Bending Spoons

I always get a little nervous when I'm sent new music from bands or artists I've never heard of. Often my natural inclination toward cynicism is right on the money, and on other occasions I'm pleasantly surprised with what I find when I investigate further. Last weekend, brand new local band Cricket Farm sent me an mp3 copy of their debut track, Bending Spoons, which I was thrilled to discover, and it falls rather comfortably into the latter category. So much so, I thought it was well worth sharing here. Which I guess is the whole point of them sending it. It's a quite lovely slice of soft acoustic folk, with a sweet vocal from Hayley Robertson, and just a hint of humour right at its core. And yes, it does feature a guy playing spoons ... check it out on the band's Soundcloud page here.

Album Review: Terrorball - How I Learned to Stop Worrying (2016)

Self described as "earth's penultimate sonic ensemble of one", Gareth Pemberton is a Hamilton (NZ)-based producer who releases music under the name of Terrorball. I’ve blogged about him previously on everythingsgonegreen. I really don’t know a lot about him, but he appears to be on some sort of relentless and unrepentant mission to bring disco back out of the closet, with the vast majority of his work having a distinctly old school retro-funk flavour to it. At last count, Terrorball had nine albums available as name-your-price downloads on Bandcamp, all released post-2011, with his latest work, the cold war-themed How I Learned To Stop Worrying, officially hitting cyberspace earlier this week … although regular followers of his work (on Soundcloud) will know that Pemberton tends to (advance) drip feed tracks at a fairly prolific rate, so much of this has been available for a while. Quite possibly the best thing to come out of the ‘Tron since, since, um, that last good thing, that other time.

You can stream or download How I Learned To Stop Worrying below:

More Art-X Love

Brand new, yet more dubby melodica-drenched goodness from prolific blog favourite Art-X (of the Ondubground crew). It comes in the form of a four-track EP called Blue Lotus, made in collaboration with SoulNurse studio producer Gabriel Bouillon. Once again it is a very generous name-your-price download. Grab it, or stream it …

 

Album Review: Adi Shankara - Structures (2016)

Not to be confused with the 8th-century Indian/Hindu philosopher/theologian of the same name (whose own debut album is surely eagerly awaited), or indeed the sitar player of an unfeasibly similar name, *this* Adi Shankara is a Montpellier-based producer of super heavy electro dub sounds. His highly promising debut album, Structures, which veers between ambient bass textures and rather more upbeat driving electronica, was released fortnight ago as a free download on the Original Dub Gathering website. Best consumed in solitude, and recommended as a headphones experience - I fully immersed myself in the album during an extended beach walk last weekend. The best tracks (of eight) include 'Far From What My Eyes Can See' (featuring Kiangana), and 'Rust'. Pick up a download copy of Structures (click here) and lose yourself in it.
... or you can simply stream the entire album via this clip below:

everythingsgonegreen on Facebook

For a while now, I’ve had this small hang-up about cluttering up the newsfeeds of friends on Facebook with frivolous music and pop culture posts. Articles, photos, and music clips off You Tube and the like. I can be somewhat prolific and inconsiderate at times. I mean, some friends like that stuff, but it’s not for everyone right? Do my Mum, my kids, or any of my workmates really care what music I’m loving at any particular point of time? Do they particularly want to read the poorly written everythingsgonegreen blogposts I occasionally deem worthy of sharing on social media?  Probably not. So rather than indiscriminately bombard them with copious quantities of pop culture junk, I’ve done the humane thing, and set up an everythingsgonegreen Facebook page as a depository for all of that stuff. Click on the link below, and make sure you "like" the page so that you’ll never miss another blogpost. In fact, you’ll get way more bang for your invisible buck there than you will here. And share it with your friends. But only if you - and they - like that sort of thing, naturally.

Click here for everythingsgonegreen on Facebook

Album Review: Yoko-Zuna - Luminols EP (2016)

It’s no secret that I’m a big fan of young Auckland band Yoko-Zuna. Last year’s debut album, This Place Here, was a heady genre-defying mix of the many styles we routinely categorise as “urban”, with a heavy emphasis on sounds at the jazzier end of the spectrum. This week the band released its follow-up, an EP called Luminols, recorded at Red Bull Studios in Auckland, and released on Loop.

Once again the four-piece band nail it, as a unit, and alongside the many co-conspirators involved, which reads like a mini who’s who shortlist of the current Aotearoa hip hop scene – see the likes of Tom Scott, P Digsss, Lukan Rai$ey, Laughton Kora, LarzRanda, and Heavy. The five-track EP is another boundary-pushing, innovative, thoroughly mature piece of work.

