Music Alliance Pact

The Music Alliance Pact (MAP) began in October 2008 as an initiative to facilitate the spread of local music to the ears of others around the world. It started with 12 country specific blogs who each selected one hot local track that was posted on the sites of each of the other members of this "union". Now there are 26 countries included and I'm loving the diversity of the artists that get chosen. It's such a great idea--it makes heaps of sense that someone who lives and breathes a countries music, culture and language would be the one in the best position to recommend the must have song in that place at that time. Here are my favourite tracks included in the MAP for July:

Boat Beam-The Rain Pauly (zshare)

Boat Beam is an interesting choice of contribution to the MAP from Australian blog Who the Bloody Hell Are They? Sure it includes former member of Sparkadia Josephine Ayling, but they seem pretty damn Spanish. You gotta love how Australian's claim anything and anyone as there own. I would love to be the exotic type who raves about the latest Venezuelan breakthrough artist...but I must confess that the Australian choice was my favourite submission this month. Such a beautiful track. With sweet harmonies and a peaceful lullaby like rhythm.



Neufvoin-Robot (zshare)

Finland seems to have their answer to Red Riders in indie rockers Neufvoin. Oh God, am I turning into a "country specific" blog...all of my references are so Oz-centric. Anyway, this is is a fun upbeat track that I'm sure could become quite the sing along. And its Finnish, how exotic!



Rah Rah-I've Got Faith (zshare)

I find this track both brilliant and odd. Funny lyrics, jarring noise, pretty violin and a catchy chorus. I do get an Arcade Fire vibe in places, but maybe that's just cos they're Canadian, ay?. They also remind me a bit of Architecture in Helsinki. BUT they are neither of these. They ARE Rah Rah. AND they are worthy of checking out.

video killed the radio star

In all the hype surrounding the death of Michael Jackson, one thing that has resonated with me is the impact he had not just on music, but on music videos. It has been said that he was responsible for changing the humble music video from being a simple promotional tool into an art form. It's true. Think Thriller, think Bad...this is where the film making/story telling era of the videos started. I mean, Martin Scorsese directed Bad....did you know that? Would Michael Jackson be as big a "thing" if we didn't know about his killer dance moves. Maybe not. These days-these youtube days, if you wanna be noticed as an artist it seems that it's 60% about having a good sound and 40% about having an awesome video that gets people talking.

Enter Red Riders centre stage. You've Got A Lot of Nerve is the first single of their second album Drown in Colour, and whilst catchy and enjoyable it is a little repetitive. However, the accompanying video is pretty neat. The clip is filmed in stop motion, meaning that it took several weeks of early morning filming on a Surry Hills rooftop to create something quite beautiful.

The next single to drop off the album is Ordinary, and in contrast to its title I'm loving this one much more than the first. The film clip is the age old concept of lead singer Alex Grig strolling down the streets of Sydney...but nothing seems to be ordinary, gettit? The best bit of the video? Campos coffee cup of course!

Red Riders-Ordinary (zshare)