Lorde has always
been a bit hit and miss for me. Mostly miss. Obviously, she’s hugely
significant as a local artist simply because she hit it big internationally at
a very young age and she’s now somehow managed to expand her fanbase well
beyond its initial demographic. There’s no question that she’s talented and there’s
something about her which suggests she’ll enjoy a relatively long career. Good
for her.
This year Lorde
released her third full-length album, Solar Power, and although I couldn’t
really have cared less about it, there was enough chatter around its release to
arouse my curiosity, so I had a sneaky listen. My overall impression was that the
album is very much her “summer of love” moment and a few tracks are quite
derivative of the early 90s “baggy” period.
Others will beg to
differ, but I thought the vast majority of Solar Power was listenable but
mostly unrelatable. Then I reached the album closer ‘Oceanic Feeling’ … what a
relief. Relief partly because I’d reached the end of what was essentially an
obligatory listen, but mostly relief because I’d finally found the unheralded
album gem which made the previous hour’s effort all the more worthwhile. It was one of just a couple of tracks from Solar Power I downloaded and kept for playlist compilation purposes.
‘Oceanic Feeling’
simply oozes “typical New Zealand summer family break” in ways I’ve never heard
articulated in song before. The references to father, brother, fishing, food,
and outdoor fun are clear and obvious, but more specifically, for me, the vibe
of ‘Oceanic Feeling’ is all about my own sepia-tinged distant childhood memories
of long hot carefree summer days at my Grandparents’ beach house or “bach” in
Hawke’s Bay. Thank you for that, Lorde.
(Choice Kiwi
Cuts 2021 is a series of blogposts which seek to highlight the best tracks released
by New Zealand artists over the course of the calendar year. Not necessarily the
“best” in any commercial sense, but those which have proven to be the best
additions to this blogger’s music collection)
Nový Den is a
three track EP from Wellington multi-instrumentalist Jamie Scott Palmer,
wearing his solo artist hat as The Emptys Response.
Released in early January
of 2021, Nový Den loosely translates (from Czech) to mean “a new day”, which
seems quite apt for a new year release, but I also suspect the title may be of greater
personal significance for Palmer; as someone I’ve followed closely on social media
for a few years he strikes me as a guy who is constantly looking to move
forward, to challenge himself, and to challenge wider society’s accepted norms.
Someone who craves answers to many of life’s more difficult questions. I’ve met
Palmer out and about very briefly a few times in Wellington, usually at the
tail end of gigs, which isn’t always the best environment to discuss such
matters, or to get a full grasp of what makes an artist tick, so all of the
above is merely an impression I’ve formed and not necessarily the gospel
according to those who actually know him well.
What I do know for
certain is that two of the more recent musical projects Palmer has been involved
with - Dreams Are Like Water and Buffalo Bunny - produced some of the best
beneath-the-mainstream-radar indie rock I’ve heard from these shores across the
past decade. I’ve previously raved about the solitary Dreams Are Like Water release (here), so I won’t go into too much more detail about that. Suffice to
say, Palmer’s contribution (keys, occasional guitar) was an integral part of that band’s
appeal.
And the Buffalo
Bunny stuff - collaborating with performance artist Victoria Singh - of
2019/2020 was almost more David Lynch than Lynch himself. The duo’s early 2020
Covid-themed track ‘2 Meters’ (clip here) was easily the best musical realisation
of the dystopian or pre-apocalyptic collective angst created by the first
global lockdown I heard during that period. The nonchalant or subtle mimicry of
that whole “be kind to one another, follow the leader, and don’t ask questions”
theme within ‘2 Meters’ was subliminally brilliant, mischievously subversive,
and for many, right on the money. There were other great Buffalo Bunny moments
too, and it is of some regret that I caught only the tail end of one of their
rare live sets (at Wellington’s Pyramid Club) during their all too short-lived
existence.
Which brings us to
The Emptys Response and Palmer in his solo guise (phew, we got there
eventually), by some distance his most prolific platform when it comes to work released online. Across many years. Including the Nový Den EP, which
amounts to three relatively lengthy atmospheric instrumental tracks which blend
together or cross-pollinate a number of different genres, from ambient to electronica
to dark post-punk to a mild form of spacey psychedelia.
There was a
certain irony for me that I was stuck in motorway traffic gridlock when first
absorbing the scene-setting opener ‘The Drive Home’ which is effectively a probing
low key synthetic pulse that threatens to explode at any moment without ever quite
managing it across its near eight-minute duration. It is dark and quite tense without
ever becoming too overwhelming. More of a mood or vibe than anything else, and
I’m still trying to decide whether the drums are program generated or the result
of a more human or live organic approach, on a loop. There’s a lot to be said
for a live drum sound, and if this isn’t that, then Palmer’s done a pretty good
job replicating it.
The second track, ‘Terraforma’,
feels more substantial and is perhaps the most accessible of the three on offer.
A dense, repetitive, almost bleak slice of semi-industrial grinding electronica
which builds in tension to become quite riveting, it’s probably my pick of the
bunch. See clip below.
