Our Lord the Internet’s current genre du jour, ‘witch house’, finally gets its blast into the ‘Best New Music’ section of your torrents list with the debut full-length from the genre’s progenitors, Salem. Omitting the obvious fact that this genre really is just ‘80s industrial / goth jacked up with hip hop beats and bass to the extreme, there are actually quite a few good points across the album. Opener ‘King Night’ samples a choir performing ‘O Holy Night’ across its tinny MPC beat, while the bass synths blow everything out of control. It’s a legitimate slowbanger, if only for the floor-shuddering intensity of its bass drops.

This propensity to annihilation by bass proves to be Salem’s most potent weapon across the album. Their beats stutter and shake, but regularly (and always satisfactorily) allow for booming drops. Just see the updated versions of older tracks ‘Frost’ and ‘Redlights’. These two also bring Heather Marlatt’s vocals to the fore, which is definitely one of the wiser decisions they made. When Jack Donoghue takes over the vocal duties, the results are just embarrassing. Downshifting his vocals to the point where it’s hard to take it as anything but a joke (or a sitcom ransom call), ‘Trapdoor’ and ‘Sick’ flirt with pop melody while leaning back on hip hop a little too far, which really serves only to highlight the lack of tricks up their sleeve. Their strengths are laid bare in the first two tracks (arena-level bass and downbeat synth sludge), and any variation on this across the album jumps straight onto the fail train.

Witch house itself, really, is pretty much a joke of a genre. A new label for old tricks pioneered over 20 years ago. Whether Salem are in on this joke or not is debatable (although their pathetic showing at the Fader Fort this year points to ‘no, they’re not’). Some points on this album feel deliberately awful, others just plain painful, yet many tracks prove themselves to be dense, well-constructed slices of crushing dance music. It’s a frustrating listen, to say the least. I think this can readily be viewed as Sleigh Bells’ ugly twin. Both are amping louder than loud dance music and hip-hop’s skittery beats, just to completely different ends. Sleigh Bells go for dancefloor epilepsy, Salem take the murky, druggy road. Whichever you prefer, you may as well lap it up while it’s hot—I can’t see Salem’s stock having much longevity.

HEIL SATAN

2.5/5

Active Since: 2006
Salient Picks: Glass Vaults, Seth Frightening, I.ryoko, Arkitype
Site: www.sonorouscircle.com

From smaller beginnings in 2006, Thomas Lambert and close friend Matt Faisandier began the label as a logical step from their furious creative output. “[We] were in three or four bands or projects each at the time (In the Interest of the Convoy, Akaname, Ornithologist, 100 Suns, A Flight to Blackout, The Enright House and i.ryoko), and it was obvious that we would be making music for the rest of our lives, so it just made sense to start a label,” Lambert says. The label has been an evolving process, one which now consists of core members Lambert, Faisander and Sean Kelly (of Seth Frightening)—“close friends who I know will be obsessed with music and general good times until we die.”

Which seems like a pretty bold statement, considering the relatively young age of those involved—all under 23. But their commitment to producing and releasing quality music is pretty concrete, once you look at their list of releases; old This City Sunrise material still rules, the Glass Vaults EP was received extremely well, and Seth Frightening’s The Prince and His Madness has been cited again and again as a landmark New Zealand album. (Let’s not forget that this is the same Seth Frightening who recently was chosen to tour Australia with Jonsi of Sigur Ros). In addition to that, the current projects on Sonorous Circle look to also be stone cold classics—Paperghost’s latest album (which you can find reviewed among these pages) is of the highest calibre, as is the recent release from Christchurch’s Arkitype. Collaborations that have worked exceedingly well, and exceedingly simply. Lambert explains: “Arkitype is Alex Wootton, a friend I lived with in Christchurch. He would spend the majority of his time making music on his computer in the shed we had out back that he had turned into his musical lair. I’d just have to ask him if I can hear what he’s been up to and he would give me some tracks. The Meats the Beatles album he did (a “sacriligeous, but highly tasteful” mashup affair) was a favourite listen last summer and it seemed a crying shame for people not to hear it. So I just asked if he wanted me to put it through the website. That’s about the extent of it.” And on Paperghost and other Sonorous Circle artist Minelli, he continues: “These are just people we have known for a while. I consider myself very lucky to be consistently in the vicinity of such talented people.”

