Albums of 2019

Annual list time. If you’ve been here with me before you’ll know that my choices for the blog’s albums of the year are strictly limited to the new albums I’ve got my sticky mitts on during the year. Spotify doesn’t count, just purchased copies in whatever format. Which tends to rule out the dozens or hundreds of really good releases you’ll see elsewhere on year-end lists. I guess I could call it ‘best additions to my collection’, etc, or the stuff I listened to most, but it hardly matters, you know the drill.

10. Chromatics - Closer to Grey

I’m not sure whether Closer to Grey is the fifth, sixth, or seventh Chromatics album. Or something else entirely. It rather depends on whether or not you count re-released drumless versions of past work, and whether or not you count the apparently completed but still unreleased Dear Tommy, a much hyped, long shelved, full-length project from a couple of years back. Such are the mercurial and mysterious ways of arch-perfectionist and key Chromatic, Johnny Jewel. But whatever album number it is, Closer to Grey is the first Chromatics outing I’ve picked up since 2012’s excellent Kill For Love album, and the most important thing in all of this is that it ticks all the right boxes for long suffering fans. Or, at least, this fan. Those boxes include Chromatics’ commitment to a dreamy shoegaze aesthetic, Jewel’s devotion to creating widescreen cinematic imagery, and a much loved predilection for oddball covers - in the case of Closer to Grey, that means a reimagining of tunes like ‘The Sound of Silence’ (Simon & Garfunkel) and ‘On The Wall’ (The Jesus and Mary Chain). I do have a few reservations over the durability of Ruth Radelet’s voice across multiple listens. On one hand her vocal is light of touch and weightless, while on the other, it has a tendency to come across as a little thin and a tad too bland. What works well in isolation, on individual tracks, can be less engaging over the full course of the album’s journey. But that’s a minor quibble, and Closer to Grey comfortably makes the cut for this year’s 10.

9. Beat Rhythm Fashion - Tenterhook

2019 gave us the chance to reconsider the too often overlooked legacy of early 80s Wellington post-punkers BRF. There was a short national tour and, most unexpectedly, a brand new album. Just like those autumn gigs, Tenterhook felt intimate, personal, and heartfelt. A very welcome return, even if it does turn out to be a temporary one. R.I.P. Dan Birch. My full review is here.

8. Mercury Rev - Bobbie Gentry’s The Delta Sweete Revisited

Speaking of the scarcely anticipated, I really didn’t expect this one to feature on any year-end list when I downloaded it early in the year. Curiosity led me to it, mainly because I’d seen a few Bobbie Gentry TV “specials” when I was growing up, and I knew a little bit about Mercury Rev already. As the title informs us, it’s Mercury Rev’s take on the 1968 Bobbie Gentry release The Delta Sweete, with an alt-country meets modern day Americana crossover spin. Guest vocalists include luminaries such as Nora Jones, Hope Sandoval, Vashti Bunyan, Phoebe Bridgers, Beth Orton, and Lucinda Williams. Although Gentry’s best known track, the chart-topping ‘Ode To Billie Joe’ didn’t actually feature on the 1968 original, Mercury Rev include it here, and Williams’ interpretation of it is one of the best (of many) versions I’ve heard. On the surface, Bobbie Gentry’s The Delta Sweete Revisited was an easy listening affair, and it got a lot of workplace airtime as a result, especially across the first six months of 2019, but scratch below that surface a little and you’ll find Gentry’s themes were often anything but easy listening. A revelation.

7. The Specials - Encore

More Tales of the Unexpected. Anyone noticing a theme here? New work from a band that first emerged some 40 years ago. A blend of just about everything you could possibly want from the three remaining Specials (plus friends) ... ska, funk, straight pop, social commentary, and political activism. My full review is here.

6. Pitch Black - Third Light

I’m not sure what more I can say about my love for Pitch Black. I’ve written so much about the duo’s music already - on this blog and for NZ Musician (here) - that it almost feels indulgent and a touch fanatical to offer more words. Given the lengthy gap between 2007’s excellent Rude Mechanicals and 2016’s equally great Filtered Senses, official album number six (excluding a plethora of fantastic remix releases), Third Light, arrived a lot earlier than many of us had anticipated. All of the usual Pitch Black touchstones are present and accounted for; dubby techno drenched in atmospheric electronic wizardry and bassy production genius, but if there is a slight departure on Third Light it’s that this work feels a little more chilled out and ambient than any past release. ‘One Ton Skank’, ‘Artificial Intolerance’, ‘A Doubtful Sound’, and the title track itself are all up there with the best work Pitch Black has done.

5. Minuit Machine - Infrarouge

Infrarogue ticked so many boxes for me … a little bit retro, a little bit synthpop, and large helpings of the melodramatic dark stuff. Something close to perfect, and I couldn’t get enough of and Helene De Thoury and Amandine Stioui’s unique take on the complexities of modern life. My full review is here.

4. Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds - Ghosteen

Nick Cave has always skirted around the periphery of a lot of music styles and genres I’ve been into over the years, but I’ve never really considered myself a fan. I liked the obvious Murder Ballads-era stuff, and I’ve enjoyed some of his other work over the years, but he’s never really been high on my radar whenever new music has been released. I picked up a copy of Ghosteen just because it was there, and I’d read a lot of mostly positive social media commentary about it. To say that death is the primary theme of Ghosteen would be an understatement, and that’s hardly surprising given Cave’s personal journey and the still obviously raw tragic loss of a teenage son. Words about Jesus, ghosts, the king of rock n roll, stars, horses, and (even) the three bears have never before sounded so vital and fresh. And what a terrific voice that man has … “I’m just waiting now for my time to come, I’m just waiting now for my place in the sun, and I’m just waiting now, for peace to come ...”

3. Antipole - Radial Glare

Antipole topped this list in 2018 with Perspectives, and Karl Morten Dahl returned this year with yet another fine post-punk album in the form of Radial Glare. The retro-fuelled music of Antipole is intoxicating in every way and there’s not a single moment on Radial Glare where I’m not fully engaged. Quite possibly the best thing to come out of Norway since a youthful baby-faced assassin Ole Gunnar Solskjaer started terrifying Premier League defences and banging them in for fun at Manchester United in the mid to late 90s. My full review is here.

2. The National - I Am Easy To Find

I think I must have read or heard just about every criticism possible over the past half dozen years or so when it comes to The National ... you know how it goes: “boring, bland, colour by numbers, white-bread boomer rock” that trades on the reputation of a couple of fine early albums made by the band. Music made by middle aged white men for a fanbase not too far removed from that precise demographic. I’ve heard it all, and yep, critics are entitled to those opinions, whatever their starting point. But they’ll never convince me that’s all there is to it, and every National album across that same period has, to one degree or another, had plenty going for it. Which probably makes me a fan. I certainly fit the aforementioned notional demographic. Unashamedly so. In fact, I Am Easy To Find is the third of three post-2013 National albums to make this blog’s year-end list, and I’d go so far as to suggest it’s the band’s best full-length work since 2010’s High Violet. A fastidiously crafted set of tunes that took me on a warm and familiar journey with each and every listen. The addition of female voices (including choral elements) was a major point of difference from past work, although Matt Berninger’s compelling and emotionally charged baritone remains a highlight, particularly on standout tunes like ‘Oblivions’, ‘The Pull of You’, ‘Hey Rosey’, ‘Light Years’, and ‘Not in Kansas’. With so much going on across its near seven-minute trip, the latter track was something close to the blog’s song of the year ... if there was such a thing (don’t encourage me).

1. VA/On-U Sound - Pay It All Back Volume 7

Oh no! A compilation album! … how can that be? It breaks just about every unwritten rule of year-end reflecting to list a various artist/compilation label sampler as your blog’s album of the year. But who really cares about rules that aren’t written down? This was outstanding. Every bit worthy of the long wait. 23 years after the last release in the renowned Pay It All Back series, Volume 7 exceeded my own expectations in every way. All hail the production virtuosity of the dub master himself, Adrian Sherwood. My full review is here.

Close, but no funny cigar (another ten):

There’s no room on this list for one of my favourite bands, Iceland’s Of Monsters And Men, who released Fever Dream. Each of the band’s two previous albums have featured on this list in past years, but Fever Dream was a disappointment for me, with OMAM having abandoned the mystical and magical in favour of a far more generic stadium-ready sound.

Had Dead Little Penny’s Urge Surfing been released earlier in the year it probably would have made the cut because right now, as at mid-December, it feels like a real grower. Certainly, it’s one of the best local albums of the year in that dark shoegaze-y vibe I love so much.

The Radio Dept’s 2019 “album” I Don’t Need Love, I’ve Got My Band is decent, and I’m a fan of Sweden’s finest, but it’s not really a “new” album, merely a compilation of past work, clumping together two previously released EPs from 2003 and 2005. Worth a listen if The Radio Dept is new to you.

I listened to Ladytron’s self-titled return a fair bit, and loved a lot of it, but it just fell short on account of it not really breaking any new ground. New Ladytron, just like old Ladytron, which, most years, is not a bad thing to be.

Angel Olsen’s All Mirrors is another of those albums that would just as likely have featured more prominently here had it been released earlier in the year. I probably haven’t listened to it enough (yet) but I suspect it’ll be well represented on year-end lists elsewhere. Olsen is one to watch.

Underworld’s Drift series was an ambitious undertaking. I downloaded a job-lot 40-track version which clocks in at nearly six hours. There’s some truly great stuff in there, but that’s a hell of a casual listening exercise, and Drift wasn’t really an album in any traditional sense of the word.

The Raconteurs’ Help Us Stranger was a throwback to a far simpler time. A time when classic rock dinosaurs roamed and ruled. Help Us Stranger showcases Jack White and Brendan Benson’s love of all things 1970s, and it was mostly an enjoyable listening experience. The odd cringeworthy moment excepted.

Prince is no longer with us, but his musical legacy lives on. Originals is a collection of Prince performing songs he wrote for other artists, or at least, those he allowed other artists to release. It cements his status as not only one of his generation’s most underrated songsmiths, but one of the greatest vocalists of the past 40 years.

Foals released two albums in 2019. Everything Not Saved Will Be Lost Parts 1 & 2. Released months apart. The earlier release is probably the one to savour, if only for the way it veers into an unlikely synthpop realm, but both are worthwhile efforts and I’m surprised Foals aren’t gaining a lot more commercial traction.

Finally, in terms of albums, Marvin Gaye’s You’re The Man was an interesting release. Recorded between 1969 and 1972, it was originally intended as a follow-up to Gaye’s acclaimed What’s Going On (1971) but was shelved by Motown and remained unreleased until early 2019. I’m a little unclear about whether it was Motown boss Berry Gordy or Gaye himself who pulled its initial release but the fact is, despite some of the content being a little patchy, fans of Gaye, or classic soul, will find a lot to love on You’re The Man.  

Which brings me nicely to reissue of the year: I just can’t go past the 25^th anniversary deluxe release of R.E.M.’s Monster (1994). The original album, a remix of the original, a bunch of unreleased demos (mostly instrumentals), and live versions from its era. Monster has always been regarded as something of a black sheep within the band’s canon, but this reissue - especially the remixed album and even some of the unreleased work - brings into clear focus just how good the music of R.E.M. was during the band’s pomp.

EP of the year: Contenders by Contenders. Punk rock out of Hamilton. Everything about this release is short and sharp. Must be played loud, preferably with copious amounts of beer at the ready. A shout out too for the young Wellington electronic artist Miromiro, who released two fine synthwave-y EPs during the year, Toucan and Andreev Bay. I was a big fan also, of Kool Aid’s Family Portrait EP.

Gig of the year: Blam Blam Blam at St Peter’s Hall, Paekakariki. No question. I waited 38 years to see the reformed band play live after seeing a much more youthful version as a youngster myself back in 1981. It’s hard to go past bucket list events like that.

In a similar vein, Beat Rhythm Fashion at Meow was quite special too. Other locals who rocked my world included The Beths at San Fran and Miss June at Meow. Of the international artists who visited these shores, Gang of Four at San Fran was surprisingly good, and a less well attended set at the same venue by the Dub Pistols got my 2019 gig-going year off to a flyer. Herbie Hancock in Wellington was the biggest “name” I saw live, but that particular night was less enjoyable for me, for a number of reasons that I simply don’t have room to expand upon here …  

I’ve kept you long enough. Thanks for reading and thanks for supporting everythingsgonegreen in 2019. Wishing you merry festivities and happy holidays. Play safe, and don’t get arrested.

Choice Kiwi Cuts 2019: Nadia Reid - Best Thing

The tenth and final Choice Kiwi Cut of 2019 is a taster for 2020 really, and the greatly anticipated new Nadia Reid album, Out of my Province, set to be released in March. If it’s half as good as her 2017 effort, Preservation, we’ll be in for a real treat. Here’s ‘Best Thing’ …

The Strummer Files: Joe Strummer and the Mescaleros - Rock Art and the X-Ray Style (Hellcat Records, 1999)

Craig Stephen looks back at the three records Joe Strummer did with the Mescaleros, starting with one that pretty much came out of nowhere. 

The history of The Clash is likely to be second nature to readers of everythingsgonegreen, but perhaps the story of Strummer and his stop-start solo career may need a brief reminder. 

Strummer hadn’t so much gone under the radar in the 1990s, he was lost at sea, a non-recording artist only seen in brief doses. While Mick Jones had found a niche market with hit-makers Big Audio Dynamite just two years out from his departure from The Clash, Strummer had struggled to make his mark, despite some laudable efforts on soundtracks and a solitary solo album, Earthquake Weather.

So, by the late 1990s there were modest expectations from a man whose recording output in the ten years after Earthquake Weather were mere one-offs such as an England World Cup anthem with Black Grape. But he’d gotten a band together, called them the Mescaleros (the name of an Apache tribe which Strummer heard in a cowboy film) and hit the studio and the road. 

The original line up consisted of Strummer on vocals and guitar, Antony Genn on guitar, Scott Shields on bass, Martin Slattery on keyboards and guitar, Pablo Cook on percussion, and Steve Barnard (aka "Smiley") on drums. 

I caught them at T in the Park in central Scotland in the summer of 1999 and was blown away by a startling set that was dominated with several Clash tunes such as ‘Tommy Gun’, ‘Rock the Casbah’, and ‘London Calling’. The new material, like ‘X-Ray Style’ and ‘Tony Adams’ sounded fresh, and imaginative, but with more Clash than Mescaleros tracks in the set I wondered what he had to offer in the final year of the millennium. 

What appeared in the shops a few months after T in the Park, in the form of Rock Art and the X-Ray Style, was a dazzling array of styles, moods and ideas that was typically Strummer. He had again found a way to offer something exciting. This was Year Zero part 2 for the Londoner. Fellow Mescalero Genn produced the album and co-wrote several songs with Richard Flack “at the controls.” 

Rock Art opens with ‘Tony Adams’, which was named after the England and Arsenal defender, but actually had nothing to do with Adams nor for that matter football. It also namechecked Tony Bennett but Strummer clearly felt calling it after the crooner was less acceptable. It is a mish-mash of influences, with a reggae backdrop and sax riffs, and an outpouring of somewhat obscure lyrics, which Strummer spits out almost at random. But it has an underlying theme of a natural disaster or man-made devastation that’s hit New York and Strummer is surveying the endless damage: “The whole city is a debris of broken heels and party hats/ I'm standing on the corner that's on a fold on the map/ I lost my friends at the deportee station/ I'll take immigration into any nation.” 

‘Sandpaper Blues’ contains African chants and Strummer continues his long-time love affair with the Latin world: “It's gonna boom Mariachi/ This really fine piece of madera/ And this will be the counter/ Of the Pueblo Tabacalera.” I’m afraid I can’t tell you what that last reference is about. 

‘Techno D-Day’ relates Strummer’s real experience with po-faced police at a summer festival as he spun his beloved tunes: “Well it was a techno D-day out on Omaha beach/ I was a reserve DJ playing Columbian mountain beats/ Andres Landeros, ay mi sombrero/ Hold onto your hats, we gotta go.” Landeros is an obscurity to Western ears but not to the former Clash man and he would feature on the soundtrack to the Strummer film, The Future is Unwritten. The band make it clear who is right in this stand-off: “And this is all about free speech.” It’s by far the rockiest track on Rock Art, reflecting perhaps the anger Strummer felt at meddling cops. 

‘Forbidden City’ is a standard rock track, akin to ‘Techno D-Day’, while ‘The Road to Rock’n’roll’ and ‘Nitcomb’ bring the pace down a little, as does the beautiful closer ‘Willesden to Cricklewood’, where Strummer takes us on a wander between two largely non-descript London suburbs to meet his dope dealer. 

There’s a feeling by (penultimate track) ‘Yalla Yalla’ that the album has done its dash and the treats have all been dished out, but that’s immediately disbarred by the opening lines backed by a creative rhythm: “Well so long liberty, just let's forget/ You never showed, not in my time/ But in our sons' and daughters' time/ When you get the feeling, call and you got a room.” It has multiple layers and there’s elements of ‘Straight To Hell’ (from Combat Rock) in there too if you listen closely, and a rousing chant of “Yalla yalla, yalla yalla/ Yalla yalla, ya-li-oo, whoa/ Yalla yalla, yalla yalla/ Only to shine, shine in gold, shine” to fade. 

