Adrian Tchaikovsky - Children of Time

'Millennia-spanning "last remnants of humanity" space opera sci-fi with intelligent giant spiders' hardly does it justice. Impressively gripping and plausible in working through its premises.

In Bruges

Rewatch. Still kind of fresh (as a movie, not in my memory). (last time)

George Saunders - Liberation Day

Four stories into Liberation Day, I was feeling pretty glum. For all of their characteristic close attention to the individuality of their protagonists, all of those first four are pretty much total downers in their focus on unredeemed bad systems ("Liberation Day"), people ("The Mom of Bold Action") and both ("A Thing at Work"), with "Love Letter", which I'd read before, the only partial exception and one of Saunders' weaker stories that I've read in its more or less overt Trump referencing and simplicity of polemic.

Then "Sparrow", which would've been a gift at any time, but especially after what came before it. I've read a lot of Saunders' thoughts on how he writes stories, and in "Sparrow" he turns that approach to what gradually reveals itself as a love story with a happy ending.

There's further range in the rest of the collection - notes of revolution ("Ghoul" and "Elliott Spencer") and emotional reckoning ("Mother's Day"), and the different-again tone of "My House". And through it all, that human-ness and sense of a gaze that, if not always forgiving exactly, is able to see people in some sense through their own eyes and as they might want to be seen, without forsaking the moral intelligence that always animates Saunders' writing. I doubt he'll ever touch Tenth of December - both for what it is and when I read it - but he sure is good and this latest is ample argument for that.

Black Panther: Wakanda Forever

Continues the first one's riffs on colonialism while leaning further into the women and girls leading the action. A bit baggy and not as good, but still entertaining.

Elif Batuman - The Idiot

"Can't the American girl understand anything I'm saying?" he asked Rózsa as she got out the iodine.

"Nothing", said Rózsa.

"But I've heard her speak Hungarian."

"She imitates like a parrot."

"Parrot," I echoed.

Fábián's eyes widened. He lingered another moment, staring at me, then ran outside.

I don't have much to add from the first time I read this delightful, at once light and dense, coming-of-age (but not) novel. Still strikingly funny.

Zodiac

David Fincher, A-grade cast, sort of slow but also sort of involving.

2022: "Draw all your comparisons"

2022 soundtrack - on spotify.

1. Stay - Valerie June
The Moon And Stars: Prescriptions For Dreamers (Fantasy; 2021)

2. You And Me On The Rock - Brandi Carlile
In These Silent Days (Elektra; 2021)

3. Darkness Fades - Sharon Van Etten
We've Been Going About This All Wrong (Jagjaguwar; 2022)

4. Girl - Maren Morris
Girl (Columbia Nashville; 2019)

5. Time Escaping - Big Thief
Dragon New Warm Mountain I Believe In You (4AD; 2022)

6. Good Will Hunting - Black Country, New Road
Ants From Up There (Ninja Tune; 2022)

7. Canola Fields - James McMurtry
The Horses And The Hounds (New West; 2021)

8. Merry Go 'Round - Kacey Musgraves
Same Trailer Different Park (Mercury Nashville; 2013)

9. Moon Meets The Sun - Our Native Daughters
Songs Of Our Native Daughters (Smithsonian Folkways; 2019)

10. All The Flowers - Angel Olsen
Big Time (Jagjaguwar; 2022)

11. Out Of My Head - First Aid Kit
Palomino (Columbia; 2022)

Sharon Van Etten. For me, Are We There and Remind Me Tomorrow are all-timers - two of the few to've been added to my personal canon in the last 10 or 15 years - and this year there was We've Been Going About This All Wrong, which more and more is feeling like three in a row. Murderously good.

Brandi Carlile. Consistent quality, more or less unadorned. Just great, timeless songs.

Kacey Musgraves. Back to her first major label album thanks to Her Country and its playlist, which was also the pathway to Maren Morris, Our Native Daughters and more.

First Aid Kit. Closer to my heart than just about any other band that might possibly be near its peak right now, and Palomino is as good as anything else they've done.

