Sunday, March 26, 2017
Album Review: Various - Taranaki Music Sessions (2016)
A very regional
collection of tunes reviewed specifically for NZ Musician (website only, in
this instance). This CD release was probably not something I’d usually pay a
lot of attention to, but like most nice surprises, the devil was in the detail,
and there were a couple of gems to be found once I dug a little deeper:
Last year, when
those learned types over at Lonely Planet rated our beloved Taranaki as the
second best place in the world to visit in 2017, outgoing New Plymouth mayor
Andrew Judd likened it to a “coming of age” for the region. For those of us
rather more unfamiliar with the ‘Naki’s worldly delights, it came as something
of a shock. What next? Claims that the province was an epicentre for all manner
of homegrown musical brilliance? Well, yes actually, if the thinking behind the
Doug Thomas-curated Taranaki Music Sessions is any indication. It goes
something like this … when passionate Eltham-born and raised sexagenarian Thomas
returned to Taranaki from Auckland in 2014, he set about pulling together all
of the disparate strands of the local music scene, both past and present, to
compile a CD of music quite unlike any other. In early 2016, the fruits of
those efforts saw the light of day in the form of the 18-track Music Sessions
release, which features a wide variety of genre (rock, pop, folk, chamber, and
um, opera), and artists ranging from the still up-and-coming (Stephanie
Piquette), to the long established (Brian Hatcher, Gumboot Tango), to the niche
(Hayden Chisholm, Krissy Jackson), and all the way through to the outright
legendary – see Midge Marsden, Larry Morris, and Dame Malvina Major, who gives
us one of the more unique versions of Gershwin’s ‘Summertime’ you’re ever likely
to hear. That old standard also happens to be the only non-original tune on the
album. In short, there’s a little bit of something for everyone, with your
reviewer’s favourites being Hatcher’s fiery opener ‘Pedal To The Floor’, and
Chisholm’s jazzy sax groove, ‘Repetition’.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment