Melbourne’s Wondercore Island have been quietly killin’ the mixtape game for a minute now and it’s a bit shit/selfish of us that we’ve waited until the 5th installment to word you all up on the deal.
Basically WI’s head honcho Si Jay Gould carefully curates and crams a whole bunch of electronic r&b future beat business into a series of free downloadable mixtapes for your listening pleasure.
The best part about the whole thing is that 9 out of 10 times you’ll have never heard of the artists he selects so each tape is a real discovery into the best underground/bedroom acts/producers Melbourne (and the rest of the world) has to offer.
We caught up with Si when the mix dropped and he was nice enough to breakdown a few of his faves from Mixtape #5 for us:
Kadhja Bonet - Tears For Lamont
Kadhja is from LA, I met her via some of the members of Rhye, but I didn’t know she did this. Her voice actually rips your heart out in the most tender way. I had to make this the opening track for the record, the way the strings present the song at the beginning are such a strong introduction, her lyrics are so posed, I think if Joan Baez played chilled cinematic RnB it would sound like this. This particular song has been starting to get traction from people like Gilles Peterson and KCRW DJs now, she has a whole new project called Genesea which is closer to 90s Brighton downtempo-trip-hop, I’m genuinely excited about seeing where it progresses to.
Silentjay x Jace XL - Just Waking Up
I’ve know these raggamuffins for years, they are 2/3 of the Hiatus Kaiyote backing vocalists, and I’d know Silentjay as a beat-maker forever, doing small DIY shows to suddenly touring with Flying Lotus, but I hadn’t known Jace XL (real name Jace Excell!) as a sexy-AF front man… It almost seems surreal seeing someone in Melbourne doing sexy RnB w/o any awkwardness about it, we curated the guys to play the Boiler Room at Hugs&Kisses a few months ago and it turned into a really sweaty sensual hour long moment. They are sitting on better songs than this one, but just note, watch this space.
Lazybones - Motherload
This was one of those random Facebook messages you almost never read “Hey man I’m a young beat-maker from Northcote listen to my stuff” and where I actually did and it was dope as fuck. I haven’t met Lazybones yet but I’m hoping to help put on his first live show when he is ready, he gave me about 30 beats and I had to include at least 2.
Harley - It’s Out
Ok, this was a track that heads kept telling me about really late at night but no-one had a copy of. I had sort-of known Harley as a beat-maker when we ran some beat-battles years ago at The Evelyn but apparently he kinda disappeared, ‘something’ happened and he started making music, like playing everything himself and producing this exquisite dreamy psychy poem songs. I finally got my hands on this song just before we mastered the mixtape and had to include it, it’s the only song I’ve heard of his but apparently there’s a stack of this genius bedroom shit. Spinning Top take heed.
Taylor Crawford - Brahman
Well, I don’t wanna make a thing about all the hidden hermit genius artists out there, but fuck this guy makes the string instruments he plays and as far as I am aware has never released anything. He is also playing everything on this song and produced it himself. He is an old best friend from Blue Mountains of Perrin Moss aka Clever Austin aka Hiatus Kaiyote drummer/producer, another myth spoken about for years. Apparently Brahman is a type of Indian cow that was imported.
Cold Hands Warm Heart - Magnolia
I’ve known Genevieve & Esala from this new group for a long time, they have been part of Four Larks Theatre troupe playing music in productions in California and Melbourne. I’ve always loved seeing and hearing Gen play harp and Esala with his many percussion treasures and ambient guitar sounds. This is their first released song from the new project Cold Hands Warm Heart. They recorded an album in Taggerty, regional Victoria recently and will be putting it out later in 2015 I believe.
