Nick Batterham‘s beautiful single ‘No Perfect Man‘ is out today! It is the first single of Nick’s forthcoming album ‘Lovebirds’, coming out this May on Cheersquad Records & Tapes. Available digitally on your preferred platforms and for sale through Cheersquad. Have a listen, watch the video and buy No Perfect Man here.

Nick’s undeniable fervour for composing immersive, visceral atmospherics is again paramount on ‘No Perfect Man’. Performed and recorded by Batterham with Ben Wiesner on drums, and featuring strings by David Berlin, Zoe Black and Christopher Moore, with Cor Anglais by Michael Pisani, ‘No Perfect Man’ blends residual classical elements of recent works with poignant lyricism and intimate storytelling. Always managing to extract the immense from the minimal, Nick’s delicate arrangements of rich orchestration and vivid colour paints bright lights and deep shadows like a Caravaggio. Ripeness turns to decay. ‘The centre could not hold,’ Batterham sings, echoing the words of Irish poet W. B. Yeats from a century ago. Nick’s double tracked octave vocal describes the co-existence of our inner and outer voice. Joined in chorus by long-time collaborators Kelly Day, Nick Murray and Jethro Woodward, ‘No Perfect Man’ is a compelling and exciting first taste of Batterham’s forthcoming sixth studio album.

Perth power pop trio Rinehearts have announced the release of their forthcoming single ‘Can’t Do Nothing’ and the companion video, set to be released through Cheersquad Records & Tapes on Friday December 7.

With an overall sound best described as a cross between The Replacements and Reigning Sound, Rinehearts have been delivering catchy tunes since forming in 2016.   Long-time friends Guitarist and Vocalist Ben Ward, bass player Mitch Long and drummer Ross Di Blasio’s raw sound and memorable melodies quickly gained the attention of U.K label No Front Teeth Records who put out the band’s first 7” EP ‘Try Your Luck’ in December that same year.

This undeniably captivating latest single ‘Can’t Do Nothing’ is the band’s first new material since the EP release and is the title track from their forthcoming debut album, set to be released early 2019.  The companion video was shot and edited by the band in November 2018 at Musgrove Studios Western Australia.  ‘We shot the video on an old school Sony Hi8 camera that was fished out of a skip bin that was brand new in the box. It’s been a fun camera to use and has some cheesy in-camera effects that we messed around with.’

Buy track here
Rinehearts on Facebook

IMMIGRANT UNION launch ‘New Win’ single and video

Australian alt/country/psych collective Immigrant Union have announced the release of their forthcoming single ‘New Win’ and companion Video, set to be released through Cheersquad Records & Tapes on Friday December 7.

Not a band to sit on one particular sound for more than an album, Immigrant Union’s self-titled first record was very much cemented in Americana music, while their second album ‘Anyway’ continued to contain similar elements but featured a large shift in song-writing style and instrumentation.

The band’s yet to be released third album ‘Judas’ is arguably their most ‘different’ album to date.  It still has slight tinges of Americana but generally the band describe it as ‘some weird ass rock album’.  It’s also the first record that includes Ben Street and Paddy McGrath-Lester who joined founding members Brent DeBoer from The Dandy Warhols, Melbourne musician Bob Harrow and vocalist Peter Lubulwa after Courtney Barnett and co had to split due to Courtney blowing up in a huge globally massive way!

‘New Win’ is the first taste from the forthcoming ‘Judas’ album due for release in early 2019, and ‘is a song about the best times in life being squandered by not realising at the time how great they were and regrettably letting them slip away. Looking back, you feel you must have been insane to have not recognised how good you had it and vow to never make those same mistakes again.’

With that in mind, the band decided to make a video about Bob converting to Mormonism. Makes sense right?

Part one of the video shows the monotony of preparing for a good time. Grab some friends, grab some beers, order some pizza and settle in for an evening of weapons grade gum flapping.

Part two features some unexpected guests, and later, Bob’s reckoning. With a bit of a buzz on, Bob’s not only looking for some light-hearted philosophical nonsense, he’s looking for an epiphany. Just when he thinks he’s got it all figured out, he’s reminded that his new direction in life requires a few sacrifices. Is Bob willing and able to make those sacrifices? Will he turn his back on his hard-partying ways and take on a life of meditation, sobriety, and self-reflection? Or are there some sacrifices too near and dear to his very identity that he is unwilling to give up? Only Bob knows the answers to these hard questions.

Watch the clip for Immigrant Union’s brand new, smash hit single, ‘New Win’, and you too will know what Bob becomes. And what may become of Bob….

Buy track here
Immigrant Union on Facebook
Immigrant Union website

Cheersquad is excited to announce the release of Australian singer songwriter Nick Craft’s debut solo album ‘Minerva’ on Friday 23 November.

Perhaps best known as songwriter, musician and front man for the psychedelic rock band Sidewinder, Nick recorded ‘Minerva’ with his brother and former band mate, Martin. The brothers formed Sidewinder as teenagers in the 90s, before releasing several acclaimed albums, and constantly touring the Hume Highway live circuit and as a fixture on festival line-ups including The Big Day Out and Homebake.

This record marks the first time they have worked together since Sidewinder, this time in very different capacities. Martin took on the roles of producer and arranger, taking Nick’s lyrically-driven songs performed on an estate sale nylon strong guitar into a new realm with his understated and sophisticated string arrangements. These arrangements were recorded with a crack squad of musicians in Los Angeles, using players who are more used to working on film soundtracks or with high profile artists such as Father John Misty, Quincy Jones or Brian Wilson.

The first single from the release is ‘No Silver Lining’, which Nick suggests is: ‘a song that does its best to argue that we should maintain our optimism, even in the face of a world that suggests optimism never pays off. It’s somewhere between a love song from an optimist to a pessimist, and a work of self-help, depending on what time of day I listen to it…’

For this song and the remainder of the album Nick has drawn on a diverse and disparate array of influences.  Of his musical influences, he says: ‘While I don’t think I’ve been a slave to any one example, I’ve certainly drawn on the canonic examples of Leonard Cohen or Nick Drake, trying to drive a deep and reflective channel with my lyrics, and move them as close to poetry as I’m able to do… which is perhaps odd, given that I started off in music wanting to work in the My Bloody Valentine tradition of wanting to obliterate the lyric…’

‘I’ve also been inspired by the quiet examples of singers who’ve laboured in obscurity and quiet domesticity–like Sibylle Baier singing into a tape recorder after work just for herself, or Anne Briggs who chose to live a life away from the microphone…’

Tracks from ‘Minerva’ will be accompanied by videos edited from old films that have lapsed out of copyright: ‘In the case of No Silver Lining, it’s shows a woman waking up, removing a skull from a cupboard and throwing it out of the window, only to find it’s returned to the same place. Which is pretty much a good analogy of the circuit this song is trying to break…’ 

‘Minerva’, the 9-track debut album from Nick Craft will be released on Friday 23 November, and is available for pre-order from 2 November from Bandcamp and online retailers.

Nick’s website
Nick on Instagram