Together, they spark a hilarious campus-wide frenzy that tests their own hearts and ambitions along the way.

Starring Angourie Rice and Spike Fearn, Finding Emily is coming to cinemas May 21
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Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba is based on the manga series by Koyoharu Gotoge, published in SHUEISHA’s WEEKLY JUMP from February 2016 to May 2020. The series has captivated audiences worldwide with its tragic tale of humans and demons, riveting sword fights, charming characters, and comical scenes. The manga consists of 23 volumes and has published over 150 million units.

Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba first premiered in April 2019 with the Tanjiro Kamado, Unwavering Resolve Arc, followed by the feature film Mugen Train in October 2020, and the TV series Mugen Train Arc and Entertainment District Arc from 2021 through 2022. In 2023, the Swordsmith Village Arc debuted on Crunchyroll, shortly after the Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba -To the Swordsmith Village- theatrical release. In 2024, the Hashira Training Arc debuted, shortly after the Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba -To Hashira Training- theatrical release. The animation production is by ufotable.

The latest films – Mugen Train, -To the Swordsmith Village-, and -To the Hashira Training- – have received both commercial and critical success. Mugen Train currently holds the record as the highest-grossing Japanese anime movie of all time and the highest-grossing Japanese film at the global box office, garnering over 500 million USD to date. It currently ranks as the second-highest grossing Japanese anime film in U.S. box office history. It also garnered a 98% critic score and 99% audience score (with 10,000+ verified ratings) on Rotten Tomatoes.
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This work is filled with groove-heavy goodness and the double disc format allows the time to put it all across. Six-string sorcerer and electronic toys maven Tim Motzer transcends string and wire and adds an amazing amount of different tones. His atmospherics are divine while second guitarist Alex Skolnick just plain gets it on. From clean tone chicken picking to outer edge ripping and all points in between, he is not limited by boundaries at all.

Percy Jones is well, Percy Jones and his contributions on fretless 5 string bass and sampler are amazing. So rich, melodic and above all, supportive. Kenny Grohowski is given the daunting task of keeping up on drums and he succeeds spectacularly. The fine nuance and groove of his playing give the other players a huge field to dance on and dance they do. There are moments of heavy assertiveness and moments of chill and introspection.

There is much to love about No Steps Left To Trace. The music is otherworldly, almost astral at times and no matter how far out it gets it never loses the groove that glues things together. With four musicians of this calibre, you know something extraordinary is going to happen and it does over and over again. There are times today when it becomes a little bit too easy to get blasé about music with the level of accessibility and variety on offer but then a work like this comes around and you find yourself fully vested in the magic once again.
Rob Hudson
www.pakt-moonjune.bandcamp.com

Music made for music’s sake can be quite powerful and even more so with an underlying message of the heroics present in all of us. In JB Fairfield’s latest release, A Time For Heroes the cause for that feeling is presented in such a way as to inspire as well as entertain. It’s a concept work that sees each song interlocking with each other and the ebb and flow is mesmerising,

Never short of music chops, this one-man band uses his wide range of instrumental skills to the betterment of the message. From the choral intro to the funky bass lines that are sliced up by keyboard washes and airy guitar in the opening track What Will The World Be Like to the urgent guitar tones in the Latin-tinged title track, the musicianship is devoted to the song first and foremost. Drop the needle anywhere and there is innovation amid dynamic shifts.

Special note must be made about the final track The Absence of Pain and Fear, its sequencing at the very end of the work is perfect as it is so uplifting and soulful that it caps off the preceding eight tracks in a most uplifting way. This is music used to the benefit of a thought process that even in today’s mixed times is relevant, that there is hope both externally as well as internally. A Time For Heroes communicates Its hopes in a most succinct and soulful way.
Rob Hudson

JB Fairfield’s A Time For Heroes can be found on most popular streaming services and also purchased from Bandcamp: www.bandcamp.com

Melbourne audiences are loving the brand-new production of GREASE, which opened on New Year’s Eve with critics calling it “close to perfection” (Broadway World) and a “bucket list production that should not be missed” (Theatre Matters).

The hit musical is currently playing at Her Majesty’s Theatre, Melbourne before it opens in Sydney from 24 March 2024 and Perth from 30 June 2024.

GREASE features an all-new set, dazzling costumes and all those unforgettable songs from the movie, including Summer Nights, Sandy, Hopelessly Devoted to You, You’re The One That I Want, Greased Lightnin’, and Grease is the Word.

Since the show’s Broadway premiere and the hit movie starring John Travolta and Olivia Newton-John – which went on to become the highest grossing movie-musical of all time – the Tony Award nominated GREASE has triumphed across the globe, with its irresistible mix of adolescent angst, vibrant physicality and 1950s pop culture.

Casting announcement will be made in the coming months.
www.greasemusical.com.au

Tentacles lives up to its name with a riff that wraps around you without ever really resolving. This keeps you invested until the final soundscape coda gives you the blessed relief the preceding has denied you.

