I love all my monthly playlists, but some just turn out more special than others, and this one is top-notch. I have been dying for some new Voidz material for years, and they did not disappoint – mixing crushing 80s-flavoured guitar riffs and synths with Casablancas’ usual brand of lyrical chaos. And that bridge has my mind leaping across clouds. As always, I have no choice but to play it full volume as I drive around. I think I’ve found what will become my most played song of the year here.
The Knower track which follows is one of the freshest sounding songs of the year, spiced with chaotic jazz instrumentation (that piano break is bliss). The jazz inspiration continues on IDK‘s Pinot Noir (off the album F65 which is fantastic). There’s just no shortage of good stuff this month. MADMADMAD will have you dancing, Dylan Atlantis will have you soaring, and The Lemon Twigs bring a song which could have been lifted straight from the opening titles of a 90s sitcom.
I tried to resist the urge to bookend it with another Voidz feature, but both songs have consumed the month. The Daft Punk one even has a terrific video as well.
It ain’t what you don’t know that gets you into trouble It’s what you know for sure that just ain’t so
I’ll let the music do the talking today. There’s Teleman’s ticking beat to open, Kaytramine to bounce to, Mamalarky to wake you up, Bobbie Gentry for a warm hug, Laura Wolf for a bit of weirdness, and Weyes Blood’s terrific Andromeda from a couple years back to round it out.
It’s been a busy month for live music. Three very different shows, all enjoyable in their own way – but two of them well above the other.
Men I Trust @ Metro Theatre
The haunting opener Organon
This group had been on my list for a long time. Even in my two and a half years in their homeland of Canada I never found the opportunity. But it was worth the wait – they did not disappoint.
We arrived just as the support act was wrapping up, and moved through the room like ambulance drivers expecting a path to clear. Typically at these events the crowd thins between the support and the main act, and it creates the perfect opportunity to advance to a good position. But this audience was dedicated. No toilet breaks, no drink top-ups. We were ready to part a sea of people, but quickly discovered we were more of a Kmart-brand Moses than the Charlton Heston variety.
Nevertheless we found a great spot and settled in. The room went dark and blue spotlights started pulsing as the opening bars of Organon played. And from that moment we were transported to an ethereal place, floating on a sea of blissful swooning soundscapes atop an inflatable made of warm synths and delicious bass.
Emmanuelle Proulx up front was beaming with an infectious ear-to-ear grin, her joy shining through to her breathy vocals. Her voice was every bit as smooth and emotional as the recorded version. The lead guitarist Jessy Caron also made his presence felt, and was given several opportunities during the performance to show off with some solo work – pushing and bending the guitar to sound almost like a saxophone.
The crowd too were fantastic. Nobody there was a casual fan waiting to hear “that one song they knew”. Everyone knew everything and had been waiting a long time to hear it. By the encore it became one big sing-along.
I’d see Men I Trust again without hesitation. They were absolutely incredible, and almost as haunting and powerful at times as Agnes Obel from last year (that being a very high bar to clear). I was grinning ear-to-ear, completely at peace as the waves of dreamy bliss crashed upon the shores of our ears.
Show Me How closed the show
King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard @ Big Top Luna Park
These guys have been on my radar for a while, but it’s never been intimate. They have a million albums, a lot of lengthy songs, and they dance across a broad spectrum of genres. These are all things that typically can appeal to me, but I discovered them far too late. It’s a bit like someone recommending a series which is already ten seasons deep – enough to make it all seem too daunting. But what I heard, I liked – and over time I listened to more and more. I’d still only touched the surface, but felt I had my head wrapped around enough to know most of the songs in a concert.
I heard none of those songs played live.
But it seems I was not alone. Part of the problem with having such an extensive and varied body of work, is that it makes it harder and harder to satisfy everyone. Those I was with felt the same way, but all for different reasons. Some wanted the heavier stuff, some wanted folksy songs, some (myself) would have enjoyed more of their psychedelic tracks.
