Founding Editor and Publisher of the AU review. Currently based in Toronto, Canada. You can follow him on Twitter @larry_heath or on Instagram @larryheath.
Last month I sat down on a Zoom call with Jonathan Higgs and Alex Robertshaw from the British group Everything Everything, who tomorrow release their long awaited new album Re-Animator. It’s their fifth album in a decade and their first since 2017’s brilliant A Fever Dream – which saw them tour Australia at the end…
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This month, our little publication turns 12. A website born out of nothing but a desire to write about the industry I loved. I’m now employed elsewhere, and oversee other projects – like the National Live Music Awards (which returns October 20th for the 5th year). But I’m lucky enough to still write from time…
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As Arcade Fire celebrate the tenth anniversary of their groundbreaking and Grammy award winning album The Suburbs, we thought we’d take a trip down memory lane and revisit our favourite tracks from 2010, with this new playlist on Spotify. Regine and Win from the Canadian band have shared a video of them performing a track…
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Stumbled Upon was a series of new music discovery, established by Kat Hunter on the AU review in 2014. It ran 116 installments between then and 2016, with then Editor-in-Chief Sosefina Fuamoli taking over from Kat in the final year. Along the way we discovered acts like Serina Pech (pictured), IV League, Harrison Storm, Slumberhaze…
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Lizzy Plapinger of MS MR, who now performs as LPX – and is the co-founder of Neon Gold Records – is the guest on the fourth episode of Jetlag The Podcast’s second season, “An Industry Grounded”. Lizzy talks about what it’s been like releasing new music, including her latest single “Delayed Gratification”, and having to…
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British band Everything Everything have been treating us to a pile of new tracks over the course of the Covid pandemic, which has truly proven a welcome respite from all the madness. The first two singles off their forthcoming record RE-ANIMATOR, “Arch Enemy” and “In Birdsong“, have both been excellent teasers for the full product;…
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Since the world has gone into isolation, we’ve been enjoying a plethora of never-before-seen live streams coming online. For the last 11 weeks, the Portland festival Pickathon have been releasing new videos daily on YouTube, raising money for the MusiCares COVID-19 Relief Fund. One of the best performances is Nathaniel Rateliff, performing solo at the festival’s incredible…
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It’s been a sad (though perhaps inevitable) run of news this week for some of our favourite music festivals. Billboard are reporting that iconic Californian Festival Coachella are set to officially cancel their rescheduled 2020 dates, along with their sister festival Stagecoach. This follows on from Splendour in the Grass in Australia, who officially announced…
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Following the cancellation of Primavera Sound 2020 and the announcement its accompanying conference Primavera Pro would move online, today Primavera Sound Barcelona is gearing up for 2021, by announcing the first 100 acts set to play what will now be the festival’s 20th anniversary event. The event will take the #bestfestivalforever theme that the 2020…
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At the start of last year, we sat down with Lizzy Plapinger, co-founder of Neon Gold Records and lead singer of MS MR, as she made her first trip to Australia under her new solo project LPX. In our chat, Lizzy talked about what her hopes were to be “the most wild, loud, eccentric version…
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Sitting alongside one of the world’s best music festivals, Primavera Sound in Barcelona, Primavera Pro has spent the last decade growing into a leading industry conference that leveraged the large amount of industry that was finding its way through the city to attend the iconic festival – which was supposed to celebrate its 20th anniversary…
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The newest feature film for us to enjoy from the company of our own homes during isolation is one that was never acquired for big screen distribution. Coming from HBO Films (following the largest acquisition deal of the 2019 Toronto International Film Festival), Bad Education is the dramatised telling of a true story of corruption…
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It’s been a hot minute between drinks for French artist Woodkid, whose acclaimed cinematic pop sees him sit somewhere in between M83 and Hans Zimmer. Tracks like “Run Boy Run” have notably popped up in shows like Umbrella Academy, and he also scored the 2015 Jonás Cuarón film Desierto. There’s an industrial feel to his…
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While many bands are postponing their releases, New York duo Diet Cig are delivering us a gem of a record in Do You Wonder About Me? this Friday. I caught up with the band over the phone last week to chat about releasing the album in these difficult times, and how they’ve leveled up in…
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Not too long ago, back when we could leave the house and go to the theatre, I was lucky enough to see the Toronto production of Come From Away, one of the most heartwarming and enjoyable theatrical productions I’ve seen in recent memory. It tells the story of how the eastern most city in North…
