The song combines stylishly shimmying vocal hooks and screechy guitars; hitching and awkwardly-shaped riffs; with lead vocalist Andrew James Stockdale’s impossibly cool, indie-rock drawl.

Out now.

By Sophie Stratford

A modern take on the Parisian-Gypsy sound of the early 20th century, they sing tales of Brunswick (the bohemian enclave of Melbourne’s suburbs) with the improvised charm of a true street performance and enough character to fill a Dickens novel.

Never Turn Your Back On Tha Sea – Rapskallion

I made a purchase of their album ‘One Up For The Little Man’, an enthralling 11 track piece. You can visit their myspace here or get the album from iTunes.

One thing I can say for definite is that the busking in Melbourne is better. The lighting and acoustics of the London Underground don’t do anyone any justice.

By Charlie O’Shea

Hopefully I’ll be featuring more Melbourne/Australian bands from now on. Sophie Stratford is still back in England and will still be doing her thing so I suppose we now have a bi-hemispherical blog. Awesome. Bye.

Autumn Gray formed in 2005 and released an E.P ‘As of Now, No Guarantees for Later’ shortly after. Based in Melbourne, they’ve been gigging in the surrounding area ever since.

The band are getting ready to release their debut album ‘The Diary of a Falling Man’ and are giving away three free tracks from it via their website if you promise to share them around to everyone else.

They’ve been working on ‘The Diary of a Falling Man’ for two years now and have kept the recording process truly independent with no budget, building the recording studio in a ramshackle sharehouse and commandeering a Steinway piano for a guerilla recording session.

Diary of a Falling Man Pt 1 – Autumn Gray

He’s editing a new music video for the Norwegian band Children and Corpse at the moment. You can see a still from it on his blog and I’ll post the video here on IMF when it’s finished.

In the meantime, you can check out his website, a culmination of his illustration, animation and photography. The portraits section is definitely a must-see with his unique style of crosshatched texta shading.

He says it’s taken him “Four months and about 1,640 hand drawn and water coloured frames”. Seriously impressive stuff and well worth your eye time. Subscribe to his blogspot.

Radio – The Avalanches

Tonight May Have To Last Me All My Life – The Avalanches

The follow up album has taken a long time with some debate and confusion as to whether it’ll be released at all. The Avalances MySpace page’s headline reads ‘clearing samples’ which I’m guessing means they have to check the copyright of all the samples they’re using. Anyway, I’ll be sure to post up here when it is finally available. In the mean time ‘Since I Left You’ is definitely worth checking out.

Triple J is a national Australian radio station first started in 1975 mainly aimed at a youthful audience (defined as those between 12 and 25). Music played on the station is generally more alternative than commercial stations with a heavy emphasis on new and Australian music. During the day, there’s usually a healthy selection of modern indie tracks from artists such as Sigur Rós who I’d never expect to hear on a national radio station. They play quite a variety on the station ranging from metal, to hip hop and from house to punk in their speciality night programs. 

To get it in iTunes, visit http://www.abc.net.au/triplej/ and click ‘listen’. Then chose mp3 stream in the pop-up that appears. On a mac, an m3u file is downloaded and this can be opened in iTunes.

Angus and Julia Stone, a brother and sister act from Newport, Australia started out as individual solo artists accompanying each other musically at open mic nights. They decided to collaborate fully in early 2006 and have so far released three EP’s and one full length album. They have a warm, wooden sound and are a good acoustic listen. I would have posted the video to their track ‘Hollywood’ but the youtube UK music restriction is debilitating. Look it up if you’re out of the UK.

Chocolates and Cigarettes EP
Heart Full of Wine EP
A Book Like This
The Beast EP