All that said, it was still an enjoyable show. The stage visuals and lighting were great, the band were tight and sharp. But as the show progressed, the crowd grew restless (most likely for reasons mentioned above) – and the band knew it. There was no encore. The lights came on and everyone seemed fine with the show being over – the energy just wasn’t in the room.
A great night out with friends, but perhaps not the best gig, all things considered.
Beck @ Darling Harbour Theatre
I was in two minds about seeing this. I’ve long been a fan of Beck – but I’ve not really been into much of his work in the past fifteen years, so it was feeling very much like a love of the past.
The drawcard which got me over the line was the announced “acoustic” tone of the show, which suggested the potential for more of his back catalogue of blues and folk songs, along with cuts from the greatest breakup album ever recorded. The show delivered these, and more – and it was an absolutely incredible experience.
The show was divided into two sections – the first with Beck alone on stage, singing stripped-back acoustic versions of a bunch of songs. These were interspersed with amusing anecdotes detailing the stories behind them, as well as tales of his previous adventures in Australia. A ton of favourites came one after another – Everybody’s Gotta Learn Sometime, Guess I’m Doing Fine, It’s All in Your Mind, and more.
Later Beck was joined on stage by two supporting musicians – one on a steel guitar, the other on a double bass. Beck remained on his acoustic guitar, added a harmonica, made use of a drum machine at his feet, and took the occasional journey over to a piano at side of stage. The harmonica and steel guitar are two of my favourite instruments. In fact, they’re probably the main reason I have time for country and folk music. While synths make me float, the harmonica keeps my feet on the ground. I find the twangs and whirrs as comforting and warm as a hug – and we got plenty of hugs. Perhaps the warmest was during a cover of Lonesome Whistle, which I found myself still singing the next morning as I cooked breakfast (without a doubt to the delight of my neighbours).
Lonesome Whistle
There were none of the alt-rock, funk, electronic or hip-hop-flavoured tracks he’s best known for, but that didn’t equate to a lack of energy on stage, nor in the crowd. He even managed to get in some of his trademark dance moves as the drum machine played an improvised loop. And it wouldn’t be Beck without a few surprises – the best of which was a song he performed featuring Chat GPT-generated lyrics for a “generic Beck song”. The results were hilarious, and the self-deprecation with which he performed it only made it more endearing.
The show ran just shy of two hours, with two encores – the first of which ended with an amazing performance of One Foot in the Grave, complete with crowd work and Beck churning his harmonica faster and faster with each section building to the song’s climax.
The audience were cheering loudly for a third encore, but we knew we’d been spoiled already. A cover of Daniel Johnston’s True Love Will Find You in the End finished the show, which seemed a fitting mood on which to leave.
I found myself down a rabbit hole this week reading about The Year Without a Summer. In April 1815, the volcanic Mount Tambora in Indonesia experienced the most explosive eruption in recorded history. It ejected so much sulphur dioxide into the atmosphere that a persistent fog reddened and dimmed the sun well into the Spring and Summer of the following year, and as far away as the United States and Europe. It was a fog that was unaffected by wind or rain. Global temperatures dropped, crops were heavily impacted, and mass famine claimed the lives of up to 100,000 people.
It also forced Mary Shelley, Lord Byron and John William Polidori to stay indoors for much of their summer holiday in Switzerland, away from the incessant rain and red skies. There, they took a bunch of laudanum and Byron challenged the group to see who could come up with the scariest story. Shelley created Frankenstein, and between them Byron and Polidori conceived the modern concept of a Vampire. Two of literature’s most enduring creations were invented at the same time in an opium-fuelled lockdown. Wild.
My Metropolis x Bela Lugosi, from back in the day when I was printing my own t-shirts
Now we’re far from that, but it still felt pertinent to read this as the days have grown shorter, the air cooler, and the skies darker. The mornings especially have been dark. I don’t consider myself a “morning person” nor an “evening person”, but I do know that I’m not great at sleeping in. My body clock has its own plans and more often than not wakes me around 5:30 almost every day regardless of when I go to bed – and I’m not usually one to fight it. Last year at Splendour in the Grass, I spent two to three hours each morning killing time as I waited for the rest of the house to greet the day. But mornings are superior for many things – workouts, sunrise runs, long breakfasts, reading, thinking, sex. An early start can leave a day feeling fulfilled before work even begins.
