I Heard The News Today, Oh Boy - SUPER EDITION

Remember that quote from Wes Bentley in American Beauty? The one about there being too much beauty in the world in the world and he can't take it? Well I feel like that at the moment, only replace the word 'beauty' with 'music' and the floating plastic bag with a wealth of amazing new tunes.

I guess first and foremost though, I should be plugging this:

Fellow lovers and loathers of music, my latest comedy show based on this very blog is already in full swing as part of the Melbourne Fringe Festival 2011. That's the cheeky show poster up there and essentially it's a whole new hour of music based hilarity to capitalise the momentum of my comic debut, my Difficult 2nd Album in every sense of the word.

You can book tickets and find more dates and deets here:

Al's Music Rant: The Difficult 2nd Album|Melbourne Fringe Festival 2011

If you need some convincing, there's already some reviews of the show available.

Firstly via ArtsHub who give a lovely review of three-and-a-half stars

then there's Crikey, which - despite a strange obsession with my facial hair - seemed to like the show.

So come on down to The Glasshouse from this Thurs 29 - Sun 2 or next week from Thurs 6 to Sat 8 to catch some cutting musical analysis, some crazy character work and a whole bunch of powerpoints.

Now to get back to my American Beauty spiel...

A bunch of cool musical links and great new tunes to get through. So *deep breath* let's wave through like a shopping bag in the wind

• AMR loves Kimbra, this you know, but it seems that a lot of you do too. The morning after her terrific opening night show for her Vows tour, it was announced that the album of the same name debuted at no. 5 on the ARIA charts. Boss. Whadiditellya? The girl's a star - let her shine (via Daily Telegraph) P.S. she's got a slick new website, natch.
• Another AMR 'told ya so' Big Scary, are about to unveil their own debut album Vacation, I'm sworn to secrecy on this one, but I can tell you that the video for opening cut Gladiator is a riot. Directed by the comedy team Poncho TV it's a hilarious little bit of film. Have a squizz below (via Big Scary TV)

• Purveyors of über-fun pop-rock, Grouplove, recently released their joyous debut Never Trust A Happy Song (more on that soon) and the crack team over at Large Noises were able to capture an intimate performance from the band while they recently visited our shores for Splendour In The Grass. Here they are doing Colours, filmed prior to taking to the stage for a lively show at The Corner. (via Large Noises)

• Local chill-popsters Alpine have been busy bees. They've finished recording a brand new single called Hands with Dann Hume (Evermore, Lisa Mitchell) to be released soon, plus they're touring in support of The Jezabels for their Prisoner album tour; or if you simply can't wait, they're playing a headline show at the Prince Bandroom this Friday. You'll probably be hearing some of the new additions to their line-up, namely "a new keybaord, a theremin and a new triangle which is MASSIVE & LOUD!" (sic). (via Alpine)

• Rostam Batmanglij - best known as producer and multi-instrumentalist of Vampire Weekend and as one-half of the colourful Discovery side-project - has just relesed a free single online. Wood is now available through SoundCloud under the simplified tag of ROSTAM, featuring a distinct Asian influence and his characteristic baroque way with layered instrumentation. Lovely. (via PrettyMuchAmazing)

• Plan to do some proper coverage on these in the near future, but the already great albums of 2011 are finding some esteemed company. Namely, recent releases including Wilco - The Whole Love, Laura Marling - A Creautre I Don't Know, Girls - Father, Son, Holy Ghost andSt. Vincent - Strange Mercy. While Mastodon andOpeth enhance the world of heavy music with their latest studio efforts The Hunter and Heritage respectively. Then there's Halloween, Alaska, whose fourth studio album I personally helped fund through a Kickstarter project and I'm immensely happy with the result: All Night The Calls Came In. Then there's easily one of my most highly-anticipated albums for the year, the second solo album from Porcupine Tree mastermind Steven Wilson - Grace For Drowning I'm checking my postbox like a fevered psycho daily in wait for my pre-ordered deluxe edition. 

• Hip-hop luminary Mos Def will no longer be known by that name. The man born Dante Terrell Smith will no longer be using the Mos Def moniker instead he'll go by Yasiin, because, in his own words "I built and cultivated over the years, it's a name that the streets taught me, a figure of speech that was given to me by the culture and by my environment, and I feel I've done quite a bit with that name. [But] it's time to expand and move on." Yasiin is supposedly a reference to the Qu'ran, and more in line with Terrell's ever-deepening Muslim beliefs. Here's simply hoping there's some new music to go along with the name change (via The Guardian)

To take us out, it's the exotic talents of Brous. Having already delivered one of the year's most delightfully eclectic singles in Streamers, she's now unveiled the latest sampling of her eponymous EP. The promo clip for Little Ticket features a rare performance from La Voce Della Luna, an all-Italian choir of elderly women. It's a breathtaking burst of Ennio Morricone-styled theatrics. (via Brous)