The final track ‘11:11’
- which not coincidentally is its length - is an exercise in spaced out ambience
and it’s another which slowly builds in intensity as we journey through its
various subtle mood changing soundscapes. Ethereal and entirely beatless until
just before the seven-minute mark, it may upon first listen feel a little
directionless, or prone to drift for too long, but subsequent listens will reveal
that there’s a lot more going on than might initially be obvious.
You can check out
Palmer’s extensive collection of solo work on his website here.
Craig Stephen runs the ruler over yet another Primal Scream classic …
Vanishing Point, the movie:
A cult classic released in 1971 which mirrors America’s obsession with cars and the open road, and the plight of the little guy against the authorities. It is essentially one long chase sequence as Kowalski (no first name), played by cult actor Barry Newman, commits to a bet to deliver a Dodge Challenger from Denver to San Francisco in 15 hours. There are flashbacks to personal trauma, a radio DJ who eggs him on (“the last American hero, the electric centaur, the demi-god, the super driver of the golden west”) and cops on his back. Of course, it doesn’t end well.
Vanishing Point, the album:
There was a country rock n soul soundtrack, featuring Kim Carnes, Jimmy Bowen and Delaney, Bonnie and Friends, but even by the 90s it was long forgotten and hard to find. The concept of doing an album for an imaginary film wasn’t new. But doing a soundtrack for one which had already been done … well that was a little bit leftfield. And the Scream did it because they wanted to. The resulting album sounds nothing like the original soundtrack; indeed, it contains some of most ambitious music the Scream ever made. Their soundtrack was based on a skewed and likely substance-filled take on the nature of the film.
‘Burning Wheel’, the opening track, sounds like an outtake from Screamadelica, something that may have been a little too Krautrockian for that swaggering composition to the days of new drugs and when indie music crossed into dance. Its Syd-era Floyd, Faust, and Primals c.1985 all wrapped up in one.
The album’s centrepiece, and the lead single, ‘Kowalski’, samples heavily from the film itself – all from the DJ’s magnificent diatribes that turn a cop chase into a road race: “Two nasty Nazi cars are close behind the beautiful, lone driver / The police know that they’re getting closer ... closer / Closer to our soul hero in his soul mobile / Yeah, baby, they’re about to strike / They’re gonna get him, smash him, rape / The last beautiful free soul on this planet.”
Bobby Gillespie’s own, sparse lyrics seem only to fill the gap between the dialogue-cum-verses; a drum sample from Can’s ‘Halleluwah’ is thrown in and the song cribs the bassline from a Funkadelic song. Ex-Stone Roses bassist Mani is on fire here, a valuable addition to the gang.
The instrumental ‘If They Move Kill ‘Em’ – a line from the bloodiest and baddest western of them all, The Wild Bunch, is driven by a constant drum backbeat, a hollering synthesizer and pounding bass. Following closely by is ‘Stuka’, its dub bass intro introducing the cacophony of noise of the German dive-bomber in full flow. The airplane included wailing sirens intended to smash their enemies into submission, something the Primals attempt to recreate. There’s almost two minutes of instrumentalism before the voice kicks in, a muted, low-fi drone, which comes across as Darth Vader singing Lee Hazlewood, and limited to such oblique snippets as “I got Jesus in my head like a stinger / He moves from tree to tree in the back of my mind / A ragged shadowy figure, I got him.” Is this even Bobby Gillespie singing? Seems so.
An intriguing inclusion is a cover of Lemmy’s ‘Motorhead’, initially released as a B-side in his final days with 70s prog-punks Hawkwind, and his metal monster band’s debut single. The two songs are somewhat different with the metal version, more, erm metally. Scream’s take on this rock anthem is to revert to Hawkwind’s original, retaining all its nastiness and throwing in a perverse opening verse, with Gillespie sounding like a gecko being mauled by a domestic cat, and various loops and layers thrown in for good measure.
There’s also a chunk of instrumentals, including a brooding update of ‘Trainspotting’ from the Scottish drugs and ... well more drugs degenerate movie of the same name, with about two minutes trimmed from the version that appeared on the official soundtrack.
Among all this dub’n’bass and dirty garage rock, it is a little surprising to hear ‘Star’, the second single to come off the album (as part of an EP), which owes a little to ‘Loaded’, with a horn section, snaky melodica played by Augustus Pablo, and a sincere and simplistic chorus: “Every brother is a star / Every sister is a star” as well as these killer lines that Gillespie throws in to the love-in: “The Queen of England, there's no greater anarchist / One man's freedom fighter is another's terrorist.”
After the Stones-devotional Give Out But Don’t Give Up (1994), the Scream really took a leftfield turn with Vanishing Point. Out went the Keef riffs and Jagger swagger, in came an industrial level melding of krautrock, dub, electrofreakery and Ennio Morricone. It’s magnificently experimental, and utilises all manner of distortion, fuzztones, tape delays, drum machines, and sitars. It’s a rampant adventure into the unorthodox, at a time when British bands were encouraged to go retro. But this was the backlash to Britpop, the Santa Claus of music scenes that disappeared as quickly as it appeared. And with the Super Furry Animals and Radiohead ramping up the weirdness and the outlandishness at the same time, there was only way for the future of so-called Cool Britannia: oblivion. It was the beginning of something new: the Scream followed it up with XTRMNTR and Evil Heat, both of which simmered with unadulterated Krautrock, post-punk, Millenium confusion and anti-capitalist anger.
