Jazz

Cherry Factory are a fresh new band of young musicians, ready to make an impact on the Melbourne scene. This 5-piece will get you dancing with their upbeat and groove-infectious sound. Grabbing from funk, RnB, jazz, soul and pop, Cherry Factory are bringing the past, present and future of music to their sound.

"Dark, sensual, sonic theatre...compelling stuff."- Rolling Stone Australia
"Blessed by a voice that purrs and soars" -The Age Good Weekend, Melbourne
“If twilight has a voice, that voice is Wendy Rule”New Witch Magazine, USA
“Ever the high priestess, Rule plays a role she is both beloved in, and born into.” The Music, Australia.

Persephone, the new double- album from Australian visionary songstress Wendy Rule is the culmination of over twelve years work, and although drawing on Wendy’s musical journey over the past 2 decades, is unlike anything that she has done before. This beautifully evocative retelling of the Ancient Greek myth of the Goddess Persephone’s descent into the Underworld is almost like an opera, designed to guide the listener through this ancient tale of the cycles of Nature. With subtle textures that reference her early life as a jazz singer in her home town of Melbourne, and the trademark dark, gothic soundscapes and souring vocals of her previous 7 major albums, Persephone is an ambitious and unique 24 track journey through the realms of Life, Death, and human emotion.

But then again, Wendy has always carved a unique and individual path. Since the release of her first album Zero in 1996, she has defied categorisation, always walking to the beat of her own drum. Combining elements of gothic, folk, world, ambient and cabaret music, and crossing over into Pagan and New Age catagories with her many mythological, esoteric, and ritual references, Wendy is as individual as she is prolific.

A dedicated live performer, Wendy has toured extensively since her first album’s release - starting in Australia, then branching out with her first international tour in 2001. Renowned for her extraordinary voice and live shows that blur the line between music, ritual and theatre, Wendy has gained a loyal following in Australia, the USA, Europe and the UK. From the most intimate solo house concerts, to festival gigs with her band (featuring long term musical collaborator Rachel Samuel on cello), Wendy takes her audience on an otherworldly journey of depth and passion.

With the help of her loyal fanbase Wendy continues to maintain her musical independence, unbound by the confines of the mainstream. Two hugely successful crowdfunding campaigns have helped bring both Persephone, and her previous album Black Snake(2014) to life. In the past few years she has continued to grow her audience, not only with her dedicated touring schedule, but also with her performance as ‘La Llorano’ in the 2016 feature film Boys in the Trees by director Nicholas Verso (now screening on Netflix), and with her popular monthly Full Moon Magic Iive-streamed concerts.

In 2014 Wendy relocated from Australia to the USA, and is now living in the beautiful High Desert city of Santa Fe, New Mexico - allowing her an even stronger connection to her ever growing US fanbase, and providing daily access to the wild Nature that inspires her unique and transformational work.

The Comet Is Coming is a London-based jazz-rock band who incorporate elements of jazz, electronica, funk and psychedelic rock.

The band originally recorded for The Leaf Label, on which their debut EP Prophecy was released, on limited edition 12" vinyl, on 13 November 2015, with the full-length album Channel the Spirits following on 1 April 2016.[1][2] The album was nominated for the 2016 Mercury Prize, and in 2018 the band signed with Impulse!

The members of the band use the pseudonyms "King Shabaka", "Danalogue", and "Betamax" to respectively refer to saxophonist Shabaka Hutchings, keyboardist Dan Leavers, and drummer Max Hallett.[3]

In a 2013 interview, Hutchings explained the name of the band thus: "The name of the group comes from a BBC Radiophonic Workshop piece of the same name. Once we heard this piece, with its allusions to sci-fi, cosmic remembrances and general space, it instantly struck a chord. We're exploring new sound worlds and aiming to destroy all musical ideals which are unfit for our purposes so the name stuck."[4]

In an interview with M magazine, Betamax spoke of the band's genesis:

Me and Danalogue the Conqueror play as a psychedelic electro synths and live drums duo called Soccer96. We began to notice a tall shadowy figure present at some of our gigs. At some point he appeared at the side of the stage with his sax in hand. When he got up on stage to play with us it created an explosive shockwave of energy that stunned us all. A couple of weeks later King Shabaka rang me up and said 'hey let's make a record' so we booked three days in Total Refreshment Centre studios. It all came together at an incredible speed. We played and recorded to 1/4 tape with no pre-written material. By the end of three days we had recorded hours of music.[5]

The imagery associated with the band is based around outer space, science fiction and B-movies, as can be seen in the music videos for their singles "Neon Baby" and "Do the Milky Way", as well as in song titles and artwork. "Do the Milky Way" premiered on The Quietus.[6] In a feature in The Guardian in April 2016, the group were described as the "true heirs" of cosmic jazz pioneer Sun Ra, and praised for their "fusion of jazz, Afrobeat and electronica in an improvisational, intergalactic mash-up".[7] The Quietus wrote that although the band is "intrinsically linked to funk...and spiritually linked to all manner of cosmic music via their imagery (and love of space-creating echo and reverb effects), The Comet Is Coming has the feel of an utterly fresh sort of project".

King Shabaka elaborates on the cosmic side of the band and the connection to Sun Ra in the same article, when describing the crystal that dominates the cover of their Prophecy EP. He says, "The other thing about the crystal, metaphorically speaking, is the whole Sun Ra thing of creating your own myths. The thing I like that Sun Ra says a lot is the fact that societies that can create their own mythological structures are the ones that have their own agency. To the point at which you can dictate the terms of what's real and what's not real. The crystal in the hand forces you to create your own myth".[8]

In August 2016, the band was nominated for the Mercury Prize for their debut album, Channel the Spirits.[9][10]

In January 2017 the band was one of the recipients of the Momentum Music Fund through PRS for Music and in April 2017 the band released the Death to the Planet EP through The Leaf Label as part of Record Store Day.[11][12]

Their second full-length album, Trust in the Lifeforce of the Deep Mystery, was released in March 2019 and received critical acclaim, with The Quietus noting the importance of Sun Ra and Alice Coltrane on their sound while acknowledging that "rather than being weighed down by those legacies, The Comet Is Coming have turned them into fuel, accelerating their sound, and with it, the sound of jazz today."[13] Pitchfork gave the album a score of 7.8 out of 10 and wrote, "Mostly low- to mid-tempo, the band skillfully integrates bleak and radiant tones, leading to an impressive nine-track suite of ambient, spoken-word and grime-infused compositions."[14] The album currently holds a score of 83 on review aggregator Metacritic, indicating "Universal acclaim."