One also has to mention the cover art which is reminiscent of the rock art style (hence the title) of Indigenous Australians, with a kangaroo among the figures on the front cover.

(Note: the cover art is a Damien Hirst creation – Ed)

Choice Kiwi Cuts 2019: Leisure - Too Much of a Good Thing

I don’t mind admitting I’m a bit of a sucker for the pure pop of Leisure. The band’s single, ‘Too Much of a Good Thing’ is one part funky disco, one part dreamy synthpop, and one part chill. But what I like most about it, whether it’s intentional or not, is the way the lightweight groove unrepentantly conjures up recall of yacht rock’s mid-70s heyday. Exactly the sort of thing I spent years trying to avoid. Which is probably why it still sounds so fresh to me.  

Choice Kiwi Cuts 2019: Tami Neilson - Ten Tonne Truck

I’m usually a bit of a genre snob, as you probably know, with country music way down on my list of preferences. Yet I saw Tami Neilson play a live gig in Wellington a few years ago and was blown away by her performance. Such a great voice and stage presence. Aotearoa has always produced its fair share of decent country artists but I’m certain, as the decades pass, there’ll be a point in the future when we look back and declare Neilson our very own Queen of the genre. She’s more than just country though – throw in helpings of blues, rockabilly, and some old fashioned rock n roll. ‘Ten Tonne Truck’ contains elements of all the above, and it was the third and most recent single taster from her forthcoming album, Chickaboom. Look out for that release in early 2020.

Reappraisal: Feeding of the 5000 by Crass

Craig Stephen revisits a Crass classic …

***

When Crass’ debut album was released, on their own Crass Records, in October 1978, punk was moribund; the frenzied chords, the gobbing, the swastikas, the safety pins and most of the bands had become footnotes of history. It had died a horrible death in San Francisco at the Sex Pistols’ final gig in January of that year, but in reality it had long since been a movement of the dispossessed, taken over by charlatans, the greedy and the downright opportunistic.

This was something Crass were well aware of and alluded to on one track on Feeding of the 5000 – ‘Punk Is Dead’.

“Punk became a fashion just like hippy used to be/ And it ain’t got a thing to do with you or me.”

Singer Steve Ignorant was partly right, punk had become a fashion, but it hadn’t become “bubblegum rock” as he proclaimed; punk had become something far bigger by 1978, partially experimental, and occasionally obtuse. It spawned PiL and the Gang of Four, the uber-DIY Desperate Bicycles, the confrontational Throbbing Gristle, and numerous others standing in left field. Punk had moved on, but Crass had faith in the original ideas and concept and weren’t for giving up on the idea of punk as a vehicle for radical change.

Crass are often regarded as an anarchist, shouty-shouty punk yob chant noise band. Uncompromising “we never sell out” anti-capitalist, anti-Thatcher, anti-bloody everything actually. In some respects, they were hard to stomach in 1978, and that remained largely so until their demise during the Miner’s Strike of 1984.

Feeding of the 5000 was a rallying call for the dispossessed, ‘General Bacardi’ being a brutal assault on war and the album’s standout, ‘Do They Owe Us A Living?’ was a bitter attack on class control. And then there were the attacks on religion, infamously on ‘Asylum’ (later titled ‘Reality Asylum’) which was removed from the first pressing because the plant workers had problems with its “blasphemous lyrics”.

It is hardly surprising that repressed plant workers would have problems with the contents, with its juxtaposing of religion and Auschwitz.

There were more acerbic lyrics about faith, as Crass laid the boot into organised religion.

“So what if Jesus died on the cross/ So what about the fucker, I don’t give a toss/ So what if the master walked on water, I don’t see him trying to stop the slaughter.”

Religion has taken a hit in Britain, and in many western countries, over the past four decades, but back in the 1970s, there was still a reasonable attendance at Sunday school church and there remained a feeling that you had to be careful about what you said and thought about Christianity. Crass weren’t just taking risks, they were taking on the whole concept of religion and other sacred cows. 

The lyrics were spat out fast and furiously and you need to be on your toes to catch it all. It was punk, but not as we know it. Even the ‘old wave’ of 1977 were caught out by this barrage of anti-conformity. While some people regard it as sacrilege to bash The Clash, Crass had no such reservations, accusing them of selling out by signing to CBS.

Listening to it now, with much time having passed, and societal changes haven taken an impact in the West, you can see Feeding of the 5000 as a testament of its time, a canon that launched the first offensive against an emerging monetarist, Thatcherite society.

But, even now, Feeding of the 5000 sounds as confronting, independent, radical and thought-provoking as it did then. In fact, it is easy to imagine that if a band, punk or rap, or whatever, took on board some of the same subjects today, and wrote about them with a similar viewpoint, they would be on the end of a critical and conservative backlash.

Alas, there are few such acts around that would be so brave, and the tendency for musicians in the 21st century is to make music that skirts around controversial issues, sells lots and keeps the controversial elements aside.  No wonder there’s a revival in interest in Crass.

Choice Kiwi Cuts 2019: Contenders - Attract/Repel

Hamilton punk band Contenders had a busy year. Firstly with the release of an excellent self-titled seven-track EP in May, and then later in October, with a split-release follow-up alongside the politically-motivated Wellington ragers Unsanitary Napkin. ‘Attract/Repel’ was the single released at the time of the EP, and I loved it for all the hard hitting raw energy the band was able to condense into less than two minutes. Not a bad clip either. Punk’s not dead.