"Freedom of Movement: Contemporary Art and Design from the NGV Collection" (NGV International)

Small and well-curated selection of contemporary works from the collection, most of which I'd seen before and was happy to re-encounter.

nendo manga chairs (2015)

David Altmejd - "Mother 1 (Relatives)" (2018), soundtracked by Shilpa Gupta's "Untitled (Rock)" (2012-15) in the most gothic room I've visited in some time

Alex Prager - "Face in the Crowd" (2013) - an old friend and always welcome

Yamagami Yukihiro - "Shinjuku Calling" (2014) which is lovely for all the obvious reasons and no less so for the obviousness

The Hunger Games, Catching Fire & Mockingjay pts 1 & 2

Still feels righteous.

Previously: 1, again, 2, 3 (pt 1), 2 & 3 (pts 1 & 2)

"Rigg Design Prize 2022" (NGV Australia)

Eight advertising agencies invited to develop campaigns promoting the importance of creativity. They mostly didn't really jump out at me - maybe partly because of the 'gallery' setting where they were installed and partly because of the fuzziness of the concept to which they were responding.

(w/ R)

First Aid Kit - Palomino

As golden as ever. First Aid Kit keep on being wonderful, even if the songs on Palomino mostly don't leap out in the same way as the highlights of their older albums.

Bird Box

Pretty generic post-apocalyptic thriller.

Derry Girls season 3

The show's humanistic heart shines through, as does its 90s heart. I didn't think this season was quite as funny as the ones before it, but it has a couple of particularly good episodes - the one about their mothers, and the last one - and it's certainly just as nice as those earlier seasons.

Strange World

Pretty good if somewhat muddled messages ('the farmer' possibly isn't the best stand-in for humanity's exploitation of our natural environment); pretty good diversity and representation; slightly better than pretty good animation via the imagining and realisation of the 'strange world' itself; slightly worse than pretty good story pacing. Having said that I don't really know where the Disney curve for grading ought to lie.

(w/ L)

"Playlist for Marissa R. Moss' book Her Country"

A proper canon of country music by women, available on spotify as lovingly listed in the book. Across 75 songs and 4 1/2 hours it doesn't falter, with many songs and artists that are part of my personal canon - older and more recent. 

The book already introduced me to the joys of Maren Morris and Mickey Guyton, and prompted me to go back and listen to Same Trailer, Different Park; beyond them, my favourite discoveries are "Harper Valley PTA" (Jeannie C Riley, 1968), "I'm Not Lisa" (Jessi Colter, 1975), "Faraway Look" (Yola, 2019), "Daddy Lessons" (Beyonce, 2018 - one I'd heard before but not paid proper attention to), "You Are My Home" (Amanda Shires, 2016), "You're Not Alone" (Our Native Daughters, 2019), "New Kind of Outlaw" (D'orjay The Singing Shaman, 2020).

Arcade Fire - We

Epic has always been the Arcade Fire's thing, but there's epic and there's quoting (melodically, lyrically or both) John Lennon's "Imagine" and U2's "One" in the same song - that would be "End of the Empire I-III", which I have to admit is listenable but is also just too much ... as is the album as a whole, although I do like "Age of Anxiety II (Rabbit Hole)".

Black Country, New Road - Ants From Up There

The sound is less 'kitchen sink' than it at first appears; the anthems are unabashed and the melodies are clear. But there's also no denying the sideways slant of this outfit's take on (art-) rock. Some great stuff here.

Taylor Swift - Midnights

Taylor Swift albums always feel like they might be an Event, but this one's a bit indistinct.

Our Native Daughters - Songs of Our Native Daughters

This is one of those albums that comes along every once in a while and just feels like its own affair. Our Native Daughters is Rhiannon Giddens, Allison Russell, Amythyst Kiah and Leyla McCalla, all wielding banjos and, more to the point, all bringing their own voices and visions to a record that's unified by their collective talent and its links to the various roots of American music - in that respect, its closest predecessor is maybe Raising Sand, which turned out to be a classic, still getting better with time - and specifically Black music. So it ranges widely, encompasses several songs that don't sound much like anything else on the album (most of them, really), and yet feels all of a piece. All up, it's a bit remarkable.

House of the Dragon season 1

The stakes feel lower, given we already know what's going to happen some 200 years later, but this is still spectacle tv and it still feels like Game of Thrones, give or take.

Hokusai (Sarah E Thompson; Museum of Fine Arts, Boston)

I've seen a lot of the pieces in the book before, and many are still vivid in my memory from the NGV exhibition a few years back - there's a magic to Hokusai's work, through whatever combination of intrinsic qualities, art history-contextualised resonance and personal associations.