For me, the best hip hop is that which embraces a live backdrop (see The Roots, as the most obvious benchmark) and that’s exactly what makes Yoko-Zuna special amid a sea of young up-and-coming local hopefuls. These guys use a range of instrumentation (that sax is a killer) and it’s hardly surprising they – along with regular producer Cam Duncan – manage to woo “big” names (in a local context, at least) like Scott, Kora, and Digsss, along with the relative newcomers featured here. Just as they nabbed David Dallas for the debut.

Without really wanting to single out highlights too much, it’s that more experienced trio who provide special moments here; the P Digsss (Shapeshifter) collab, ‘Lightning Sabres’ is an infectious excursion into clubland electronica, Kora’s contribution, ‘One Question’, is as soul-drenched as anything else he’s ever released, while Tom Scott (HomeBrew, @Peace, and Average Rap Band*) adds yet another masterclass in rhyme and flow on ‘Orchard St’. Complete with his trademark relevant, clever, and mildly-amusing set of lyrics.

(* I think the Average Rap Band debut album, El Sol, is one of the best local releases of 2016 so far, and I will review it for the blog at some point soon).

You can stream or pick up a copy of Luminols on Bandcamp here, and check out this clip for ‘Lightning Sabres’ below:

Classic Album Review: Easy Star All-Stars – Dub Side of The Moon (2003)

I’m usually highly sceptical about projects of this nature. Even just to take a classic album and remix or re-master it provides risk enough on its own, let alone taking one of the biggest-selling albums of all-time and reproducing it in a completely different style. And when the original recording was made by one of rock’s all-time legendary and most critically-acclaimed groups … well, you really are on a hiding to nothing.

However, as much as the dreaded (no pun) words “novelty item” are screaming out at me to be written here, I have to say that Dub Side of The Moon is seriously good stuff, and the Easy Star All-Stars deserve enormous credit for pulling this one off in the stylish manner they did.

Dub Side does exactly what it says on the box – namely, take the 1973 Pink Floyd epic Dark Side of The Moon and record it in a reggae/dub style. The Easy Star All-Stars largely remain faithful to the Pink Floyd original, making minimal alterations to the overall feel of the music, other than the obvious changes to structure. Changes that convert the prog rock of Floyd’s original into the roots reggae found on this. But even then, the spacey atmospheric nature of prog, full of echo and reverb as it is, adapts well to the reggae format, and the All-Stars strike just the right blend of styles on Dub Side. In many respects, this material only serves to confirm how remarkably similar the two genres can be.

That the album is reproduced track for track suggests the All-Stars weren’t prepared to compromise, dilute, or offer up any short cuts along the way - despite any temptation there may have been to omit a few of the more challenging tracks. On ‘Us and Them’, the All-Stars offering actually almost surpasses the quality of Pink Floyd’s version (what? Blasphemy! – Ed), and Frankie Paul’s vocal is one of the album’s most obvious highlights. ‘Brain Damage’ is another quite brilliant interpretation (see clip below), while the “Alt version” especially (one of two) of ‘Time’ adds an earthy melancholic flavour.

The Easy Star All-Stars subsequently produced a similar covers album/version of Radiohead’s late Nineties masterpiece ‘OK Computer’ - titled ‘Radiodread’ (2006) - which was equally as impressive. There’s also been ‘Dubber Side of The Moon’, where the stuff found on Dub Side gets a makeover of its own, via a selection of remixes by the good and the great of the dub world.

Dub Side of The Moon is a worthy tribute to Pink Floyd and their original album. I can scarcely believe 13 years have passed since this slice of stoner heaven was released.

 

Classic Album Review: Talking Heads - Stop Making Sense (1984)

It is David Byrne’s 64^th birthday today. While many would argue that Byrne’s best work came when collaborating with Brian Eno, or when working in a solo guise, for me, he’ll forever be Mr Talking Heads. Here’s a look back at one of that band’s finest moments ...

Stop Making Sense is the soundtrack to the film, and “live concert” footage, of the same name, and it is essentially Talking Heads captured in their most natural habitat; a humbling, unforgiving, instinctive, “live” state. It’s an environment in which they thrive, it should be said, all rhythm and boundless energy, with David Byrne as front man extraordinaire, and an exceptionally well-oiled unit providing the groove.

I’ve never really been a huge fan of the band, after suffering a serious bout of over-exposure thanks to errant FM radio play-listing executives of a particularly mid-Eighties vintage. Not through any great fault of the band itself, then, and revisiting this material some three decades later, without the overkill-factor, has been an enlightening experience.

