Album Review: Springloader - Just Like Yesterday (2024)

Well, this is a lovely surprise, and a bit of a trip. An album which started its journey as far back as 1994, finally springing to life in November 2024. 

As the old Mainland Cheese advert used to tell us … “good things take time”. 

Springloader was initially the shared vision of Failsafe Records guru, Rob Mayes (guitars, bass), and founding drummer Dave Toland. In late 1993, with the band still very much in its infancy, they were joined by Michael Oakley (vocals, guitars), and Che Rogers (bass). 

The fledgling album began its rather fragmented life with the earliest recordings in Christchurch in the summer and autumn of 1994. Thirty years on, with a fair bit of interim tweaking, the (not really) ironically titled Just Like Yesterday has finally been released. There was essentially a dry run of the album in 2005, a low key release called Just Like Falling, which featured demo tracks and “as is” recordings of many of the tunes that make up the fully formed album we see today. 

I’ve got to be honest: beyond the music of Supergroove, Strawpeople, and one of two other local acts, much of the first half of the 1990s is a giant vacant void for yours truly when it comes to music from Aotearoa. I do know that it was a highly productive period for the genre we call “New Zealand Music” but because I was based in the UK for much of that era, I missed a whole bunch of stuff that didn’t land on those then-faraway shores. There was no internet back then, kids, and I’ve more or less been playing catch-up ever since.

And I also know - beyond nascent electronica, hip hop, and perhaps a bit of “rave” - one of the most prominent or popular genres in the UK in 1994 was this thing we’ve come to call shoegaze, with bands like Ride, Slowdive, My Bloody Valentine, plus the even more niche likes of Boo Radleys and Swervedriver, all creating their own unique brands of driving guitar rock. Guitar rock that had an even more distinctive sound than the job-lots of US grunge being imported into the UK at that time. Mostly indie-driven - during an era when the Independent charts mattered more than the pop charts - it was a brand of rock that was fresh and melodic, and one which mostly relied upon its carefully crafted wall-of-sound aesthetic. When done well, especially in a live setting, it could be exhilarating. 

Which is pretty much where Springloader comes in. If the then abandoned album, had somehow - by dint of some miracle - managed to find the ear of one or two of the influential UK radio DJs back in 1994, it may well have been a very big deal. Because when I listen to the title track, which opens proceedings, I’m instantly transported back to the central Glasgow bedsit I occupied for most of that year, and the music on the radio shows I spent most evenings listening to. 

But more than any of that, there’s an experimental bent at play on Just Like Yesterday which might just give the album an important point of difference. Alternate tunings and unorthodox guitar techniques, with Mayes, perhaps better known as a bass player, clearly enjoying the creative freedom that every guitarist-at-heart craves. 

Something that, with the aid of no little post-millennium spit and polish, tends to give it, with accidental reverence to its very title, a degree of timelessness. And there’s a sense that Just Like Yesterday could just as easily have been made during any of the rock n roll eras, bar perhaps, the very first one. 

‘Just Like Yesterday’ (the track) really is the perfect title track and advance single. An almost Byrdsian indie power-pop gem, it also offers us an early taster of one or two of the more unorthodox guitar settings that then go on to proliferate the rest of the album. 

There’s a good balance of higher tempo tracks (‘Nothing I Want More’, ‘Looking Out For You’) and more introspective slower tunes (‘Closer To Further Away’, ‘All That I Want’) before the album builds to a couple of dense near mini-epics in the form of ‘One More Thing’ and ‘Too Close’, nearer the end. 

At ten tracks, clocking in at around 45 minutes, Just Like Yesterday feels a bit more than the mere sum of its parts. Whatever else it might be, for me, it is already working as a stylistic reference point to a particular time and place. Which is never a bad thing to be. And yet, yet … as alluded to above, it’s not really that at all. 

It’s an album that comes complete with its very own very-rock n roll backstory. A story that has taken some 30 years to be told. A story told in quite some detail in the extensive sleeve notes that come with the release. The story of a previously lost album finally being found. 

The sleeve notes also offer a lot of other stuff - lyrics and chords - that for the most part can be filed away in the drawer labelled: Unrepentant Guitar Nerd Stuff. 

(Everyone has a drawer with that label, right?) 

And bonus upon bonus, if the accompanying press release is to be believed, there’s already a follow-up album locked and loaded to go for Springloader in 2025. 

Check it out the Springloader Bandcamp page (here).

Album Review: The Libertines - All Quiet on the Eastern Esplanade (2024)

Craig Stephen on a belated yet still rather impressive addition to The Libertines legacy …

Here we are again: the lads’ lads are back in town for another crack at lighting up the Libertines torch after nearly a decade in abeyance.

Despite all the much-publicised infighting and excessive lifestyles, the erstwhile leaders of the Libertines - Pete Doherty and Carl Barat - need each other and they need the vehicle of the Libertines to display their varied and esoteric talents.

Like ABBA there was always going to be a reunion, because it seems easier to reunite than to stay out of each other’s reach. You see, messrs Barat and Doherty’s solo careers haven’t exactly gone to plan: Babyshambles was, well, a shambles, and I challenge you to name a solo Barat album. Getting the band back together wasn’t such a bad idea, eh?

 All Quiet on the Eastern Esplanade - the title’s a subtle nod to the literary war classic by Erich Maria Remarque - is the quartet’s first album since the middling Anthems for Doomed Youth (again, you see the literary reference in the title) released in 2015. It is also only their fourth studio album in almost a quarter of a century.

Nine years is a long time in music and changes are mostly visual. For example, Doherty now looks like John Belushi though Barat still has that eastern European lothario look about him. Unusually, the original four-piece remains tight, 20-plus years after forming, with Gary Powell on drums and John Hassell on bass - the understated but indispensable ‘other two’ of the gang.

They now have their own hotel, the Albion Rooms, in faded seaside resort Margate in Kent. The hotel website reveals that it contains seven “uniquely designed” rooms, a venue, studio and bars. And, of course, it is where All Quiet on the Eastern Esplanade was recorded.

Doherty and Barat’s observations of a decaying Britain pepper the album, most notably on ‘Merry Old England’ where they question where the country is at now, and asks the Syrians, Iraqis, and Ukrainians who have fled their conflict-torn homelands “Oh how you finding Merry Old England?”.

Referencing Dalby Square - a former pristine part of Margate which is now the home to many people on Jobseekers Allowance - the Libertines find that even the feted white cliffs of Dover are now “decaying in the sodium light”.

Inspiration for the album was just around the corner in Margate. It is a town notable for its “poverty-based polarisation” (according to researchers), with people divided into extremes of wealth and deprivation, and very few in the middle.

In ‘Mustangs’, we meet Traci, who likes a “1 Litre Liquor prize” while the kids are at school. Dropping in an iconic American clothing manufacturer, we find Traci “in her Juicy Couture tracksuit, she stares at the wall”, full of dreams and an escape from the drudgery of her life.

 There are hints of Britain’s wealth disparity on the covers. Yes, plural as there’s one cover for the LP and one for the CD. Both feature the same range of characters: a well-to-do woman dressed for another era, a mother with a cigarette in her mouth pushing a pram (possibly Traci), a Sloane Ranger carrying bags from trendy shops, a backpacking busker and a couple of footballing-loving young lads. 

We are party to the new regime in ‘Shiver’, after queues formed around several blocks in London last year to see “the old girl boxed away” leading to a coronation day for a new king.

Long gone are those fast and blast days of the rousing, raucous debut. Over the years the quartet have developed into more divergent soundscapes. And, yes, that means even ballads. In a good way. Album closer ‘Songs They Never Play On The Radio’ (cos .. “You can stream them now for free and save your soul”) is quite beautiful yet played with passion.

It’s the perfect riposte to ‘Be Young’, one of three “bangers” which any old punk would appreciate. The other two are ‘Oh Shit’ and the first track ‘Run Run Run’, an equal to any early Libertines single. The opening refrain “It’s a lifelong project of a life on the lash,” could be a self-confession. The protagonist is “an old-time blagger/ A dab hand in a band/ Still knows the streets of Camden like the back of his hand.”

There’s a wistful melancholy that pervades All Quiet … But also a feeling that the past isn’t really a glamorous location. Nor is the present. It resonates with a touch of anger, of how England has become, a nation where you’ll either be rich or die in abject poverty. It’s a sad state of a country in managed decline.

