Reviews
The Golden Awesome - Autumn
It seems like forever since I've been waiting to get my grubby lil mits and ears on to this record - seemingly ever since I even heard it was going to exist, I've longed to have and to hold it... More
Dictaphone Blues - Beneath The Crystal Palace
Like Marty McFly at the high school dance in Back to the Future, Ed Castelow of Dictaphone Blues has beamed himself back to crucial touchstones in pop-rock (classic Fifties chords, Beatles era choruses, Seventies power pop, American stadium rock from... More
Skank Attack - Here On Out
This music - originally produced by Nick Roughan who has done the mixing on these recently rediscovered masters - is all forward energy, booming basslines, desperate vocals and widescreen melodies propelled by terrific guitar work... More
The Verlaines - Ultimate Meditations
Of the original Flying Nun bands, The Verlaines - the flexible vehicle for Graeme Downes - are still the most ambitious... More
Fly My Pretties - Fly My Pretties IV
Less a band in the traditional sense and more an umbrella organisation which allows for members of the collective to shine, Fly My Pretties have also taken their own route into the hearts of New Zealand audiences... More
Whirimako Black & Richard Nunns - Te More
This gentle, hypnotic and spiritual album seems a natural consequence of all that has gone before from these two artists: Whirimako Black's moving songs in te reo (especially her exceptional Kura Huna with Russel Walder) and Richard Nunns' longtime exploration... More
The Eastern - Hope And Wire
The self-titled '09 debut and Arrows ('10) by this Christchurch band alerted many to their poetic, political and bare-knuckle country-influenced songs which sit alongside Springsteen's working class balladry, the rambunctious Pogues, whisky-voiced Steve Earle, pub rocking Dr Feelgood and Cold... More
Moana & The Tribe - The Best Of Moana & The Tribe
For many years I had thought the best and most powerful music of Moana & The Tribe - stretched over four albums - was deserving of a compilation which would remind people what a singular contribution she has made to New... More
Bannerman - Dearly Departed
Recorded in the same furious sessions as Bannerman's previous release The Dusty Dream Hole, this companion volume as it were confirms the power and darkness of singer-songwriter Richard Setford who is also a member of Batucada Sound Machine... More
Vorn - Down For It
In an alternative universe Frank Zappa would be the head of the music school, radio would refuse to play anything by someone who did a photoshoot before writing a song, and Vorn's bent pop would be as big and as... More
Batucada Sound Machine - Don't Keep Silent
Driven by assertive (and in places aggressive) drumming, boiling bass and propelled by a fist-tight horn section, Batucada Sound Machine here take a major step up from their Rhythm & Rhyme album of three years ago for this sonic implosion where... More
The Chaps - Don't Worry 'Bout Your Age
Selected as one of the three finalists in the folk category at the 2012 New Zealand Music Awards, this album finds Dunedin four-piece The Chaps - average somewhere early 60s at a guess - doing exactly what they do best:... More
Various - Tally Ho! - Flying Nun's Greatest Bits
Although Flying Nun has been down the compilation path in the past, on the occasion of its 30th anniversary and with a new roster of younger acts, this double disc overview (titled Tally Ho! - Flying Nun's Greatest Bits) is... More
Tom Dennison - Zoo
The debut under bassist Tom Dennison's name is made up of seven post-bop tracks which are classy, refined, fluid, democratically distributed among the soloists and at times usefully challenging... More
The Checks - Deadly Summer Sway
The Checks could easily have sat on their Sixties rhythm and blues-based style (think young Stones, Yardbirds, Who etc) and won themselves a wide audience, but they were always destined for something bigger than the familiar... More
Flip Grater - The Cookbook Tour Europe
I'm not a 'foodie'. I own one cookbook with the rather patronizing title Anyone Can Cook, so my interest in this book lay firmly in its musical chapters. But the thing is, within these travel stories, tales of music and... More
Lennart Maschmeyer - 10.98 Seconds Of Wellington Artists
Following the efforts of German-born photographer Lennart Maschmeyer over the last couple of years to capture a portrait of Wellington's vibrant and varied art scene, the fruits of his labour of love are now featured for posterity in a coffee... More
Jeremy Mason - You Will Never Know Everything
You Will Never Know Everything is Jeremy Mason's second EP since he left local punk band Kill The Fake Patient, in which he played bass. He wrote this in Glasglow during the winter that fed from 2010 into 2011. It... More
Jonathan Besser - Campusari
Since coming to New Zealand more than 30 years ago, the pianist-composer Jonathan Besser has enjoyed a highly successful and diverse career, first with violinist Chris Prosser in the Besser and Prosser duo, with electronic artist Ross Harris in Free... More
Jess Chambers - Desire
Right at the end of this hushed album, Wellington singer-songwriter Jess Chambers adapts the old gospel-country hand-clap chant This Little Light Of Mine into something very diferent. She takes it right down to an intimate whisper over piano (Peter Hill)... More
Mel Parsons - Red Grey Blue
Red Grey Blue from Mel Parsons is a big step up in writing, delivery and production. It bounces from deftly augmented, optimistic pop (I Won't Let You Down, the refrain of "you gotta hold on" in Things Will Get Good)... More
Wet Wings - Glory Glory
Wet Wings is a Wellington-based alt-indie duo comprised of Darian Woods (formerly of Black Market Art) and Lucy Botting. It's surprising they have remained largely unheard of until the release of Glory Glory - their debut album - considering the... More
Pajama Club - Pajama Club
From the deliberate domesticity of the band name/album title, this album which began as a knockabout home sessions between Neil Finn and his wife Sharon comes with some coy downplaying... More
Tim Finn - The View Is Worth The Climb
Some argue that the best songs emerge from anxiety, emotional dislocation and melancholy - but more mature songwriters know that not to be true. As Lucinda Williams noted, it is possible for an artist to conjure up states of mind... More
Various - Rucks, Tries & Choruses
Could any other country on the planet compile a disc of rugby songs? Maybe Wales? South Africa? But how many could get two discs worth of songs (comedy, serious, some sung by former players) which are this much nostalgic fun?... More
