Caitlin Park - Fresh Prince of Bel-Air

We adore Caitlin Park at Bobbysix. Indeed, we have banged on about her brilliance on several occasions since we first saw her play last year.

What we most like about Caitlin is how inventive she is and how she perfectly combines the playful and the poignant. Just today, in fact, we got a bit emotional listening to her song Baby Teeth. Amid all manner of loops and samples, she drops in some stunningly beautiful lyrics, "The wood and the axe/ The wolves in their packs/ I need to belong/ I need your hand upon my back." Stunning.

Another example of her clever take on things can be witnessed above. Anyone who can turn such an iconic and silly TV theme tune into something so pretty is a genius in our eyes.

Keep up to date with all things Caitlin on facebook.

Caitlin Park and Oliver Tank to join Active Child at his Laneway sideshows

We're big fans of Sydney's Caitlin Park (above) and Oliver Tank here at Bobbysix.com. Indeed, Park's stunningly beautiful debut album, Milk Annual, was one of the frontrunners in our Album of the Year poll (beaten to the prize by some bunch of chancers called Radiohead) and Tank also got a mention or two in our End of Year Review. So it is with excitement that we today discovered they will both be supporting LA resident Pat Grossi - aka Active Child - for a couple of sideshows to his St Jerome's Laneway Festival appearances in Australia this summer.

Intimately charting joy and heartbreak, battles with monogamy and love lost and rediscovered, Active Child's stories are tenderly delivered. From his father’s tenure at Priority Records (home to NWA and Dr Dre to name a couple), to his own choral experiences as a youngster, Pat draws from a wide range of inspirations including West Coast beats, soaring R&B and 1980’s New Order. He is unquestionably worth your attention.

As well as playing at St Jerome's Laneway Festival across Australia, you can catch Active Child headline a hugely impressive line-up featuring Caitlin Park and Oliver Tank in Sydney and Melbourne:

Sunday 29 January – Oxford Art Factory – Sydney
Tickets from Moshtix, online www.moshtix.com.au, by phone 1300 Get Tix (438 849), on your mobile via www.moshtix.mobi and Moshtix outlets.

Wednesday 8 February – East Brunswick Club – Melbourne. 
Tickets from the East Brunswick Club, online www.eastbrunswickclub.com, by phone 9388 9794 and 57 Swan St Richmond, 10am-8pm Mon-Sat.

Picture by Bobby Townsend

Bobbysix.com's End of Year Review 2011 - Heidi Pett

We're just a couple of days away from the big announcement of Bobbysix.com's overall winner of best album, film, gig and song of 2011. Before that, Deputy Editor Heidi Pett talks us through her favourite things from this year:

You’ll note that these lists have not been numbered. That’s because I’ve been known to take days sweating over my Triple J Hottest 100 votes (should I vote for my personal favourite on the album, or the most popular single, propelling a worthy artist to a higher rank? Is that selling out? What about that little-known band who I love but that will never make it in, is that wasting my vote? And if I do that, will Art vs fucking Science achieve a better result than they would have if I’d voted for, say, The Grates instead?) etc, etc, until oblivion. And that’s an anonymous vote which doesn’t even have to be ordered. So in the interests of my continuing to exist as a functioning member of society, here are my top picks of 2011, in no particular order.

10 Albums/EPs
Bon Iver - BON IVER (pictured, above)
Crystal Theatre - BELLES WILL RING
Forever So - HUSKY
Carry On - PATRICK JAMES
The Josephine March - THE JOSEPHINE MARCH
Absence - SNOWMAN
Milk Annual - CAITLIN PARK
I Want That You Are Always Happy - THE MIDDLE EAST
Helplessness Blues - FLEET FOXES
Secret Rituals - THE GRATES

10 Songs 
History’s Door - HUSKY
Last Night I Heard Everything In Slow Motion - OLIVER TANK
Rose Coloured Glasses - THE JOSEPHINE MARCH
Falling Away - BIG SCARY
Wishingbone -WINTER PEOPLE
Warriors With Wild Hearts - CAITLIN PARK
Paper Thin - FLUME
Please You - PATRICK JAMES
Hector Myola - TIN SPARROW
Holocene - BON IVER

10 Music Videos 
Bizness - TUNE-YARDS
Aroused - TOM VEK
Awkward - SAN CISCO
Little Frog - SUI ZHEN
Somebody That I Used To Know (feat. Kimbra) - GOTYE
Cameo Lover - KIMBRA

