Know Your Line-up : Laneway Festival 2015

Let’s get closer with your Laneway Festival 2015′s Line-Ups!

Angus & Julia Stone

Australian siblings Angus and Julia Stone. Angus started writing songs in his teens, after his parents separated. He shared his music and his guitar skills with his sister while she was living in Bolivia. It was she who encouraged him to start performing after hearing the songs he had written. By 2005 Angus was playing at open mic nights at the Coogee Bay Hotel in Sydney, sometimes with Julia performing backing vocals. Julia also started writing her own material, so they played split sets with each providing backing vocals for the other.

Banks

Self-taught in piano, Jillian Banks – simply known as Banks – started writing songs when she was just 15 years old. Vogue named her Artist of the Week in August 2013, saying her songs “perfectly capture a feeling of being lost and powerless in the world.” The 26-year-old was also labelled by Billboard as a ”magnetic writer with songs to obsess over”, while more than a dozen media outlets suggested she was the artist to watch in 2014.

Chet Faker

Australian electronica musician Chet Faker is Nicholas James Murphy. Faker used to play for a band called Sunday Kicks, and an electronic/dance duo “Knicks”. He also played under the name Atlas Murphy, but decided he needed to play under a stage name after people came to his shows thinking he was a different and already established musician named Nick Murphy. He settled on the name Chet Faker as an homage to Chet Baker.

Courney Barnett

Melbourne-based guitar player and singer/songwriter, Courtney Barnett, started her own label, Milk! Records, and released her first EP – I’ve Got A Friend Called Emily Ferris – to glowing reviews around Australia. She used to play in a garage grunge band which released one self-titled album on cassette. She was also a member of Australian psych/country band Immigrant Union, before she started her own label in 2012.

Eagulls

Eagulls is an English post-punk band comprising Mark Goldsworthy (guitar), Henry Ruddel (drums), Liam Matthews (guitar), Tom Kelly (bass), and George Mitchell (vocals). Eagulls has played with many notable artists, including Manic Street Preachers, Flipper, Milk Music, and as the main support for Franz Ferdinand’s 2014 UK tour. Formed in 2010, the band released its first single, Council Flat Blues, on Moshi Moshi imprint, Not Even Records.

Enterprise

The music of this five-piece band may be hard to define, but it has been described to carry influences from indie rock bands to electronic sound. The Malaysian band has played in music festivals, parties and shows. A keen favourite for nightlife events and party gigs, these boys produce upbeat grooves that carry a blend of electronic and analog percussions, synth soundscapes and guitar melodies that prompt your feet towards the dancefloor.

FKA Twigs

English singer-songwriter and dancer, Tahliah Debrett Barnett, is FKA Twigs. Before all these accolades came to be, Twigs was an independent singer who self-released her music. Now, she released debut album through Young Turks in August 2014. The record titled LP1.

Future Islands

Future Islands is a synthpop band whose members first met and formed while studying art at East Carolina University in Greenville. From recording their first album in a skateshop, and their second in their living room, this three-piece band has moved up the ladder and been signed on by 4AD. Originally called Art Lord & the Self-Portraits, Gerrit Welmers (keyboards and programming), William Cashion (bass, acoustic and electric guitars) and Samuel T. Herring (lyrics and vocals) roped in Erick Murillo, who played an electronic drum kit, and renamed the group Future Islands.

.gif

.gif (pronounced “dot jif”) is an electronic duo based in Singapore. They strives to make electronic music that combines lush soundscapes with lyrics that are intensely personal and meaningful. The duo – Weish and Din – see .gif as a space for freedom, respite, and honesty. Sometimes mystical, sometimes bizarre, other times captivating, but always experimental, the twosome’s music can best be described as intriguing.

Hanging Up The Moon

Needing a further outlet to express himself, Sean Lam of Concave Scream embarked on a solo music project, Hanging Up The Moon. As hinted at by the name, the songs were recorded in the dead of the night after the day’s work was done, his daughter put to bed, and when all was finally quiet. By simply accompanying the songs in his debut album with the guitar or ukulele allowed his plaintive vocals and introspective lyrics to shine through. It was deliberately left lo-fi and rough around the edges, to reflect the home-made nature of the project; and it is this quiet honesty in both words and sound that has captivated both critics and listeners.

Jungle

Formed by two best pals, Jungle is one of the most exciting, but yet unknown, bands to emerge from Britain in 2013. Friends since they were nine, and neighbours growing up in west London, the two were trying to make ends meet as session musicians and songwriters, and played as part of a seven-piece live band, before forming Jungle. With a desire for honest and true connections, as well as a belief in working as a collective drawing upon cumulative energy, Jungle has worked with different artists across diverse disciplines. Wanting to challenge themselves, they often resist the temptation to simply reproduce their music from their laptops. Instead, they translate their songs into a full and organic live experience.

