It's baaaaaaaaaaaaaack! Our first Hits From The Box for 2012 - really? Yeah, things are taking a while to come back to normal on Planet Masala - but define normal? This place is always in stasis. ANYway, you'll see that it's slightly different in that the bands below are all familiar ones. Well, at least to us here, as we posted about them in the past eighteen months. Well, they have gone from strength to strength and have new releases out, so we may as well crack open this Pandora's box and have at them, huh? Christchurch has ...

We catch up with Sydney's Faker backstage at the Big Day Out to talk about the festival itself and find out what led them to put their latest record online for free at the end of last year... read more

LANCELOT is the new project from 21 year‐old Sydney producer Lance Gurisik. Formerly recording as AEONS, in 2011 Lance dropped the drums, kicked aside the USB keyboards and embedded himself in the studio to create his own dense style of house music. With a fetish for analogue gear, Lance draws upon his broad knowledge of classical music styles and forms while recording and writing for dance floors – the result sitting somewhere between new‐wave pop and downtempo, tropical house.  I'm happy to report there's not a dub or step in sight and it's fucking marvelous. For ...

Some observations from Big Day Out veteran DARREN LEVIN as the festival celebrated its 20th year at Flemington Racecourse on Sunday (January 29). Photos by LEAH ROBERTSON . ‘Are you nice and sweaty?’ Attending a festival in 35-degree heat is difficult enough without bands telling you just how hot it is. “Hope you don’t die in this heat,” quipped Stonefield’s singer Amy Findlay at midday when the sun was at the height of its powers. “Are you nice and sweaty?” quizzed The Vaccines’ Justin Young. Kimbra Johnson asked us if we were “hot and sticky”, before Soundgarden’s Chris ...

As originally seen on The Rad Report - California... Knows How to Party It’s easy to be a perfect person behind a screen name and a website. A reader writes in to ask Daisy De La Hoya if she should meet up with a guy she met online. Will he be Mister Perfect, or a faker from a false world? Written by Eddie DaRoza

ok, so there seems to be quite a few Sydney based soul influenced beat makers at the mo. Dro Carey, Faker">Chet Faker and this dude, Tank">Oliver Tank. Perhaps the most well known, Tank has had a bit of a prolific ride. He’s gotten some international play, had his track Last Night I Heard Everything in Slow [...]

Filed under: News , Holy Hell Universal Music Lights released her single 'Toes' last year but the Canadian electro-pop singer wants fans to know that online naked photos currently circulating and revealing basically everything except the toes aren't of her. Lights, born Valerie Poxleitner, tweeted that certain nude pictures online claiming to be of the singer are fakes. "There are nude photos of someone on the Internet that are supposed to be me," she said. "They're not. She doesn't even have tattoos! Just to be clear." Shortly afterward she posted the same statement on her Facebook page which ...

Sorry about the delay on this stupid list guys, internet deprivation is the worst. Who gives a shit anyway though, 'Best Of' lists are lame and overdone. So here's mine! 2011 flat out fucking ruled. So much great music, so many great parties. We toured so many awesome DJs and ate so many delicious pizzas at our Sunday Sessions. Met so many lovely people and spent a horrendous amount of money on records. Whilst people were having their heads caved in by brostep and moombahton and whatever other whack rubbish is infecting clubs these days, I was off on ...

Venue closures, Nirvana tribute gigs and rising flood waters dominate an eventful first half of 2011. Part two here . January Brisbane floods: As rising flood waters devastate Queensland, several venues within Brisbane’s CBD and Fortitude Valley entertainment precinct are forced to close and cancel gigs . Benefit shows are held across the country, however newly retired Powderfinger decline calls from local MPs to “dust off” their guitars for a once-off benefit show, choosing to release a single for victims instead. M+N contributor Andrew Stafford writes a moving column about what records he’d save, while Custard and Regurgitator sign ...

Fellow Australians Ta-Ku and Faker">Chet Faker tagged teamed on producing this chilled out electro jam entitled “Mahal.” You may remember Faker">Chet Faker from his chilled out rendition of “No Diggity,” and I’m really digging this new sound that seems to be emerging here; I’ll try and describe it as a chillwave/hip-hop/electronic sound. If you like [...]

The What 03 by Ajitpaul Mangat on 12-02-2011 Welcome to “The What.” The ongoing goal of this column is to think through the ways in which hip-hop “functions” in our present milieu: as a genre, discourse, and touchstone for examinations of our life + times, from taste and representation to race and class. In this way, “The What” seeks to document the aesthetics and teleology of hip-hop as it presently reveals itself. Such dialogues may be about how hip-hop got here and where it is going, but it also might tell us how we got here and where we are going ...

Faker's Nathan Hudson caught up with FL to chat about his band's new free album _Get Loved_.

Faker are getting into the Christmas spirit, announcing that they’ll give their new album Get Loved to fans for free. In an open letter the band’s frontman Nathan Hudson said that “The point and excitement in writing and releasing Get Loved is in danger of being missed.” He continued that the band recorded the album [...]

Sydney’s Faker have taken the somewhat extraordinary step of giving their new album Un-Loved Get Loved away for free. And not on a Radiohead-esque “pay for what you think it’s worth” basis. From midday on December 2, you will be able to download the entire record via their website without paying a cent. According to an open letter from singer Nathan Hudson, the decision was prompted by a number reasons including a “less than well-attended tour”, uncertainty about their future direction, an evolution in personnel and management, a lack of overseas interest and a protracted album release. Perhaps ...