Kate Hennessy : Freelance Writer

Rating:
Shady Lane do little to cloak their influences. Familiar sounds rocket from their lively pop like fireworks into the night sky. Irritatingly derivative? Miraculously, no. The light show does just what it should: incite delight. First up is the irreverent 90s college radio vibe of Sparklehorse or Pavement. Both the glo-fi shimmer of Animal Collective and the bittersweet hush of Atlas Sound are recalled on Easybeast while the hypnotic guitar and keys on Dumb Hope channel Stereolab. Fluff n Stuff lobs acid jazz into the blender with surf pop and Mother Mountain Rabbit could file under either noise-rock or experimental. Meanwhile, a couple of Farfisa organ wig-outs a la Pink Floyd pre-1970 fizzle away in the party punch. You know, just for fun.

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First published on The Vine, here. 

Berlin’s Mary Ocher. What a gal! Ned Collette & Wirewalker’s support act jingle-jangles her way onstage wearing an outfit that’s part-cabaret, part-biker chick, part-belly dancer. The crowd is murmuring quietly when Ocher rips into song with little ado – sounding somewhat like PJ Harvey in her ferociously ragged and raw early days – and the room does a little jump of fright. 

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The Community Broadcasting Association of Australia (CBAA) is the national peak body for community radio and television stations in Australia. I edited the CBAA’s magazine, CBX, for two of its quarterly issues. The magazine is distributed to all member community radio stations in Australia as well as universities, politicians and other community broadcasting sector bodies.

The role involved feature planning, commissioning writers, editing content, writing features and liaising with the designer to deliver a magazine with an eye-catching cover and content that’s both relevant, insightful and great to read. I have provided an example here of two of the features I wrote in the April 2012 issue: ‘Wish You Were Here: Outside Broadcasts’ and ‘The Multiplatform Future’

First published in The Big Issue, here.

To tourists, The Blue Mountains region is a must-do day  trip from Sydney. Fifty kilometres from the capital, it offers spectacular vistas draped in blue mist and a fair chance of seeing an echidna. Conveniently, this area can also sate urbane yearnings to browse antique shops and recline in cafes.

To residents, ‘the Blueys’ is a place of contradictions. While the air is bright and fresh, a persistent thread of dysfunction darkens it, evidenced by higher than state average rates of psychological distress, self-harm and domestic violence. But, in this place of shadow and light, one thing is true: it’s a great place to create music. The region is spacious enough to make noise without aggrieving the neighbours, the pace is slow so inspiration can flow, and it’s close enough to Sydney to gig there.

Photo c/o Angelo Kehagias - www.akfotography.net

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First published on Mess+Noise, here.

‘Il Futuro Fantastico’

I am out on a limb. Way out, in fact, head in foliage. I’m convinced I’ve divined the source of Ned Collette’s inspiration for the first song, ‘Il Futuro Fantastico’, on his new record, 2.

When I call Ned in his Berlin apartment, the album is still a couple of weeks from being released. Had I been the type who scours the internet for other people’s interpretations (I’m not), no insight could have been gleaned on the song’s meaning. It’s too new. This is one of the pleasures of being a music writer. We hear music fresh and three-dimensional, when the meat of it still throbs perceptibly with its original muse; before the weight of the world and the written word bears down and flattens it onto a page.

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