Hi Folks. Greetings from Someone Good. It's been a busy year for us here - getting a whole lot of action on the radar for 2009 and we're just kicking off now with the new release from Australian noise-pop icons The Rational Academy. More soon, please get in touch if you've got any questions! Lawrence & Becks.



AUD$25 postpaid
The Rational Academy
Swans
RMSG006

After a year of touring, countless collaborations and time spent in hibernation writing Australia's psychedelic avant-pop collective The Rational Academy return with their sophomore full-length Swans. With Swans The Rational Academy set fire to the edges of deconstructed pop with a record that typifies their unique brand of richly textured song. Colliding their trademarked harmonic richness with a shimmering blur of post-everything sonics, this record is alive with luminous psychedelic anthems, acidic space-dirges, and deeply considered pop experimentation. It is an album that is a visionary journey through the outer rim of song-form and melody.
Swans also sees the Academy working closely with producer and arranger, Lawrence English - a collaboration that sought reinvention and transformation, each of the songs being built up and peeled back numerous times to reveal their underpinning quality, within the album as a holistic work. It also features contributions from post-everything musician Mike Cooper and Australian icon Heinz Riegler.
Swans, which is the second release in Someone Good’s ‘!0 Songs In 20 Minutes’ series, glows with a graceful and organic maturity of approach that places The Rational Academy as one of this Australia’s most progressive pop outfits.


AUD$25 postpaid
Qua
Silver Red
RMSG005

"Silver Red" has been an evolving piece of music from Qua aka Cornel Wilzcek. Over the course of two years Silver Red began to take shape, with the piano and guitar source material originally recorded in 2005 at a live performance in Melbourne. This source material was loaded into an ever-growing custom software patch controlled by a French invention, the Lemur - a multi-touch, programmable screen - that eventually became the backbone of the composition. While it evokes ideas from Steve Reich, Philip Glass and other rhythmic minimalist composers, it also owes much to colourful explorations of artists such as Moondog and Roberto Cacciapaglia.
In 2007, Laurence Pike, of Sydney bands Pivot (Warp Records) and Triosk (Leaf Records), took to the drums performing with Qua live and in the studio. As well as playing on Qua's upcoming pop album, Laurence played a one-take drum part that was then loaded into the custom Qua software patch and re-performed by Cornel, thus lending it the same treatment as the other source material.
"One Second" is a reaction to "Silver Red". It felt necessary to somehow resolve the album and boil it down to a few simple sounds. It looks at Silver Red from the view point of artists such as Ennio Morricone, Kristoff Komeda and Scott Walker and somehow extrudes one second of time from Silver Red.


AUD$30 postpaid
inc FREE BADGES!
The Rational Academy
A Heart Against Your Own
RMSG004

THE RATIONAL ACADEMY present their debut LP A HEART AGAINST YOUR OWN. With an unerring willingness to dispense with the pleasantries of expectation and convention, The Academy’s songwriting duo Benjamin Thompson and Meredith McHugh have forged a unique place in the heartland of melodic song writing, etched with glistening electronic interludes and wall of sound guitars. Their songs are replete with sweet melody, reflective lyrics and a presence that’s both engulfing and expansive for the listener.
Produced by Room40’s Lawrence English and featuring Iceland’s Ben Frost, UK based duo For Barry Ray and others, ‘A Heart Against Your Own’ follows on from The Rational Academy’s two, now highly collectible, seven inches, a swag of compilation appearances and projects with the likes of Japanese songstress Tujiko Noriko and Novi Split.

"The next big thing. The ‘It’ band. We've been told this too often before. But join us tonight for THE RATIONAL ACADEMY and you'll leave smugly, knowing this time Richard Kingsmill hasn't beaten you to it!" Faster Louder



AUD$25 postpaid
inc. FREE BADGES!
Lullatone
The Bedtime Beat
RMSG003

LULLATONE presents THE BEDTIME BEAT; a reverie and imaginative sleep-walk through the minimal avant-pop stylings of Nagoya's favourite bedroom tune-maestros. The Bedtime Beat is a vision of pop perfection, at just over 20 minutes long this LP confirms that minimal is certainly the new cute! Between the bath water solo of 'The Bathtime Beat', the incredible beatbox grooves care of Yoshima Tomida and some of the most elegant and evocative melodies (delicately recorded on tape) from Shawn Seymour, this record sets a new benchmark for micro-pop.

"In the world of Seymour and Tomida, cuteness is merely beauty of another kind." Pitchfork



AUD$30 postpaid
Akira Kosemura
It's On Everything
RMSG002

AKIRA KOSEMURA is one of a number of young Tokyo musicians working at the nexus of acoustic instrumentation and minimal electronics. His album, IT'S ON EVERYTHING, typifies a new vision of melodic instrumentation and rich textural electronics sweetened with a beautiful pop overtone.


AUD$30 postpaid
Various Artists
Add to Friends
RMSG001

We live in a world that connects. And here's the proof. ADD TO FRIENDS a collection of the most exciting, unusual and effervescent avant pop you're likely to hear. A wondrous and rewarding journey through the sounds of the Asia-Pacific region including masters of micro-pop Lullatone, Taiwan's exception My Little Airport, the casio-eque tones of Pancakes, the unusual melodic pulses of Ytamo and the mastery of psychedelic folk, Tenniscoats. Not to mention Australia's The Rational Academy and Qua.

"Excellent stuff, and a great way to find out about a whole host of new and undiscovered talent." BoomkatAkira Kosemura (B. 1985) is a musician, graphic designer and record label manager (Schole). His work has been featured on several albums and compilations including 'Drifting Skywards 2' Coldroom (France) and Electronics unplugged aerotone (Germany).

"a pretty fucking amazing ride." Music Emissions

"highly captivating contemporary electronica. Gorgeous stuff." Boomkat


Someone Good. PO Box 191. Red Hill. QLD. 4059. AUSTRALIA
rebecca@room40.org | lawrence@room40.org