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With each Star Wars film in the latest trilogy, fans have been treated to a feature length documentary about the making of the film, alongside its home release. They have surprisingly honest and detailed, in particular The Director and The Jedi, which took time to address some of the backlash Episode VIII received. The latest…
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Last week I caught up with Director Debs Paterson, who was tasked the monumental duty of documenting everything that happened during the 7 months of filming Star Wars Episode IX: The Rise of Skywalker. The result is the two hour documentary The Skywalker Legacy, that accompanies the home release of the film (on digital now…
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Last week, the new Australian podcast Portland Unpacked dropped, hosted by Faustina Agolley. The series takes listeners on a comprehensive tour of the U.S. city of Portland. Who would have known though that when they were making the six episode series that it would arrive in our lives just as international travel has been forced…
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I write this sitting in self-isolation in Toronto, Canada – as countries around the world are closing borders, scrambling to “flatten the curve” as the reality of the spread of Coronavirus sinks in. I, like too many, had been rather blasé about the whole thing – I mean I was sanitizing surfaces, washing my hands…
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There are a few buildings around the world that everyone and their dog are familiar with; so ingrained in popular culture that we feel like we know it intimately. The Eiffel Tower. The Sydney Opera House. Big Ben. And the Empire State Building. And the truth is, we all know a little bit about all…
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One of the US airlines who are repeatedly proving themselves to be the best in market are Delta, with rapid improvement of their fleet, as well as the services they offer on and off the aircraft. Little things like being able to track your bag in their fantastic App will finally remove the question, “did…
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The Los Angeles International Airport (LAX) has been undergoing a number of welcome changes over the last couple of years: long overdue upgraded terminals, new walkways connecting terminals post-security, and a wide range of enhancements designed to make the experience of being at one of the world’s busiest airports all that better. Higher quality food,…
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One of the most iconic hotels in Portland is the Jupiter Hotel, a refitted motel designed for hip, creative guests – the sort who might be attending a show at the equally iconic Doug Fir Lounge, a music venue that sits underneath the accommodation. In June 2018, some 14 years after it opened, the hotel…
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I’ve always been flabbergasted by America’s undying reliance on the car. Unless you’re in a city like Chicago or New York which has a heavily ingrained public transport system, if you tell someone you’re getting from point A to point B without a car, they look at you with confusion. The concept just seems so…
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Next month, the AU review will be returning to New York for our first party in the city since 2015, as we partner with The New Colossus Festival to showcase a few of our favourite emerging acts from around the world. Among them is New York City local Mattie Safer, a former member of The…
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A month or so after wrapping up the release of its first season, it’s fair to say that The Mandalorian lived up to the hype. Baby Yoda? Amazing. Taika Waititi‘s episode? A highlight of anything Star Wars, ever. And though the waits for some may have been painful, the move away from the “series dump”…
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Arriving just in time from my Hawaiian Airlines flight, as I was en route back to Australia at the end of last year from New York, I was lucky enough to sit on the balcony of my room at the Waikiki Beachcomber by Outrigger, and witness the majesty of a Waikiki Beach sunset. That’s not…
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Before Moulin Rouge! premiered at New York’s Al Hirshfeld Theatre on July 25th, 2019, a theatre where Kinky Boots had called a home for the 6 years prior, the producers did something quite surprising: so sure they were of its popularity, they announced it would tour out of New York – including a 2021 run…
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Back in November, the sparkling new terminal at Louis Armstrong New Orleans International Airport (MSY) opened its doors; a wonderful and long overdue change for anyone who remembers coming in to the old terminal. The US$1.3 billion terminal spans 972,000 square feet and features three concourses, 35 gates, and features the latest Delta Sky Club…
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If you’ve tried to play Kingdom Hearts III in the last couple of weeks, you may have noticed a pretty sizeable update to the game in the form of 1.09. It’s filled with some of the biggest updates the game has seen since its release in 2019. And it also paves the way for the…
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