Choice Kiwi Cuts 2019: Israel Starr & Troy Kingi - Let It Be

I’m cheating here, including this on a 2019 list, because so far as I know, Israel Starr and Troy Kingi’s collaborative effort, ‘Let It Be’, was released in December of 2018. But, well, you know. What’s a month or so between friends, right? It’s summer down here at the bottom of the world, and this one is a certified funky summer jam dripping with positivity. Which seems like a pretty festive thing to be. I believe the glittery production vibe is mostly Starr, and the soulful vocal is mostly Kingi. 2019 was a big year for Kingi in particular, with the release of his Holy Colony Burning Acres album. Which was a successful follow-up to his 2017 breakthrough release, Shake Your Skinny Ass All The Way To Zygertron, quite possibly the finest space-funk album we've ever seen in these parts.  

Random Five: Best Cinema Experiences of 2019

Just a quick run through the best of this year’s flicks as seen in a cinema or theatre. Just films or documentaries I had to make some effort to go out to see. Therefore, it does not include Netflix options, or any others viewed from the plush comfort of the everythingsgonegreen lounge. Or indeed, in the case of the excellent Chills documentary, any viewed from the cramped confines of an international flight.

Amazing Grace

I raved about this one here and it was truly exceptional. As close to a religious experience as I’ve ever had. Well, inside four walls anyway, without chemical assistance, but let’s not dwell on that point too much. 29-years-young Aretha Franklin is the star of this Sydney Pollack-directed documentary covering her two-day/night performance stint at the New Temple Missionary Baptist Church in Los Angeles in January of 1972. A performance that doubled as the recording session(s) for the best-selling gospel album of all-time. Not a biopic, but a grainy flaws-n-all film that captures a mere snapshot of a moment in time. But what a moment it is. Not only the best music-related film I viewed all year, one of the best I’ve seen over the past decade.

Wild Rose 

This was a pleasant surprise. I went to it without much knowledge of what I was about to see. A young solo Mum with a troubled past (Jessie Buckley as Rose-Lynn Harlan), dreams of becoming a country music star in Nashville. The only problem is she’s in Glasgow, fresh out of prison, and struggling to put her life back on track. Julie Walters plays Marion, a firm but generally supportive mother to Rose-Lynn, and the film is as much about family dynamics and responsibilities as it is about trying to make it in show business. But no spoilers here, suffice to say Buckley is outstanding in this Tom Harper-directed festival hit. 

Once Upon A Time In Hollywood

I had built this one up in my mind as a “must see” long before it was released. And that’s never a good thing to do. Tarantino, DiCaprio, Pitt, plus any number of sneaky cameos … what could possibly go wrong? Quite a bit, as it turns out. First things first, the positives: the setting is late 60s Hollywood (clue in the title, huh) and Tarantino’s attention to period/location detail is sublime. Each of the leading men are outstanding. DiCaprio as a fading star, Pitt as his stunt guy and close buddy. Pacino’s cameo is also great. Now, the negatives: it was too long, meandering, and for all of the style, I felt it generally lacked real substance. I think if you’re going to pull actual events from history (Manson family killings) and incorporate them into your work of fiction, you may as well try to portray those events as accurately as possible. Quentin Tarantino didn’t do that. It was a bastardised account of what actually happened. I also felt the occasional narration was odd and seemingly a bit random. But I did enjoy it immensely for the style and the soundtrack, naturally, as it wouldn’t otherwise be on this list.

Jojo Rabbit

Taika Waititi is a special talent. Not only as a director but as an actor. Both extraordinary talents are showcased in Jojo Rabbit, Waititi’s quirky screen adaption of the previously little known Christine Leunens novel, Caging Skies (2008). It’s the story of Jojo, wonderfully played by Roman Griffin Davis, a young boy growing up in World War 2-era Nazi Germany. Jojo, notionally a Hitler Youth recruit, has an imaginary friend – a mostly amusing version of Adolf Hitler (played by Waititi) – and a mother (Scarlett Johansson) who is secretly hiding a young Jewish girl in the family’s attic. That’s the basic premise, and the launch pad for any number of dark and satirical sub-plots to be enjoyed on a reality-suspending superficial level. Just don’t scratch too far below that surface … while I did enjoy it for its comedy and escapism, I can also understand criticism the film received due to a perceived lack of empathy for the genuine horror of events like the holocaust.

Ride Like A Girl

Horse racing seems to be attracting a lot of negative feedback lately, but I’m just going to come out here and say it – I’m a big fan of the sport of kings. If you know me well, you’ll know I love nothing more than heading out to small country racecourses – the smaller and more isolated the better – on balmy summer days to take in a little bit of horse on horse action (ooooer!). Yes, yes, I hear the “woke” arguments around problems within the thoroughbred industry, and I could present you with a few counter arguments, but this is neither the time nor place. I went to Ride Like A Girl because I love horses, I love underdog stories, and I love a bit of regional history. Ride Like A Girl is the story of Michelle Payne (played by Teresa Palmer), who became the first woman jockey to ride a Melbourne Cup winner – aboard 100-1 New Zealand-bred outsider Prince of Penzance – in 2015. As such it is a true story about female empowerment, about overcoming prejudice, about role-modelling, and about breaking down long-entrenched barriers. Sam Neill excels as Paddy Payne, Michelle’s Dad. Directed by Rachel Griffiths, it was my “feelgood” movie of the year, and I may or may not have had a seriously annoying lump in my throat at its conclusion.

Choice Kiwi Cuts 2019: Miss June - Anomaly

Of all the gigs I attended in 2019, few captured the spirit of raw rock n roll quite like Miss June’s mid-year set at Wellington’s Meow. It may have been a midweek gig, I can’t recall, but I do know I wasn’t feeling particularly up for it. No problem: the band quickly won me over with its adrenalin-infused version of homegrown punk and obligatory wild stage antics. At one point, vocalist Annabel Liddell was swinging from the rafters, or more specifically, the ceiling-mounted lighting trusses, and it felt like everyone in the room was on the verge of rioting just for the sheer hell of it. Good times. The band's best known track is probably 'Best Girl', but I think footage from this clip for 'Anomaly' - an album cut from their Bad Luck Party debut - perhaps best captures the band's live energy.