On Stop Making Sense there’s a lot to like. From the instantly infectious punchy opener ‘Psycho Killer’ – arguably the best example of “acoustic disco” ever – to the languid lazy Stones-drenched gospel-funk of the closer ‘Take Me To The River’, this album gives us a couple of bookends to drool over. In between, we get the best of the rest, a live “greatest hits” package of sorts; the excellent ‘Swamp’, the raw and dysfunctional groove of ‘Slippery People’, the madcap bounce and stomp of ‘Burning Down The House’, and the typically Eighties, frankly very weird, yet still oddly compelling, ‘Girlfriend Is Better’. Then there is ‘Once In A Lifetime’ (“letting the days go by”) … all prototype David Byrne freak-out … pure Heads; a five and a half minute mix of social commentary, prophetic insight, and unabashed sarcasm.

Only Talking Heads sound like this, and Stop Making Sense is a great snapshot of everything the band was about, everything it was best at, all somehow crammed into just 46 and a half minutes here.

Oh, and damn those bloody Eighties radio jocks … it seems they may well have had some taste after all.

Album Review: The Leers - Are You Curious? (2016)

After a couple of EPs and a number of singles since relocating to Auckland from Mount Maunganui five years back, talented four-piece The Leers have come up with something rather special with Are You Curious?, the band’s full-length debut. From the first few bars of the psych-rock opener 'Does This Speak To You?', it’s immediately apparent that these guys mean business; it’s not really a question, it’s more a statement of intent – this is going to be big, bold, and ballsy. Exactly the sort of thing a band needs in order to make the often difficult transition from low key student radio exposure to wider-reaching crossover success. It may have taken a few years to get here, but The Leers’ debut arrives fully formed and full of swagger. A lot of that is surely down to the sumptuous production of Sven Petterson (The Checks) and the work of engineer Ben Lawson, out of the Red Bull Studios, but it’s also down to the simple fact that these are quality tunes. There’s ten of them, plus a mid-album interlude ('Escapades') and a brief finale ('Outro'), each one offering up something slightly different, with the unrepentant pop hooks found on the likes of 'Fool' and 'Easy Love' leaving the biggest impression. Vocalist Matt Bidois carries these songs well. His voice booms at times, yet he’s just as capable of subtle shifts to reveal a more fragile hue when required. The rhythm duo are tight, the guitar playing of James Kippenberger is uncompromising and frequently a stand-out, but perhaps best thing about this album is that it’s completely devoid of any filler whatsoever. On this form, The Leers could turn out to be quite big. Stadium-sized, even.

This review originally appeared in the April/May 2016 edition of NZ Musician magazine: http://www.nzmusician.com/2016/05/11/the-leers-curious/

Album Review: Massive Attack - Ritual Spirit EP (2016)

There’s been five full-length studio albums, five remix albums, while 2016’s Ritual Spirit is, rather symmetrically, EP number five for Massive Attack.

The group has long been considered the leading purveyor of that bastardised genre frequently referred to as “trip hop”. You could say the original Wild Bunch/Massive crew defined the sub-genre with the critically-acclaimed Blue Lines album back in 1991. According to the evidence offered on Ritual Spirit, it’s a path Massive Attack continues to traverse today, and its heady concoction of hip hop, electronica, and funk remains as innovative as ever.

Neneh Cherry, Shara Nelson, Tracey Thorn, and Horace Andy are just a few of the more high profile names to have worked with the group over the past quarter of a century, and that longstanding commitment to musical collaboration continues on Ritual Spirit.

While the core input comes from Wild Bunch originals Robert Del Naja (“3D”) and Grant Marshall (“Daddy G”), there’s a real sense of déjà vu when Tricky (aka Adrian Thaws) returns for the first time in yonks on EP closer ‘Take It There’.

Similarly, Ninja Tune veteran Roots Manuva, arguably the UK’s most consistent or reliable go-to rapper across two full decades, appears on opener ‘Dead Editors’, while relative newcomers Azekel (on the title track) and Young Fathers (on ‘Voodoo In My Blood’) round out the guest co-conspirators this time out.

The latter being a rather unique and rarely spotted thing – a Mercury Prize-winning hip hop trio from Edinburgh.

Thematically and musically, Ritual Spirit is no great departure from what we’ve come to expect – an electro/hip hop vibe which fair drips with paranoia and angst. It’s dark and dense. Creepy and bit chilling. Close and claustrophobic. Yet not to the point of becoming unlistenable or at the expense of any of its natural groove.

It’s a trippy contrast in forms and shapes, and one that might have been better reconciled with a softer vocal presence on occasion. A Shara Nelson or a Horace Andy, say. Just to remove its harshest edge. Or something else to give it the lightness of touch it perhaps otherwise lacks.

Or maybe not. That’s picky. And a bit too nostalgic. The bar’s always been set fairly high for Massive Attack, and the truth is that while Ritual Spirit might not be perfect, by 2016 standards, it stacks up pretty well.

Here’s the title track, featuring Azekel: