Michael Hanlon releases an album of “art folk”

17/03/2010 10:56:11 AM

Michael Hanlon teaches music to kids from the wrong side of the tracks. Drug users, schizophrenics, the homeless, the abused. These are teenagers with problems and their relationship with music is deep. He runs three studios at the Sydney City Mission. Most of the time  all three studios are going at once. To stand in the middle of them is like being in the bowels of some enormous rock beast, churning together every strand of music you ever heard. Music is their therapy and Michael guides them all day long as they rage and scream at a world that has treated them cruelly.

But what does a musician do to unwind when they've spent the day bathed in the corrosive output of their students therapeutic howling?  Make more music of course.For the last two years, he has been returning to his apartment in Sydney’s Kings Cross to write and record the album you now hold in your hands. Surprisingly, given its genesis amongst Darlinghurst's mean streets it’s a beautiful record.

An album chock full of minute observations, as well as wild flights of fantasy.  It is as much about the pressures of a life lived in the shadowlands as it is about escape, the tension that exists between the urban grind and the psychedelic flourishes that swoop down on the idle mind.……….. perhaps a bit Sparklehorse …. a little DJ Shadow …. a touch Neil Young….. but most definitely  poetic and fearless. A bold album from one of Australia’s most interesting song writers.

Michael has assembled an amazing band for the night …. Some of the “tastiest” players in Sydney ….. and what an honour to also have the lush and gorgeous sounds of MA performing along with the debut performance of MARIA KYRIACOS to kick off the event. 

15 Minutes of Sunshine is available now through Kazula Records

15 Minutes of Sunshine
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