James McMurtry - The Horses and the Hounds

Real heartland rock. Guitar crunch, story-telling, a nice sense of humility.

Bullet Train

Flashy and fun. Brad Pitt anchors it. Underachieves slightly maybe, but not offensively.

American Hustle

Didn't land with the same impact as the first time round. But still, good.

Jessica Au - Cold Enough for Snow

This is a marvellous short novel, as controlled as its narrator, composed through careful use of language and precise observations; similes proliferate, sometimes multiple times in a sentence, while metaphors are all but non-existent; details are described in a way that's straightforward and cumulative.

In its combination of an intensely observant interiority with a psychology that is largely cloaked - including, perhaps, from itself - it reminds me of Rachel Cusk's Outline books (which I continue to love like few others, if love is the right word), but it has its own compelling specificity, some of which is particularly recognisable to me in terms of Asian-Australian experience. 

There's a sense of depths cautiously stepped around, in the narrator's interactions with her mother during their Japan trip, and in the way she navigates her own memories and past experiences. Like in many novels I admire, meaning is right there on the surface - in Cold Enough for Snow, especially in the recollections, stories and dreams that take up roughly equal space as the contemporaneous trip - and at the same time elusive and never over-determined.

The Weather Station - How Is It That I Should Look At The Stars

Kind of lovely, but too quietly tasteful for me. The only reason I kept trying with it was how brilliant Ignorance was.

Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind

So involving and richly imagined and realised.

(first time, a lot of years ago)

Julia Jacklin - Pre Pleasure

Neither fish nor fowl (rock/pop, electro/organic, melody/dynamics) and doesn't quite come together for mine though there's plenty of craft and personality evident. Maybe it's just that I liked the vibe of previous album Crushing more, most closely replicated here on the guitar-y, new wave revival-ish "I Was Neon".

Margo Cilker - Pohorylle

It was released this year, the production is warmly contemporary, she says "fuck" a bit - but the link back to older style country and roots is real. Not an outstanding record, but strong.

Muna - Muna

I don't think it's jaded of me to say that I've pretty much heard this all before; also relevant is that this isn't music primarily for me. Which isn't to say I don't like it - I do, it just has a familiar sound. "Silk Chiffon" especially flirts with the minor transcendence that this kind of electronically touched pop can attain.

Thor: Love and Thunder

More of the colourful vibes of Taika Waititi's previous Thor outing, and leans heavier into the goofy comedy while also trying to land some serious emotional moments - not always successfully doing the both. Diverting to watch but slipped by without leaving much of an impression.

Gone Girl

It hasn't aged that well from 2014, especially from a feminist perspective (which is hard to not adopt), but its high gloss nastiness and poison-pen take on (a) marriage still has fangs.

Soak - If I Never Know You Like This Again

Another genre that endures, sulky sounding indie rock with a flair for melody. A good one.

The Beths - Expert in a Dying Field

Life is long but I wonder whether I'll ever not like this kind of music. With a couple of exceptions, the songs themselves are a lot less good than the sound, but it's still no hardship to listen to all the way through.

The Old Guard

Watch #2. (last time)

Do Revenge

Of-the-moment callback to 90s teen movies that's enjoyable and more or less the right amount of knowing, and successful in keeping you guessing about where it's going and just how dark it will turn (in the end, not that dark but still darker than most, at least for a while), although not entirely satisfying in how it reconciles its treatment of the trauma of teenage cruelty between its two main characters. Also reminded me a bit of Promising Young Woman (which so far has proved to have a bit of staying power in the memory incidentally) but with a much gentler touch.

Prey

I've only seen a couple of them but it seems there's something about the Predator concept (franchise) that lends itself to reinvention - at least partially. This one's set in 1719 amidst the stunning landscapes of that-era North America and focuses on a group of Comanche people and a female warrior in particular, and makes a pretty good fist of it's 'I'm underestimated because I'm a woman and I'm victorious because I'm a woman' narrative.

Hanya Yanagihara - To Paradise

Whatever else it is, To Paradise is certainly something. It's got a texture and heaviness that feels similar to A Little Life, and I found it at once boring and somehow compelling - at least until the dystopian final section, where the pace picked up a bit at the same time that it shifts to a nominal main character who is definitionally diminished in affect and even harder to relate to than all those who came before her. 