But evenings have also been a lot busier of late, and as the end of daylight saving turns that 5:30 start into 4:30, it makes the next few weeks a challenge until my internal timekeeper adjusts my body clock. Jetlag rarely takes me, but winding back that clock one hour is like fangs in my neck.
I wouldn’t last too long as a vampire. The moment the sun came out I’d race out and explode like Mount Tambora.
Here’s what’s been in my ears this month. I’ve had that Spaceport song on loop.
You make me paranoid But I love being thought about You made the sun go down But I sparkle in the night You should run with me Cause running makes everything alright
I took this on what was easily one of the top three days of the summer. I could groundhog day a day like that.
The dog days of summer – a phrase which, for me, conjures images of a dog lazing in the shade, its tongue wagging, exhausted from the heat and doing nothing but exist purely in the moment. It lays there, staring into space, no concerns because it hasn’t the energy for them.
Of course, the term has nothing to do with canines, but I’m not letting that stop my imagination.
We’re at the sultry tail end of the season now when the evenings are almost as warm as the days, and every hot day is seized upon as though it is the last. The end of daylight-saving approaches like Langoliers on the horizon coming to eat up your time in the sun – snorkeling, swimming, surfing, drinking on rooftops, or just lazing around reading. I’ve been doing all of the above.
I read two books recently – Emotional Intelligence by Daniel Goleman and The Scout Mindset by Julia Galef. They made a curious pairing, both dealing with the battle between the emotional and logical sides of the mind.
Goleman’s book explains how emotional intelligence can create a harmonious relationship between the rational and the emotional sides of the brain – how to use emotion rather than suppress it, and strategies for recognising and processing emotions when they distort judgment and disrupt logical thinking, often causing us to act or think irrationally.
In The Scout Mindset, Galef explores the mind using the analogy of two roles on a battlefield – a Soldier, and a Scout. The solider treats their thoughts and beliefs as objects to be defended whether or not they are correct – which naturally can lead to poor decisions. A scout on the other hand is able to see things clearly by regularly testing their own assumptions – they see things as they are rather than how they may wish them to be. One of the main ways a soldier mindset takes hold is when thoughts and beliefs are tied to personality. This can be used for personal gain – for instance, someone who sees running as part of who they are (“I’m a runner”) will be more likely to continue to run than someone who has a more general goal of trying to be more active. But it can often be destructive – for example, someone who sees a religion or political party as part of their identity is more likely to defend it beyond what is just, reasonable or right.
I found both books fascinating. The former was very eye-opening and personally challenging, while the latter brought validation to many of the ways I think already.
Around ten years ago I discovered and became fascinated with the Myers-Briggs personality test. For the uninitiated, it’s like astrology for the psychology crowd, and it reduces everyone into sixteen main personality types based off where they sit on the scale of four qualities. How much value can be placed on it is dubious, and it can’t be used as a predictor as some do, but I do find it interesting as a way of getting to know oneself, or those around them – and while it’s very misunderstood and gets misused, and overused, I think it’s deserving of at least a little more weight than a star chart.
According to these tests I’m an “ENTJ”, or “Extraverted Intuitive Thinking Judgement” (the opposite qualities being introverted, observant, feeling and prospecting). The strengths and weaknesses read to me like a football card profile – all true to varying degrees, some more apparent than others (most of them have softened a lot with age and conscious effort). Some of them even read as opposite sides of the same coin – I would argue that stubbornness is simply a negative spin on “strong-willed” – essentially the same quality, but one furthers personal achievement and the other presents a roadblock for others.