The Nomad, to Infinity and beyond ...

After a relatively prolonged period of hiatus, pioneering Aotearoa electronic producer Daimon Schwalger, aka The Nomad, has had a busy past twelve months or so; not only with a return to live performances and DJ-ing gigs, but with the careful curation of two compilation albums released to celebrate a quarter of a century of making music.

Those two compilations come in the form of Infinite and Infinite II. A recent social media post from Schwalger hinted that a third compilation might also be a current work-in-progress.

Let’s hope so – The Nomad has been at the forefront of the development of electronic music in this country, with seven full album releases, an early EP (Concentrated, 2002), and one previous compilation album (Selected Works, 2008), across that 25-year period, so it’s fair to say his back catalogue is expansive enough to easily accommodate a third volume of Infinite.

 Initially, Infinite and Infinite II were exclusive limited edition vinyl releases but thankfully they’re now both available as digital downloads on Bandcamp (here), something that will ensure their reach is a lot more widespread than it might otherwise have been.

Each volume of Infinite is notable for the variety of musical styles on offer – The Nomad’s debut release ‘Movement’ is widely touted as New Zealand’s first ever drum n bass release but the palate across all subsequent releases beyond the 1998 debut broadens into reggae, dub, trap, dubstep, techno, some experimental stuff, and morsels of just about every other club or dance music trend this century has had to offer.

The other most obvious feature of each album is the heavyweight collabs deployed with The Nomad’s co-credit support cast being a virtual Who’s Who, anyone who’s anyone, list of local musical talent. Plus a fair few of the international variety as well; local co-conspirators include Julia Deans, Pearl Runga, Lisa Tomlins, Barnaby Weir, Tiki Taane, King Kapisi, Tehimana Kerr, MC Antsman, Ras Stone, Israel Starr, Oakley Grenell, plus fellow local production pioneer Opiuo. Those bringing the overseas vibes include Dexta Malawi, MC Lotek, and true giants of the dub and reggae scenes such as Luciano and the Mad Professor.

Plus there’s been many others (not mentioned above) who have also brought the love to The Nomad’s sound across the course of his wholly unique musical journey. It is surely testament to how highly regarded he is that so many high-profile talents have seamlessly slotted into his musical vision.

 Having interviewed Schwalger for NZ Musician magazine back in 2014 (here) upon the release of the seventh Nomad album, the aptly named 7, I can attest that he was a pleasure to deal with, and certainly one of the more pragmatic, honest, and down-to-earth local musicians I’ve met. You simply don’t survive and thrive for a full quarter of a century in the music and production business in this country unless you’re cut from the right cloth, and you’re prepared or able to collaborate without fuss.  

Listening to both Infinite and Infinite II are no-skip events, so I wouldn’t recommend you single out specific cuts, but if pushed, my own Five Favourite Essential Nomad Cuts, all of which feature on either album, would be: ‘Destinations’, ‘Deeper’ ft. Saritah & Jornick, Opiuo’s remix of ‘Devil In The Dark’ ft. Julia Deans, ‘Combination Dub AD’ ft. MC Antsman, and one of his sleeper hits, ‘Seductive Wolf Eyes’ ft. Christina Roberts.

I’m looking forward to Infinite III already.

Album Review: Beat Rhythm Fashion - Critical Mass (2024)

When Beat Rhythm Fashion returned after a 35-plus-year hiatus in early 2019 with a tour and a new album (Tenterhook, reviewed here) it felt like it would be a one-off. A chance for key protagonist Nino Birch to get some stuff off his chest. A belated swansong of sorts, and closure for a band that never really drew a definitive line under its former life as one of Wellington’s original post-punk pioneers.

An early/mid-1980s move to Australia, followed by the death of Nino’s brother and band mate Dan Birch in 2011, plus, I imagine, a host of other key sliding door moments along the way, meant the music of BRF, and that of Nino Birch specifically, was in danger of becoming little more than a distant memory for fans of the band’s earliest incarnation.

