The Festive Dozen 2015: She's So Rad - Confetti

When Tango, She's So Rad's second album, finally arrived mid 2015, much of it was instantly familiar. The album felt a little bit like a compilation release, and included several tunes that benefitted from lots of prior exposure at various points across the past couple of years; not the least of which were highlights like ‘Levels’, ‘Cool It’, and this one, ‘Confetti’, which dates as far back as 2012, if not actually earlier.

In truth, ‘Confetti’ sounds as though it could have been released as long ago as 1985 … which naturally enough, meant it quickly became something of an instant classic in the excessively dry-iced chrome-tinted world of everythingsgonegreen. If there was a more retro Eighties-centric opening 30 seconds to any other tune released in 2015, then we didn’t hear it.

‘Confetti’ also appeals as the ideal final instalment of our Festive Dozen countdown for 2015, albeit arriving a few days late. There’s a few more annual bits and bobs to cover off before the blog can fully consign 2015 firmly to the dustbin of history, but in the meantime, have a happy new year. Gone fishing, back soon (ish) …

(The Festive Dozen is a fairly randomly selected year-end collection of clips featuring the tunes which featured most prominently on the (generally pop-loving) iPod playlists of everythingsgonegreen at various stages throughout 2015) ...

The Festive Dozen 2015: Of Monsters And Men - I Of The Storm

Back in 2012, Icelandic band Of Monsters And Men released a debut album called My Head Is An Animal, which went on to make the widely coveted (ahem) everythingsgonegreen “albums of the year” list. It was a great little album; bold and bouncy, and packed full of references to the fantastical and the mythical. It was a "happy place", a genuine escape into another world (maritime and nautical themes abound), and I became very familiar with it very quickly.

Fast forward to 2015, and Of Monsters And Men returned with a follow-up, a second album called Beneath The Skin, which, whilst being every bit as compelling as the debut, was a much darker, far more introspective offering. Again though, I loved it, and the band immediately re-established itself as a permanent fixture on my Pod throughout the year.

Beneath The Skin lacks the one really big single (or big hit) that My Head Is An Animal benefitted from (‘Little Talks’) in terms of wider exposure, but I think overall, over the duration, it’s a slightly superior piece of work – some of the songwriting is quite wonderful and the band sacrificed nothing by way of pop hooks in order to achieve a more contemplative, earthier hue. Not so much a happy place but still a destination well worth visiting if you don't mind the occasional lump-in-yer-throat moment.

One of the album’s highlights is ‘I of the Storm’ … check out the clip below:

(The Festive Dozen is a fairly randomly selected year-end collection of clips featuring the tunes which featured most prominently on the (generally pop-loving) iPod playlists of everythingsgonegreen at various stages throughout 2015) ...

 

The Festive Dozen 2015: Princess Chelsea - Too Many People

In an ideal world, it would be a case of ... ‘move over Lorde, Princess Chelsea is here to claim the throne as the new Global Queen of Kiwi Pop’.

But, as we know, it’s far from an ideal world, and Princess Chelsea (aka Chelsea Nikkel) remains, for the most part – in a global context, at least – a relatively unknown prospect.

Which is surely only a temporary state of affairs, with the Auckland-based artist’s 2015 album, The Great Cybernetic Depression, growing in stature with each passing week. It certainly deserves its place on the many local year-end "best of" lists it currently features on, being an almost perfect blend of irony-tinged social comment and dreamy space-pop. More of the latter than the former.

One of my own favourite *pop* tunes of 2015 was ‘Too Many People’, a great piece of iPod fodder/commuter fluff … check it out, I really like this clip, it's a bit sad and melancholic, yet at the same time our understated star looks as though she could be performing alone in her bedroom, singing in front of the mirror (hey, we’ve all done it. And what on earth is that cat doing @ 2.20?) ...

(By the way, everythingsgonegreen has no real issue with Lorde’s status as the flagbearer for Kiwi Pop ™ on the international stage. We're just prone to being a little facetious at times. Okay, a lot facetious. And anyway, we all know Kiwi Pop ™ isn’t really a proper “thing”. Beyond these shores. Yet.)

