Some time ago I promised you good people and The Herd that I would review their stunning album Summerland. That was about ten months ago. I’m sorry. I got distracted with uni and other writing projects and, after a while, I felt the moment had passed and it was too late. This morning, however, I was like ‘No, Dammit! That album is still awesome and the people must be told!’ So here it is. The Herd’s Summerland. Better late than never. Read the rest of this entry »

Obsessed as it so openly is with the “grey” space between worlds, sub-cultures and people, it seems overly fitting that The Grey Space, the debut release from Elefant Traks-backed Sydney-side duo Horrorshow, should happen to be both the very definition of a out-of-left-field, “indie gem” release that fuels its exploits with a combination of sheer hi-octane musical moxy, a vision verging concurrently on the deeply personal and the joyously irreverent, and that raw, devil-may-care spirit peculiar to those with nothing to lose, while being simultaneously an LP possessing of such deft polish and a meticulous eye for detail as one might otherwise have only come to expect from a well-established and tour-honed act. Read the rest of this entry »

My sincerest apologies to The Herd for my comments about them below. I have just listened to their latest album Summerland and retract what I said about them never quite reaching their potential. Rest assured, a review of Summerland is be up here, expounding its awesomeness!

I have noticed, since my review of Bliss n Eso’s Flying Colours album, that alot of people seem to be reaching our page by searching for Aussie Hip Hop and that there seems to be some demand for writing about it. So, I’ve decided to follow up with another of my favorite Skip-hop albums of the last couple of years. Settle in and get ready for some smooth, sunny, reggae and dub influenced hip-hop. Welcome to Astronomy Class: Read the rest of this entry »

Australian Hip Hop has had a troubled existence. In its earliest inceptions it seemed little more than a bunch of white Australian tools pretending to be black gangsta rappers and there’s a good reason why it seemed that way; they were. In the last few years, however, there have been a number of evolutions in the genre that have resulted in a more interesting experience. Australian rappers had dispensed with the American accent and began rapping about what they knew about, as opposed to blunts, 40s and bitches we began hearing about commodores, springas and chicks (so basically still cars, weed and women but from a bogan perspective). There was another school of Australian Hip Hop that began to emerge, however, which focused on political issues. And so by the early 2000s Australia basically had its answers to NWA and Public Enemy. In the hedonistic West Coast corner we had the Hilltop Hoods spouting rhymes about getting drunk and laid and in the civil rights East Coast corner we had The Herd with lyrical epics about ingrained racism and the Australian political scene. Read the rest of this entry »