way. Chrissy Amphlett took to the stage and was greeted by screams and cheers. After the first track, “Science Fiction,” Amphlett moved her way to the edge of the stage and began shouting “Mother mother mother mother… FUCKER!” It was an experience I’ll never forget. Nor will I ever forget finally hearing “Elsie” – my favourite Divinyls song – live, whose arresting nature was heightened by the electric festival atmosphere around me.

It all ended with “I Touch Myself” – unfortunately no “Boys In Town” due to time permits (booooo!!!) – but regardless, this was still a superb party. Not only was it the best New Years party in a long time, but it’s also one of the best parties in general that Melbourne has seen. Here’s to 2008… and to The Hot BBQ’s return in 2009.