Gotye

  

the bell speaks to Wally de Backer aka Gotye about his soon to be released album Making Mirrors.

De Backer’s album art is endless, a vast terrain of tessellations and shapes. Painted by his father it was these reflections that catalyzed the title of his latest album Making Mirrors.

As a continuation of his album art de Backer’s film clip for his latest release Somebody That I Used To Know features both himself and Kimbra as living murals painted head to toe in the same geometrical shapes.

“It’s was three days worth of hours squashed into two days. Both Kimbra and I had some little moments of what felt like quiet painful meditation just going into our own head, trying to stand still and straight up for six, seven hours in a row.”

Language is loaded and this idea is no more prevalent than in this wrenching piece. It’s difficult to lay blame on any one half of the relationship as both the male and female voices intertwine and struggle to be heard.

“The song was written in a linear way, I had the music, I had the melody and I wrote the first verse, I wrote the second verse and I had the wobbly guitar sound that operates as an instrumental break.

I got two minutes in to the end of the first chorus and it was then that the song was telling me, you’ve said all you need to say. There needs to be another side to the story. ”

It leaves me with the thought that perhaps a true soulmate is a mirror – someone who reveals your vulnerabilities, aspects of yourself unknown to you. That's before they leave. 

“i think it’s quite direct, the paint that first inscribes me and engulfs her in the context of the background and then for her to be unpainted is a direct symbolic representation of how your lives become intertwined and when that breakup happens… there’s a cut there.”

There’s a saying that in an all blue world colour doesn’t exist. This makes perfect sense. But in our own varicoloured world who’s to say that my version of blue is the same as yours?

“When it comes to simple or trivial things it’s almost not worth worrying… It’s on a level of function, how we use the word blue in our daily lives. But it’s different when it comes to saying I love you and someone else saying I love you too.”

Eyes Wide Open tells of an entirely different story, one we know all to well. How we as humans continue on a path of disregard towards the environment – although we are fully aware of the consequences.

“The weird thing for me is that the song has I think, an unsettling but also strangely alluring sense of nihilism about it. As if there’s this inevitability… It’s almost like we’re triumphantly walking off a cliff.”

There’s always another side. To ourselves mostly. De Backer’s tracks, jagged at first, come together like the shards of a mirror split into infinite pieces. Making infinite reflections, making mirrors. 

Making Mirrors is released next Friday, the 19th August. Be sure to check out Gotye's tour dates on the gig guide and if you feel like listening to some extended audio of our chat it's posted below. x Steph

Gotye interview  by thebellmusic 

Loon Lake

We chat to Sam from Loon Lake ahead of the band's headline tour for their debut EP, Not Just Friends.

You know you’re onto a good thing if a band this new to the scene has already established a unique brand of sound. There’s that low-fi aesthetic of a twanged guitar, incredibly raw vocals and a somewhat limitless vintage amp.

“Most of our better songs have come really quickly and we’ve all liked them instantly, there are no real recipes.”

 Loon Lake’s sound scratched and broken all over – but in the best possible way. Luckily for us this wasn’t lost when the band translated their demos into their debut EP Not Just Friends,

“We were all adamant that we wanted to keep the sound of those demos. We also wanted to get the same kind of sound, our sound, but have it sound good in headphones. So you can decipher all the parts instead of it being a big jumbled mess.”

“It’s probably easier when I have a song almost formed and done, with five dudes and you’ve all got different ideas – sometime it can take ages and the freshness of it can be gone after a while.”

It doesn’t come as a surprise that the industry has also got behind Loon Lake, especially after they won Triple J’s Big Sound competition last year – alongside tough competition with the likes of Boy and Bear, Washington and Children Collide.

In particular Triple J presenter Zan Rowe has sent a lot of love their way,

“She just wrapped herself around it from the start, she started playing our songs flat out and then she wouldn’t just play them but give some really nice words.

It struck a chord with her. I’m sure there’ll be someone else at triple j likes someone else but I guess its just taste, she likes us and we’re really lucky that she does. 

Although things seem to be moving quickly for Loon Lake there’s definitely the sense that this is a down to earth band, one with a good head(s) on their shoulders.

“I can only speak for what we’ve done but when we won that competition and started getting airplay we had a lot of people out of the blue writing to us.

I would definitely recommend you do your research, we haven’t signed anything either if you’re a young band and you’ve got all sorts of people approaching you the best thing is to do it on a trial basis.”

Not Just Friends is a record that screams summer more than anything else. It’s sunny, warm and infectiously catchy. Besides, this is the kind of music you listen to at a summer bbq after a long day at the beach.

