Choice Kiwi Cuts 2021: Marlin’s Dreaming - ‘Trophies’

There’s just something so very “deep south” about the jangly lo-fi indie of Dunedin’s Marlin’s Dreaming. ‘Trophies’, off the band’s 2021 album, Hasten, is merely the latest spin on a form of intoxicating melodic guitar pop the region has long since been famous (infamous, un-famous) for. ‘Trophies’ is our final Choice Kiwi Cut for 2021.

(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)

Choice Kiwi Cuts 2021: Unknown Mortal Orchestra - 'That Life'

UMO’s ‘That Life’ was quite simply one of the earworms of 2021. Here’s what art-popper-extraordinaire Ruban Nielson said at the time of its mid-year release:

“I saw this painting by Hieronymus Bosch called The Garden of Earthly Delights and in the painting there was a mixture of crazy stuff going on, representing heaven, earth, and hell. When I was writing this song, “That Life,” I was imaging the same kind of “Where’s Waldo” (or “Where’s Wally” as we call it in New Zealand, Australia, and the UK) of contrasting scenes and multiple characters all engaged in that same perverse mixture of luxury, reverie, damnation, in the landscape of America. Somewhere on holiday under a vengeful sun.”

(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)

Choice Kiwi Cuts 2021: Chaos In The CBD & Mongo Skato - 'Brainstorm'

Raised in Auckland but now based primarily in the UK, touring and releasing music under the Chaos in the CBD moniker, production duo - and brothers - Ben and Louis Helliker-Hales have developed a solid global following in dance music circles across the past decade. There’s been a series of consistently top notch releases over that period and this year’s Brainstorm EP was no exception. The title track, which is a collaboration with another local artist Mongo Skato, oozes so much deep house warmth it was the most obvious choice cut on the release.

(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)

Choice Kiwi Cuts 2021: Anthonie Tonnon - 'Two Free Hands'

Anthonie Tonnon’s ‘Two Free Hands’ dates all the way back to 2017 but it was included on this year’s Leave Love Out of This album so it qualifies as a 2021 choice cut. Tonnon never ceases to amaze with his rare ability to write and produce perfectly crafted pop songs which frequently snub lyrical convention and musical formula. ‘Two Free Hands’ is just one such example, and Tonnon has made a career out of combining his instinct for the experimental and the avant garde with an uncanny knack for pure pop vibes. He is, without question, one of Aotearoa’s most underrated artists.

(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)

Choice Kiwi Cuts 2021: The Chills - 'Monolith'

During a year (and in a world) full of upheaval and uncertainty it’s sometimes reassuring to know that some things never change. Especially when that “thing” has been around for decades and involves the mercurial ability to produce clever, quirky, intimate pop music on a whim. Step forward Martin Phillipps and The Chills, with another understated pop masterclass in the form of 2021 album Scatterbrain. It probably won’t win any shiny gongs or be acclaimed as the band’s “best ever” in years to come (because it definitely isn’t that) but it still has enough personality and warmth to be considered yet another primo addition to the band’s ongoing legacy. ‘Monolith’ was the scene-setting album opener and one of my own favourites ...

(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)

Album Review: Manchester Orchestra - The Million Masks of God (2021)

First things first: Manchester Orchestra are not from Manchester, England. Nor are they from Manchester, anywhere else. Manchester Orchestra are not even an orchestra. They’re an Atlanta, US-based alt-rock four-piece, and the band’s 2021 album, The Million Masks of God, is album number six in a career that dates all the way back to 2004.

Over the course, the band have appeared at big festivals such as Lollapalooza, Coachella, and Reading, and despite having an otherwise relatively low profile outside of their homeland, they’ve clocked up an impressive number of live television performances on US variety/chat shows like the Late Show with David Letterman (4 times), Late Night with Jimmy Fallon, and Jimmy Kimmel Live! … if I hadn’t heard the band’s music, you could say it’s exactly the sort of mainstream rock resume I’d normally be a quite wary of and steer well clear of.

 And yet, here we are, late into 2021, and The Million Masks of God is shaping up to be one of the very best new release albums I’ve heard all year. I’d heard snippets - or singular tracks - lifted from the band’s previous full-length outing A Black Mile to the Surface (2017), all of which left enough of an impression for me to pick up The Million Masks of God almost as soon as it was released.

I initially thought the band might have some loose connection (or shared membership) with Seattle indie-folkers Fleet Foxes, such is the similarity in style, and the frequently layered vocal offerings of singer Andy Hull are not all that dissimilar to those of Fleet Foxes main man, Robin Pecknold. Albeit Pecknold and Fleet Foxes rely more heavily on actual harmonies than filters and studio wizardry such as over-dubbing.

The Million Masks of God feels like an assured and self-aware release, an album with a range of lyrical themes - although death does seem like the most predominant concern - and a blend of musical styles. With Hull’s vocal delivery perhaps becoming the album’s most consistent feature, and arguably, along with clever wordsmithery, the glue that holds it all together.

It’s an album of emotional peaks and troughs, where soft acoustic moments sit comfortably alongside edgier or heavier rock-out flashes. Where grand orchestral flourishes push hard up against what I suspect is the band’s more natural (collective) instinct to just relax and let everything breathe. Where the production is often lush, yet the arrangement occasionally sparse or spacious.

Nothing ever feels too rushed or forced. There’s conflict and contradiction to be found on The Million Masks of God. Equal parts joy and sadness. You get the sense on some songs that Hull is genuinely working through issues as he sings about them. Whether it’s mortality, afterlife, or perhaps that most confusing of life perennials, a human relationship. Searching for an answer without ever really being certain about the question.

Whatever else it is, it’s a brilliant listen, a journey, and a stick-on certainty to be one of this blog’s albums of 2021.

Highlights: ‘Angel of Death’, ‘Bed Head’, ‘Telepath’, ‘Dinosaur’, and ‘The Internet’.

Choice Kiwi Cuts 2021: Leisure - 'Flipside'

I’m not going to lie. I’m partial to the odd bit of 70s-style soft rock. Or yacht rock as it may sometimes be called. Just not too much of it. Small doses etc. I just don’t like to talk about it. Or write about it. In fact, I give a mate of mine some grief occasionally for admitting the exact same thing, whilst harbouring my own dirty little secret. It’s a nostalgia thing, a throwback to a 1970s childhood, when that sort of stuff dominated mainstream radio. When we had very little else other than mainstream radio. Which may or may not be my excuse for listening to a fair bit of Leisure over the past year or so … shamelessly lush, soft disco-infused tracks like ‘Take You Higher’, ‘Mesmerised’, and this Choice Cut, ‘Flipside’. All great slices of pure pop. All of which can be found on the Auckland band’s recently released Sunsetter album.

(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)