Our latest video offering is No Show from our album, Superhappyfuntimesfriends. When I found out this old Japanese monster movie was in the public domain, I just had to fuck with it. Even though it’s trimmed down from 90 minutes to three, I don’t think the continuity of the film is that effected. The plot may in fact make more sense to certain people with this particular edit.

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Cogel have just released the music video for The Bug, the first single from their debut album, due out in March 2012. I’m picking up whatever poetic percussion they’re puttin’ down.

Wednesday April 6th marked a sad day in Australian music history. The Sydney indie boys of Red Riders have decided to part ways after eight years of rocking out. And while a sinking feeling entered my heart upon hearing that one of my favourite bands will no longer make music together, I wish them all the best.

Read Red Rider’s last words on their Tumblr. Although there’s mention of possible farewell gigs in Melbourne and Sydney, I wouldn’t miss the foursome hitting the stage for the last time as support for Children Collide’s national tour kicking off later this month. We’ll miss you!

The Bag Raiders are Australian producers Chris Stracey and Jack Glass and they recently released their debut album, BAG RAIDERS, on Modular Records. Their second single, Sunlight, is exactly what I need right now. I have been dancing around to it all morning. They are a fantastic recipe for bad weather downers.

Cut Copy’s LP, Zonoscope, was produced by the band’s Dan Whitford. The Deluxe CD and iTunes Deluxe Version of the album, out on February 8, will include a 
new cut of the Krozm-directed documentary Artificial Interpreter, featuring footage not previewed on the web episodes.

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Ah, ha! Our favourite Aussie indie band, The Paper Scissors, have a new single out, Lung Sum, from their second full-length album, In Loving Memory. Oh, and the video is kinda fun. Of course.

Having recently returned Down Under from recording in London and Los Angeles, Australian rockers Ghostwood are back on the indie scene with their new single, Sunset Mirage. It was penned in LA while working with Dave Cooley of Dappled Citied and Dangermouse mastering fame. Although their new material has matured a great deal since Red Version days, they still bear the same old hazy, raw and nostalgic sound that we love.

Australian electro group PVT has just released their track, Light Up Bright Fires, as a digital remix EP on Oct 19. The single, which is the second to be released from their album Church With No Magic, is full of twisted synth sounds and ominous, shape-shifting vocals.

This video here makes me happy for several reasons: the tune is great, the boys are cute, the vocals and the groove are really my thing, and the video, directed by Lucinda Schreiber and Beatrice Pegard, simply rocks. It was shot frame by frame, then re-shot using over 2,000 printed pieces of paper.

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Producing a string of international hits without releasing an album in the space of four years isn’t the norm for most artists. But Australian electro-pop outfit Miami Horror aren’t your average musicians playing by the rules. The band started off as a solo endeavour turned augmented four-piece live incarnation who incessantly test the boundaries of electro territory. I chatted with founding mastermind Benjamin Plant about their recently released debut album, Illumination

MICHELLE WILDING: Fans have waited a solid four years for debut album Illumination to emerge. How did it come about and what was involved in the creative process?
BENJAMIN PLANT: Our debut album was kind of in the works for the past few years. I started some songs I guess when I was a bit younger and held onto them until now; then we created a whole bunch of songs over the last year while we were touring a lot too. I met Josh, then Aaron and Dan, then joined the band so we essentially influenced and changed the sound to what it is now.

MW: How would you describe Illumination’s sound to somebody who has never heard it?
BJ: it’s hard to pigeon hole it. It’s pretty disco-influenced, a little bit psychedelic and progressive, but mostly inspired by a lot of nostalgic pop artists from the seventies.

MW: You guys are now rocking guitars and continue to make melodious, danceable tracks. What’s the art to seamlessly blending acoustic and electric guitars with looping bass lines, horns and synths?
BJ: The idea was just to create something a little more original and different. Those elements often don’t really come together, so it was taking my influences and then Josh’s influences and allowing them to mix a little bit, which at first I was apprehensive about. I was kind of too concerned about it matching another style, but then I kind of realised it had its positives too and we rolled with it to create what we have now.

MW: Who is the wordsmith of the group or is writing lyrics a shared role?
BJ: Lyrics is definitely something that is quite out there for me. I don’t do it very often. On the case of the album, we left it mostly up to Josh and Alan to write. Dan from the band has written lyrics for Sometimes and half of the final track Ultra Violet. I wrote two track lyrics, so it’s a very shared thing.

MW: What was it like collaborating with Melbourne vocalist Kimbra and Neon Indian’s Alan Paloma?
BJ: Well Kimbra is from Melbourne and we knew her through Josh. She recently moved here, so we got her into the studio to do Í Look To You”. She often over sings things quite a bit, so we thought that wasn’t too fitting for this and we worked with her to create this perfect balance of dreaminess for the song. And that was kind of quite easy actually. With Alan, I’ve been friends with him for quite a few years. We got him over from the US to work here for a month. He stayed at my house and finished the new Neon Indian record while working with me.

MW: Overall, your music often fools listeners into thinking they’re actually in the 1970s or 1980s stepping out of a Nintendo game or something. Are you influenced by any notable artists from these eras?
BJ: I don’t think this album in particular had any really eighties influences.