Ringtone lock steps you into a new sensation with bold power chords and an insistent note pattern not unlike eighties-era Crim. Pat Mastelotto’s percussive output is stellar and grounds the groove.

Company Of Ghosts starts with a purposive funk groove that sounds as mysterious as Mata Hari beckoning you to discover new worlds before the transportive effect of the sound collage at the tracks’ turnaround.

Danger In The Workplace finds the percussive sound of Markus Reuter’s touch guitar and Tony Levin’s Chapman stick brought to the forefront with this ominous workout. Danger indeed.

Satieday Night brings the EP to a close with a slow burn intro followed by a marauding gang of malcontent notes that seesaw between contentment and a contrivance to leave you wanting more.

So many ideas via so few tunes.
Rob Hudson
www.facebook.com/moonjunerecords2/

After the privacy of a decent bout of silence was over, an injection of art was needed. Something that forms a challenge and benefit scenario, something like Kosmonautik Pilgrimage by those provocateurs Anchor and Burden. This is music that has a logic all its own and dares one to find a place for it in their analogue. It presents an application that band members Markus Reuter, Alexander Paul Dowerk, Bernhard Wöstheinrich and Asaf Sirkis are more than happy to provide.

In the same way, that happy stories dissipate more quickly in the ether and stern stuff sticks around, the tracks here have an abrasiveness that gives you more to grip, a friction that assures that the intention does anything but slip by unnoticed. The musicianship is such that the landscape reaches into far vistas and drummer Sirkis does a remarkable job of holding it all together.

Kosmonautik Pilgrimage is an auditory offensive that provides provocation and equal remuneration. I can only imagine the kind of commercial establishment that would dare put music like this on in the background and what wares would be on offer. Litmus strips for the coming apocalypse, or perhaps current generating devices to open the synapsis to thoughts of the new?
Rob Hudson
www.facebook.com/moonjunerecords2

To this listeners delight, Messers Giorgio Li Calzi, Boris Savoldelli and Maurizio Brunod have both impeccable taste in song choices and musical chops. The don’t just cover the tunes but reinvent them. This is done through clever arrangements and instrumentation. An early example of this is the reinvention of the early eighties era King Crimson track Matte Kudasai that replaces the interlocked and floating electric guitars of the original with acoustic guitar and a haunting trumpet. It succeeds in losing none of the song’s inherent emotional impact.

Taking on a Beatle song, even one as off kilter as Tomorrow Never Knows and saying something new was never going to be easy but as the song fragments into its lego building blocks, it’s both fresh and respectful to the source. Replacing many of the song’s dramatic electric interludes with acoustic instrumentation in the foreground while having the electronics water colour wash the backdrop gives the music a well burnished depth.

Featuring songs with vocals also helps with the accessibility, the disc can be spun in a room with mixed tastes and satisfy all. Eclectic and elegant, Nostalgia Progressiva is much more a love letter to important inspirations than a just an easy cash grab.

Rob Hudson
borissavoldelli.bandcamp.com

On the heels of their six-time Academy Award®-winning smash, La La Land, Oscar®-winning director Damien Chazelle and star Ryan Gosling reteam for Universal Pictures’ First Man, the riveting story behind the first manned mission to the moon, focusing on Neil Armstrong and the decade leading to the historic Apollo 11 flight.  A visceral and intimate account told from Armstrong’s perspective, based on the book by James R. Hansen, the film explores the triumphs and the cost—on Armstrong, his family, his colleagues and the nation itself—of one of the most dangerous missions in history.

Written by Academy Award® winner Josh Singer (Spotlight, The Post), the epic drama of leading under the pressure of grace and tragedy is produced by Wyck Godfrey & Marty Bowen (The Twilight Saga, The Fault in Our Stars) through their Temple Hill Entertainment banner, alongside Isaac Klausner (Love, Simon) and Chazelle.  Steven Spielberg, Adam Merims and Singer executive produce, while DreamWorks Pictures co-finances the film.

First Man is in Australian Cinemas October 11!
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Mark Wingfield is just such a wizard. He strives to use extended vibrato to give his notes a wavering human voice quality that bridges the gap between the sometimes cold perfectionism that some shredders use and the inviting warmth that is at the root of accessibility. Just giving the audience finger gymnastics is not going to get it done in this day and age.

It’s also more than just note selection, exposing fresh nuance in both melody and tone is not easy with the incredible amount of guitar vocabulary out there and not relying on just speed to make a point of excitement adds to the challenge. Wingfield is more than up to the task however and his band, one that includes Yaron Stavi (who’s fretless bass blends seamlessly) and Asaf Sirkis on drums caress with a fantastically supportive feel.

Those six or seven or eight string symphonies will continue to involve listeners, if not on radios, then in the collections of discerning listeners. Ones with a taste for timeless harmonic invention and adventurous melodies.

Rob Hudson
www.markwingfield.com