I had a big pile of unlistened-to material staring at me this afternoon, so I finally decided to do something about it and have a good long listening session. Generally bands don’t fare too well when I am going through this process: getting through that much music usually means I’m pretty harsh and toss stuff out without giving it much of a chance. And then along came a Gang Gang Dance mp3 entitled “Princes”.

Apparently GGD are a New York-based band that have been active in their local indie scene for quite some time. They’ve just been signed to Warp Records and, if this track is anything to go by, there will be huge things happening for them from here on.

Anyway, the tune: I listened. And listened again. And listened to it loud. And listened to it quiet. This sound is HOT. The contents include zesty squelchy synth basslines, catchy intricate beats/percussion, noodly guitars and great sonic texture. In a nutshell, it’s part-2-step-meets-tribal-meets-electro-meets-friggin-huge-jam. Tinchy Stryder gives up a hot em-cee performance and if this track doesn’t have you reaching to turn the volume up and bob your head, I think you might need to get out for a bit of fresh air.

You need to put this track on your party playlist. NOW.

• Gang Gang Dance – Princes (ft Tinchy Stryder)

Joe Hardy: putting the “bed” back into “bedroom musician”

I don’t love banging on about my own music projects on my blog, but I’ll make an exception here as it’s something I’m pretty excited about…

I’ve been working on getting a live one-man show together, and I’m finally able to announce a couple of low-key warm-up dates that I’m doing. They’re both fundraising/charity music festivals that I’m really eager to support, and details are as follows:

• FEVA’s “How Sweet the Sound” festival
  Line-up features many “G” bands including Gethsemane, Guava and my sometimes band-mate Greg Cooper
  27th September, doors open 4:30pm
  Tickets $25 and must be bought in advance
  http://feva.org/hsts
• Re:Action Festival (Newtown)
  (The tentative line-up I’ve seen includes some pretty great Sydney bands – definitely worth staying tuned for the announcement)
  22nd November, doors open 4pm
  Ticket price TBA – will be provided through Moshtix
  http://www.reactionfestival.com/

Depending on how well the FEVA show goes, I’ll probably start looking at booking support slots around the place shortly. If you’re interested, e-mail me at joe*at*hardy*dot*id*dot*au.

I’m calling the show “guitronica”. This sophisticated word means that I use laptops, synths AND guitars (it’s all pretty high tech or something). The whole thing is un-sequenced and largely improvised, so expect mayhem. In test performances lullabies have been known to turn into storming rockers, and vice versa. You never know what you’re going to get. It could also just fall to pieces at any moment.

I haven’t made a recording of any of the tunes, with the exception of this demo that I did some time ago. Consider this your (very rough) taster:

• Isle of Rhodes (demo)

Having finally fired up my RSS reader yesterday, it’s nice to see plenty of cool stuff happening around the interwebs. For amusement, I think NIN having BSODs as part of their concert visuals takes the cake.

But for “hey, why hasn’t this been done earlier?” merits, I think Who The Bloody Hell Are They? gets special recognition. They’ve decided to have a nice little hoe-down for music bloggers, and it’s free no less:

I’m very excited about this, and I’m going to have a good go at getting there. Obviously other factors may intervene, but I’ll see how I go!

SYDNEY, AUSTRALIA — Carly and Joe Hardy are pleased to announce a co-produced effort that saw release on the 8th of September. The project, titled “Nadia Rose” was launched at a quiet event at 12:11pm and shortly thereafter saw rave reviews with even the harshest critics proclaiming that she was “pretty cute”.

The final stages of production, like all great creations, were not without strong external influences. In the stage known as “labour”, Carly and Joe were inspired by the likes of Low, the Flaming Lips, Lamb, Feist, Crowded House, U2, Gomez and many more (translation: longest. labour. ever.) Nadia was born to the sounds of “One Tree Hill” by U2.

Nadia has already been displaying a healthy response to music. She particularly enjoyed her first listening session of “Kid A” by Radiohead (happily cooed throughout the first three songs, fell asleep to “How to Disappear Completely”, slept peacefully throughout the remainder). She was unavailable for comment as to when her first guest submissions to Joe.Blog would be submitted.

Her listening pile is steadily growing:

Thanks so much to everyone that was thinking of us throughout the labour process – we really appreciate it.

Hermitude are back. For the uninitiated, I’m talking about the well-seasoned instrumental electronic hip-hop duo responsible for cruisy, jam-oriented tunes based on some solid hip-hop beats laced with some jazz know-how and a dash of sample-mania. They do a mean live show and have probably improved the life of more than one party via their two records out on Elefant Traks.

“Slychain” is the name of their new single and it offers a taste of the ‘tude doing what they do: it’s a jam, nothing more and nothing less. No pretentious jibber-jabber or introspective chin-stroker fests. Just a two chords, a funky bassline, a crisp beat and some nice keyboard noodling. Throw a few vocal samples on top, and you’ve got a nice party starter right there.

Alongside straight-up tunes such as this, Hermitude have always had plenty of surprises at the ready for their records, which means if anything about this tune catches your ear then you should definitely keep an eye out for “Threads” which is getting released on the 27th of September, again through Elefant Traks. And by all means, keep an eye out for some live ‘tude action – you’ll be sure to enjoy yourself.

• Slychain (mp3)