LOVE MIGRATE.
The Goodnight Owl guys are no longer 😦 But, Love Migrate, the new band for the guys are taking forth that excellent melbourne style indie pop. They’ve got a new track to help celebrate the new name…and kind of a new sound. Although, if you’ve been following the guys for a while, you would’ve noticed that they were doing a lot more guitar driven stuff in the latter stages of the Goodnight Owl era.
Anyways, new track is called Little Kid and it’s already got a pretty stellar review from Dom Alessio over on their Unearthed page. It’s all sorts of good. Starts off sounding like a Goodnight Owl track, with that lone guitar. But then it brings in that bass and that almost raucous sound with the double time drums etc. I like this track a heap.
on the chase
so, usually we tend to post film clips on wednesday as part of our clipnesday series. But this is an exception. It’s still a film clip…but it’s from one of my favourite bands and I don’t know if I can last until next Wednesday to post it!
It is of course Goodnight Owl. It’s their first official clip for anything they’ve done…and by geez they’ve done it good.
The track is Maps & Compasses. It was one of maamf’s faves from last year too. And now the clip!
The clip has been directed by Hayden Calnin and the concept was devised by lead singer Eddie Alexander. It’s a little nuts. Eddie get’s chased and chased and chased. It’s as if the other dudes in the band want more or a role in the band or somethin…
It’s a really nice looking clip too. T’was shot down on the Mornington Peninsula down here in Victoria. If you haven’t been down that way, it’s kinda beautiful. It’s where Where The Wild Things Are was shot too.
If you wanna check out the guys live and you’re down here in Melbourne, then head to The Workers Club down in Fitzroy on Sat July 31st. They’re gonna be launching  the clip with some help from Sleep Decade who are also launching a vid and the director, Hayden Calnin.
Anyway, here’s the clip kids. Enjoy!
The 10 Best Tracks of 2009
I’m beginning to sound like a broken record I know, but this list was probably the most difficult thing I’ve had to compile, even outside of the blog.
I think the main contributing factor behind this is that the blog isn’t specialised, there’s just too much good stuff out there to choose from. We don’t just post some electro/dance kinda stuff. We don’t just put a focus on indie rock. We post both of those…and about 50 other styles too (50 might be a slight tiny exageration…). As our About page says, “we’ll like just about anything”…and whilst this may seem to be a bit of a hinderence when it comes to compiling best of lists, I think it’s what makes maamf just that little bit different…different to the 50 gazillion other music blogs out there.
Anyway, enough of blowing the maamf trumpet and onto the 10 best tracks of 2009.
There’s a good mix here. Some electro, some indie pop, some singer songwriter stuff, hell…even some hip hop. I’ve even numbered them too…big call and was difficult…so please don’t take too much notice of the order the tracks are in!!
10. Goodnight Owl – Maps & Compasses
09. Van She – (Don’t Fear) The Reaper
07. The Golden Filter – Solid Gold
06. Hermitude – Your Call (feat. Urthboy & Elana Stone)
Comment away people! Be interested to know what you think of my list, and what made yours!!
Goodnight Owl Live at the Wesley Anne
Friday night we checked out Goodnight Owl at the Wesley Anne in Northcote. Was a great little gig. Well…actually…it was pretty loud, intense, and chair dance inducing. More on that later though.
About a month or so ago I got sent an EP by Goodnight Owl. I posted one of their tracks, Maps & Compasses and a few people commented on how they liked it and how it kind of blew them away. It blew me away too. The whole EP did actually. Eddie (singer and guitar) has this knack of writing really nice pop songs. And then there’s those beats. The EP highlights the great skills of Joe Walker, electro whiz. The beats are simple, and they’re sophisticated (the time change in the groove on Maps & Compasses always gets me). Adding to this mix is Bella Walker (and presumably the sister of Joe) with some nice keys.
So that’s just the EP. Live, it’s almost like another thing altogether. It’s loud, it’s pumping. Although the crowd were fairly restrained, I wouldn’t be surprised if some of them wanted to get up and move and dance and stuff. They fill the band out a bit live with the occasional use of a drummer for a few tracks.
Eddie’s also a pretty funny dude. Although, in some instances, it appears that the funnies comes across as unintentional, it adds to the gig a hell of a lot. There is nothing worse than a good artist/band who has no presence or can’t talk to the audience.
But yeah, onto the songs. If you read this blog a bit you may have noticed that I posted a track by a Sydney band called Seekae called Void. It’s that kind of glitchy popish haunting kinda music. It has that pushy synth sound and all that. Goodnight Owl do a cover of it which you can check out on their MySpace…and they opened the show with it. It was, to put it simply, fucking brilliant. It still had that big hip hop beat that Seekae seem to be massive fans of, but it was all kinda liveish and about 100 times more intense. Eddie has a floor tom out the front which he would belt, adding to this really loud and aggressive sound that they had. It was so good that it actually wore me out. I felt buggered after that first one.
The guys introduced a few non EP tracks throughout the night too and these were great. Sounded just live Goodnight Owl. Especially the final track they played which seemed to indicate more a band sound and less of the electro stuff.
There were some tracks from the EP though. Maps & Compasses was amazing. Sounded much bigger and harder than it does on record, especially the chorus. That was something I was a little hesitant about before the gig actually. The EP incorporates this folk-pop and glitchy electro so well on record, I was a little unsure about how they would pull it off live. But they do. They make it big and it works.
Other highlights that came from the EP were Stale Bread and Verandah. For those that know Stale Bread, it’s definitely not one of the more uptempo tracks on the EP. And live, they stayed true to this…but only for the first half of the track. Halfway through saw the inclusion of drums and some electroness to help create a massive big triumphant finish. Verandah is also another fave of mine. It is such a nice song, the lyrics make me think of home and everything that’s constant when everything else is going a little crazy. (wow…just got a little bit wanky and d&m there for a minute…haha…it is a really sweet song though. You know…makes you think and stuff). Anyway, live, Verandah sounded so sweet and just pushed along and made you feel happy.
One thing I remember thinking throughout the gig was “where the hell is the album??” A full length would be bloody impressive and if you see the guys live or you’ve heard the EP, I’m sure you’d agree.
Although their slot was a little short (there was an 11pm noise curfew in place – residential area and all that crap), they put on a great set. It was brilliant actually. The supports were also pretty nice (Ashley Bee did some great guitar pop and Nick Huggins and a dude going by the name of Seagull provided a heap of electro glitch experimental pop kinda stuff).
Probably my favourite of the night (apart from the Seekae remix) was Verandah. Here it is…just below 🙂
Goodnight Owl – Verandah
(iTunes)