Discovering this back in the day was a revelation which helped me understand why my mind worked the way it did – able to see things so clearly and rationally, but only up until the point that emotion was involved, when my brain resembled a computer being thrown into the ocean. All of the personal strengths are washed away. In the past I have sometimes dealt with this by trying to suppress or ignore it in myself, and avoiding others entirely if there’s any fear of causing upset in them. Not that those situations have arisen all that often – I have a clear understanding of what I like and what I don’t, I usually figure people out pretty quickly and say what I think – why waste my or anyone else’s time? That would be inefficient, after all.
Happy place
But some things are out of your control, such as the immense stress of trying to get home in the midst of a pandemic, or the numbness of almost losing a family member in a car crash. Trying to find control only leads to the impression you’ve failed when you’re unable to affect change.
It’s absolutely easier on the mind to avoid these things entirely, but it’s an emptier and less colourful approach to life. Lessons can be learnt. Both of these books brought insightful perspectives on personal relationships. They also furthered a better understanding of others, and the broader world in general – including acceptance that some people and organisations are just bad and that not every action needs or has an explanation.
But you know, sometimes I’d just rather be that dog in the shade on a hot day, staring into the distance. That’s where the Chinese zodiac places me.
Well, summer arrived and hasn’t the weather been kind? The first decent summer since I returned to Sydney has meant swims before work, swims at lunch, and swims after work, underneath big open skies. The meteorological lifting of clouds has been matched with a metaphorical one as work wrapped and I’m now a good way through four weeks off.
Given it’s a birthday month, I’ve thrown my favourite song of all time, Good Vibrations, into this month’s playlist – using the more dramatic Royal Philharmonic orchestral arrangement which adds a little foreplay to the opening, heavenly “I”, without detracting from the all-important harmonies, nor the groundbreaking use of the theremin.
I’ve also thrown in a fresh and clean pump-up song from my uni days which I’ve been hitting again this month, along with the usual mix of new and new-ish stuff. That Warbaby song is channeling the same surf-rock psych stuff that Khruangbin have been doing so well. Really great to just zone out to.
I’ve been zoning out on the open roads of Tasmania during my break. A cracked windscreen gifted to me by a passing truckie grows by millimetres each day – acting like an albatross around my neck. This part of the country is incredibly beautiful, but their roads are terrible. And it’s been good to get away but I’m very eager to get home now, see friends and get life moving again.
To die for your country does not win a war To kill for your country is what wins a war
Brooke DiDonato (aka, me on the beach after the work Christmas party)
In my final week of work for the year I was working at home as per usual, when all of a sudden my vision became blurry. It was as though I had accidentally caught a glimpse of the sun, and for a moment had a blind spot – although I hadn’t been outside in hours. I sat down for a moment and closed my eyes, waiting for it to pass. The light was still bright with my eyelids clenched. A kaleidoscope of bright geometric rainbow colours filled my vision. Within a few minutes I could no longer see my monitor. I lay down in the dark for twenty minutes – nothing changed. It took two hours for my vision to return.
I later discovered that this is known as a “migraine aura” – something I had never heard of before. A migraine aura has nothing to do with the eyes, only the brain. Essentially the brain shuts down. It was a little confronting, but in a roundabout way ultimately incredibly relieving. My mind looked after itself.
It was also very emblematic of the year – Light and dark, at once.
There were a lot of ups and downs this year – successes which came with a catch, disappointments which came with a silver lining. I worked way too much this year. I received a promotion which re-energised my enthusiasm for work, but then got caught doing a lot of overtime. Following two years of being locked up inside from a pandemic, to then spend a third locked inside working was especially painful.
But all that work also meant a lot of overtime pay – most of which I have thrown on the mortgage to put me in striking distance of clearing the thing in the next couple years.
The return to office life has come as a great relief for my sanity. I gained a lot of new friends – and some of them have quickly grown to be some of my closest mates.
I managed to find a couple of pockets of good weather within months of La Nina downpours and explored Lord Howe Island and South East Queensland – both of which were incredible.
Definitely returning to Lord Howe Island again some time
The typical refrain seems to that the 2020’s have gotten worse with each year that passes. I’m inclined to disagree. This year was undoubtedly an improvement. The power dynamic between generations has finally shifted from the over-60s to the under-40s and I can’t see that being anything but good for society as that shift becomes even more pronounced in the years to come.
