It’s always going to be tough for a new festival to break into a seemingly saturated market and also have a line up that would rival just about any other festival across the world. Thankfully, the team behind Sydney City Limits know a thing or two about booking, curating and planning a successful festival in…
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The APRA Song of the Year nominees have been revealed this week, with 20 tunes penned by Australian songwriters up for the main title. With the results being announced in Sydney in April, the APRA Song of the Year has been decided upon by a panel of industry judges, whose task it is to now whittle…
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This week, we brought you an end of year list detailing some special Australian albums released this year, the Top 20 in fact, that have made their mark. With Gang of Youths‘ Go Farther in Lightness taking the Number One spot, and the likes of Jen Cloher, Ecca Vandal, Winston Surfshirt and more also featuring prominently, we revisited some of…
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There’s no mistaking it, 2017 has been a stellar year for Australian music. We’ve seen Aussies surge forward internationally, while the term ‘household name’ has never been truer for some as this year has rolled out. As we approach the end of 2017, we’ve put together our annual End Of list, representing the 20 Best Australian…
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Earlier in the week, we announced our annual list of acknowledgements of live music and the artists who have really made 2017 their own, via the annual AU Awards. Whether it was a breakout year for some, or a year where an acclaimed album became a defining moment in a band’s career, 2017 has provided some epic…
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Returning again to cap off what has been another fantastic year of Australian music, the 4th annual AU Awards are announced this afternoon, recognising what this year has brought some of our favourites (emerging and well established). Whether it be the recent rise of West Thebarton to the juggernaut that Gang of Youths has become in 2017,…
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Eight events took place simultaneously around the country last night, celebrating the contributions to live music by some of our best established and emerging acts, with the National Live Music Awards taking place from another year. With the ticketed gala event happening at The Grace Darling Hotel in Collingwood, the Melbourne event of the NLMAs saw…
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The longlist for the 13th Australian Music Prize has been unveiled, following an official event in Melbourne overnight that saw three of the nominees perform, and a selection of the longlist announced by a line up of special guests. At The National Hotel in Richmond, RocKwiz’s Brian Nankervis and The Jezabels‘ Sam Lockwood hosted the AMP event, that saw Jen…
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South Australia’s wine region is renowned for its top quality drops and in recent years, the Barossa Valley, Adelaide Hills and McLaren Vale districts have been jumping into the music pond, hosting concerts by some stellar Australian and international artists. The Bird in Hand winery out in the Hills has thrown down the gauntlet for…
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Last night belonged to Gang of Youths and Paul Kelly, with the band from Sydney’s inner west and one of Australia’s most beloved songwriters taking home four ARIA Awards apiece at the 2017 ceremony held at The Star Event Centre. Along with them, the ARIAs proved to be huge for A.B. Original, who won ARIAs in the Best Urban…
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Paul Kelly‘s “How to Make Gravy” is a bonafide Australian classic. The unlikely Christmas Classic has been a staple of many a fan’s music collection since 1996, with December 21st lovingly referred to as “Gravy Day” amongst Kelly fans. What better way to celebrate it this year than with a rich, tasty musical event in…
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The first line up for next year’s SXSW music festival dropped in the early hours, unveiling an impressive list of global names set to be performing in and around Austin, Texas, from March 12th – 18th. Returning names include the likes of Shamir, Marlon Williams and Milk & Bone, while the Australian contingent boasts some of our favourite established and…
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Aaaand the countdown to the 2017 ARIA Awards is officially on, with not only the full list of nominees announced in Sydney today, but also the winners of the Fine Arts, Artisan and Comedy categories revealed too. Statistically speaking, 2017 is Paul Kelly and Gang of Youths‘ year, with both artists striking out against the pack with Kelly…
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Nominees have started rolling out for this year’s ARIA Awards, with the Fine Arts, Artisan and Comedy categories coming first out of the gate this morning. With the winners to be revealed at ARIA’s annual nominations event at the National Gallery in Sydney on October 10th, the countdown to the 2017 ARIA Award celebrations will…
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“This world is full of cynics- full of people who don’t want you to be alive, to be real,” yells Dave Le’aupepe to a thumping heavy crowd full of youthful faces, each looking up at him adoringly, hanging on his every word. “Don’t let them stop you from living your life. Don’t let anybody ever…
