Stories

For most listeners in Australia and overseas, Stevie Wonder begins and ends with a small cluster of records: Innervisions, Songs in the Key of Life, maybe the…

When listeners in Sydney and Melbourne first heard the opening hum of "Airbag" in the winter of 1997, something fundamental shifted. The track's warped vocal…

Modern country radio in 2024 and beyond rarely sounds like Bill Monroe in a barn. The vocals are smoother, the drums are bigger, and the production often…

For years I chased clean. I wanted my demos to sound like finished records, my voice to sit perfectly in a mix, every guitar take edited into surgical…

Metal fans in Australia know the rhythm: certain records pass through the local scene without ever gaining the recognition they deserve. Maybe a promoter books…

I remember dropping the needle on a worn copy of Nick Cave's From Her to Eternity at a mate's share house in Brunswick. The room was full of people, someone…

The best live performance I ever saw happened in a room I had visited plenty of times before, yet somehow felt completely different that night. The venue was…

I do not remember setting out to explore Japanese music that afternoon. I was probably moving between albums while doing something ordinary, the kind of…

Minor chord progressions in jazz can feel intimate, unsettled, smoky, or quietly defiant. Their emotional power comes from more than a simple shift from major…

Joni Mitchell’s catalogue rewards patience. Hearing one celebrated album can reveal her extraordinary songwriting, but moving through the records in release…