Music news

Tonight sees the return of another monthly favourite- Hoops. Having just supported American spinner DJ Ayres and commanded the floor at this year’s official ARIA after-party, the Hoops girls are on fire and ready to set off the alarms at Paddington’s Grand Pacific Blueroom this Friday night. As well as regulars Nina LasVegas, Bad Ezzy and Anna Lunoe; Sydney’s Queen of Lo-fi rap, Catcall, will also be putting in a live set. Yowww!

Following the “Honesty box” release of Radiohead’s In Rainbows, the dominoes continue to fall on the way popular music is marketed and purchased. The latest musician to offer up their C.D for potentially nothing is poet and conscious hip-hop hero Saul Williams. Williams has teamed up with Nine Inch Nails alumnus Trent Reznor to create The Inevitable Rise and Liberation of NiggyTardust!; an album which can be pre-ordered online for a $5 donation- or nada (depending, I guess, on how healthy your karma bank is looking). A modern day take on David Bowie’s Rock’n’Roll pariah Ziggy Stardust, Williams has invented the Tardust character as a vehicle to, in his own words, “set me free to do more on stage with costume, etc. than one might expect from a regular Saul Williams show”. Adding to the conceptual feel of the album is Saul's collaboration with designers and visual artists such as Melody Ehsani. The socially conscious accessory designer has created both an album cover and an exclusive line of Tardust Jewellery in honour of his “rise and liberation”.

Under the guidance of Mad Decent (the record label of American uber -producer Diplo) and with support from Australia’s own hit pickers Modular Records, Agzarian and Levins set up a studio in Sydney’s Redfern early this year. Produced by Diplo and featuring children from the Riverina Juvenile Justice Centre, “Smash a Kangaroo” was Heaps Decent's first single; a beat heavy track that found it’s way onto radio and dance-floors worldwide. More recently, Heaps Decent were approached by dance superstar M.I.A,
who was keen to collaborate while in Australia for Parklife. The result is a yet unnamed track featuring indigenous artists from Newcastle’s all-girl detention centre rapping with Miss Arulpragasam over a sparse beat from French producers TEPR and Grand Marnier. Although the track isn’t yet available, it’s still gaining its fair share of hype. The heaps Decent crew promises it will be “the club track of the year!” So stay tuned.

The Klaxons are currently touring the country in all their nu-rave glory, after a couple of false starts. Fans have been waiting for quite some time to see the lads, given their last Australian tour (including an appearance at Splendour In The Grass), was cancelled due to drummer Jamie Reynolds stage-diving and breaking his leg! But they are definitely worth the wait, the 2007 Mercury Prize winners impressing a sold out, packed-to-the-rafters Club Capitol in Perth on Tuesday night, with pitch perfect harmonies and a charismatic performance. Opening with an onstage jam that succeeded in getting the crowd amped, they went straight into the wailing sirens of Atlantis To Interzone, before proceeding to play most of their Myths Of The Near Future album in a heavier, more aggressive fashion than the recordings, including Golden Skans, Gravity's Rainbow, Isle Of Her and the Paul Oakenfold cover It's Not Over Yet.

They may have been sporting crop t's and cutesy Jap hairclips, but something snapped in frustrated gals of late-80s American suburbia which made them grab geetars and take to the stage, venting all that pent up creativity in true punk style. Hello Kitty! never looked so fierce.
Last night was the launch of Riot Grrrl: Revolution Girl Style Now!, a book which documents the feminist punk movement, which ripped out of Washington and across the world in the early 1990s, and contains a foreword by one of today’s most fabulous and outspoken feminist muso's, the Gossip’s Beth Ditto.
Wet Dog and Valerie played, plus none other than our own Macromantics !
Known as an innovative hip-hop diva with her own spin on diction and a wiley sense for wordsmithing, Melbourne girl Macromantics (aka Romy Hoffman) started out playing in Noise Addict with Ben Lee at the tender age of 15, and is now signed to riot grrrl stalwarts Kill Rock Stars, birthplace of Le Tigre and Bikini Kill.
All proceeds from the event went to Ladyfest London.

This December, hip-hop luminary Nas is set to release his ninth studio album; which, after much rumour and record company issued denials, is set to be called “Nigger”. Unsurprisingly the use of the “N word” (a term originally employed by the lynch mobs of America’s south and now commonly used as a term of endearment amongst the rap community) as an album title has invited all sorts of controversy, with famed civil rights activist Reverand Jesse Jackson slamming the hip-hop heavyweight for glamourising the “morally offensive and socially distasteful" term. Nas however sticks by his decision, claiming he wants to “Make the word easy on mutha----as' ears" and that using it as the title of a relatively mainstream album will take the negative power out of the N-bomb. His peers are also weighing in on the debate and while most are supportive (Wu-Tang legend Method Man topically pointed out that he “Knows a word worse than 'nigger': Darfur”), others, such as rapper 50 cent, claim Nas has only chosen the word for shock value. Nas’ record label Def Jam haven’t officially approved the title so debate is still open. Either way hopefully fans will get to hear tracks from the already scandalous new album when Nas tours Australia in November.

The mesmerising Sarah Blasko is currently touring around the country on the Showstopper Tour – her last lot of headlining shows for critically acclaimed second album, What The Sea Wants, The Sea Will Have.

Sitting down for a chat after her chilled gig at the Fremantle Arts Centre on Sunday night, Blasko was relaxed as she talked about the tour. “All the guys in the band, I’ve been playing with over the last few years,” she said. “It’s nice to be around people that you play with a lot and have gotten really comfortable with.”

If there’s one thing you can say about a Sarah Blasko performance it’s that each and every one is different. Sometimes they’re more dramatic affairs and at other times she casually chats to the audience. So what has this tour been like? “I’ve been enjoying all the shows actually. It’s weird just to be singing and not have to do anything else like play guitar.” In the next few weeks catch her in Launceston, Hobart, Melbourne, Toowoomba, Brisbane and Adelaide. For more info click here.