khancoban

‘Limbs May Fall’ was a well crafted record, and I’m sure many have been hanging out for the follow up. Earlier material along the lines of early Augie was more subtle in aesthetic, but the band haven’t completely discarded their roots. It’s Khancoban in the way that it doesn’t need to overcompensate to prove it’s point. And it still gets it across. In two lines.

Sure there are big drums and meandering atmospherics that do tab out a few pages of ‘Neon Bible’, but Khancoban have managed to verge on ‘epic’ without coming out too overtly pomp. There’s plenty of room for repetitiveness, but Hooke’s delivery and a build up of nice progressions pull this tune through three min. For what it lacks in lyrical diversity, it makes up for as a good opening track. New album ‘Arches Over the Sun’ only drops in July. Until then, this one will be a good excuse to wake up early and mull over my cereal to. - Who The Bloody Hell Are They?

KHANCOBAN Northcote Social Club

"The backdrop of Khancoban's first full-length album release, Limbs May Fall draws your attention at once to the simplicity of a flooded field amidst a series of dried out tree trunks. Upon first glance, wintery trepidation sets in, but on the evening of the eleventh of October, wintery trepidation couldn't be further from reality. A balmy beer sodden eve feels much more like a reawakening of a beautiful sunny truth: not least of all for Khancoban with their impressive debut album's release.
Displaying a combination of clean percussion timing (Jemima Hooke) and atmospheric control (Andrew Bonnici, electric guitar/lap steel), Khancoban's set dipped and climbed under the guidance of Andre Hooke's humble yet intensely powerful presence throughout the night. Delving into and beyond Limbs May Fall, continuous specks of mood enhancement built track upon track from drifting soundscapes (Ghosts in This Lake, By the Lights, Comedy Night, Smoke and the Light) to crunchy riffs and tightly crafted pop (Such a Big Sky, I Wish I was on a Plane Somewhere). Finally, new track This Isn't Madness drove the show home gently enticing the crowd towards the grand epic finale of These Lines Can Ce Traced.
The key ingredient inside Khancoban's melting pot of live creativity is their affect upon the listener. Witnessing the mechanics of the show in the flesh, it becomes apparent that this is not just a fluke either. No doubt the music takes you places, but it's through the appreciation that Pete Cohen (bass) and Andre Hooke have for the moment, (intensely drawn into the creeping melodies and swaying lullabies like sage masters), that truly gives Khancoban's live shows a special kind of soothing gloss.
Wrapping up the release of Limbs May Fall, the crowd eventually shuffled out from the creative comfort zone inside the band room's comfy hub, and back out into the drunken abyss. The band room's seventies swirled scarlet carpet reappeared and the bar once again was accessible leaving remaining punters quite ecstatic, and Jemima and Andre Hooke behind the tee-shirt stall looking very satisfied indeed."

Shane P. Bennett, Beat Magazine - Shane P Bennett

Unique and intriguing local outfit khancoban make gorgeously slow burn records treading the underrepresented line between a kind of folk beauty and the excitement of out-and-out rock 'n' roll noise. They've been compared to Arcade Fire, Wilco and Augie March, which is correct as far as those sorts of things are concerned but doesn't go nearly far enough in telling the full story of the complexity and inherent value in this amazing band. Khancoban's new single, This Block off their forthcoming third album, should serve as a timely reminder that this is a group that deserves our full attention. - Inpress Magazine, Melbourne Australia

There's a bit of a frost outside their highlands farmhouse, but the music unfolds with such seemingly natural feeling that you just want to snuggle into some of the warm spaces in it. By nature, I am fond of neither folk nor country music, but the quiet grace of this is compelling. Throught The Smoke And The Light the lap steel makes that saddest bowing sound to remind you of what you felt like as you saw her walking away into the mist. Should your tastes take you to places such as The Palace Brothers and the like, you will be delighted by this. A little record that you will take to heart.

Ross Clelland. - Drum Media

Khancoban take their name from a small town in the foothills of the Snowy Mountains that was built to house workers during the construction of the hydro-electricity system. Much like the Snowy Mountains Scheme, the Melbourne band's debut is an exercise in meticulous planning, originality and patience. After all, making sparse, downbeat folk-pop requires time and fortitude, and it is a task for many hands, yet Khancoban is most striking for its simplicity and restraint. The slow-burning opener, 'These Lines can be Traced', could easily affect the ostentatious dream pop meanderings of Mercury Rev or Sigur Ros, but settles for the forgivable self-doubt and shyness of Augie March or Cocteau Twins. The EP progresses through various shades of acoustic and electric folk, ornamented with touches of slide guitar and piano, and while it is at times lyrically mournful, Khancoban never becomes desperate or overbearing. Husband and wife duo Andre and Jemima Hooke's vocal harmonies mingles with a tenderness that comes with the intimacy of shared lives and love, and on 'Take Me Where I Might Want to go' they venture into territory once the solitary preserve of Low. - Mess + Noise

Melbourne's Khancoban are named after a Snowy Mountains town. It's not hard to imagine them providing the soundtrack to Somersault. The territory is spacious interior music, big on emotion but small on drama. There's something of the early Augie March, except with more country shadings in the aching ballads, as well as something of the grey skies of Smog with a touch less grime.

Bernard Zuel. - Sydney Morning Herald

It just goes to highlight the storytelling culture beautifully cultivated in this country's history when a group of inner-Melbournians can cobble together a collection of songs that sound so open, almost rural in feel and space, but as warm and inviting as the flames that lap countless campfires found in the middle of nowhere. The seven songs that make up this mini-album themselves almost sound lost - delicate in their articulation with so much unspoken emotion.

Not too dissimilar to the early works of Augie March or Art Of Fighting, but littered with banjo and lap steel, Khancoban's balladry has a fun but laid-back feel that speaks volumes against the fast pace of... well, everything else out there.

Jo Hill. - Time Off Brisbane

Normally, the artist biographies that accompany press copies of CDs are a striking combination of useless tautology and pretentious twaddle, often proselytising about their subject's 'uniqueness' (which is, by definition, entirely true, and yet in most cases not practically true at all). However, when Half A Cow records tells us that it felt the same way about releasing a record by Khancoban as it did in the past by Crow and Art Of Fighting, it's safe to get genuinely very excited.

For the most part, 'Khancoban' lives up to this high praise. First track These Lines Can Be Traced is a slow waltz with an Augie March feel to it, particularly in its endearingly shy Glenn Richards-esque vocal. I Wish I Was On A Plane Somewhere adds more earthiness, leading into one of the most genuinely unique choruses I've ever heard in my entire life. No, seriously - its repeated refrain, "On and on, on and on..." is backed by the most alluring harmonies and unexpected key changes I've heard since Grand Salvo's 'The Temporal Wheel'. A sparse arrangement accompanies an engaging melody with Smoke And The Light, before the record takes a polite folk turn with Everywhere I See The Sea. A haunting piano grips Little Lights, Little Rows, before a banjo chuckles a little at Take Me Where I Might Want To Go. And sure, the mini-album ends with five minutes' worth of feedback and studio noise, but that really just serves to give the listener a little breather, right?

Khancoban's debut mini-album is full of amazing ideas and unrestrained promise. With a little more time, and perhaps a little higher fidelity, their debut full-length could just be truly amazing.

Ben Revi - DB Magazine