An inspired 2007 Failsafe Records compilation of early singles and other recordings, Bring Real Freedom, sought to remedy that, and it worked as a welcome reminder of the band’s early material. Underlining what might have been had choices and circumstances taken the brothers down a different path. It certainly stands as a great legacy document for that first phase of BRF’s existence.

 Another half decade on from Tenterhook, Birch and co-conspirator Rob Mayes have returned with Critical Mass, an eleven-track album release which expands on some of the themes explored on the “comeback” album, while also seamlessly merging the personal with the political.

One of the things I took from the band’s live performance at Meow in Wellington in 2019 (see here) in the immediate wake of the Christchurch terror attack - which had occurred a day prior - was a sense that Birch is a man who cares deeply about the world. A thinker, and someone who isn’t shy about asking hard questions. Almost every track on Critical Mass offers a lyric or line which seeks to provoke or prompt an alternative view of the world. Which is never really a bad thing.

And certainly, the intervening years between Tenterhook’s release and the slow burn evolution of Critical Mass have not been found wanting for source material: a marked worldwide political swing to the right, horrific wars - at least two of which border on mass genocide - and of course, there’s been that global pandemic thing.

Beat Rhythm Fashion offer takes on all of these things, and more, and it’s impossible to fully absorb Critical Mass without being prompted to think a little bit outside the box. Even if it’s just for a fleeting moment, that might be enough.

Musically the album is polished listen. Despite the logistical issues Birch and Mayes would have faced living in different countries, with Birch based in Australia and Mayes in Japan, sending lyrics, ideas, and musical stems back and forth in order to pull everything together. Something they’ve achieved with aplomb.

Naturally it has the same post-punk feel the band has always been associated with, but as with Tenterhook, it’s a much fuller sound than that really early stuff. Birch’s voice has aged well, and I’d contend that Critical Mass contains some of his strongest, most nuanced vocal work.

There’s a lot to love about where Beat Rhythm Fashion finds itself in 2024. I only hope there’s more to come …

Best tracks: I can’t go past ‘Asylum’, one of the softer mid-album tracks, as my favourite. There’s just something about that track which resonates strongly with me. Not only the delicate tensions within the music itself, but its lyrical content, and the wider resignation that “this is not my world” and we can’t just “make it go away” … plus, the pre-release single ‘No Wonder’, ‘Remote Science’, ‘Atonement’, and the closer ‘Doubt Benefit’.

But look, it feels churlish to single out specific tracks, and the whole album is solid. Critical Mass is one of those rare local (well, local-ish) releases that just gets stronger with each and every listen. An album, perhaps, that may require multiple listens before all of its subtle charms are fully exposed.

You can buy Critical Mass here.

Album Review: Riot 111 - 1981! (1981/2023)

Craig Stephen on a recent Leather Jacket Records compilation / retrospective …

Riot 111 were a band created by politics, discord and violence. Their origins lay in the protests and brutality of the anti-Springbok tour movement of 1981 which divided the country in two.

The quartet left the meagre sum of two singles, as well as an appearance on a compilation album of Wellington bands. All of these records have been virtually impossible to find over the past few years, and punters have had to stump up ludicrous sums to opportunistic sellers to get their hands on that vinyl.

And yet, they left a legacy as one of the very few politically dedicated bands that have come out of New Zealand – Herbs are probably the only other I can think of but in a very different style and method. Kiwi musicians notoriously avoid any whiff of confrontation.

(Blogger’s note: I strongly disagree with this. Herbs and Riot 111 were the mere tip of a rather large political iceberg, and I may feel triggered enough to write a detailed response to Craig’s assertion at some point) …   

Thankfully, right before Christmas a collection, simply titled 1981, was issued in a limited run. It rounded up Riot 111’s entire recorded output, using newly-discovered master tapes.

There was no end of inspiration when they formed – the Springbok rugby tour occurred at a time when South Africa was isolated in sporting circles due to the apartheid system. The tour exposed the ugly, racist, redneck upper belly of New Zealand. On one side were those who wanted the tour halted in solidarity with Nelson Mandela and the ANC; on the other side those who naively believed that politics and sport never should mix – or who just didn’t want to know.

 Two of the 16 games were cancelled due to crowd interventions, another was flour-bombed by a plane (but went ahead) and there were protests at all the others.

Into this heated environment came Riot 111 to stir the pot a bit more. Were they even a musical group? Not according to “singer” Void who declared: “We’re not a band, we’re a terrorist organisation.”

So, he penned ‘1981’, released as a single with an anarcho-punk collage cover that would have infuriated those the band wanted to infuriate: Hitler kicked a rugby ball as Prime Minister Robert Muldoon applauded and the All Blacks did an unchoreographed haka. This also forms the cover of the album without any obvious tweaks, while the back of that 7” - featuring police in riot gear - is replicated on the album’s rear.

The single is an (ahem) riotous agit-punk blend of aggressive lyrics, ruthless guitar playing and tribal drumming based around the famous ‘ka mate’ haka, and fused with the South African freedom chant Amandla. It is incendiary and provocative in the context of the winter of discontent that the sporting tour wrought on the country.

The 90-second B-side ‘Go Riot’ is hilarious. There’s no actual music, just a Germanic, hectoring voice ordering a cackling Muldoon to proceed with the contentious tour, and afterwards, distract the population with a royal tour. It then cuts into some mimicking of rugby-loving redneck boofheads.

1982 was an eventful year for Riot 111. They began by supporting The Fall, and at an anti-nuclear gig in Wellington they only managed to play one song as the “move move move” chant on ‘Move To Riot’, which replicates that of the police at protests, literally moved the crowd to riot with Void forced to dodge beer bottles launched at the stage.

The text accompanying the album tells of a stoush between the band and TVNZ which refused to air the video for ‘Writing On The Wall’ from the second single and reproduces the letter from the head of entertainment in full. In it, Tom Parkinson wrote that he thought the song was poor, the musicianship below standard and “the clip is very passe, poorly made and has little merit”. Not only that but he objected to the inference of police violence. So much for freedom of speech.  

Riot 111 comprised vocalist John Void (later just Void), drummer Roger Riot (formerly Roger Allen, a mild-mannered public servant from Wellington’s northern suburbs), guitarist Nick Swan and Mark Crawford on bass. Allen describes Void as having an immense stage presence in his plastic riot helmet, actual police baton and leather trousers or kilt.

‘Move To Riot’ is the most musical of all the tracks and returns to the theme of police repression with Void shouting through a tannoy imitating a police officer breaking up a demonstration. “I am the law, I am order, you have no rights, scum!” Other “officers” abuse and mock the protesters, ie “Did you fucking swear at me?”. As Void speeds up the “move move move” order the atmosphere becomes ugly. Void as “chief officer” says: “I have a gun in the car and I’d love to blow you away” and the song ends in women screaming, glass smashing and people being bashed.

Some tracks don’t have quite the same impact, eg, ‘Escape Or Prison’ is largely an over-played drone lasting an excessive seven-and-a-half minutes. Perhaps with studio time and an empathetic producer behind them Riot 111 could have unleashed a colossal debut album that would have left an indelible mark on the New Zealand music scene.

While all eight tracks released under the band’s name are included on 1981!, I feel an opportunity has been lost. Surely, those master tapes also included alternative takes and demos of songs that were played at gigs but not actually formally released?

By 1984 Riot 111 were no more. Right-wing skinheads were gatecrashing the gigs and causing violence driving many fans away. Void became an actor in Australia.  

Their existence was brief and output meagre but they left a legacy that has never been matched in this country.

Album Review: Primal Scream - Reverberations (Travelling In Time) (2023)

Craig Stephen on new / old Primal Scream …

Primal Scream haven’t been overly enthusiastic about their early years. The first band compilation Dirty Hits (2003) dismissed two entire albums worth and several singles, instead beginning the band’s adventure five years after their debut single.

Two further collections have partly rectified this misnomer with the inclusion of some tracks dating from 1985-1987.

Nevertheless, those initial, naïve, formative years remain largely untouched, so seeing the release of Reverberation (Travelling In Time) - subtitled BBC Radio Sessions & Creation Singles 1985-1986 - is something of a Secret Santa gem for those Primal fans who love all the various phases the band has gone through.

This was pre-electronica, indeed pre-rock’n’roll/Stones loving Primals, with influences such as The Byrds and Love to the fore. They were pivotal members of the twee scene – of which jangling guitars, anoraks and floppy fringes were de rigeur.