I wonder if Loon Lake felt the same way, as the last track Wine comes to a close there the sound of applause and someone getting very excited that “the sausages are ready.” 

That aside, next month will see the boys set off to play a string of shows for their first headline tour so be sure to check them out. Are they looking forward to any shows in particular?

“All of it – we’re all really big surfers so anywhere where we can get good waves and I’m really looking forward to playing at Byron Bay at the Great Northern. It will be cool, there’s always a crowd and they love live music.

What can I say? If the records anything to go by, It’s going to be a good time.

Drop in to JB Hi Fi for a copy of Not Just Friends, or any other reliable music store. Also feel free to check it out onItunes.

Papa vs Pretty

Papa vs. Pretty is Tom Myers, Angus Gardiner, Thomas RawleWe talk to Papa vs Pretty about their debut album United in Isolation. For once I don’t have a great deal to say (as surprising as that may sound). Although rest assured it’s for good reason.

Over the past few years Papa vs. Pretty, consisting of Thomas Rawle (vocals, guitar) Angus Gardiner (bass) and Tom Myers (rhythm) have done well for themselves – needless to say it’s been well deserved.

 Rawle is talented. He strikes me as the kind of guy that has a million ideas floating through his head at any one time and all those pent up thoughts seem to flow through his sound. In the end the music speaks for itself. It’s frustrated, brooding and delightfully schizophrenic.

1. What has been the best thing about producing United in Isolation?

Doing EPs is fun and you get to make a statement I guess but when you do your first record, it’s a much larger statement. I've always been obsessed by musical atmospheres. You know when you listen to a record and when you put it on it installs its own geometry and space in your head, like another world you can go to. I guess that’s a bit of a tangent but I really want to be able to do that and this album for us has been our first step towards trying to get to that I guess.

It's also great to have something out there that you can stand by and say, ‘yep, I think I’m proud of that record’! I’m not totally satisfied but I never will be, I’m already thinking and writing for the next record….

2. Tied together by the album title, many of the songs seem to come from a dark place. Did you know this was the way the record would take shape when you first started writing?

Not totally, I mean I think I write mostly from a place of frustration, you know when you take a walk outside and you can be totally overwhelmed by everything? I guess half the time I have this frustration where I don't think everyone is as overwhelmed as I am about it, so I vent that frustration in writing. I also do a lot of people watching, spent most of my life doing that, I’m pretty paranoid most of the time too I think, so maybe that’s where it came from.

3. What I love most about your music is the juxtaposition between soft and heavy sounds, the element of the unexpected. Do you enjoy the experimental side of things?

Thank you! I love procedure, I like going through a whole lot of effort, to get one sound. It’s a bit like you can write a different song if you pick up a different guitar …it’s like the instrument wills you to certain chords just by the way it sits in your hands. It’s a very delicate thing, but I love making more atmospheric sounds by means of procedure.

For example at the start of Charity Case, the soundscape song at the start is made by me singing vocal lines put into a loop pedal, sped up, then reversed, then layered with a juno synth, then when that loop was created, I created another loop (similar in texture, differing in notes) and fed the loops into each loop pedal which carried the reverb of the first loop over - it made this really strange transitional glitch. I guess that’s an example of finding sounds via procedure.

4. Would you be able to tell us a little about the thinking behind the striking album art?

The painting, "Mona Bear" is by Dirk Larsen, he is a truly amazing artist I believe. I had been a fan of the painting and his work for a long time and just got the guts to ask him if he would like us to use the work for the album cover, we sent him some music and he agreed!

I’m still amazed by it, I reckon whilst it does look a bit strange compared to a lot of album covers about nowadays, I truly believe it has a very strange presence about it, a bit of a misfit, I thought it fitted the album title too. I just like it, which is the way it should be right? 

5. How has the tour been going, any stand out gigs so far?

The tour has been amazing, we haven't done a tour this large yet so it feels sort of surreal so far, especially that most of the shows have been sold out. As I answer this we've played Melbourne, Sydney (both which sold out) and Newcastle which was pretty close too. It was surreal, people were singing along and jumping about, really has felt great, I don't think it has truly hit me yet though that people care enough to come out. Brisbane is tomorrow and is looking as if it will sell out so exciting times I guess!

6. If Papa vs. Pretty could take to the stage with any artists, alive or dead, who would they be?

Elliott Smith
Jeff Buckley
Jimi Hendrix
Big Star
Dinosaur Jr
Radiohead
Johnny Cash
Bright Eyes
Aphex Twin

the list is probably too long !

You can buy United in Isolation from JB HI FI or any other reliable music store & on Itunes. Trust me, you won't regret it! x