Featherstone - PAPER KITES

Fat Monk - RAT vs POSSUM

Holocene - BON IVER

Defeatist - CAMERAS

5 Gigs 

FLORENCE + THE MACHINE - Seymour Centre, Sydney

THE GRATES - The Metro, Sydney

SEEKER LOVER KEEPER - St Stephen’s Church, Sydney

PATRICK JAMES - Hibernian House, Sydney

HOWLING BELLS - The Standard, Sydney

5 Books

Eating Animals - JONATHAN SAFRAN FOER

All That I Am - ANNA FUNDER

Tall Man - CHLOE HOOPER

You’ll Be Sorry When I’m Dead - MARIEKE HARDY

Penguin Plays Rough - VARIOUS

5 Festivals

Woodford Folk Festival

TiNA/Emerging Young Writers Festival

Jaipur Literature Festival

The Human Rights Arts and Film Festival

Changing Lanes Festival

10 Blogs/Websites

I spend a fairly embarrassing amount of time jaunting around the internet, getting inspired by people who are making and doing things. Often I’ll read the entire archives of a blog and then forget to bookmark it for later reference, so here are a few that I actually remember:

suizhen.tumblr.com/

palahniukandchocolate.tumblr.com

thespitpress.com

reasonsyouwillhateme.com

heathenscripture.wordpress.com

thehairpin.com

mimihlvst.blogspot.com

thingsmypretentiousfriendssay.tumblr.com

http://ausreleases.tumblr.com/

raddestrightnow.blogspot.com

2011 in words 

I started volunteering with FBi Radio in June and have finally found that community of beautiful, creative, interesting and interested people that I’ve been looking for in Sydney. Because, you know, I was starting to think this town was full of wankers and everybody was too cool for everything. These people give up their time and their skills out of love and passion and a desire to create, and it’s the best bullshit filter I’ve ever come across. What feels like forever ago, I spent two months sharing a backpack with my best friend as we travelled around India. Trains that were 19 hours late, colour and dust and beauty and heartbreak, escaping Darjeeling in the back of an army jeep, making dinosaur noises at leering men on train platforms, packing more books than clothes, dark green eyes and a hand on the small of my back. And the fact that when we got home we were too embarrassed to reach for the handles on the train, as we reeked of filthy Delhi bathrooms and four days of unwashed transit.

Heidi Pett - Deputy Editor
As well as being a fine writer, Heidi is an award-winning radio producer and presenter. She takes photographs through a plastic lens, drinks wine, listens to folk songs with gratuitous swears and can more often than not be found with her head buried in a book.

Caitlin Park - Milk Annual

Heidi Pett lets us know what she thought of Caitlin Park's debut album:

I must confess that while sampling sounds of unusual provenance makes for an interesting press interview/snippet of information to be bandied about, I often find the technique clunky and frankly irritating. Not so with Caitlin Park. In Milk Annual, she's crafted a beautiful album full of delicate, thoughtful songs that, despite very professional production, feels entirely handmade.

At this point I could go for a long winded metaphor involving a patchwork quilt of found sounds carefully stitched together with a thread of folksy guitar and gentle vocals, ironed and laid out through production by Liam Judson of Belles Will Ring. But I won’t, because that may seem trite, unnecessary and pretentious, all of which sits uncomfortably with the pared-back simplicity of tracks such as With No Strength To Defend, Be A Ghost or the hand claps, unashamedly catchy hooks and pop sensibilities to be found on single Baby Teeth.

The way she plays guitar makes you think you can see it. You’re intensely aware of her fingers, the process of it, particularly on opener How’s Your Wife? where audible fret noises ground her sampling and use of electronic sounds in an earthier folk tradition. The range of sounds she employs demonstrates not only a curiosity into the nature of language best seen on the Tic Tac Language Song, but also her ambition and ingenuity in the use of the sounds of a match striking in the similarly experimental Match. Wrist. Bird.

Ordinarily I would baulk at the term ‘experimental’ as too often it’s lazy shorthand for ‘people on drugs with a bunch of whistles, old gameboys and access to garage band’ but it’s clear that, after months of collecting such diverse samples, she has indeed experimented with them before carefully layering them with her gentle vocals and accomplished songwriting to piece together a very considered album. You can read her track by track explanation here, if you’d like to know more about her ideas and methodology.

Comprised of songs which are breathtakingly intricate yet remain accessible and, above all, enjoyable, Milk Annual is best listened to accompanied by the smell of grass with sun on the back of your neck.

Review by Heidi Pett. 