Choice Kiwi Cuts 2019: Rory Storm - Greta Thunberg addresses the UN

I know very little about Wellington producer Rory Storm, but I thought his Greta Thunberg UN address edit/remix was something quite special. This tension-driven pulsing electronic track captured the sense of urgency and requisite feelings of angst Thunberg’s words demanded. And yes, high profile dude Fatboy Slim did something similar, which garnered way more social media attention, but don’t sleep on Storm’s effort, which flew well under the radar. There’s no YouTube clip for this one so I’ve included a Bandcamp link (name your price).

Introducing ... Secrets of the Sun

Joseph James is a friend of everythingsgonegreen, and a modest guy who blogs under the exquisite rock n roll handle, Will Not Fade (click here). Over the past few years his blog has introduced me to a good number of post-rock and psych-rock bands I otherwise wouldn’t have known much about, most notably, Ranges, and stuff from the label, A Thousand Arms. 

James is also the drummer for the Wellington-based band, Secrets of the Sun, who have just released a debut track on Bandcamp called ‘Suffer With The Moon’. As debut releases go, it's an impressive hybrid of dark-ish indie and psych-rock. Check it out below.

Secrets of the Sun play Wellington's Valhalla this coming Thursday, November 28.

Choice Kiwi Cuts 2019: Beat Rhythm Fashion - Hard As Hell

If there was an annual gong for the least expected local comeback of the year, you’d be hard pressed to look beyond Beat Rhythm Fashion. Sure, Blam Blam Blam’s barely anticipated late-winter national tour attracted a lot of plaudits, and rightly so, but BRF had already taken things one step further, not only touring in the autumn, but actually releasing an album containing a whole bunch of new material. ‘Hard As Hell’ was the first single culled from the album, Tenterhook, and it became a firm favourite for anyone who witnessed Nino Birch, Rob Mayes, and Caroline Easther play those precious and heartfelt live shows …  

Gig Review: Gang of Four, San Fran, Wellington, 13 November 2019

I broke a golden rule. A personal rule. The one which dictates that I don’t go to see reformed bands from the 80s unless something close to an original line-up remains intact. 

At the Gang of Four gig at San Fran last Wednesday night, the only original band member still in place was guitarist Andy Gill, who represents just one quarter of the band’s famed foursome of Allen, Burnham, King, and Gill. That’s the Gang of Four who made the band’s most feted album, Entertainment!, back in 1979. The album we were all there to celebrate the 40th anniversary of, all these years on.

The venue was nonetheless packed. A sell out, some nine months on from when the gig was initially scheduled (and postponed due to Gill’s illness). A planned second Wellington gig on the Thursday was also in the process of selling out (and may well have done so).

As it turned out, my “rule” was exposed for the nonsense it probably is. Gang of Four were super impressive on the night, and the “new” band members - Thomas McNeice (bass), John Sterry (vocals/melodica), and Tobias Humble (drums) - all added a lot of life, energy, and love to a set of tunes that have stood the test of time.

The fractured funk rhythms of ‘Anthrax’ kicked things off in no uncertain terms, offering an early taste of the pulverising basslines that tend to dominate the band’s best work.

We then got a procession of the politically-motivated tunes that have always best represented the beating heart of Entertainment!, with stand-outs (for me) including ‘Not Great Men’, ‘At Home He’s A Tourist’, ‘Guns Before Butter’, and ‘Damaged Goods’, before a raucous take on ‘I Found That Essence Rare’ took things to a mid-set peak and a curious (yet brief) interlude.

After the short break, the band then set about ticking the promised “other hits” box, a pick and mix assortment which basically amounted to a “best of the rest” of non-Entertainment! cuts. Highlights included ‘I Love A Man In Uniform’ (off Songs of the Free), and the closing track ‘What We All Want’ (off Solid Gold).

This segment also included energetic vocalist Sterry taking to a strategically placed on-stage microwave with a rather large piece of wood, something which might be considered a bizarre turn of events were it not completely aligned with the band’s well documented anti-consumerism stance. In this instance it seems a poor microwave was deemed the night’s symbol of capitalist repression.

Shortly before 11pm, after something close to 90 minutes (all told) the gig was done, and Gang of Four exited the stage without an encore – or even any requests for an encore. It’s odd perhaps, but that seemed about right for this gig; surely nobody would have felt short-changed by what they'd just witnessed, and Gang of Four have always been about breaking those time-honoured pesky rules. 

No regrets from me either that I’d broken one of my own rules in order to attend. There are certain bands and albums that transcend any level of ridiculous rock-snobbery. I’ve been regularly listening to Entertainment! for roughly 35 years, so original band or not, I wasn’t going to pass up the rare chance to see it performed live.

And maybe it’s a rule that I’ll need to be more flexible with in future? 

(Support had been provided by veteran local post-punkers the Uncools, but I caught only the tail end of that set, walking in to hear the closer (and Snapper cover), ‘Buddy’, which immediately had me questioning my tardy arrival time and wondering what else I may have missed.)

Choice Kiwi Cuts 2019: Pitch Black - One Ton Skank

Pitch Black are firm local favourites of this blog. 2019 saw the dynamic techno-dub duo return with yet another extraordinary album, Third Light, and while I could probably lift any track from that set to feature here, ‘One Ton Skank’ perhaps best represents everything that makes Pitch Black so special. These guys continue to stay one step ahead of the chasing pack ...

