Midnight Feature signing and new track Divinity
The team behind Inertia is proud to introduce Midnight Feature: an all-new imprint dedicated to the exhilarating edges of the Australian pop spectrum. KUČKA is proud to reveal they are the inaugural signing to its roster, with new single “Divinity” to be released Friday 21 November ahead of an EP in early 2015.
New single “Divinity” reinforces KUČKA’s unique star-turn – a preview of things to come on the second EP, due early 2015 on Midnight Feature. Co-produced by fellow Perth creative James Ireland (Savoir/Hamjam/The Chemist), the track is an alluring shard of neo-R&B, equally steeped in hypnotic charisma and gently asphyxiating menace.
The single premiered exclusively via The FADER, with the U.S based website praising its “languid, syrupy” production, and has been added to triple j, FBi and more.
This news comes off the back of KUČKA being the second most awarded artist in the 2014 West Australian Music Awards, including winning Best Single and Best Electronic Act.
KUČKA will celebrate the single’s release with performances at the following::
FRI 21 NOV
RTRFM Courtyard Club Series (Perth)
State Theatre Courtyard (FREE)
w/ Special Guest DJs
SUN 23 NOV
Sunday City Limits (Sydney)
Vic On The Park Hotel, Inertia ARIA Week Showcase
w/ Jack Ladder, The Harpoons & Milwaukee Banks
SAT 29 NOV
CoLAB Festival
UWA (Perth)
w/ Hermitude, The Kite String Tangle, The Jungle Giants + more
SAT 13 DEC
The Bakery (Perth)
w/ Factory Floor
MIDNIGHT FEATURE BACKGROUND
Based in Sydney, Midnight Feature will be spearheaded by Mark Dodds as the imprint’s Head Of A&R. Joining him will be Inertia’s Amelia Jenner in the role of Marketing Manager.
Midnight Feature joins the Inertia Group of companies alongside label-services company Inertia, touring company Handsome Tours and film & TV licensing company, Gaga.
KUČKA are predictably seducing all who cross their path with their unique blend of forward thinking poptronica. Named as one of the best artists at BIGSOUND by the likes of 4ZZZ and Double J, and featuring guest artist on triplej Unearthed and TheMusic.com.au. The trio have put the industry in a spin and built some serious hype for the upcoming tour, which kicks off in Melbourne on Thursday, 16th of October.
All this comes off the back of Unconditional + remixes being released and picked up in no time at all, being instantly added to community radio and triple J unearthed. Spanning the electronic spectrum from seductive and wonky house to sublimely chilled electronica, the Unconditional + Remixes release features remixes from some of the country’s most promising new beat makers. Talent-laden KUČKA bandmates Catlips and Tobacco Rat both give tracks a once over plus a special remix from beats genius and the other half of HWLS with Ta-ku, Kit Pop, and it’s a package promising to make dancefloors groan with satisfaction.
From some of Australia’s foremost rising proponents of future electronica premiered on Stoney Roads and Pilerats, plus a ’90s Rage-soaked video premiered on The Daily Spa, just in time for her BIGSOUND showcases, KUČKA hit the festival as an Artist You Can’t Afford To Miss. Is she the new Bjork? Australia’s closest relative to FKA Twigs? What Grimes could have been? Nope, she’s KUČKA, and it’s now time for you to fall unconditionally in love with her too.
From caressing Single Of The Week/Month spots in everyone from Music Alliance Pact blogs (including Drowned In Sound, Who The Hell and Pop Cop) to The West Australian and The Music, and being added to full rotation on the likes of triple j and FBi, KUČKA’s Unconditional is quickly racking up declarations of love from every taste-making Dick and Harriet. To celebrate the slow burning experimental R&B booty jam’s release on Inertia Access, the A$AP Rocky collaborator, FBi Northern Lights Finalist, act named by the UK’s The Guardian as one of the Top Five Under-The-Radar Australian bands, and Path To Laneway, Song Of The Year and WAM Award winner, KUČKA is embarking on her debut national headline tour this October.
THE UNCONDITIONAL TOUR
Southside Tea Room
$5 on the door
Supported by: MAÏA
SUN 19 OCT Byron Bay
The Beach Hotel
Free Entry
Supported by: Special Guest DJsSAT 25 OCT Northbridge
The Bird
$10 on the door
Supported by: Lower Spectrum + James Ireland
Watch
✄✄ Video filmed by Lily May and audio mixed by Chris Wright ✄✄
Unofficial video but still a wicked one from Jessica Doyle ♡
Promo vid by Eliza-lee Farrington from one of my solo shows at Sirens2 @Drop the Dumbells Gallery in Liverpool
SIRENS2 from ELIZA-LEE FARRINGTON on Vimeo.
Biography
KUCKA: It’s Serb-Croatian for “BITCH”…
The most exciting new prodigy to burst from Perth’s fertile electronica scene, KUCKA has been making increasingly bigger waves both at home and internationally, making this charmingly unique artist poised to be one of 2014’s most talked-about Australian acts. Behind the moniker, Laura Jane Lowther records and produces her music from found sounds and analog synths. Whilst oft compared to Björk, KUCKA’s wholly distinctive, hypnotic vocals are perfectly woven through unconventional song structures to truly make for an incomparable, otherworldly experience.