In May 1985 the Glasgow outfit burst onto the indie rock scene with the single ‘All Fall Down’/‘It Happens’ with a cover cribbed from a Francoise Hardy album. It didn’t sell and was ignored by the then influential weekly newspapers such as NME, Sounds, Melody Maker and Record Mirror. The band line-up then was Bobby Gillespie on vocals, fellow founding member Jim Beattie on guitar, Robert Young on bass, Stewart May on rhythm guitar, Tam McGurk on drums and Martin St John on tambourine.

 Paul Harte replaced May after the recording of that single and with his outlook and love of trendy clothing gave the band a bit of oomph. As Beattie explains in the album’s liner notes things were soon taking off during that British summer: “Paul had a brilliant attitude; he was quite sartorial and that really brought something to the group. We looked good with great songs and great lyrics and by 1985 it felt like we were really becoming a band.”

At the end of the year they recorded their debut session for John Peel, a must-do for any aspiring young band of the time. The band were, in their own words, naïve and had a producer who once played in Moot the Hoople and wasn’t for taking advice for any young upstarts. Yet, it worked. That seminal session, played late at night on Radio One, included four tracks as per tradition, namely ‘I Love You’, ‘Crystal Crescent’, ‘Subterranean’ and ‘Aftermath’.

According to Gillespie the songs from this era had a “lovesick, melancholic yearning to them”. In his 2021 bio, Tenement Kid, Gillespie describes where he was at when penning now legendary songs such as ‘Gentle Tuesday’ and ‘All Fall Down’: “They are written and sung by a young, depressed boy who views life from a pained, detached, cynical position. The desperation of life and love weighs heavily on the mind.”

In early 1986 the new line-up recorded three tracks for a single which was led by ‘Crystal Crescent’, but it was one of the two B-sides that took precedence. ‘Velocity Girl’ was chosen as the opening track for the feted soundtrack to the scene, C86. Its status is such that it would later provide the name for an American band and was covered by the Manic Street Preachers. It lasts a mere 1:22, barely enough to have three verses and a chorus that closes it off. Gillespie’s plaintive voice is illuminating almost immediately as he trots off now familiar lines: “Here she comes again/ With vodka in her veins/ Been playing with a spike/ She couldn't get it right”.

Its brevity was in keeping with the time-consciousness of the band: the 16 tracks clock in at a grand total of 35 minutes. That’s the equivalent of one Fela Kuti EP.

They were now truly gaining the attention of London’s movers and shakers and recorded a second session for John Peel and one for Janice Long both within a month of each other. Long, at that time, preceded Peel on weeknights on Radio One with the equivalent level of enthusiasm for new music as the veteran DJ.

All eight session tracks are featured on Reverberations with the Long session kicking off the album. These sessions would introduce songs such as ‘Imperial’, ‘Leaves’ and ‘Tomorrow Ends Today’.

A year on and the band’s debut album Sonic Flower Groove was released. Critics liked it or hated it. One reviewer described it as a real gem, another dubbed it “dandelion fluff" and made up of leftover tracks. But as this review on this site noted (here), it is an underrated classic which “I find easy to play over and over, and discover new chimes or riffs to enjoy each time.” 

Many of the session tracks appeared on Sonic Flower Groove and benefit (or fail!) from having proper production techniques. Some of the session tracks sound like they were done in a garage with equipment bought in bargain shops.

During the recording sessions for the album McGurk was sacked, St John left, and after its release Beattie quit too and formed Spirea X (the title of the other ‘Crystal Crescent’ B-side). Things were far from hunky dory in the Primals camp. But with new faces came a different attitude and sound.

The band evolved initially into a rocky, Stones type act with the eponymous second album (reviewed here) that came out in 1989, and then, of course, captured the essence of the summer of 1990 and the so-called ‘baggy’ scene and subsequent superstardom. They reinvent themselves at virtually every turn and have never been afraid to change colours when it suited. 

It is that long-term success that has largely cast a shadow over their initial work. But this formative period should never be overlooked in the development stream of Primal Scream. Thankfully, we now have a collection of beautiful and mesmerising songs that remind us of what promise and ability they possessed in those heady days of the mid-80s.