Choice Kiwi Cuts 2019: Aldous Harding - The Barrel

As we approach the end of every year and our lives are propelled into the chaos that tends to align itself with the festive season, everythingsgonegreen likes to reflect on the year that was. Before things get too mad and overwhelming to the extent that blogging becomes a mere afterthought. For a few years there was a countdown of the tracks which enjoyed the most pod-time on your blogger’s device, regardless of origin or genre, but last year I narrowed the scope to include only clips or tracks from artists based in New Zealand or those at least, who identified as “Kiwi” artists. That seemed to work quite well, so I’ll stick with that for 2019’s countdown. I’ll try to post ten favourites between now and the end of the year. 

Therefore, it makes absolute sense to start this year’s set with the tune that won the 2019 APRA Silver Scroll award; Aldous Harding’s weird and wonderful ‘The Barrel’, one of those tunes that tended to grow in stature the more I listened to it. A bit of a creeper, if you like ...

Gig Review: The Beths, San Fran, Wellington, 8 November 2019

Sometimes you just know when you’re in the company of a band right at the top of its game. I got a sense of that earlier this year at a wild midweek Miss June set at Meow, and there was a distinct whiff of it last Friday night at San Fran with The Beths.

Tiny Ruins guy A.C. Freazy (and full band) offered a pretty decent synth-poppy opening set which culminated with The Beths surprising the packed venue by appearing on stage to assist with a closing cover of Sheryl Crow’s ‘If It Makes You Happy’ ... something that resulted in a fairly lively crowd singalong.

That rousing support finale put pressure on The Beths to hit the ground running immediately, and the band didn’t disappoint, opening their set proper with a tight, driving take on ‘You Wouldn’t Like Me’, the first of many cuts from the band’s popular debut album of 2018. 

Those tunes included long-time favourites like ‘Whatever’ and that album’s title track, ‘Future Me Hates Me’, but it’s clear that a follow-up album can’t be too far away, with the set also serving as an introduction to a good number of new songs, all of which sound great in a live setting. 

We also got an unexpected cover of Crowded House’s ‘Fall At Your Feet’, a rare quieter moment, but an equally well received one as the gig then built to a stirring crescendo, and the band closed an hour-plus set rather fittingly with ‘Little Death’, one of my own favourites from Future Me Hates Me.

While I’ve seen The Beths before, I haven’t seen them in this sort of form before, at a peak level where the band has clearly benefitted from the busy touring schedule undertaken over the past year or so – both at home and overseas.

There’s a sense that they’ve improved markedly during those sojourns and there was a tightness and an air of confidence about this San Fran gig – the first of two successive nights at the venue – something that wasn’t always evident the last time I saw The Beths at Meow in September last year.

A triumphant return.

Album Review: Cigarettes After Sex - Cry (2019)

I can scarcely believe I loved the first Cigarettes After Sex album as much as I did. The 2017 debut held enough appeal for me to name it one of the blog’s best albums of that year, and it had enough going for it to convince me to travel all the way up to Auckland for the band’s Powerstation gig of early 2018. Two years on, after listening to the band’s follow-up album, Cry, I’m really struggling to recall what might have possessed me.

There’s no question that Cigarettes After Sex make fastidiously crafted, dark and dreamy pop music, with exquisite, immaculately presented melodies right at the core of everything. All things that usually appeal to your pop-loving blogger. But Cry feels like a pale replica of that debut, and there is very little to distinguish it from album number one, save for the fact that it’s not nearly as convincing, fresh, or clever in its intent or execution. 

Cry offers us the same old formula, the same old guitar effects, the same old melodies - albeit, admittedly, many of them are things of great beauty - and the once hauntingly unique androgynous vocals of Greg Gonzalez now just come across as being repetitive and tiresome. Even a little bit creepy in places. The songs deal with break up, longing, loss, sex, and unrequited love. Perfect fare for the angsty post-pubescent mass that accounts for a good portion of the band’s fanbase.

So perhaps that’s the problem I have with it? Not fitting the demographic for which its intended. Or perhaps something has changed with me over the past two years? I’ve become overly cynical … I’m certainly less tolerant of Cigarettes After Sex, and the only sense of longing I’m now feeling is a desire for the band to tone down the “mellow” and turn up the rock n roll. 

Or maybe I just wanted the band to show some sign, any sign, of innovation and progression on the follow-up? I don’t think that’s an unreasonable expectation, but the truth is, Cry holds very little appeal and it’s all a little bit too saccharine and sterile (musically) for my taste – even though some of its no-filter lyrics are the polar opposite of that description … see “a little bit creepy”, above. 

Not that Gonzalez and co would care less about what the likes of me think about their art. They’ve got their audience, and their formula. What worked last time out will just as likely work this time around, and they clearly have no need to turn things up beyond the tried and trusted. Suffice to say though, for all that the debut briefly appealed as something very special, very much for and of its time, the all-too-familiar younger sibling, Cry, won’t even get close to making this blog’s shortlist for album of the year in 2019.

A Double Dose of Scratch: Rainford and The Black Album

Producer, artist, and all-round reggae superstar Lee ‘Scratch’ Perry isn’t one to live on his weighty legacy. Now well into his 80s, Perry has produced two studio albums in less than two years as he continues his journey into the new sounds of Jamaica. Craig Stephen takes a closer look: 

Rainford (2019)

Perry’s umpteenth studio album was co-produced with dub reggae producer extraordinaire Adrian Sherwood. Perry as ever provides the vocals, sounding, yes, like an elderly man, but a man with fire still burning in his belly. 

Some tracks have a freestyle, go-with-the-flow format, with Biblical allusions that veer into babbling chants, snarls and shrieks. 

The final track, perhaps ominously but appropriately, is ‘Autobiography of the Upsetter’, and while I expect Perry to continue for a few more years yet there will naturally be a point at which the book is closed. This feels like some sort of career-capping memoir as Perry reminisces on his life in music. 

