Playlist January 31 - February 4th, 2011

Hello and welcome to another Work Tunes. I trust we've all had a HUGE Australia Day and we're ready to get back to work and do the hard yards.

To get me through my working week, I've got a list with a few Australian artists both pop and rap, a touch of folk and another 90s classic. It looks like this:

• Paul Kelly – The A – Z Recordings (Disc Three) : Three discs in now and I am really enjoying these live and sparsely instrumented cuts from the master's songbook. Highlights of the Kelly magic on Disc Three include God Told Me To, the timeless political anthem From Little Things, Big Things Grow and the greatest Australian Christmas song ever - How To Make Gravy.

• Iron & Wine - Kiss Each Other Clean : I was a little late to the Iron & Wine party. I know now that their earlier stuff was a little quieter than it is now and didn't have the instrumentation of this album. Some songs, such as Godless Brother In Love still have the sombre ebb of earlier cuts, but others have a new noise, at times even a groove. Either way, I like what I know of them and this is the latest.

• Babes in Toyland - Fontanelle : Following on from last week's 90s obsession, I have another classic grunge era set I'd like to hear. Forming in 1987 as a punk band in Minneapolis, Babes In Toyland eventually became a large part of the 'alternative' scene of the early to mid 90s. Fontanelle was their first and best selling full length album. Strange, arty and angry background vocals/voices and dirty guitar fuzz driven by a crunchy bass is what you'll get for your money.

• Edie Brickell - Edie Brickell : Dropping a self-titled album for your ninth release seems rather a strange thing to do. I suppose when you haven't had a lot of success sales-wise since your double platinum effort in 1988 (Shooting Rubberbands at the Stars), you might as well give it a shot. In 1988, 'Rubberbands' was a staple listen for me and then again a few years later at first year Uni, it became a sort of soundtrack. Apart from that, Brickell's Good Times film clip shipped with Windows 95 to show off it's awesome video capabilities (*chortle*). This CD I haven't played yet, but given 88s release is such a timeless classic, Edie's latest deserves a listen.

• VA - Dazed and Confused Soundtrack : Richard Linklater's film about high school in the 1970s took great pains to get everything right. From the clothes to the cars and the little paper cups the kids drink keg beer from, Linklater wanted to capture the vibe and the look of the 70s. One way he did that exceptionally well was the soundtrack. This collection of rock classics includes Cherrybomb by The Runaways, Kiss' Rock n Roll All Night, Black Sabbath's Paranoid and Alice Coopers' School's Out. Conspicuously missing of course is the Led Zeppelin song from which the film takes its name and the excellently used No More Mr Nice Guy by Alice Cooper.

• The National - The Virginia EP : After Bloodbuzz Ohio made #31 in a rather disappointing JJJ Hottest 100, I was speaking with my boss about what bands were at least decent in the list. The National was my first choice. I put him on to some early stuff and it made me want to hear some National too. This is an EP of demos and outakes released in conjunction with a tour documentary DVD (A Skin, A Night) after breakthrough album Boxer and before their latest effort High Violet.

• Pearl Jam - Ten : Another conversation raised by the Hottest 100 was about how in 1992 it was impossible to get Pearl Jam tickets. That led to talk about this album and how I haven't heard it in some time (preferring instead to reach for Vs or Vitalogy). I remember clearly a time when I'd play Ten over and over again all day for days.

• Bliss n Eso - Running On Air : The latest platinum selling disc from the Sydney skip hop duo. I first heard these guys via a free track on iTunes. I'm not sure what song that was, but it was off the brilliant Day of the Dog album and I've been a fan since. With guests such as Xzibit and samples as unexpected as Kasey Chambers, B&E are at their peak right now and blowing up fast.

• Muphin - More Than Music : Some more Aussie Hip Hop (thanks Australia Day), this time from one half of the Muph n Plutonic duo. Muphin always takes the laid back and chilled down verses on the M&P albums, so it's no wonder this solo effort is full of such songs.

• Conor Oberst & the Mystic Valley Band – Outer South : Conor Oberst has apparently released 5 solo albums, but of those I have only heard the self-titled release from 2008. As Bright Eyes I am a big fan of Oberst's brand of self-referencial, tongue-in-cheek morbid dirges and lo-fi techniques. The self-titled solo album is just as morbid but a little less cheeky. I am yet to hear this set with the Mystic Valley Band and I am looking forward to it.

If you hear just one of these albums, make it Paul Kelly. There are some songs on there that have been entered into the national psyche and are as much a part of our shared culture as The Man From Snowy River once was. It might only be a financial services advertisement, but now everyone knows From Little Things, Big Things Grow.

That's it from me. I'm going to get through a weekend of forecasted humidity around a bajillion percent any way I can. I hope you can too.

Peace man, right on.