STACK #136 Feb 2016

MUSIC NEWS

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say the hardest part was trying to write it that way, because you’re singing one part while trying to imagine the other part. I mostly just did it in my head.” Eschewing traditional stave notation to communicate ideas or rhythms, the guys used visual references to explain a particular song's feel to one another: “We don’t really have the technical language of music to be able to translate ideas to one another, so we found ourselves trying to express ideas to each other in other ways. A lot of the time that meant describing an image or a gesture, and for this group of songs we found ourselves talking about paint. For example, somebody might say ‘In this song, I want to make a sound that’s like taking a paintbrush and swabbing this colour across the song.’ That’s where the title comes from.” It began with first single FloriDada – one of Portner’s eight demos, which Lennox matched with eight of his own – which set the visual and sonic tone. “It’s easy to look back in hindsight and piece together the way that you were doing things, but we didn’t have a

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L ike a playground handclap, the vocals on Animal Collective’s new release Painting With are a lively interplay that on first listen sound as if they’ve just got to have been digitally arranged. But Noah Lennox (Panda Bear) asserts that he and Dave Portner (AveyTare) spent a lot of time practising, with much trial and error, to get the effect right. “We had this idea of wanting to write music for two singers where it kind of felt like one vocal part,” Lennox tells us. “So if you took one of the voices away, the songs wouldn’t really work the same way. I must NOAH lennox ANIMAL COLLECTIVE

master plan," Lennox says. "I find it interesting talking about the music after the fact, and you go over all these steps and decisions that you made and realise that there was a story or a narrative or this creative arc that you were on, but it wasn’t like you were having a daily conversation with yourself, hatching this plan. Only in retrospect you piece together what that subconscious theme was.”We dig it. Read our review of PaintingWith on page 16.

Painting With by Animal

Collective is out Feb 19 through Domino.

R estructured, re-recorded and remixed, the tracks on Hilltop Hoods' new album comprise selections from the hip hop group's HILLTOP HOODS

BASEMENT

Promise Everything

A fter an untimely pause in production (beginning just after the release of the excellent Colourmeinkindness in 2012), Basement return sounding like Motor Ace's badder big brother: heavy guitars are metered with skillfully-wrought melodies in this gorgeous release.

by Basement is out now through Cooking Vinyl

previous two releases and presents them with arrangements from the Adelaide Symphony Orchestra and the Adelaide Chamber Singers Choir. The boys are about to embark on a massive tour with the country's best orchestras - stay tuned.

MUSIC

Drinking From The Sun, Walking Under Stars Restrung by Hilltop Hoods is out Feb 19 via Golden Era/Universal

R ÜFÜS spent their early days together in Byron Bay, surrounded by the hype of Splendour in the Grass and Falls Festival. “Splendour and Falls are two of my favourite festivals,” vocalist Lindqvist says. “I just really love that area up there. I think we snuck in to Splendour two or three years ago.” Even the best of us can’t always get tickets. “Me and Jon [George] took our chances; [we] climbed under some fence and it was a muddy affair. It was crazy because we were standing in the Mix Up tent, and then [later on] to be in that tent closing one of the stages to play a show, that was crazy.” Following the success of Atlas , the band’s What started out as a couple of dudes kicking back and making tunes is now an international sensation. TYRONE LINDQVIST RÜFÜS

new album Bloom draws from the stronger structural aspects of the first. “The overall feeling of the album in terms of a journey – sounds cheesy when I say that – [is] just like a nice feeling, just leading into the record.The first four or five songs [on Atlas ] are really ‘feel good’ songs and that’s similar in this record as well.The back end of the album is a bit more… not introverted, but [they’re] definitely more personal songs that might not be played out at a party as much.They’re probably more a headphone listen.” And right he is. Bloom is both laidback and calculated, and full of beats and bounces. But what else would you expect from a group named after a bar of soap? The trio drew a lot of the inspiration for Bloom from their time over in Germany. “It started off with David August,” Linqvist explains. “I guess he’s big in Germany. He’s got an album called Times … it’s almost like a film score type album.There’s not a lot of singing or anything; it’s really different. If you’re getting stuck for an idea you’d go out

and you’re in some club in Berlin, and someone’s just playing a minimal tech track which is just kicks, and people are loving it. I think before we spent time there I had a totally different understanding of a song like that, that could go for ten minutes and not do a lot. But once you’re there, and you’re in that room, I cannot explain it. It is something else.There’s [so much] more detail they’re putting in the music, and it’s so not cluttered, but you just feel it hit you. It’s like a giant meditation of people going, ‘Oh yeah, this is great.’" Alesha Kolbe

Bloom by RÜFÜS is out now through Sony.

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