That heaviness extends to the prose and scene- and chapter-level structuring, which I wouldn't call elegant. There's an awful lot of what feels like redundant detail - admittedly especially in the first, 1890s-set section, where the detail is possibly period-appropriate for literature of the era - and some pretty thudding expository stuff, especially via all the letters. 

Having said that, the novel as a whole does land as more than the sum of its parts, in a way that doesn't feel over-determined despite the overt formal signposts - the 100 year leap-forwards, the building on Washington Square, the recurring names (and suggestion of a familial connection near the end). Each of the three sections - the David Bingham of 1893 and the possibilities of Edward Bishop, the David Bingham of 1993 and his relationship with his Charles along with the layering of his father Kawika's own story starting some 50 years earlier or maybe more, and Charlie in pandemic-struck 2093 along with the layering of her grandfather Charles's story again starting some 50 years earlier - is more satisfying in the context of the others, the lack of individual resolution in each of their endings especially. None of them are truly stand-alone, despite the near-complete lack of any real story crossover between them.

Scattered throughout are some powerful scenes and motifs - the first Charles's (the 1890s David's older suitor) experiences in Canada, the failed dream of Lipo-wao-nahele, the horrific fate of the two unwell children in their plastic-sealed confinement. And also a set of powerful themes and visions about humanity and the more visceral and sometimes darker desires and social and political forces that drive it - including abuse, need, power, control, privilege, family, love and loss. 

It's impossible to not read To Paradise at least partly through the lens of COVID-19, and what's less clear is to what extent the novel's primary focus is ultimately around both that real-world pandemic and the imagined series of catastrophes leading to its dystopian authoritarian vision of a future America, as opposed to those being rather illustrations or manifestations of a broader thesis about society and human nature. And equally unclear is the ultimate relevance of the embedded queerness - embodied almost entirely through seemingly cisegendered homosexual men - that is part of Yanagihara's imagining of these alternate Americas.

In the end, there's a lot of grist for the mill there, and while the heaviness can at times feel heavy-handed - and, somehow, opaque at the same time - and I didn't find it a particularly satisfying reading experience as a whole, To Paradise is certainly an achievement, at a minimum in putting these big issues into conversation in a way that illuminates, rather than merely illustrating.

The Sandman season 1 / Neil Gaiman - Preludes & Nocturnes & The Doll's House

The show really does a remarkable job of capturing the spirit - and often the letter and the line - of the books, the first two of which I re-read beforehand and to which this first season largely corresponds. I hope there's more, not least because the books get so much better after this opening volley.

Whip It

Rewatched for the feelgood factor. Seems like I've watched it more than just the once before.

The Exam

Two sisters, Iraqi Kurds, become involved with a university entrance exam cheating scheme. There's a built in tension - maybe not fully exploited - but what lifts the film a bit is the way it depicts the various social and cultural forces in play and how they crush women. Via MIFF streaming.

Joy Williams - Harrow

Lacerating, bewildering, endlessly opaque and alarming. There's revelation here but I couldn't say what. Joy Williams might be just about the best writer going around, especially her short stories (and her shorter stories). Harrow is a novel, and a bit like the other novel of hers that I've read, The Quick and the Dead, I felt the whole time that it was slipping by without my grasping it properly, but also that the novel is her least ideal form. Maybe both are true? I don't have the words for the style in which she's working - Harrow has something of the parable in its depiction of environmental, social and moral collapse and the surreal (irreal) networks and institutions that populate its hollowed out future America, but its meaning is deliberately difficult to grasp, and its form uninviting in a way that mirrors the devastation it's about.

Hiromi Kawakami - People From My Neighbourhood

The loose interconnections between these short short stories add a bit to their enjoyability, with the cumulative effect of all the whimsies and unrealities building as the occasionally recurring characters acquire marginally more texture across them. I liked this, didn't love it - the register in which it works is appealing, and rarely slips into being overly precious, but the intimations of depth never quite coalesce either. (In that way, and others, it reminds me of much of Amelie Nothomb.)

Mickey Guyton - Bridges ep & Remember Her Name

Some great quality songs across these two records - some appearing on both (Bridges is particularly strong) - and others that are a bit generic. The mix of country and (Black) pop elements feels unforced and of a piece, and Guyton's voice is consistently strong. "Heaven Down Here", "Bridges", "Rose", "Black Like Me", "All American".