(The Festive Dozen is a fairly randomly selected year-end collection of clips featuring the tunes which featured most prominently on the (generally pop-loving) iPod playlists of everythingsgonegreen at various stages throughout 2015) ...
 

The Festive Dozen 2015: Silk 86 - Dem Curves

I picked this one up as a download from the XLR8R website a few months back, and it probably doesn’t need an explanation, or too many words to accompany it. It is best consumed via headphones and doubtlessly loses something if you attempt to take it in via tinny PC speakers or straight off your phone.

Because it’s ALL about dat bass, and dem curves … a piece of classic old style house music from London-based production duo Silk 86. Grab a free download of the latest Silk 86 EP here.

(The Festive Dozen is a fairly randomly selected year-end collection of clips featuring the tunes which featured most prominently on the (generally pop-loving) iPod playlists of everythingsgonegreen at various stages throughout 2015) ...

The Festive Dozen 2015: Mel Parsons - Get Out Alive

I listened to a lot more locally produced New Zealand music than ever before in 2015. Not only because of my commitment to writing reviews and articles for NZ Musician, which guaranteed a steady flow of fresh material (and inspiration), but also because I wanted to. Because I sought it out and looked for it at every turn.

I truly believe that 2015 was a bumper year for local stuff, one of the best ever, and when I get around to writing up the annual everythingsgonegreen “albums of the year” list, I already know that around half of those albums will have been made by NZ-based artists.

One such release was the Mel Parsons full-length offering Drylands, a gem of an album which just kept on getting better and better with each and every listen.

It is a difficult task to single out one solitary track from Drylands for the purposes of this (Festive Dozen) exercise, simply because there are so many choice cuts to pick from. But in the end I’ve opted for the Silver Scroll-nominated ‘Get Out Alive’, the third single culled from the album. The beauty of this one is that it is based on a real-life event, an actual car accident that Parsons survived, so it’s written and sung straight from the heart …

(The Festive Dozen is a fairly randomly selected year-end collection of clips featuring the tunes which featured most prominently on the (generally pop-loving) iPod playlists of everythingsgonegreen at various stages throughout 2015) ...

The Festive Dozen 2015: Tess Parks & Anton Newcombe - Wehmut

I wouldn’t have known much about Anton Newcombe or his fabulously named psych-rock band, The Brian Jonestown Massacre, if it wasn’t for Dig!, the Sundance Award-winning rock documentary of roughly a decade ago. I was a fairly big Dandy Warhols fan at the time, and Dig!, of course, um, dug deep, into the often fractious relationship between Newcombe’s band and the much more high profile Warhols. Neither band emerged from the documentary unscathed … with inter-band rivalry, petty in-fighting, jealousy, and drug abuse, being the film’s predominant themes.

The Dandy Warhols subsequently struggled to match the highs of a turn of the millennium peak (the band was at its best between 1996 and 2003), while The Brian Jonestown Massacre went on to enjoy a large cult following for many years – quite probably because of the film’s success, and the enhanced profile that came with it.

Which more or less brings us up to date, and to my point … which is to acknowledge what the now apparently clean and sober Newcombe has been doing in 2015. Namely, collaborating with Toronto-based singer-songwriter Tess Parks on an album called I Declare Nothing, which had a mid-2015 release.

I probably could have selected any number of tracks from the album for the sampler I offer here, and I really loved ‘Cocaine Cat’, but none capture the album’s stoner-psych-prog crossover excess quite like ‘Wehmut’. I’m not really sure what Parks was doing before this, but that voice has certainly been lived in, and in Anton Newcombe, she may just have found a perfect muse.

Curiously enough, I’m sensing a fairly strong Dandy Warhols influence here …

(The Festive Dozen is a fairly randomly selected year-end collection of clips featuring the tunes which featured most prominently on the (generally pop-loving) iPod playlists of everythingsgonegreen at various stages throughout 2015) ...

 

The Festive Dozen 2015: Courtney Barnett - Depreston

I have to admit, when I first heard the music of Courtney Barnett, I didn't quite get it. I couldn't quite see the attraction, or grasp what it was everyone else seemed to be raving about. And there is no question that an awful lot of people saw an awful lot of something - if indie rock had an "It Girl" in 2015, it was surely the Melbourne-based 28-year-old.

Then about halfway through the year I heard 'Depreston', a track off her debut album, Sometimes I Sit And Think, And Sometimes I Just Sit, and it all just instantly clicked ... it was the simplicity of her kitchen-sink lyrics, and the immediate accessibility of her girl-next-door DIY charm.

I was gutted that a series of unavoidable events forced me to miss her November Wellington gig (at Bodega) and - even worse - her Slow Boat Records in-store. Next time!

'Depreston' was a tune I kept returning to, and it appeals as an ideal cut to showcase what you'll find on Sometimes I Sit, an album which wound up going Top 5 in Oz, and Top 20 in the UK, the US, and New Zealand.

They say you should always write about what you know, and it's a modus operandi that serves Barnett well on this low key irony-fuelled slice-of-life journey into every day suburban living ... Preston being an actual suburb, a short drive north of Melbourne’s CBD.

(The Festive Dozen is a fairly randomly selected year-end collection of clips featuring the tunes which featured most prominently on the (generally pop-loving) iPod playlists of everythingsgonegreen at various stages throughout 2015) ...

The Festive Dozen 2015: Paul Hardcastle - '19' (30th Anniversary Remix Collection)

I do hate to go on, but one of the most timely and poignant reissues of 2015 was the 30th anniversary release of Paul Hardcastle’s ‘19’. A deluxe compilation containing 14 different mixes of ‘19’.

For me, it’s a track that never ages – despite its surface aesthetic and reliance on old technology making it an almost-certain-to-become-dated type of tune.

And of course, how could it possibly age when its anti-war message remains unheeded and just as relevant all these years on?

No, we haven’t learned the lessons of history. Yes, we still send boys to war.

Only these days the enemy we fight is harder to define, harder to locate, and hides behind the facade of religion. It sits stagnant for long periods, in our cities, and in our communities, just waiting to pounce. It is almost impossible to detect. And the truth is, it has very little to do with religion. It remains an indiscriminate killer.

Worst of all, how can you fight against an enemy who values death and martyrdom above all other things?

Well, it’s simple. You can’t fight that enemy. Certainly not in the way we’ve been fighting it so far. It’s clear we (a collective “we”, and I think I’m referring to “the west”, although I’m not entirely sure anymore) need a change of tack. The traditional “bomb the living bejaysus out of everything that moves” approach clearly hasn’t worked. And it will never work.

Just as it didn’t work in Vietnam.

(The Festive Dozen is a fairly randomly selected year-end collection of clips featuring the tunes which featured most prominently on the (generally pop-loving) iPod playlists of everythingsgonegreen at various stages throughout 2015) ...

The Festive Dozen 2015: Ryan Adams - My Wrecking Ball

I was something of a late-comer to the self-titled 2014 Ryan Adams album. So much so, it was well into 2015 before I really started to digest just how good the slow-burning album was. I listened to it fairly religiously during the build up to his Wellington show in July – along with his 2015 Live at Carnegie Hall release – so it’s fair to say it was a fixture on my Pod for much of the first half of the year.

I thought the album had a nice “retro” feel about it, and it ticked a number of genre boxes (Americana/country-rock, indie and classic rock), but it was a throwback to the old fashioned singer-songwriter era of yester-year that gave us ‘My Wrecking Ball’, one of the album’s genuine highlights.

For that special someone in your life who turns up unannounced, unexpectedly, and then proceeds to take a wrecking ball to all the walls and barriers you'd spent a lifetime building. Whether they be perceived or real. The person who calls into question everything you’ve ever believed in, or believed about yourself ...

(The Festive Dozen is a fairly randomly selected year-end collection of clips featuring the tunes which featured most prominently on the (generally pop-loving) iPod playlists of everythingsgonegreen at various stages throughout 2015) ...

