Music news

New Zealander Gin Wigmore is being lauded as the next Amy Winehouse/Duffy. But I beg to differ – she’s even better.
After years of under age bar playing and a quarter-life crisis which led her to Argentina, the Sydney based 21-year-old has just released her first EP ‘Extended Play’ through Island Records. With a voice described as “whiskey and dry” and influences like Macy Gray and Fiona Apple, Gin (short for Virginia) not only has the startling folk-vocals down pat, she’s also an acclaimed songwriter. Gin’s lyrics show she’s experienced and wise beyond her years, and her talents even won her the top prize in the New York based International Song Writing Competition for a song she wrote her deceased father.
You can catch Gin around the country before she heads back to New Zealand in September. Check out www.ginwigmore.com for tour details.

Christ on a pedelo. If this track doesn’t send revellers stir crazy on the dancefloor, I’ll eat my three-year-old Nudie jeans. ‘Township Funk’, made by 20-odd South African producer Mujava (real name Elvis Maswanganyi) has done the rounds for the past couple of years with DJs like Trevor ‘Action’ Jackson using ripped files from YouTube due to its scarcity. Now, the clever stable owners of This Is Music in the UK, home to FrankMusik and Little Boots and Warp Records elsewhere, pull this Pretorian forged winner out the bag. Ubiquity is key and this, dear reader, shall be omnipresent when it hits stores 15th September. whis is one of those tracks that’ll be played anywhere and everywhere complete with one of those insidious refrains which stick to your legs like cat hair forcing you to flick them back and forth on the dancefloor. That’s right, dance. They’ve even got a video if you need pointers. Check it.

The King of Pop could not have made a Bollywood Thriller better himself.

Hit The Jackpot are a 3-piece from Adelaide who play "simple, noisy pop" songs by their own description, somewhere in the realm between Beat Happening, Dinosaur Jr and Sonic Youth (which is fitting, as they've played alongside all three of those artists in some incarnation). They started out as a two piece with couple Kynan Lawlor and Jessica Thomas, and have since expanded to include former Love Like... Electricution member
Seb (whose shoes are currently being filled by the infamous Scott O'Hara of Lindsey Low Hand/True Radical Miracle fame). They have an amazing new record out on Chapter Music called "Soul Money Gang Vibe" (HTJ's first release not on their own Fken Stoner imprint) and to celebrate are touring Melbourne and Sydney. You can catch them in Melbourne on Friday at The Tote alongside Beaches, Guy Blackman and The Twerps,
and in Sydney next Saturday at Repressed Records and Sunday night at Spectrum (with Naked On The Vague and Circle Pit).

Flamingo Crash are a kickin four piece currenlty based in Melbourne follwing stints in Brisbane and Sydney. These guys are getting a good little play on Triple J at the moment with their EP 'Triangle Island'. The EP has been released in Ausralia, New Zealand and to our good friends in Japan. The 'Crash were even kind enough to include a 12 page booklet with the EP which includes lyrics and a reversible cover! They've got a string of shows lined up for Aug/Sept in Mt Hotham, Falls Crek, Sydney and Melbourne so check out their Myspace and website for all the details;

Hearing Electric Feel on Nova more often than you'd like? Looking for a new nugget of musical gold that's yet to be pawed at and played to death, you know, so in a year's time you can be all like " man, i was listening to this song, like, last year"? Look no further than Beach House. Having been name-dropped from Brooklyn to Bethnal green (by those in the know of course) and lauded by the MGMT boy themselves, the cult Baltimore duo of Victoria Legrand and  Alex Scally are bringing their dark, sensual "dreampop" to Australia. Supported by NZ's mesmerisingly talented Bachelorette, Beach House will play Sydney's Hopetoun hotel on August 20 before stopping off in Melbourne, Brisbane and Perth. Tickets are available through Moshtix.