The Sydney Morning Herald from Sydney, New South Wales, Australia • Page 45

ft There's the sticky sweet little slow number From This Moment On that's perfect for somebody's wedding, there's the slightly edgy Black Eyes, Blue Tears meant to satisfy rockers, and the oh-so trite chick anthems That Don't Impress Me Much and Man! I Feel Like A Woman! The defiant attitude on this slick fabrication doesn't make it any more palatable; it simply makes you hungrier for the real thing namely any song from her Woman In Me. Forget the easy listening cross-over, girl. Saddle up and wrap that excellent voice of yours around a country tune. MARY TARTAGUONE She looks more like an anorexic cast member of Friends than a cowboy-hat-wearing, cowboyboot-kicking Canadian country singer. And a darn good one, at that But latest release is so sickeningly sleek it doesn't come close to showcasing her true ability.

That's not to say it won't well at the shops; however. It is hard to believe the same producer, her husband John Robert Lang, is even remotely involved on this overly polished production. There is nothing country, or for that matter, gutsy, about it and its empowered-woman theme. The word contnved comes to mind on just about every one of the 16 cuts. SHANIA TWAIN Come On Over (Mercury) Just one glance at the "new" Shania Twain on the cover of Come On Overtells the story.

then you'll love having a whole CD of the stuff, and probably put it to good use dancing around the house maniacally cleaning and tidying up. However, the material on the CD is high utility stuff, far better on a dancefloor than it is for home listening, with its clean edges and geometric adherence to multiples of four. To the newcomer this will probably make it about as interesting as dial tone. Rereleased with a bonus CD of other Thunk material lovingly mixed by DJ Phil Smart, it makes a nice little package of local club techno for the economy conscious. JADMCADAM dance get together for an incestuous little remix session on this compilation from respected local label Thunk.

The various outfits have swapped samples and bleerboxes and reworked each other's tunes: Pocket do Outfission, Outfission do Earthlink, Earthlink do Head Affect, who, in their turn, do Pocket This makes for a certain unity of sound and purpose across the 11 tracks, which are slickly produced for full dancefloor effect And here is both the great strength and weakness of this release. If you like the Thunk house style of clean crisp electro-funk, and there's much to like, AUDIO ENGINEERING (9 months full-time or 18 months part-time) MULTI MEDIA PRODUCER (6 months full-time or 12 months part-time) BACHELOR OF CONTEMPORARY MUSIC (In conjunction with Southern Cross University) BACHELOR OF RECORDING ARTS (In conjunction with Middlesex University) BACHELOR OF MULTIMEDIA ARTS (In conjunction with Middlesex University) DJ SAMPLING (3 months part-time) MIDI (In conjunction with Steinberg products) Sternberg HARD DISK (3 months part-time) LIVE SOUND (3 months part-time) Call for a free colour brochure: SAE Technology College 55-57 Wentworth Ave Surry Hills 9211 3711 www.sae.edu 1 800-THUNK Various Artists (ThunkMDS) ydney's most exciting performers of live electronic i (L vj VJ i-4 A i electronica-rock tweakers Arkarna not only amping it up in the Americas but sre rant holiaua their liiplf Ri it thai fan Koliouo 1 Mini. mnnnrtM Dwnki Rmi. rlw 4hmj k3ditched the cans, came out from behind the due to play Sydney on April Fools' Dey. This is as long way from the clubs arribasebcH caps on back-tc-front "Well, back then ft.

was me and James, we started Arkarna. But then it was more DJ music; very simple techno records. And we found we got bored of writing these dance tracks which i were, like, trendy for a couple of months. Then we wrote a song called House on Fire and that was really the start of Arkarna. That really defined our sound for us." The Arkarna sound is not for all ears, but their brand of Jane's Actf fctromneetshe-ChiprrH has the kids, the clubs and Triple listeners, who voted fat Me their 50th favourite track of 1997, suitably It's not just Australia which is into what they 1 do.

Soon even they will have been to Bali too. And their traverconscious manasr will arransl ft, butthis time wfth good cause, for Fresh Msai went gold in Indonesia. I'm a bit worried about the crowd we might get in Indonesia They mit r'fce 12 or 13. 1 decks and cast aside the DJ-tag to feed the world fresh Meat, they're playing before 50,000 Brazilians. The Brazilians had no idea who they were, of course, but it's not as if they were playing Name That Tune.

"I mean, the Brazilian people haven't even heard our music. To tell you the truth our manager just sort of sorted it out for us really," hoots lead singer Ollie into a mobile phone. Sandwiched between Bid (drums) and James Bamett (guitar, vocals) he is driving back to London from a tour in Scotland and "a radio gig" in Sheffield. "We're having such great fun touring the woM. We've gone to Brazil and America and all these mad places.

We feel honoured; In America we were on an electronica bill, opening the festivals with the Crystal Method. I don't think we really fit into the electronica thing they have out there, You know, the big beat thing. But we had a great laugh and the time of our lives." And why not? Arkarna have just returned from I I I Arkarna play the Metro on 6 I SMH METRO MAR 27-APR 2.