Ned Collette & Wirewalker profile picture

Ned Collette & Wirewalker

About Me


Ned Collette & Wirewalker generally reside in Melbourne. The band have toured recently in Europe and Ned followed that up with a solo tour in January. He also spent a couple of months in bed in Glasgow, occasionally crawling over to the desk to write and/or smoke.
Work on album number three - the first one all together - continues in earnest at the moment and there will be no shows until that's done. Plans are underway for a return to Europe and Australians can expect some appearances before the year is out. Stay tuned.
Ned's second album Future Suture came out in Australia on the interstellar Dot Dash label in October 2007 and is available in stores via Inertia distribution. In New Zealand it is available on Dot Dash through Rhythmethod. You can also get it from the following overseas retailers:
London, UK: Rough Trade (both stores) and via their mail order .
Austin Texas, USA: Waterloo and via their mail order .
Everywhere else you'll have to be a bit resourceful - use the internet - you are using it right now. The surest bet if you are having trouble is to order it direct from Dot Dash in Australia.
You can download the album from iTunes with bonus tracks from the first EP by clicking this button.
The first album, Jokes and Trials, came out in 2006 and is available in Oz/NZ stores, by mail order from Dot Dash or click this button. It is available in the UK and Europe through Forte Music Distribution. There might still be a second hand copy in Other Music in New York.
Ned's version of TV On The Radio's "Hours" was commissioned in 2006 by COKEMACHINEGLOW.COM for their inaugural Fantasy Covers Podcast. You can hear it there or purchase it properly mastered as a single (with exclusive B-side) from iTunes - do a search for that one.
His first EP, "Test Patterns" ('04) has now been repressed and is available to buy only at shows or from HIS WEBSITE.

My Interests

Music:

Member Since: 4/6/2006
Band Website: http://www.nedcollette.com
Band Members: Ned Collette - vocals, electric guitar, acoustic guitar
Ben Bourke - electric bass, backing vocals
Joe Talia - drums, backing vocals

Contact:
Label/Promo/Press: [email protected]
Australian Bookings: [email protected]
European Bookings: [email protected]
Everything Else: [email protected]

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Ned on Twitter:

The Country With A Smile on ABC television in May 2008, with special guests Shags on synths, Belinda Woods flute, Kynan Robinson trombone and Eamon McNelis trumpet:

and acoustic, shot on the streets of Sydney by our pals Amelia and Jonathan at Shoot The Player ...

The Laughter Across The Street recorded on the same day...

MISTLETONIA:

The folks at Mistletone Records did us the honour of asking us to contribute to their Yuletide inspired compilation CD. It's great - find out more by clicking here

Sounds Like: Ned Collette - Future Suture
(Dot Dash)

"Over this last summer I saw Ned Collette open for Wheat at the Empty Bottle here in Chicago. It’s a fun venue but a lousy place to be an opening band, especially if you happen to be an unknown singer-songwriter opening for a marginal pop band on a weeknight. There were two dozen people in the place and most of them didn’t much care about the lanky Australian guy up onstage with the looping pedals. I was half-distracted by the bar chatter but mostly just blown away by Collette. I loved his debut, last year’s Jokes & Trials (still inexplicably unavailable in this country), and was expecting something light, sometimes funny, and vaguely lovesick along those lines. But what he was playing at the show were longer, wordier, and stranger numbers. The darkness and melancholy was palpable and startling.

The show reminded me quite a lot of seeing Joanna Newsom playing solo at McCarren Pool in Brooklyn a few months before Ys (2006) came out. Collette, who has toured with Newsom, has that same emotional intensity and incisive way with words. But where Newsom has the air of some eerie lost folk musician of the early ‘70s, Collette brings to mind nothing so much as the austerity and beauty of early Leonard Cohen. He can do wordy and mysterious (“Forty Children”), but he doesn’t shy away from bluntness when it’s called for (“Ned’s Dream”). He is anachronistic, possibly, but in the best ways.

What comes as a surprise about Future Suture, then, is not the sheer imposing genius of the lyrics and the general gloominess of the album, but how goddamn great this record is to listen to. Like Newsom he has upped the instrumental ante for his sophomore record; unlike her, he’s gone classic rock. Aaron Newell’s right about the Dungen-like air to some of this, even if to me it sounds more like Songs of Leonard Cohen (1967) if Cohen had actually liked all the parts that weren’t just vocals and guitar. But what’s most important is that Collette isn’t just layering shit on to expand his sound. The arrangements make internal and conceptual sense so that there’s nothing tacked-on or unnecessary about the horns on “Race,” those big, warm, fuzzy synth lines on the gorgeous “The Country With a Smile,” or the drums anywhere on this album. Every listen seems to bring out something new; every listen and I love this album more."
www.cokemachineglow.com