"Light: Works from Tate's Collection" (ACMI)

'The history of light is essentially the history of human perception', the introduction to "Light" (the exhibition) declares, and that's probably a good 50 per cent of why I'm so drawn to art that's specifically about - or of - light. Of all art's subjects, perceptions of the world might be the one that most consistently resonates with me, tied up with that everlasting interest in phenomenology and equally everlasting seeking out of art - of all kinds - that is able to render experiences of the world in a way that (aptly) illuminates. The other 50 per cent would be the sensory and aesthetic attraction of light as subject/object and medium/form - an appeal that's immediately accessible, as well as deep. So I wasn't surprised to really enjoy this exhibition, given its combination of theme and source - ie the Tate. 

Olafur Eliasson - "Stardust particle" (2014)

It starts at the end of the Enlightenment, and explicitly plays out the competing - and sometimes mingled - forces of religion, science, the spiritual and the aesthetic (notably more or less wholly missing is the political) that can be traced from that time on, moving more or less chronologically forward but with a couple of anachronistic placements, notably the Yayoi Kusama piece, "The Passing Winter" (2005) - you look through the small circles cut into its reflective surfaces, to see yourself and others reflected and refracted over and over. 

John Brett - "The British Channel Seen From the Dorsetshire Cliffs" (1871) - almost too much, but remarkably sumptuous

Liliane Lijn - "Liquid Reflections" (1968) - hypnotically rotating, the artist's aim being to capture light and 'keep it alive' within a sculpture, and I was startled to see how far back it dated

For me, it was a fast forward through several of my absolute favourites (Monet - "The Seine at Port-Villez", 1894 - Kandinsky, Eliasson, Turrell) interspersed through others whose quality I well know (Turner, Constable, Sisley, Pissarro, Albers, Bridget Riley, Kusama) which together provided most of the highlights, along with a few discoveries, most notably the Liliane Lijn piece and Tacita Dean's 14 minute video piece "Disappearance at Sea" (1996) which has a churning quality in which light and density coexist and struck a chord that I haven't felt for a while but was unmistakeably the real thing.

"Swinging" (1925)

"Disappearance at Sea"

"Raemar, Blue" (1969) - one of his whole room pieces

(w/ R)

Regina Spektor - Home, Before and After

Regina Spektor is an artist for whom I'll probably always have a soft spot, and Home, Before and After is pretty sweet.

Wilco - Cruel Country

I almost didn't get there with this one. 21 songs, 77 minutes (the ingrained habit of a long time ago reminding me that's nearly the upper limit for what will fit on a single cd), and a prevailing monochrome-ness in sound and dynamics presented a barrier. Lucky I kept with it though, as amongst those 21 understatedly Wilco-country songs there are many that reveal themselves, with a bit more attention, as quite lovely, and the whole thing as worth the time.

"Ultra Unreal: New myths for new worlds" / "Vivienne Binns: On and through the surface" @ MCA

A disproportionate number of the greatest experiences of art that I've had in Australia have been in the MCA, but the current offerings didn't offer me much.

"Ultra Unreal" had a few cool pieces, and I watched the whole of Lawrence Lek's "Geomancer" (2017; 48 minutes) even though I found it more interesting for its surface and style than for its substance in its depiction of artificial intelligence in a future Singapore where much of the world has been drowned by rising sea levels, and quite a bit of Club Ate's (Justin Shoulder, Bhenji Ra and collaborators) "ANG IDOL KO / YOU ARE MY IDOL 2022" (29 minutes) which had a real warmth in its storytelling of Filipino mythology melded with queer, trans and animist ways of being.

Some of the Vivienne Binns paintings were interesting and nice enough, but nothing really stuck with me, across the wide field that she's covered in her career.

"Archibald, Wynne and Sulman Prizes" @ AGNSW

There wasn't much on at the AGNSW so I had a look at this. Favourites below.

Wendy Sharpe - "Witches with green light"

Noel McKenna - "Tamara entering the room"

Laura Jones - "Brooke and Jimmy"

Nick Stathopoulos - "The Man in the red scarf: Wayne Tunnicliffe"

Natasha Walsh - "Dear Brett (the blue room)"

Toni Erdmann

One thing I liked about Toni Erdmann - and which is a key part of why it's good - is the way that its two main characters, while extremes of sorts and while engaging in some pretty off-the-wall behaviour, are always grounded in realism, psychologically and in terms of the worlds they inhabit. And the movie is also good in the way those (late capitalist) worlds themselves come into focus as a subject in their own right. I wasn't completely enthralled, but I liked it.

Soccer Mommy - Sometimes, Forever

Confident and fluid, and has a few surprises up its sleeve, but for me doesn't have the same cutting edge that Color Theory did.

Spoon - Lucifer on the Sofa

Somewhat back-to-basics Spoon; best are their cover of Smog's "Held" and a couple of the harder rocking ones. Good but unmemorable otherwise.

Wet Leg - Wet Leg

Fun, scrappy sounding indie. 2022!

Marissa R Moss - Her Country

Of the three Texas women artists whose various paths against the narrow gatekeeping of country radio are described in this very readable book, Kacey Musgraves was the one I knew - and liked - beforehand, and she's also the one given most prominence in Her Country. Maren Morris and Mickey Guyton were both new to me though I've been taking a crash course in their music in the last few weeks.

It's an enjoyable read, no doubt especially given how much I like the genre and how familiar I already was with most of the figures who make up its landscape. It starts in 1999, which Moss presents as a high watermark for women as a mainstream country force as embodied in Shania Twain and Faith Hill, and the subsequent constriction by the intensely conservative and male-dominated country music industry structures, with the treatment of the Chicks (then the Dixie Chicks) following their comments in 2003 a clear landmark and exemplar. Via Musgraves', Morris' and Guyton's stories, Moss weaves in the various sources of influence and inspiration - Patty Griffin, Sheryl Crow and Miranda Lambert prominent among them, plus Taylor Swift - with other figures emerging over its course including Brandi Carlile, Rhiannon Giddens and Margo Price.

Moss's portrayal of the barriers faced by these women - especially Guyton, as a Black woman - is completely persuasive, and likewise the way she renders the combination of talent, determination, hard work and collective solidarity that enabled them to succeed regardless. What's less clear is the true significance of their 'trailblazing' character, but there's a strong argument running through the book about the importance of representation and the visibility of examples for others to aspire towards. It's also notable that Guyton is consistently given the least focus of the three - admittedly partly reflecting the different path she followed compared to the other two and probably the relatively lesser mainstream success she's had to date.

Maren Morris - Hero, Girl & Humble Quest

I don't really have perspective on music like Morris's, coming as it does at least partly from the proper mainstream country universe which I pretty much don't know at all, so the extent to which she's broken new ground in that very conservative context isn't obvious to me from the music itself. Still, it's obvious that along with those country roots there's a strong weave of contemporary pop along with the type of indie-rock that charts in the mix, and it makes sense to learn that Morris is a fan of fellow Texan Beyonce, and not just because of the explicit quotation in "Girl". 

Hero (2016) is fun but doesn't scan as especially individual to me, Girl (2019) a sizeable step forward in terms of stadium ambition and execution without losing that sense of fun and stacked with earworms (foremost among them the title track, "All My Favorite People", "Flavor" and "Great Ones"), and Humble Quest (2022) a crisper, more focused statement whose inspirations sound more singer-songwriter and Americana coloured than the Pop energy that flavours up Girl.

Live music archive

A long time ago I made a 'Note' on facebook to keep track of gigs I'd been to, which I then dutifully kept on updating even as both my live music attendance and my use of facebook both dwindled over time. Moving it here now and who know, one day I might even go to another gig ever.

(Also, a previous archive here up to 2009)

2020
Weyes Blood (26/2)
The New Pornographers (21/2)

2019
Felice Brothers (11/10)
Sharon Van Etten (11/6)
Lucy Dacus (29/3)
Neko Case (13/3)
Mitski (7/2)

2018
Rhiannon Giddens (18/11)
Cat Power (31/5)
Iron & Wine (23/5)

2017
Feist (1/12)

Not sure if maybe I missed one or two during this period when I wasn't updating ... a fallow period anyway so actually probably not.