Unfortunately, the vocals ebb and flow and there are words that are hard to comprehend. He begins by saying he was born Rainford Henry Perry in Jamaica in 1936, informing the listener that his father was a freemason, his mother an Eto Queen (no, I don’t know either) … “They shared a drink together, they then go on to make a Godly being/ Just look at me.” 

Among his reminisces are how, he says, he made the Wailers, and in particular its frontman: 

“Bob Marley come to me saying ‘my cup is overflow, my cup is overflow, and I don’t know what to do. Can you help Mister Perry?’ Yes I can, I give you Punky Reggae Party.” 

He later reminds listeners of his work with Susan Cadogan, who had a number of big reggae hits in the UK including the Perry-produced ‘Hurt So Good’. 

A couple of tracks, if we are honest, don’t quite continue the quality but ‘Makumba Rock’ partially makes up for such slackness – it is an unhinged jam where Perry alternately cries like a baby, bleats like a goat, and whines “I want my mommy, I want my daddy” as heraldic horns blast forth and a hardcore dub rhythm transports the listener back to 1974 and near the end warns Britons: “Prince Charles will not be King.” 

The Black Album (2018)

The Beatles released The White Album; Metallica released a self-titled album that became known as The Black Album. Both colours completely dominated the respective covers. The difference with Lee ‘Scratch’ Perry’s work is that it reflects his skin colour, and the blackness of the cover is his wrinkly, ageing hand. 

This is the artwork, but it suggests a theme. Or a statement. 

With Robbie Lyn and former Perry producer Daniel Boyle in tow, Perry has created an album that harks back to the 1970s halcyon days of reggae and dub. To add to the retro feel each track is followed by its dub version, which means that the vinyl version spills over on to two disks. Some of these versions are as good as, or perhaps even better, than its daddy.

The opening track, ‘Mr Brown In Town’, includes Perry’s declaration that “I'm still alive, refuse to die”. You can’t argue with that.

Continuing with the colour theme, let’s skip to ‘Your Shadow Is Black’, a track that has that roots reggae feel as Scratch and background harmonies mingle in true 1975 fashion with obscure, repetitive lyrics rattling off frenetically. Then hold on for the dub version with the beautiful amalgam of flute and melodica brought to the forefront with a minimal amount of lyrics.

The Beatles reference at the beginning wasn’t merely a clutch at an album with similar tones of colour. The Black Album includes ‘Dub at Abbey Road’, which is not a version but the original track, that sees the apparently mad Jamaican recall The Beatles’ heyday and their LSD consumption. 

Furthermore, the vocal sessions for this album were held in the famous Abbey Road studio where the Scousers recorded the eponymous album half a century ago. 

I immediately struck up a rapport with ‘Captain Perry’ in which the gaffer transposes himself “on the high seas .. on the moonbeam .. on the mother ship …”. He doesn’t miss a trick, so the female backing singers would have us believe.

Those vocal harmonies lend a contrast to Perry’s limited range, a clear flaw in the album but it would also appear, if I listen really intently, that this is a trick to deliver some risqué statements. Stripped of the mumblings, the dub version, with its focus on the chorus is a superior, minimalist beast. 

Clearly, Perry will keep going until his body stops, and even as I write I see there’s a new album with Brian Eno (yes, that Eno) which we’ll endeavour to get to as well.

Album Review: Minuit Machine - Infrarouge (2019)

I think it was probably one of those “free” The Blog That Celebrates Itself compilation album downloads that first introduced me to the music of Minuit Machine. A 2015 tribute album to The Smiths, where Minuit Machine - aka Amandine Stioui and Helene De Thoury - took on the unenviable and potentially quite thankless task of covering ‘How Soon Is Now?’, a track so beloved by particularly fussy fans of The Smiths, the duo was always flirting with fire.

But they somehow managed to pull it off with no little amount of credibility still intact; walls of Numan-esque synths combined with ice cold femme fatale-style vocals miraculously reinventing the feted tune, to leave it with distinctly haunted goth-rock aftertaste. It was, for me, the standout track on an otherwise uninspiring and ordinary tribute album.

That same niche but immensely satisfying formula is applied again on Infrarouge, Minuit Machine’s third studio album, released on the Synth Religion label earlier this year. Slow-burning rhythms push hard up against layers of dark foreboding synth, only to then bounce off, yet still complement, the duo's richly melodramatic vocals.

Infrarouge is something of a comeback album for the duo, a belated follow-up, after a brief hiatus, to 2014’s Live & Destroy and 2015’s Violent Rains. I’m not sure how Stioui spent the intervening years, but De Thoury has been working hard to carve out a successful “solo” career (as Hante.) within similar darkwave, synthwave, and goth-rock realms.

There’s drama aplenty in both the words and music found on Infrarouge; frequently claustrophobic yet still very grand and beautiful tunes that deal with the complexities of modern life and human relationships. With titles like ‘Chaos’, ‘Empty Shell’, ‘Fear of Missing Out’, ‘Sacrifice’, ‘Forgive Me For My Sins’, and one of the best, ‘Drgs’ … “we are doomed to stay alone, drugs, I need something to fill me up, I need something to kill the rage, drugs, the world is ending but I don’t care, we all die but I don’t care”… (whoa, steady on! - Shiny Happy Ed)

There’s also a much-improved fleshed-out remastered version of ‘I Am A Boy’, which first appeared on the duo’s debut EP of 2013, Blue Moon.

De Thoury wrote the music and produced the album, and I believe she’s responsible for most, if not all, of those delicious towering synths, while Stioui wrote the album’s lyrics and takes care of the vocals.

At ten tracks across 43-odd minutes, Infrarouge is a terrific album, something of a masterclass within its genre, by 2019 standards at least, and as comebacks go, this one is way better than anyone could have anticipated. 

One of my favourite albums of the year so far. 

Here's 'Forgive Me For My Sins' ...