His Future’s So Bright

April 10, 2015 11:24 pm 40 comments Views: 37

His future’s so bright. Tame Impala lead singer Kevin Parker at Big Day Out (RIP). Pic by Luke Marsden.
Source: News Limited

The ’Impala will not be tamed. Just as Kendrick Lamar is having another breakout year, Tame Impala — Kevin Parker’s brains, brawn and belief — cannot and will not be stopped in 2015.

He’s taken the Fremantle desert warriors to the world via Innerspeaker and Lonerism and in the last month Tame Impala have broken the internet more than Kim Kardashian’s posterior with the arse-kicking, heart-healing Let It Happen and this week the more feminine ’Cause I’m a Man. Both are instant classics.

The latter sounds like an open letter to his belle (Reddit suggests it’s a mystery blonde). Parker genuflects in front of his lady and gives her reasons, not excuses, why he mucked up:

“I’m just pathetic, that’s the reason why, In desperation, all that you can do is ask me why, ‘Cause I’m a man, woman, Don’t always think before I do.”

We’ve all been there, K-Park.

Mansplaining a few things. Kevin Parker of Tame Impala performs live for fans at the 2014 Big Day Out Festival on January 26, 2014 in Sydney, Australia. (Photo by Mark Metcalfe/Getty Images)
Source: Getty Images

’Cause I’m a Man is a stately number that sounds like Ric Ocasek’s hands gliding down Enigma’s mixing desk. It’s all Parker though, he is a control freak in the best possible way. His scruffy Heath-Ledger-in-Two-Hands surfer dude appearance belies a samurai-like obsession to his craft.

Here they are playing yesterday (fah-reshhhh) at Fox Theatre in Pomona, California, debuting the song.

‘Cause I’m a Man – Tame Impala

and the way it’s intended to be heard:

‘Cause I’m a Man – Tame Impala

When Rock City spoke to Parker for Lonerism he explained how much he’s a slave to the music.

“I was lying in bed in Sydney thinking about the drums and how I was unhappy with them. I couldn’t sleep. So I spent all the remaining money Modular had given me to make the record and got the next flight back to New York to get the drums sounding right,” he said at the time. “I didn’t care that I’d spent the advance, I was just so relieved I fixed the drums.”

Their next record is to be titled Currents, and was “sketched out in planes, cars, hotels and homes and written, performed, recorded, produced and mixed by Kevin Parker in Fremantle, Western Australia,” the band writes. ’Cause I’m a Man is now on iTunes. Out mid-2015, Currents will be their first record on Interscope and “more electronic” than previous records. Parker is manning up.

Because you’re a good student, here’s Let It Happen at Pomona too,

Let It Happen – Tame Impala

and a much crisper version that reminds Rock City of Television’s Marquee Moon:

Let It Happen – Tame Impala

Will the self-described “epiphany pop” band be back for Splendour In The Grass to challenge Blur for headliner status? Rumours. Pffft. It’s a monty.

facebook.com/tameimpala

Orinoco flow. Oscar Key Sung has an EP titled Altruism due soon.
Source: Supplied

OSCAR WINNING

And the Oscar goes to … Mr Key Sung.

Without sounding too voyeuristic it’s a joy watching Oscar Key Sung rise up the ranks on his way to becoming a global true school R&B artists and go-to vocalist for ethereal house jams. He has a new single Skip, which follows previous cut Premonition. Both are from his Altriusm EP, due to drop May 1 via Warner.

“The idea for Skip stemmed from a conversation I had over coffee one morning with a gurl. Basically she was saying in relation to a romance that she felt as though she had seen a preview for a film that looked really exciting…but understood that the film wasn’t in cinemas for a few more months,” he muses. “I thought this analogy was very clever and couldn’t get the idea out of my head. So that’s what triggered the Skip.”

It’s the sound of walking down a long white corridor with 1000 count sheets flapping in the wind to find Glenn Medeiros putting a move on Jennifer Capriati.

“Unlike a lot of my music where I work on multiple arrangements, this song didn’t change much after my initial play with it. I wanted it to stay simple, and not over think it,” he says.

“Under-think it” is a spot-on message for these anxious times.

Since dissolving Oscar + Martin, he’s been doing stellar, goalpost-shifting work with Andras Fox, Mercury Music Prize-nominated MC Ghostpoet and MeLo-X for their MELOGHOST project, his BFF Banoffee and Sydney bromeo Lavurn Lee under their Cassius Select moniker. Key Sung describes the EP as “a bit of a mess. I suppose I’m just a part of this generation of oversaturation, where it’s easy to be as influenced Arvo Pärt as you are by Drake.”