 

 

 

The Festive Dozen 2015: Rodrigo y Gabriela - Torito

The 2014 album, 9 Dead Alive, was the fourth full-length outing from Mexican acoustic guitar duo Rodrigo y Gabriela. Fans and critics alike rated the album the duo’s most accessible and pop-orientated effort yet, something which was underlined by the fact that sales of the album propelled it into the Top 40 on both sides of the Atlantic.

This tune, ‘Torito’, lifted from 9 Dead Alive, is perhaps the best example of that, blending as it does the duo’s latin influences, or natural flamenco flair, with an infectious and rather compelling pop aesthetic. ‘Torito’ enjoyed high rotation on my Pod throughout the closing weeks of last year, and had become a firm favourite by the start of 2015.

(The Festive Dozen is a fairly randomly selected year-end collection of clips featuring the tunes which featured most prominently on the (generally pop-loving) iPod playlists of everythingsgonegreen at various stages throughout 2015) ...

 

 

The Festive Dozen 2015: Nicolas Haelg - Seduction Magnet

I really love it when old musical genres are given fancy new threads to wear. Especially when it results in something of a minor rebirth within that genre. In the last few years, that last bastion of the nightclub scoundrel, disco, has to one extent or another been given a new lease of life thanks to the emergence in clubs of a sub-genre called deep house.

It has a slower tempo (in terms of bpm) than house and most forms of what we might loosely call techno, but it’s bass-driven and usually relies on a funky guitar hook or riff to make those knees twitch. That’s a classic disco trick, as perfected over time by funk guitarists like Nile Rodgers, Bobby Womack, and Eddie Hazel, among many others. It’s the sound of Chic, Sister Sledge, Parliament, and more recently, Daft Punk. I think it’s something most people just feel, rather than hear, so please excuse my rather awkward attempt to describe it.

It’s also something that featured a lot in the work of a guy called Nicolas Haelg, a Switzerland-based producer who was prolific in his output and commitment to deep house throughout 2015. It seemed like every six weeks or so throughout the year, Haelg had a brand new track up on his Soundcloud page – usually free to download – either collaboratively or under his own name in a solo guise.

This is really just disco under another name, produced by a young guy whose parents would barely have been old enough to embrace the original sound the first time around. It’s the sound of New York 1975-1979, of mirror-balls, of glitter, and of sequin smoking jackets. Haelg’s brand of funk is so much of a throwback you can practically smell the amyl nitrate as it gets passed across the dancefloor ... okay, so I’m getting a little bit carried away, but you get the picture.

In short, and to get to my typically long-winded point, Nicolas Haelg might just about be the funkiest white guy on the planet right now, and one of his earliest bangers of 2015 was ‘Seduction Magnet’ … check it out:

(The Festive Dozen is a fairly randomly selected year-end collection of clips featuring the tunes which featured most prominently on the (generally pop-loving) iPod playlists of everythingsgonegreen at various stages throughout 2015) ...

 

The Festive Dozen 2015: Yoko-Zuna - This Place Here

It’s taking pleasure from the small things in life that keeps us smiling, isn’t it?

One of the biggest buzzes – from the smallest of treats – I got during the year happened every second month or so, when discovering a freshly wrapped bulging CD-sized package safely stowed away in my letter box, courtesy of NZ Musician magazine. Upon discovery, sometimes before I’d even made it all the way up the driveway, I’d excitedly open said package, completely blind to the delights (or otherwise) of the music the magazine had sent me to review. And who doesn’t like getting new music (in physical form) and a nice surprise in the post?

More often than not it was something I was vaguely familiar with, so I might have already formed some kind of opinion. But on the occasion back in September, when the debut album/CD of young Auckland jazz-hoppers Yoko-Zuna turned up there, I simply stared blankly back at it, scratching my head. That release, This Place Here, would quickly go on to become one of my most thrashed albums of the past few months … pretty much locking itself in as one of the blog’s albums of the year.

Here’s the title track for that work:

(The Festive Dozen is a fairly randomly selected year-end collection of clips featuring the tunes which featured most prominently on the (generally pop-loving) iPod playlists of everythingsgonegreen at various stages throughout 2015) ...