2015
Belle and Sebastian (1/2)

2014
Tangalo (6/9)
Amaya Laucirica (29/3)
The National (9/2)

2013
Jens Lekman (15/2)

2012
Bored Nothing (6/12)
Parlour Games (6/10)
Eilen Jewell (22/3)
M83, Chairlift, Feist, Cults, Girls, the Pains of Being Pure at Heart + others @ St Jerome's Laneway Festival (4/2)

2011
Seeker Lover Keeper (28/11)
"Way to Blue: The Songs of Nick Drake" [various] (14/11)
Portishead, the National, Bright Eyes, Mercury Rev, the Walkmen, This Town Needs Guns + others @ Harvest Festival (12/11)
Okkervil River (14/10)
Glenn Richards + Amaya Laucirica (18/3)
Jenny and Johnny (10/2)
Blonde Redhead, Beach House, Jenny and Johnny, Stornoway, Les Savy Fav, Local Natives + others @ Laneway Festival (5/2)
The National (9/1)

2010
The New Pornographers (13/11)
Regina Spektor (1/5)
Camera Obscura (23/1)
Joanna Newsom (20/1)
Neko Case + Jen Cloher & the Endless Sea (15/1)

2009
Akron/Family (10/12)
Jen Cloher & the Endless Sea (20/9)
Aimee Mann (5/9)
Flaming Lips (29/7)
Vic Chesnutt & Victoria Williams (9/7)
Luluc (2/7)
Je Suis Animal (17/6)
Ladytron (5/6)
Lucinda Williams (2/4)
Fidler, Sal Kimber & Fireside Bellows (22/3)
Jolie Holland (13/2)
Neil Young + My Morning Jacket (27/1)
Woven Hand (20/1)

2008
Blonde Redhead (31/12)
Final Fantasy (11/12)
Emiliana Torrini (18/11)
Julie O'Hara Quintet (19/10)
Joan as Police Woman (10/10)
Toni Childs (1/10)
Goldfrapp (26/9)
The Last Town Chorus (12/9)
Band of Horses (3/8)
Sigur Ros (1/8)
Kasey Chambers & Shane Nicholson (9/4)
Smashing Pumpkins, Jesus & Mary Chain, Modest Mouse, Queens of the Stone Age + others @ V Festival (5/4)
Patty Griffin (28/3)
Wilco + The Drones (26/3)
Jens Lekman (10/3)
Kelly Clarkson (4/3)
Lisa Miller (29/2)
Stars (28/2)
PJ Harvey (20/2)
Rufus Wainwright (1/2)
Spoon (31/1)
Bjork, Arcade Fire, Spoon, Kate Nash, Sarah Blasko + others @ Big Day Out (28/1)

2007
Amanda Palmer (13/12)
Joss Stone (9/12)
Angie Hart (19/10)
Emilie Simon + Nouvelle Vague (7/7)
Lisa Miller (20/4)
Wilco (18/4)
New York Dolls, Phoenix, Jarvis Cocker, Pixies @ Best of V Festival (4/4)
Love of Diagrams, Camera Obscura, Love is All, the Walkmen, Peter Bjorn & John + others @ St Jerome's Laneway Festival (24/2)
The Audreys, Four Play @ St Kilda Festival (11/2)
Neko Case (2/2)
Lisa Miller, Laura Veirs, Mary Gauthier, Jen Cloher & the Endless Sea + others @ the Harvest Festival (20/1)

2006
The New Pornographers (12/12)
Talvin Singh (7/12)
Yann Tiersen (29/11)
Kasey Chambers (22/11)
Black Cab (4/11)
The Crayon Fields (29/9)
Francoiz Breut (29/4)
The Sticks + Zero/Some (1/4)
Talvin Singh, Kusun Ensemble, Dhol Foundation, Renegades Steel Orchestra, Evelyn Glennie + others @ All-Star World Percussion Spectacular (19/3)
Pretty Girls Make Graves, Augie March, New Buffalo, Broken Social Scene, Les Savy Fav + others @ St Jerome's Laneway Festival (26/2)
Kathleen Edwards (14/2)
Lisa Miller (3/2)
M.I.A. (1/2)

2005
Machine Translations (6/9)
Tujiko Noriko (11/8)
Laura Veirs & the Tortured Souls (29/5)
Architecture in Helsinki, Gersey, Ground Components, Eskimo Joe, the Dears + others @ St Jerome's Laneway Festival (27/2)

2004 and earlier (incomplete)
Pretty Girls Make Graves + Love of Diagrams (November 2004)
Belle and Sebastian + Architecture in Helsinki (23/7/04)
Radiohead (26/4/04)
Tujiko Noriko (18/2/04)

Interpol (7/8/03)

Goo Goo Dolls, Tea Party, Billy Idol + others @ M-One festival (2002)

Beth Orton, Alex Lloyd, Spiderbait, Nine Inch Nails, Red Hot Chili Peppers + others @ Big Day Out (January 2000)