“I always wanted to make more hi-fidelity music, for clubs, rooms dedicated to listening and movement” he adds.

Pre-order the EP and receive Skip straight up: bit.ly/oksaltruism

Howler, 7-11 Dawson St, Brunswick. June 13. h-w-l-r.com

Total Giovanni – Melbourne italo disco dance band with forever changing luck.
Source: Supplied

TOTAL PACKAGE

Vachel Spirason was in a rut.

“Personally I was a bit antsy and not knowing what I was doing. We hadn’t played any shows yet. I was feeling very much in transition,” says one of two vocalists/bodyrollers in Melbourne disco demons Total Giovanni. During a drunken late night jam something happened.

Human Animal happened.

“We were jokingly doing a cover of the Angels’ Am I Ever Gonna See Your Face Again and I put together some percussion stuff. I added some synths and it became the bedrock. The polyrhythmic elements came in when we played with the band, the shakers and the rhythmic guitars,” he says.

“It had that powerfulness to it. It was like Talking Heads’ Remain In Light album. It had that combination, musically outwardly euphoric and celebratory but personally I didn’t know which way was up.” So Spirason started going David Byrne, singing: “I’m having so little impact, so I change the position of my bed and try to teach myself the cryptic.” The song should be number one in every country and especially Jupiter. It’s outta sight.

Spirason is joined in comet-tailing quintet Total Giovanni by Spike Punch (the other vocalist/bodyroller), Shidi Amin (aka Sideboard Ford), Cavallo Nero (The Dark Horse) and Shattered Guru (aka Jingle Bellow).

“Most of those nicknames are changing, we’re like WWF wrestlers,” Spirason spruiks. They can’t help themselves or indeed control their love.

Can’t Control My Love – Total Giovanni

Total Giovanni’s initial bio stated “they gained notoriety as a Berlusconi house-band, and have just arrived in Melbourne after fleeing Milano due to… a change of luck.” Only problem was “we had homesick Italians coming to our show hoping to hang out with other Italians. We had to wind back on that stuff. We didn’t want getting Italian noses out of joint.”

The lairy, hairy types played Golden Plains recently, decked out in gold wreaths, white togas and backed by a Roman archway. Wonderfully, they received the Golden Boot when they shifted from Human Animal into Can’t Control My Love. Watch the footage on Aunty Meredith’s Home Videos Youtube channel and feel the sun gods smiling down at you. “We’re still dealing with the aftermath, we were overwhelmed with how much great energy we tapped into. Now it’s just emails, emails, emails,” he says, stoked.

They also played Paradise Festival in Lake Mountain last December and in a stroke of good luck (it changed back) their new single is titled Paradise. It’s a yearning disco workout that runs a swift six and half minutes. “Oh good, I’m glad you say that, we initially tied everything up because we thought it went for too but then it destroyed the soul of the song.”

SCOOP: Total Giovanni will be adding a fourth date to their run of Gasometer shows.

The Gasometer, 484 Smith St, Collingwood. May 8, 13, 14, 15. $ 15+bf. thegasometerhotel.com.au

MARY MARY

Sarah Mary Chadwick is quite contrary. The insular Sydney solo artist signed to Rice is Nice and they’ve just put out her second record 9 Classic Tracks. It was recorded and produced by Geoffrey O’Connor (The Crayon Fields) and mastered by David Walker.

She’s launching it in June but you can beat the rush and hear the crush before then. It’s a heavy profession.

Polyester Records, 387 Brunswick St, Fitzroy. Fri, 6pm. Free.

ANIMALS DANCING

Lost Animal version 2.0 has been found. Jarrod Quarrell and Shags Chamberlain have finished second album You Yang and it will drop mid-2015 according to a new Twitter account. Quarrell is a cheeky chappy: “Who do I talk to about programming @rageABC? I’d kill it.”

Watch this space for more intel on these retrosexuals.

twitter.com/lostanimalmusic

RAZZLE DAZZLE

Courtney Barnett’s hero Darren Hanlon has a jaunty new country cut The Chattanooga Shoot Shoot and a clip featuring cameos from Dick Diver members (Steph Hughes and Al Montfort), The Saturday Paper editor Erik Jensen and others. It’s a fluid retelling of a bus shooting in Nashville … a bus Hanlon was travelling on, skint and skittish.