2013 was a pivotal year for KUCKA. As a result of winning the 2012 WAM Experimental Song Of The Year, she was invited to dazzle all at the Quartz Music Awards in Paris. Her vocal abilities scored a big fan in superstar rapper A$AP Rocky who, after sampling KUCKA on hit single Long Live A$AP,asked Laura to add fresh backing vocals also to Fashion Killa, both appearing on his #1 Billboard album. KUCKA was also named in the Top FiveUnder-The-Radar Australian bands by the UK’s The Guardian, won the Path To Laneway competition to play at St Jerome’s and scored the front cover honours of Drum Media Perth. To cap off her stellar year, she took home Best Experimental Group at the WA Music Awards, and even a photo of her won the Kiss My Camera competition.
KUCKA is also garnering an obsessive fan-base for her mesmerizing live shows. Recruiting Jake Steele (Injured Ninja, Yarkhob, and from the infamous Steele family) on analog synths and Katie Campbell (Catlips) on live electronic beats, they accompany Laura’s haunting vocals and mixed-up sampling in unforgettable ways, as highlighted by triple j’s Dom Alessio after witnessing KUCKA at a showcase of WA’s best. KUCKA’s live talents have also seen the group in high demand, with a constant stream of shows including supporting the diverse likes of Oliver Tank, Oscar Key Song, Hunx & His Punx, Prince Rama, Cashmere Cat, Seekae, Abbe May, Sarry, Six60, PVT and Sleep ∞ Over, plus festivals including Laneway and State Of The Art.
2014 has seen KUCKA added to Daniel Sant’s roster at Harbour Agency, booker for Lorde, Deep Sea Arcade and more. Soon will be a music video collab for Backyard Plastic Surgery, directed by Maria Masniak and featuring AL EX’s artwork. This follows her mind-blowing videos to Rewind and the more recent Phantasy. A re-tweaked version of her award-winning self-titled EP on Wood & Wire has also been picked up by French label NUUN Records, releasing in Europe and the US in May this year.
Unconditional was then premiered by Pilerats and launched to a sell-out crowd. Added to high rotation on triple j, it’s the first new single in a series leading up to a new EP planned to drop in October 2014. Blogged all over the world when selected as the Music Alliance Pact’s Australian tune of the month, Unconditional will soon be released with remixes from Kit Pop (one half of HWLS with Ta-ku), Catlips and Tobacco Rat, including a new video, all out through Inertia. She’ll also showcase at 2014’s BIGSOUND 10-12 September in Brisbane, followed by her first headline national tour in October, seeing KUCKA continuing to reveal her cutting-edge sonic palette and painting a whole new picture of the sound of the future.
Download Kučka’s debut EP for free here.
Subscribe to Kučka’s Youtube page.
Management – Aarom Wilson (Aaromedia) – aaromwilson@outlook.com
Bookings – Daniel Sant (Harbour Agency – daniels@theharbouragency.com
Gallery
Press
Click here to download the Press Kit (includes hi-res images)
Management – Aarom Wilson / Aaromedia – aaromwilson@outlook.com
Bookings – Daniel Sant / Harbour Agency – daniels@theharbouragency.com
Press – Amelia Jenner / Midnight Feature – amelia@midnightfeature.com
“The Best Australian Bands You’ve Never Heard Of – off-kilter experimental electronica from one Laura Jane Lowther’s solo bedroom project turned ambitious, post-dubstep live act”
The Guardian
“a post-dubstep miasma of deep bass, electric flickers, mutant samples and shifting time signatures … The influences flitter around, the combinations new and entrancing and her own personality stamped onto the whole in a way that establishes her own, individual and exciting voice”
Cyclic Defrost
“intent on eschewing normal notions of electro pop, instead trying to colour the furtive outer regions, neither aggressive nor reticent; neither glossy nor gritty. These arrangements expand and contract like a psychotropic headswell; Alice In Wonderland in cyberpunk sound-byte form. Tying it all together is Lowther’s plinking vocals, somewhere between Deerhoof’s Satomi Matsuzaki and Alison Goldfrapp, a skittish yet ominous mist, a dark seduction threatening to swallow you whole.”
Sonic Masala
“If you’ve seen her live or heard her on radio you’ll know that Kučka – indelicate pseudonym for the delicate looking Laura Jane Lowther – gets every note right in her particular take on dark, glitchy electronica. They’re complex compositions, with her unbelievably smooth, crystalline (and slightly disturbing) voice woven all the way through.”
The Thousands
“…the debut EP by kučka might well be one of the most intriguing and ambitious releases by a Perth artist I’ve encountered”
Life is Noise
“with abstract minimalism that would surely see her a comfortable fit on the Warp label, kučka’s debut EP leads in with Rewind, the kind of spartan electonica that rewards a decent pair of headphones and a darkened room.”
Drum Media
“The music’s synthetic sheen veils a sinister undercurrent which only surfaces occasionally in sudden, violent bursts. Lowther is a master of delaying these extroverted moments, at stretching out an uneasy calm until breaking point. It is this play between the suggestion of violence and its realisation that gives the EP its unique dynamic.”
X-Press Mag
“skillfully combines the electronic with the organic, and the pretty with the (slightly) menacing … strange and beautiful”
Bandcamp Hunter
“An artist of true vision, that tip toes through an eccentric, eclectic, electronic and experimental void of musical colours”
The Holding Pattern