MW: What do you feel influenced Illumination per se? It sounds very French influenced to me.
BJ: The idea of using certain synths and sounds and probably even the production ideas were very French. And then there were the French tracks we were listening to a few years ago which were influenced by a lot of eighties stuff. Now it’s more the seventies which has influenced this album. Right now we’re listening to more AIR, Pink Floyd and Super Trance.

MW: I hear the bonus disk offers neat remixes from some of the best of the international and local circuit like Baby Monster, YACHT, Hook N Sling and Fred Falke to name a few?
BJ: The bonus disk is a selection of remixes from over the last year, so it’s basically just some of our favourite mixes of Sometimes, Moon Theory and Make You Mine.

MW: Is remixing other musicians’ songs just as rewarding as producing your own?
BJ: It’s always fun because you have something to start with which gets the ball rolling quicker. However, writing originals for yourself is much more rewarding.

MW: How does it feel having influenced not only Australia’s music scene with a string of hits in the last few years, but to have gained serious attention on a global scale?
BJ: We’re very happy. We’ve obviously got a lot of European and American influences in our sound, so we were almost in some ways making music that would translate over there better than in Australia potentially. We always had that in my and are very happy to have other interest outside of Australia.

Australian electro four-piece Miami Horror’s have just released their debut album, Illumination, a perfect union of horns, acoustic and electric guitars, synths and looping bass lines — all of which creates a seventies French sound. Aussie disco? Ah-mazing!

Australian electronic act, Pivot, have changed their name — to PVT — and have a new album on the way, to be released through the mercurial Warp Records. Their song, Window, is typical of the dense collisions of PVT’s sound. The video was directed by Clemens Habicht (Friendly Fires) and edited at the Abbey Road Studios, using an innovative camera technique to capture the intensity of the band’s live performances.

Australian singer-songwriter, Andy Clockwise, has just released his latest album, The Socialite, and it’s another trippily eclectic set of off-kilter pop gems. We have 10 copies to giveaway to randomly selected LAEM subscribers. To enter, just leave a message under this post with the name of the city you live in.

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After their number one AIR debut and ARIA nomination for their most recent album, Zounds, we thought we should check in with Australian band, Dappled Cities, to get the inside word on their Winter tour and their well-received album.
You’re back in Australia for your winter tour in June, how will it feel to be playing to familiar fans again?
‘We’re mega thrilled to have a tour upcoming. We have some rad new material and will be playing them across the tour. And it’ll feel good to try out our old material in new ways’.
What were the influences or themes behind the new album?
‘I guess we were exploring different ideas of connectedness between people. You know — people across cultures, eras and personal relationships, but masked in a more equivocal stance. But we always go far and wide with our ideas, so that’s just the start’.
Your music has been described as art rock. Do you think your sound fits into this category?
‘Well I wouldn’t say we think of ourselves as artists. We have too much fun for that kind of serious moniker. But we are inspired by a sense of experimentation and boundary pushing, so I guess in that sense we’re more “art rock” than your average pub band playing for free beer and DVDs’.

We checked in with Aussie band, The Black Ryder, and asked them whether their new album, Buy The Ticket, Take the Ride, was a labour of love or if it fell into place really quickly. Aimee Nash, one half of the duo, replied that ‘it was definitely a labour of love considering we wrote, recorded and produced the entire album ourselves. Some songs were easier than others, and some took over a year to complete. Scott engineered the album yet we produced everything together so there were many tireless hours spent at the studio desk’. Said Scott Von Ryper, the other half of the group: ‘Most of it fell into place really quickly and then took over a year to refine it all. Some songs were written and recorded in a night, and then we just kept layering and tuning it until it sounded the way we dreamed it should be. We got told many times that early versions we were playing to people sounded ‘finished’, but we couldn’t help ourselves. The production side of creating music can be very enjoyable as well, so we took our time to explore it’. [Read a Secret Playlist by The Black Ryder]

Don’t be fooled: The Middle East actually hail from Queensland, Australia, where their mini-album, The Recordings Of The Middle East, was originally self released 2008 before the always hip record label Spunk re-issued it with new packaging and a new tracklisting in 2009. Next up for the band are their first shows ever on American soil at this year’s SXSW Music Festival in Austin in March.

Ok, so the leadsinger of this Australian band, Powerage, is barely into his teens, and already he sings like Axl Rose and Brian Johnson’s love child. Perhaps he is? They are unbelievably good, and will rip it up on stage for many years to come. For those about to rock, Powerage salutes you.

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Cloud Control have just unravelled a newly recorded track, Gold Canary, from their forthcoming 2010 album. It’s straight up pastoral Blue Mountains goodness. I actually heard it live earlier this year and it sounded quite rad.

Midnight Juggernauts are another awesome Australian band. There’s something amazing going on in the land of Oz, with Empire of the Sun, Pnau, and these guys. I really wish they were coming to London to brighten up my dark, mysterious winters. Come on boys, you know you wanna!

Life is filled with many hidden delights that keep us warm on those days when the world seems confused and expended. One of my favorite delights is finding that new song that you play over and over again. Repeat, repeat, dancing around in your room, acting a complete fool and enjoying every moment of it. Lovers Electric is the new sound to kick off my day and keep me smiling.