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Straight off the bat, Go Farther In Lightness is a victory album. It’s a victory of love and loss; a triumph for hope and life. It’s an album with many peaks and just as many moments that make you ponder and appreciate your existence. It’s a compass for those lacking direction. It’s the ‘I may…
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It seems just yesterday that we were celebrating Gang of Youths as a recently discovered band destined for success – yet here we are at the release of their sophomore record, Go Farther in Lightness. I caught up with frontman Dave Le’aupepe and lead guitarist Joji Malani about how Go Farther in Lightness came together, racism in the Australian music…
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Earlier this week, we unveiled our list of the 20 Best Albums of 2017 so far – as voted by our team – with The Smith Street Band reigning supreme with their acclaimed album, More Scared of You Than You Are of Me. Breaking things down even further, today we throw the spotlight on some of the…
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Gang of Youths teamed up with another Sydney master talent in Thomas Rawle to bring their new single – “What Can I Do If The Fire Goes Out?” – to life, visually. The self-taught animator has been producing some impressive shorts and clips for a little while now but this music video sees Rawle really step…
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This week, we learned that the nominations for the 2017 APRA Music Awards have been unveiled, with some of our great songwriters being recognised for the fantastic year of music they had through 2016. As such, Flume leads the nominations (perhaps unsurprisingly) with four, while Sia follows closely behind with three noms to her name. Julia Zemiro will…
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During their recent time spent in New York, Gang of Youths dropped by the City Winery for a special cellar session for One on One. Joji and David perform “The Deepest Sighs, The Frankest Shadows”, The Positions album cut “Kansas” before closing the session with a cover of U2‘s “With or Without You”. For any fan, you know you want in on this. Now based…
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In what’s become like a bittersweet farewell present (at least, for the next few months), Gang of Youths have this week dropped a brand new track for fans in “What Can I Do If The Fire Goes Out?”. If you were able to catch the boys performing recently at the Laneway Festival, you would’ve been amongst…
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Sixteen years ago, Sum 41 released an album titled All Killer, No Filler. In late 2016, Laneway Festival made a line up announcement that was pretty much the same thing: all killer, no filler. As the festival made its way to Sydney on the first weekend of February 2017, pretty much all acts went about…
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A refreshed sense of vibrancy? A positive outlook on what’s still to come from artists in our own backyard as well as abroad? This year’s Laneway Festival had a lot going for it this year. In terms of highlights of the 2017 Laneway Festival, let’s start with Adelaide local, Lonelyspeck. Recently welcomed into the TEEF family, Lonelyspeck’s profile…
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You know those choose-your-own-adventure novels, the ones you read as a kid? With the exception of dying in 90% of the story lines, the Laneway Festival is like that – bear with me here. There’s thirty-six acts, and where you start, stop and travel is entirely up to you. I asked my maths-genius friend to…
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The 2017 St. Jerome’s Laneway Festival kicked off for another year yesterday, celebrating the public holiday out on the east coast at the Brisbane Showgrounds. With acts including A.B. ORIGINAL, Gang of Youths, Whitney and Tame Impala all taking to stages throughout the day and evening, punters showed up in strong numbers to get around it. Photos by Andrew Wade. [print_gllr…
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You may have been keeping up with our recent ‘Best of 2016’ series over the last week and as we get stuck into a year of new music, we take a final look back at the songs that made our year. Throwing voting open to our contributors, we’ve compiled 40 of the best songs that…
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Last week we delivered our Top 40 Albums of 2016, as voted by our contributors – some huge albums from chart dominating artists entered in, as did some breakthrough records from bands on the homefront we were still getting to know. We go another level deeper and look at the Top Australian releases as part…
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As we reach the end of another year, the question of what has been the best album/s of the 2016 has been thrown around. While up at Festival of the Sun recently, we posed the question to some of the artists backstage. From Mesa Cosa‘s Blood & Brains, Skegss‘ Everyone Is Good At Something, D.D Dumbo‘s Utopia Defeated and A.B….
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Festival of the Sun this year saw Sydney’s Gang of Youths top the bill at Port Macquarie, drawing in strong numbers for what was to be one of their first festival shows of the summer. After spending 2016 on the road with The Positions and the Let Me Be Clear EP, the boys have hit the studio hard in recent months…
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