Little Dragon

Gothenburg’s Little Dragon has gained international acclaim after three successful albums and having toured all over the world. Their energetic live set and unique recording process have made fans out of some of the biggest names in music, including Pharrell Williams, Questlove, and OutKast. They have collaborated with artistes such as Big Boi, The Gorillaz, and SBTRKT.  The band, which blends strands of R&B, electronic and indie into beautifully and meaningfully crafted songs, comprises Yukimi Nagano, Erik Bodin, Fred Wallin, and Håkan Wirenstrand. Nagano, Bodin and Wallin used to meet up after school to jam and play records by De La Soul, A Tribe Called Quest and Alice Coltrane. The band’s name was inspired by the “Little Dragon” nickname Nagano earned because of the fuming tantrums she used to throw while recording in the studio.

Lykke Li

Li Lykke Timotej Zachrisson, professionally known as Lykke Li, was born on March 18, 1986 in Ystad, Skåne, in Sweden. She grew up in an artistic environment with a photographer for a mom and a musician for a dad. Throughout her childhood, Lykke Li and her parents lived on several places, including Stockholm, Portugal, Lisbon, Morocco, Nepal and India. Lykke Li, along with her younger brother Zacharius and older sister Zara Lou, embraced their unconventional lifestyle. Lykke Li even moved to New York on her own for three months when she was 19 years old. There, she performed at open music nights and admitted that she pretended to be a Swedish superstar to score gigs.

Mac DeMarco

Singer, songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, and producer Mac DeMarco is best known for his solo career in which he released two full length studio albums and one EP. DeMarco’s live shows can be quite raunchy, with the musician engaging the audience with off-colour jokes, or some involvement of nudity and lewd acts. When asked why he engages in onstage behaviour that doesn’t necessarily relate to his musical style, DeMarco said that getting the crowd loose and goofy usually lightens them up and allows them to have a funkier time.

Pastel Lite

From the capital of Malaysia comes Pastel Lite, an experimental duo comprising vocalist Eff Hakim and multi-instrumentalist Mohd Faliq. After meeting via Facebook in 2012, the pair joined forces to release a run of promising demos that combine subtle harmonic vocals and minimal electronic melodies to much effect. The pair had chosen the name Pastel Lite because they originally thought their music was going to be pure and innocent, but that gradually changed. Their music now involves mostly a mass of synth pop and electronica, though they do tap into to a wide range of sounds.

Pond

Just like the ripples in its namesake, the crew of Pond is ever changing. This stems from the psychedelic rock band’s original idea of letting Pond get anyone who wanted to play whatever they wanted. The current line up is of this Australian band is Nick Allbrook, Jay Watson, Joseph Ryan, Jamie Terry, and Julien Barbagallo. They shared three members with psychedelic rock band Tame Impala which rose to prominence with its 2010 breakthrough debut album, Innerspeaker. This prompted Pond to release its fourth album – Beard, Wives, Denim. It was released to critical acclaim in March 2012.

Royal Blood

Royal Blood is a British rock duo band whose sound is reminiscent of, and rooted in, modern garage rock and blues rock. Singer/bassist Mike Kerr and drummer Ben Thatcher make up the band which released its debut single Out of the Black, with a B-side called Come On Over. This was followed by their second single, Little Monster, in February 2014. A month later, they released a four-track EP, featuring Out of the Black, Little Monster, Come On Over and Hole. Their debut album, Royal Blood, was released on 25 August 2014 to commercial success, and was well-received by critics. It was verified by the Official Charts Company as the fastest-selling British rock debut album in three years in the UK.

Rustie

Born Russell Whyte, Rustie is a Scottish musician from Glasgow. He is associated with the sub-genre of laser hip hop, a genre described as an experimental offshoot of hip hop that emphasizes slowed down, low-slung beats, with lashings of electronic mutterings and morphing basslines. Rustie believes his work conveys movement and fluidity, and that his creative process is an “immersive world” wrapped up in sound, rhythm, and color. Rustie’s long-time interest in videogames has influenced his approach to electronic composition.

St. Vincent

American Anne Erin “Annie” Clark is musician, singer-songwriter, and multi-instrumentalist St. Vincent. Her music has been noted for its wide array of instruments and complex arrangements, as well as its polysemous lyrics.  She began playing the guitar at the age of 12, participated in her school’s jazz band, and dropped out of the Berklee College of Music after three years. After that, she joined choral rock band The Polyphonic Spree, just before their European tour. She was also part of Sufjan Stevens’ touring band before forming her own band in 2006. Apart from the guitar, Clark also plays the bass, piano, organ and theremin. Similarly, her music often features a wide range of instruments, such as violins, cellos, flutes, trumpets and clarinets. Which explains why her unorthodox musical style has been called a mixture of chamber rock, pop, indie rock, and cabaret jazz by critics.