STACK #128 Jun 2016

MUSIC

NEWS

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with

with synthesisers, which, in the hands of people like Donna Summer, established not just his own reputation and hers but the genre which became disco. Moroder was also the producer of Sparks' glorious Number One Song in Heaven , Blondie's Call

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Moroder returns with DÉjÀ Vu A t 74, the pioneering producer Giorgio Moroder should be slowing down, but in fact he's started again. His new album Déjà Vu will be his first in 30 years and the renewed interest in him was doubtless prompted by his appearance on Daft Punk's 2013 Random Access Memory, in which he spoke over an archetypal Moroder piece entitled Giorgio by Moroder. Among the album's guests are Sia (on the title track), Charli XCX, Mikky Ekko, Kylie Minogue, Britney Spears, Kelis... and on the album – in a nod to him connecting with a young audience again – is the track 74 Is the New 24 . “This is dance music, it’s disco, it’s electronic, it’s here for you,” he says of the album. “Once you listen... you’ll feel it… déjà vu.” Italian-born Giovanni Giorgio Moroder moved to Germany in his mid-20s and immediately began making a name for himself as a producer in the mid-'60s. With lyricist Pete Bellotte, he began working almost exclusively

Q1/ You've previously documented Hollywood producer Robert Evans and The Rolling Stones; why Kurt Cobain? The great thing about this story is you look for the universal, the something that personalises it, and set it against these backdrops – you look for the personally individual, set against a sea of millions – but you can never be intimidated by the material or the subject. Q2/ The music of course plays a role in Montage of Heck, but it's not strictly chronological. How did you think about how songs related to the images? The first week or two in the screening room was spent listening to the entire catalogue, from first recording to last. And I kind of deconstructed the lyrical value of a song, and the musical value of the song, and tried to determine where in the narrative it fit. Q3/ How much did you relate to Cobain as a person? I tried to make the film as entertaining and intimate as I could, but it’s a story ultimately about a different time and place. With Cobain I had an opportunity to tell a story about my generation for the first time. I’m the same age as Kurt; we grew up with the same cultural influences. I don’t know if Mick Jagger would know who Speed Race r and H.R. Pufnstuf are, but when I saw those in Kurt’s drawings, I was filled with joy. Q4/ When the did the more crucial elements of the story reveal themselves? I listened to a story of Kurt talking about losing his virginity, and suddenly it was like the end of The Usual Suspects : everything came into focus. That word ‘ridicule’ – "I couldn’t handle the ridicule so I went down to the train tracks" – everywhere I looked, it started to emerge. Floyd the Barber : “ I was shamed/ I was shamed/ I was shamed.” Kurt was ashamed by the divorce, really. Then the narrative – that subtext – really came into focus. Q5/ The film is extremely intimate, because Cobain documented so much of his life. Was it a heavy responsibility? The movie does not even come close to encapsulating the iceberg of documenting Kurt’s childhood. The Super 8 film of his childhood was so revelatory I was conflicted... there was all of this ephemera. Wendy saved ticket stubs from the first time Kurt went to see a football game, aged 3. Everything was saved and collated: I think Kurt got some of that from her. He kept a diary of his life: it just wasn’t necessarily the journal. The diary of his life was his art. This is not a movie from the outside looking in Brett morgen Director Cobain: Montage of heCK

Me , Irene Cara's What a Feeling (the theme to Flashdance ) and a number of soundtracks, most notably those for Midnight Express and Scarface . He's been sampled, honoured, cited as a major influence and has his name on more hits than you might imagine – he even did an eight minute remix of Coldplay's Midnight . He never really went away, but now he's most definitely back, and that album title is tongue-in-cheek – because he certainly must feel more than a little of that particular phenomenon these days.

Deja Vu is out June 12 via

Sony Music.

A fter carrying off the AMP in 2012 for their album Hyperparadise , Hermitude casually unleashed the follow-up entitled Dark Night, Sweet Light in late May. It hit number one nationally. Any lingering impression that the Blue Mountains duo are some kind of cult phenomenon has been swiftly dashed with the success of the album, that's been released via Elefant Traks, the duo's home since day one. Elefant Traks is also the base of The Herd, Urthboy (aka Herd frontman Tim Levinson) and Joelistics. After garnering serious international recognition for their live shows, the pair (El Gusto and Luke Dubs) have proven they're at the forefront of Australian electronic music. Watch this space! Hermitude's Sweet triumph

Dark Night, Sweet Light is out now via Elefant Traks/Inertia.

Seth sentry's strange new past

A dored native hip hop hero Seth Sentry has announced his return to your speakers and headphones, with news of a brand new album Strange New Past, the follow-up to 2012's smash This Was Tomorrow. The manic MC, whose live shows have become nationally renowned, is also embarking on a national tour that will last nearly four

months – one of the longest tours in Australian hip hop history. He'll be joined by Dylan Joel and Ivan Ooze in support on all dates. The tour starts with The Come Together Festival on June 6 at Sydney's Luna Park. Strange New Past was created in Melbourne, with Seth joined by long-time collaborator Styalz Fuego. The first two singles – Run and Hellboy – both point to a slightly more personal and reflective direction for the MC, with Run being inspired by his need to escape a small-town upbringing. His latest single Hellboy is a rapid-fire recollection of mischief and mayhem, while the track's elaborate production scales hitherto unclimbed heights of sophistication and musical impact.

– it’s a movie from the inside looking out. It’s Kurt’s interior journey: the only reason we were able to achieve that is because he was so expressive in different forms of media, visually and aurally.

Strange New Past by Seth Sentry is available now via Inertia. He tours with Dylan Joel and Ivan Ooze June 6 - Sept 12.

Cobain: Montage of Heck is

out now via Universal/Sony.

JUNE 2015 JB Hi-Fi www.jbhifi.com.au

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