Caitlin Park at FBi Social, Sydney

CAITLIN PARK 
TIN SPARROW 
FLUME 
FBi Social, Kings Cross Hotel, Sydney, 22/09/11

Flume, one of Caitlin Park's fellow finalists in the recent FBi Northern Lights competition, got things moving with dancy electronica built with a laptop and plenty of knob-twiddling. It's easy to see this youngster carving a niche for himself. Next up, the impressively hirsute Tin Sparrow changed the tone a little with their bouncy, country-tinged folk. The five-piece had an affable, disarming stage presence, while their set was varied and had a good pace to it. The upbeat numbers got feet tapping, while, when they slowed things down, they managed to bring an otherwise chatty room to silence. Highlights included Eileen and For You from their EP, From The Sun, and the band even managed to squeeze in a surprise chorus of Happy Birthday for lead singer Matt Amery. Lovely stuff.

Caitlin Park (pictured, top) took to the stage looking delightful in a pretty dress and thick-rimmed glasses, and set about delivering songs from Milk Annual, the album she was there to launch. With one foot firmly in folk, the other in electronica, her songs were are intricately and beautifully pieced together using a loop pedal, an acoustic guitar, samples, snippets of dialogue and a drummer. Managing to remain interesting yet accessible to a live audience is a hard thing to achieve, yet her brand of folk with whispers of electronica was mesmerising from first song to last. Importantly, she was able to layer her songs while retaining a lo-fi quality. There was nothing messy, nothing superfluous here. Would You Let Me Back In was a fine example of this and also showed just what a good lyricist she is, while Baby Teeth proved that she also has the ability to deliver a catchy vocal hook or two.

While measured and intelligent, there was also an impish edge to her, which was best illustrated by the decision to throw in a cover of The Fresh Prince Of Bel Air theme tune. To take such an awesome, stupid song and to slow it right down and re-contextualise in a kind of Americana folk direction was impressive indeed and brought a big reaction from the busy room. Understated, nuanced and utterly captivating, Caitlin Park's music offers something different to anything else on the Sydney scene at the moment. Simply, she is a breath of fresh air.

Review by Bobby Townsend. It originally appeared in Sydney's Drum Media

Caitlin Park interview

“One of my favourite things to do is to play to a crowd, find one person who is not listening and try my hardest to get them to notice.”

It's a plan that seems to be working well for Caitlin Park. Her intelligent, looped brand of folk with electronic edges is captivating audiences across Sydney and she was recently a finalist in FBi Radio's Northern Lights competition. It's surprising then, considering her talent and growing reputation, that this isn't a path she has always desired to tread...

READ THE FULL INTERVIEW HERE...

FBi Social - Saturday 20th August

Anyone with the slightest interest in independent music in Sydney loves FBi Radio, 94.5FM. It's an institution, run by the people for the people and has helped countless local bands get the break they needed and deserved. Well, not content with filling the city's airwaves with awesomeness, FBi also has a venue, meaning punters can get their fill of live talent too.

Saturday saw four Sydney acts take to the stage. Opening things up were female-fronted four-piece The Glimmer, who offered some country surf with a pop twist and the odd sea shanty thrown in for good measure. Their set boasted some seriously catchy tunes. Next up was the evening's highlight. The beautiful, bespectacled Caitlin Park (pictured, below), along with her drummer from Bobbysix's hometown of Brighton, served up intelligent, experimental lo-fi folk music laced with electronic elements. Despite battling against sound issues, she utilised samples and loops to fine effect. Park's songs were accessible while remaining interesting and nuanced. She is an artist certainly worth checking out.

In contrast to Park's understated delivery, March of the Real Fly's vocalist/drummer Cam Crew stood atop his stool, occasionally wandered around the stage and employed all manner of histrionics with a level of overconfidence that was kind of irritating at times. However, there is no doubting his relentless energy was the driving force behind a fun, American-influenced punk-pop set that had the biggest crowd of the night dancing. Keyboardist/percussionist/vocalist Anita Miles (pictured, top) bopped around twixt sweet indie uber-nerds Daniel Levett and Sam Clayton to create a dynamic so cute that you just wanted to put them in your pocket and take them home.

Whipped Cream Chargers, the night's headliners (above), perfectly dissected rock n roll swagger and cool disinterest. Frontman Sebastian Harrison-Naish was the prime example of this, with his rubber-legged hip-shaking belying a facial expression that suggested he might just doze off at any moment. He didn't though, and nor did the audience, who were treated to a typically excellent barrage of dirty psych-garage-swing-punk that brought proceedings to a suitably impressive close.

Four fine local acts for ten bucks? Nice one FBi.