De dub version: Echo Dek (1997)
Echo Dek was the logical dub and remix version of the album which was released just a few months later. Master knob twiddler Adrian Sherwood was at the controls, bashing and smashing eight of VP’s tracks – with ‘Stuka’ getting the double version treatment. These already mightily impressive tracks were cut up and reconstructed into an even further and abstract dub orbit. Sherwood sampled Prince Far-I on ‘Wise Blood’, one of the rejigs of ‘Stuka’. Some tracks merit the makeovers but the versions of ‘Star’ and ‘Kowalski’, if we’re being honest, remain pretty much honest to the originals. Remix albums tend to suffer from laziness and record company pushiness, but Sherwood has a free rein and the passion to carry out a good job.
Auckland multi-instrumentalist
Mark Perkins (ex-Fazerdaze, others) continues to gain a lot of global traction
in his solo guise as Merk, and his latest album Infinite Youth was widely
lauded in indie pop circles when released earlier this year. It was a release chock
full of gentle existential insights into that age old conundrum of growing up / growing
older, and how we’re all forced to deal with the inevitability of that (the
alternative is not much chop, right?). ‘Laps Around the Sun’ is one such melancholic
reflection, and it got a fair bit of ear time on my pod in 2021. It’s another one
of those mellow choice cuts that won’t exactly have you throwing yourself
around the mosh, but it does have a little bit of that earworm thing going on,
and I think it offers a great snapshot of the album itself.
(Choice Kiwi Cuts 2021 is a series of blogposts which seek to highlight the best tracks released by New Zealand artists over the course of the calendar year. Not necessarily the “best” in any commercial sense, but those which have proven to be the best additions to this blogger’s music collection)
From the Straight
Outta Wainuiomata files. Also from the Most Unlikely Comeback of 2021 files. Early
80s post-punk veterans Vietnam returned this year with a new track called ‘What
Have I Done?’ and the promise of a new album in early 2022. As comeback releases go, this one was right up my alley.
Founding member
and bass guitarist Adrian Workman says of the track:
“‘What Have I
Done?’ is about the experience of being in a destructive and co-dependent
relationship, which is always destined to fail. The lyric contains a desperate
plea for understanding and forgiveness, while at the same time projecting the
hurt and anger that comes with the inability to take responsibility for your
own behaviours and feelings. The desperation in the chorus lyric (and title of
the song) is the inner voice of shame that drives the narrative.”
(Choice Kiwi
Cuts 2021 is a series of blogposts which seek to highlight the best tracks
released by New Zealand artists over the course of the calendar year. Not
necessarily the “best” in any commercial sense, but those which have proven to
be the best additions to this blogger’s music collection)
With another year end approaching it seems timely to reconvene a regular everythingsgonegreen blog pre-festive tradition – the all-too-readily missed and/or often completely ignored practice of me sharing with you some of my thoughts and reckons on Aotearoa’s musical year.
I’ve got to be honest, in my view, 2021 hasn’t been particularly epic for local music. At least not when it comes to album additions to my own collection. Over the past decade, “new” New Zealand-made music has always featured prominently among those additions, and it hasn’t been unusual for a number of homegrown albums to make my annual “most listened to” or best of year-end list.
Unfortunately, I just can’t see that happening this year. But that doesn’t mean there hasn’t been some good stuff released during 2021 – it just means I didn’t pick up a physical or digital copy of it … Spotify doesn’t count. Over the next couple of months, I’ll be posting a series of clips or streams of those local tracks that did move me sufficiently in 2021 to earn a, um, highly coveted place on the, um, very prestigious everythingsgonegreen Choice Kiwi Cuts list.
That list seldom features the most obvious stuff so if you’re a fan of Six60, L.A.B., or insert-popular-biggish-name-Kiwi-artist-here, you’re probably going to be disappointed. It goes without saying then, that the list does not profess to be anything close to a definitive summary of everything that happened on these shores during the year. I’ll reserve a place only for those tracks or artists I personally liked or enjoyed.
Starting with … Repulsive Woman – ‘Julia Knows Beauty’
Repulsive Woman is the musical handle for former Astro Child, Millie Lovelock, whose 2019 album Relief won the Taite Music Prize for Best Independent Debut in 2020. Lovelock didn’t offer us too much in the form of new work in 2021, but this track, ‘Julia Knows Beauty’, was a stand-out cut on a Z Tapes ‘Summer 2021’ compilation I picked up. It’s a bit of a slow burner but one that really starts to reveal its charms after a few repeat plays and a little bit of patience. It isn’t going to rock your socks off, but beautifully crafted acoustic ballads rarely tend to do that, and the appeal lies elsewhere.