"Diverse and inspired... Future Suture pushes Collette’s writing to unexpected territory, offering wonderful new vistas with each track" **** Rolling Stone

"A romantic and gothic shift away from pinky-plunky folk, to something with more attitude and a lot more sex appeal" **** Music Australia Guide

"One of the most distinctive voices in Australia" Drum Syd (live review)

“In 10, 15 years time, people will still be talking about the impact ‘Future Suture’ had on their lives, musicians will be rattling off Ned’s name as freely as they do with Dylan, Lennon and Wilson” 9.5/10 Tsunami

"The chances of it being the best Australian album released this year are exceptionally high” Inpress

“Collette’s talent is one to be treasured and this record does it the justice it deserves” Drum Syd

“There is life in this album, a vision that you could call beautiful” Drum Perth

“There’s a laconic simplicity to [Future Suture] that is almost certainly harder to achieve than it sounds.” The Age (Melbourne) Magazine

"Future Suture is a thought provoking addition to a career that appears to have no limitations or forseeable end" Beat

Praise For Jokes & Trials:

"Through this setting Collette's voice sails like a paper airplane -- a throaty, folksy tour guide, pointing out trainstops and heartbreaks and navigating an immense emotional grey area. He populates his songs with strange and sometimes sad characters… and then watches them bump into one another in a consistent, quaint geography. Imagine a wry Robert Altman romance set in a New Zealand fishing village." www.cokemachineglow.com
'Plays like all your favourite acoustic pauses burnt to one disc” Sunday Age

“Listening to Ned Collette is like falling in love” Drum (Perth)

“A voice that can break hearts at a hundred paces” Drum Sydney

“An album that is every bit intriguing as it is plainly beautiful” Big Issue

“Impressive and ever changing” Mess and Noise

"A gentle giant in the making" Beat

Record Label: Dot Dash
Type of Label: Indie

My Blog

UPDATE: ALBUM/NYC/OZ SHOW NEWS

Oh hi there, Thought I'd drop a few lines [ha!-ed] to bring interested parties up to speed with what we've been doing the last couple of months, and what's happening in the next few. For the sake...
Posted by on Sun, 17 May 2009 01:02:00 GMT

NYC LODGINGS?

Friends,Just putting a call out for any suggestions towards finding cheap/decent/(free?) accommodation in New York City. Joe and I will be there from June 5-18 to mix the new record and have a budget ...
Posted by on Mon, 20 Apr 2009 19:05:00 GMT

ONLY MELBOURNE SHOW THIS FRIDAY

Hi folks, Just a reminder that this Friday is your only chance to see us board a stage in Melbourne for a little while, as we spend the rest of the year finishing off album number three and engaging i...
Posted by on Mon, 23 Mar 2009 19:37:00 GMT

ON TELLY TONIGHT

Hi all, we're trooping down to the old Ansett building in a matter of hours to appear on Channel 31's new music criticism panel show Dancing About Architecture (geddit?).It should be quite jolly..... ...
Posted by on Mon, 23 Mar 2009 01:04:00 GMT

WIREWALKER

We have a new name for the band because Joe and Ben deserve to be more than just 'Band'.... they are quite obviously the talent/looks/brute force side of things....Ned Collette & WirewalkerWire walker...
Posted by on Thu, 26 Feb 2009 21:13:00 GMT

NZ/AOTEAROA TOUR STARTS THIS WEEKEND

It's sort of a small tour slash mostly see family trip this time - only a few dates, but they should be good ones - all solo with the possible exception of Camp where I might get the odd sod up....Fri...
Posted by on Tue, 27 Jan 2009 14:53:00 GMT

EURO-SOLO TOUR BEGINS!

Hello ladies and gents,Here I sit in kitchen of little Glasgow flat, unable to deal with chaotic bedroom and dirty dish, but a day away from departure from freezing clime to.... freezing clime. Geneva...
Posted by on Mon, 05 Jan 2009 10:37:00 GMT

GLASGOW AND JANUARY SOLO TOUR

Hello all,For those of you who don't know, I'm living in Glasgow until late January, after which time I will return to the sandpit (ie. Australia). Putting together some solo dates around Europe for...
Posted by on Fri, 14 Nov 2008 09:33:00 GMT

FUTURE SUTURE NOW AVAILABLE AT ROUGH TRADE

Both Rough Trade stores in London are now stocked up with copies of Future Suture at a mere GBP 9.99. You can also purchase it through their mail order along with the first album, Jokes and Trials, he...
Posted by on Tue, 11 Nov 2008 08:07:00 GMT

FINAL UK SHOWS

Hello good friends,So we managed to get back into the UK yesterday after hours at the mercy of French airport officialdom, and we even played a show last night in Brixton with Lawrence Arabia and The ...
Posted by on Mon, 03 Nov 2008 07:54:00 GMT