The Brian Jonestown Massacre

Australian audiences would need no introduction to The Brian Jonestown Massacre or indeed to their enigmatic musical director Anton Newcombe. The psychedelic collective have been embraced by Australian fans who have rewarded the band with numerous sold out shows in the past with punters eager to see what the next genre defying salvo delivered by Newcombe and his cohorts will be.

The next quiver from Newcombe’s musical bow is the forthcoming album Aufheben which will be released in Australia on April 30th 2012. Aufheben or Aufhebung is a German word with several seemingly contradictory meanings, including “to lift up”, “to abolish”, or “to sublate”. The term has also been defined as “abolish,” “preserve,” and “transcend.” In philosophy, aufheben is used by Hegel to explain what happens when a thesis and antithesis interact.

Aufheben was recorded in Berlin in Anton Newcombe’s studio & the infamous East German Radio Station “Studio East” Featuring Matt Hollywood an original member of the band plays on this album. It also features Will Carruthers (Spacemen 3, Spritualized), Constatine Karlis (Dimmer), & Thibault Pesenti (Rockcandys). Plus vocal performances by Eliza Karmasalo (in Finnish)

As an even bigger treat for Australian fans The Brian Jonestown Massacre will be joined in Australia by the fabulous Raveonettes. When you’ve had a cult fan base for as long as The Raveonettes have, it’s only a matter of time before some of your most loyal of acolytes begin branching out and make their own kinds of beautiful noise.

In recent times, the musical DNA of Sune Rose Wagner and Sharin Foo has been cropping up with such regularity that it prompted the British music press staple NME.com to declare the Danish duo to be responsible for sparking “America’s pop renaissance.” It was a long overdue tip of the hat which drew comparisons between the Raveonettes’ melodic magic and such modern tunesmiths as The Drums, Best Coast, Vivian Girls, Dum Dum Girls and even British bands like The Vaccines and Glasvegas.

After the best part of a decade honing their instantly recognizable sound and seeing it co-opted by so many other bands aspiring for a similar level of greatness, Sharin and Sune are blazing a newer, darker trail with their brilliant fifth album ‘Raven In The Grave’. “I think we have finally hit on something quite important and different for this album,” explains Sune. “This is the first Raveonettes album we’ve done which doesn’t feature the signature Raveonettes surf drumbeat. None of the tunes have any real sunshine to them. It’s all very un-Rave.” “It has a mood of ethereal defiance,” Sharin adds. “It’s dark but not bleak, like the single minded determination caused by crisis that is not quite hope but just as powerful.