Music
I wanna be the shoelace that you tie
There are no surprises in the yearly playlist if you’ve been following the monthly ones. Jockstrap and Big Thief‘s new releases were my most played albums. And that Black Midi one satisfied my appetite for a bit of crunch.
I did the sloppy Splendour in the Grass, and the drizzly Harvest Rock. Khruangbin easily proved to be the best gig of the year between the two festivals, which came as a huge surprise. I’ve not seen a gig like that in a long time – an hour-long jam session where their own tracks were bridged together with classic guitar riffs like Wicked Game and Spandau Ballet’s True. I’m keen for even more live music in the new year, but I think I’m festival’d out for the time being.
Agnes Obel was the overall top gig. Absolutely incredible to witness live.
Khruangbin
Streams
My regular movie and series reviews on this old thing were another casualty of having more of a life this year (along with more work). My abundance of screen time at work also reduced my desire for spending too much of my free time doing the same thing. I can’t say I really have any “top movies” since I saw so few and even fewer stuck with me. But the world of long form series continues to be where quality lies.
Severance was the most inventive and visually unique series I’ve seen in a while. In many ways it reminded me of the best elements of Lost (mysteries aplenty).
The final season of Better Call Saul hit the mark and then some. Easily the best written show of the past decade in my eyes, it may very well exceed its predecessor Breaking Bad as the better show.
And second season of The White Lotus was some good fun, albeit not as fresh as the first time around.
That’s it for the year. Back at the end of January.
Tears of pleasure, tears of pain They trickle down your face the same
Well, the year is essentially done. Silly season will be in full swing soon. Work will wrap, parties will be had, skin will brown, and life will be good. Getting through the next six weeks will be a real challenge but the prospect of five weeks off during summer is getting me through. I need to be in the ocean, not rendering ocean.
So here’s twelve punchy songs to end the year, ending with this year’s Christmas tune courtesy of Khruangbin (who I’ll be seeing next week). I’ll have my 2022 playlist up at the end of the year, but the monthly music will be back in February after an incredible, no Niña, no flood, no fire summer.
One more thing – enjoy your nightmares after watching this… Disturbingly amazing.
We’re on the downward slide now for 2022, with a BANGIN’ month of tunes, and winter (all too) slowly coming to an end. First off, that Jockstrap album is absolutely incredible, and may be my favourite of the year when everything is said and done (with Big Thief a close second). It just takes left turns all over the place but all gels together. Whether it be the Fiery Furnaces-esque Angst, the chaotic Concrete Over Water, the middle-eastern flavoured Debra, the haunting Lancaster Court, or the depth of Glasgow and What’s It All About.
And the video below for ME vs ME is fantastic (AI artwork by Sefa Kocakalay). It’s hard to find many music videos anymore which grab my attention. In the age of streaming it’s become a bit of a lost artform, so it’s always a delight when one shows up. Almost makes me want to make one of my own, but alas, I spend too much time on a computer as it is and I’d rather be outside.
Ain’t no change in the weather Ain’t no change in me
Two years ago today I arrived back in Australia. In the dark of night, tired and relieved like never before I touched down in Perth on a plane with only 18 other passengers. I’m still supremely grateful to be back. The months which immediately preceded it were immensely stressful, and the months before that were incredibly bleak. Isolation in a hotel room for two weeks came as such a relief. And the weeks which followed, out on the open roads of Western Australia were so good it felt like a dream.
If this were a CG render someone would request that the highlight on the water be removed.
Spring has sprung, but Sydney is still too goddamn cold. I’m well and truly over it. Bring on the oven roasting temperatures so I can leap out of bed full of beans. I want to (metaphorically) leave the isolation hotel room again. Summer days aren’t just longer because of the Earth’s tilt. They’re longer cause you don’t spend four times as long doing everything. Shorts, shirt, thongs – BAM! You’re good to roll.
But while I wait, I’ll get sunshine in my ears with these tunes.