Again and again, this sense of community has yielded some of the best music across New Zealand in the last few years, across many labels, across most genres. One specific facet of Sonorous Circle that perhaps sets them apart is their attention to detail in the music-making process—their output may not be gargantuan, but they are exemplary of the “quality, not quantity” ethos, something that Lambert simply puts down to the group of people that work together being, well, geeks. “I can say that for me personally and for the people associated with Sonorous Circle, our lives pretty much totally revolve around music,” he says. “Perhaps that could be the difference. I can’t speak for any other scenes, but for us geeks there is a lot of thought, care, experimentation and time that gets put into the music, which must come through when listening. Perhaps it just depends on how much one values the craft.”

And apparently, there is also some ‘hydroponic aid’ involved in judging whether or not a Sonorous Circle product is ready to be unleashed upon the masses: “There is also what we call the ‘stoned-test’, whereby one sits in a dim room with an ideal-as-possible listening environment (perhaps in the centre of some nice speakers and a cloud of smoke) and engages with some music in a concerted act of focussed submission. If executed correctly this process allows the true value of the music to be revealed in all its detailed splendour.”

Lambert also represented Sonorous Circle in the recent ‘For The Record’ discussion at the Adam Art Gallery, pondering the future of music distribution, in which panelists from Papaiti to Flying Nun intimated the importance of working for the music, not the money—Lambert included. “There is a massive group of us who just don’t care about money or the system that places so much importance on it and as someone pointed out, there is a generation of music enthusiasts who have come to expect everything for free. Due to the fact that I am a poor student, I am by default one of those people,” he admits. “I don’t think anyone should be denied an experience because they can’t afford to pay for it. And it is a horrible truth that that is how the world (for the most part) currently works. So it will be interesting to see what the future has in store—when our idealism wears off and we start voting National (not going to happen).”

The near future holds more of the same for Sonorous Circle. In addition to the aforementioned releases, there is a physical release planned for Glass Vaults (“hopefully on coloured vinyl!”), and more to come. As always, as with everyone, money is their primary constraint—“We don’t always have access to decent amounts of money. We just have to make do. But all releases deserve the best presentation they can possibly get.” Their level of commitment to their output is apparent. As is the quality of said output —just sample any one of their releases from this year. They may have only really come to prominence in 2010, but if Sonorous Circle actually do continue like this until they die, then Wellington need not fear for a lack of quality bands in the near future. Like, at all.

Sets is Brandon Sayring. Brandon Sayring is Sets. He is one of the most innovative musicians operating in the country at the moment, easily. Many of you may have seen the Whanganui resident’s performances during Orientation, or opening for heavyweights like Die! Die! Die! earlier in the year. Working with a wide array of equipment, much of it straying from standard instrumentation, there is a focus on making something more than a song: space, texture, general sonics play as important a part for him as song structure does for other performers.

One distinctive feature of Sets in 2010 is his goal to play a different setlist for each show he plays over the year—all completely new material. It’s a daunting task, especially considering there have been points where he has had to play three shows in a week. But it is a task from which he won’t back down.

“While I do enjoy playing the same set over and over and acknowledging the subtle differences with each repetition, my approach has been nothing but [repetition] until I came to terms with it very early in the year,” he says.

“I noticed it is a new decade and came to the understanding that I need to re-evaluate my ideas and motives in contrast with what I had been doing so far. It was a totally selfish decision, but I feel selfishness is totally applicable to self-directed activities. Though in saying that, a lot of my material recently has been designed so that the audience can potentially become more involved with it.

“I have attempted to do so through consciously subtracting some elements of the composition and equipment so that instead of giving people what they want, they have to fill in the blanks. If people see it as annoying talentless rubbish, this view is also valid and I think it kinda works in my favour since it redirects people who I wouldn’t want to really share my ideas with anyway.”

This subtraction of elements from the live show is what has brought Sayring to his current performance setup: employing what you could call irregular household electronics (telephones, speakers) to serve his wishes. Sayring, however, sees it slightly differently.

“I have not tried to forcefully impose what could be considered as unconventional components. I have always used Sets as a way to output my thoughts and ideas. Sometimes I don’t think about developing a set based on a list of songs but more on composing a component or an instrument and having the duration revolve around it. I will sometimes use the specific function that it produces to enhance an idea or an environment which I feel may need it. It has all been a seemingly natural progression articulated by my general interests.”

This journey has been one that has been described as both compelling and frustrating by reviewers of his 2010 shows, but it must be argued that every show he does is an engaging, unique piece of work—one-offs—as nothing will be recorded or redone.

“I have no real desire at this stage to document what I have been doing at shows this year. I have loved having every composition live only for its duration and really enjoy the fact that those who are unable to come to a show never get to experience what happened. They can only imagine.”

Another of his projects is a Boadrum-esque setup, wherein “as many drummers as I can get to all play a kit each and play the same thing. The focus isn’t so much on making songs but more on physical power and how different spaces (and I guess audiences) react to that amount of sonic force.”

However, performance projects aren’t the entirety of Sayring’s output. For the uninitiated, the Whanganui music scene lost one of its most vital components this year in Al Cameron, who ran venue space Eye of Night and, in Sayring’s words, “influenced and sculpted this town in ways no one else could have.”

In his absence, Sayring has begun work on another project. “I admired Al’s philosophies a lot, and so with the help of the community I will be generating an outlet for the creativity of this town to continue. In a way this venue will be a homage to Al’s impact here and because of this, I have decided to name this project The Arc Theatre—‘Arc’ being his initials.”
And for the foreseeable future, it is this project that seems to be his priority.

“As I suggested, I am influenced by whatever my current situation is, so it will all depend on where I end up. At the moment I am pretty passionate about The Arc Theatre and am spending a lot of time on that.

“The only parameter I really want to put on myself is to not be a dick.”

Sharpie Crows
Golf Course / Mass Grave EP
(Mole Music)

Sharpie Crows’ last release, Greed, cemented itself as one of the best New Zealand releases of last year exceedingly quickly; its hyperpolitical noise balladry ringing true with many of those dissatisfied with either one Mr. Key, the lack of visceral, angry music in Wellington, or both. Then, of course, they upped and left to Melbourne, leaving us pretty much high and dry—a pretty good move really, since their brand of rhythmic, grooving, sparse noise-rock is much more in tune with the likes of Bad Seeds children like HTRK than the poppier focus of Flying Nun offshoots in New Zealand.

And now we have Mass Grave, the new EP. Once again produced by band member Jackson Hobbs, the quality of the work here is immediately apparent. Sharpie Crows have a bizarre knack for self-recording to a level well above anyone else operating on the same budget. It’s not gloss, not by any stretch, but it is b.r.u.t.a.l.

The music itself switches down a gear from the unrestrained fury of Greed; opener ‘Communist Girls’ rides by on a two simple haunted house keyboard chords, the same tone carrying over into the ‘Fifteen Golden balls’ duo. It’s important to note, I think, that this EP probably has the best flow of any piece of work I’ve listened to this year—keyboards from ‘Communist Girls’ overlap into ‘Fiftteen Golden Balls’, which in turn segues neatly into the final two tracks on the EP—a credit to both their songwriting and their production skills.

The two parts of ‘Fifteen Golden Balls’ are two affecting sides to the same coin: Part 1 reprises the trailer trash guitar shreds of ‘Landlords’ from Greed, driving a 4/4 nail home. Part 2, however, sprawls much more; at almost half the speed of its first part, Sam Bradford’s vocal multitracking haunts much more than their terror-noise assaults of past, and the horn-filled exiting coda, equal parts melodic and apocalyptic, is a surprising but excellent turn for the band. Leading out the EP are ‘Country Music’ and ‘Hunterville Tire Spikes’, both employing the best of their effects—the former’s stuttering machine-gun pedal bursts jar the listener out of the childish keyboard melody, ‘Hunterville Tire Spikes’’ slow, echoing build is easily the EP’s highlight, however. Bradford’s yelling punctuates the tale of Hunterville’s redneck Tartarus over some deathly, pallid pacing: it’s a world of pain laid out in 5 minutes of unrequited angst and squalor.

Following on from this, is Golf Course. Effectively a b-sides EP, it comes free with Mass Grave, and showcases a weird, fun side of Sharpie Crows. There are live smash hits, like ‘Bank’ and the formidable ‘Sheepskin’, alongside a couple of other, rougher, less subtle tracks than those on the main EP. The real surprise here is ‘Heybro vs Keybro’, a nearly six-minute banger redux of Greed epic ‘Hebrew vs Key’. It gets grating in parts, with a solid section of the middle taken up with an annoying refrain of ‘Racheeeeel, Racheeeel’, but still, it’s a Sharpie Crows banger.

All in all, this EP marks a turning point for Sharpie Crows, it seems: Josh Jenkins is no longer a part of the band, and their future is up in the air. However, even if there is no more Sharpie Crows material in the near future, this is all you need to tide you over, it’s hateful, for sure, but compellingly so. To quote their press release: “You know when you hear it, and you don’t hear it often, because most bands can’t do it. It’s staring into the void, and then pissing into the void.” That’s pretty much them.

Buy it.

Mass Grave: 4/5

Golf Course: 3/5

Arcade Fire—The Suburbs
Merge Records

Win Butler has always had a fervent preoccupation with ‘the kids’, be it the youthful escapism of debut Funeral, or anger and concern for the kids with no future on Neon Bible. Here, on their third full-length, it seems to be maturing—they’re no longer running with ‘the kids’, but they’re contemplating settling down and having their own. It’s a more tempered record than what has come before—their propensity towards arena anthems is dampened considerably, replaced with a focus on rhythm across many tracks.

‘The Suburbs’ opens the album, bouncing along as Butler sings “Grab your mother’s keys, we’re leaving”—still preoccupied with the kids, but not as joyously as before. ‘Ready To Start’ and ‘Empty Room’ couple their string section with an upped pace, to great effect. Butler’s vocal apex on the former, particularly, is a highlight. Unfortunately, the highlights are somewhat disparate across The Suburbs. At sixteen tracks, the album is overlong. By quite some distance. ‘Wasted Hours’, ‘Deep Blue’ and ‘We Used To Wait’ have no place here—their pacing is too similar, their melodies too ineffectual to warrant making the final cut on this album. ‘Month of May’ attempts what I guess you could label Arcade Fire’s version of ‘punk’, but Butler lacks the bite to pull off the viciousness that the song strives for, calling out all the “kids standing with their arms folded tight”. That’s not to fault the band though, they pull off a driving, heavy(ish) rhythm that I wouldn’t have expected of them. All in all, however, the album drags far too often, and when it drags, it draaaags. However, all is not lost, as the band redeem themselves wonderfully on the final two tracks. ‘Sprawl II (Mountains Beyond Mountains)’ totally sparkles, with echoes of both Funeral’s ‘Haiti’ and Blondie’s ‘Heart of Glass’ in a vibrant, upbeat number. Regine Chassagne takes centre stage and makes the most of it, completely eclipsing any vocal turn by Butler on the album. Then the album is bookended by a downbeat closing to the track ‘The Suburbs’, melancholic and pretty depressing, really. But these last two tracks easily make the biggest impression on the listener, and ‘Sprawl II’ is totally one of their career highlights. I just wish there wasn’t so much fucking filler to work through to get to it.

3/5

In a year littered with releases from great New Zealand bands, it kinda looks like Auckland three-piece Street Chant topped them all. Their debut album Means has been quite some time coming (via Arch Hill), but turns out it’s worth the wait. Despite some of these songs being initially written almost four years ago, little, if anything about this album feels dated. On that note, nor does it feel particularly ‘trendy’, or adhering to a certain sound / aesthetic of the now. Means is, simply put, a collection of fucking good songs.

Opener ‘The Fatigues’ comes forth from some electronic squeal (possibly the only non bass / drums / guitar / vox input on the album) and storms the gates, its fast / medium pacing turns, keeping the listener engaged all the way. By the time it hits the chorus, you realise just what a fucking incredible opener this is. All the ‘hits’ that Street Chant fans will know are here—‘Scream Walk’, ‘You Do The Maths’, ‘Yr Philosophy’ and ‘Less Chat, More Sewing’ sound superb. Bob Frisbee’s production isn’t overbearing by any means (lol), balancing everything—the bass is fuzzed out slightly but super forceful, Emily Littler, whose vocals have never really been a ‘wow’ point of the band previously, establishes herself exemplarily as a quality vocalist, and, of course, Alex Brown’s drumming becomes a focal point wherever he is given room to move (see the end of ‘Less Chat, More Sewing’—or anywhere on the album, really).

Means exhibits excellent variation in pacing too. Slowburner ‘Stoned Again’ chronicles weed escapism and boredom in a fantastic buildup of a song, while ‘Yara Aba’ brings out one of the catchier riffs on the record. Littler’s vocals don’t quite match the frantic breaks, but as a colleague pointed out, that’s more of a production issue than anything else. Album closer ‘The Password is Password’ comes as a particular surprise. Quiet, with minimal drums and hushed vocals, it rounds out the album calmly and effectively. Even if it does sound like a track which might have benefitted more from being a full-blown grunge monster, the decision to pare it back was inspired and successful.

In any case, I’m pretty sure I’ve gone on enough about this record. There’s a sort of timeless quality here, these are songs that merit returning to again and again. For those who know the material, it’s a near-perfect summation of their career to date. For those who don’t, it’s a stellar set of heavy guitar-pop songs. Either way, this album is an essential purchase.

3/5

Age: 4 (ish)
Salient Picks: Sharpie Crows, DHDFDs, Rifles, Nevernudes, Deer Park… fuck, all of them
Website: molemusiconline.net

After a brief hiatus, the series of pieces on New Zealand record labels has returned. This week I talked to Sam Walsh, of Auckland-based Mole Music, who are responsible for bands such as Nevernudes, ex-Wellingtonians Sharpie Crows, Deer Park, and Wellington residents The Body Lyre.

It all began about four years ago, with Walsh working with bands such as The Vacants, and moving from there: “There have been some pretty big gaps in regards to the label’s output, as it’s always been run on a part-time basis, which is why our releases are a bit muddily. I was overseas for a while but moved back to New Zealand earlier in the year to study, so Deer Park, Rifles, Nevernudes, Sharpie Crows, Mild America and Body Lyre are all fairly new projects.”

Mole’s approach to the label-artist relationship shares a similar ethos to those that we have covered before: they don’t have binding agreements (Walsh quips “I’m not sure what I would actually offer them if I did.”), rather it is a mutually beneficial partnership between the two parties: “In the past, we would create weird mini-partnerships with bands, and depending on what the project is, provide organisational and financial support. This year I’m trying to do it a little bit differently though, and have been working much more collaboratively with bands to create something more like a family or small gang, which has been way cooler, and I think (hope) the bands feel like they are part of something communal rather than a strict, creatively subdued business arrangement.”

While the relationship between Mole and their bands echoes that of previously mentioned labels, the point of difference with Mole would have to be production quality. Across the board, their roster appears to have a definite onus on quality of recordings, something which Walsh admits is a factor in who they collaborate with, even if not the defining quality: “In regards to production, we are pretty strict about quality (within a releases context), but the production varies from band to band with each release. We do have a studio we have started working with, and a few of our upcoming projects were recorded there, but by no means will every future Mole release be taken there. Believing what you hear when you watch a performance or hear a song is super important to us and would definitely be the main factor in choosing bands. Also what type of people are in the bands—their work ethic, personality, ideas and stuff can sometimes be just as important as the music they are making, so that also helps shape our overall aesthetic.”

Thus, with this framework in mind, Mole has set about working with the aforementioned bands, promoting, funding, recording and assisting their groups where possible. It will always be difficult to get your bands’ material out into a wider audience, but that’s not Walsh’s short-term target: he understands the limitations of what Mole is doing, and embraces it, pushing his bands towards audiences that he knows will enjoy the output, rather than incessant promotion of bands everywhere he can: “Promoting our stuff is definitely something we have have started getting better at, but also an area we still need to improve on. There are so many avenues available with Facebook and Bandcamp and MySpace and Twitter and blah blah blah, which are amazing resources, but it can sometimes get really overwhelming. With Mole we have platforms for letting people know about what we are doing and we have relationships with media and radio etc, which is helpful for our bands and something I really want to continue to develop this year; we are also trying to figure out who actually listens to what we put out, and focus our promotional efforts on them. We are just a tiny label so angling what resources we do have towards the smaller but evangelic group of supporters makes more sense for us than a watered-down attempt at preaching to a larger group of the uninterested.”

It’s a method that has resulted in good exposure for Mole music over recent months, particularly with the release of their band sampler, The Burrow, Pt 1. Walsh not only works with his bands, but also together with other labels and people around Auckland and Australia. “Everyone seems to want to work together rather than compete with one another, which is pretty special… There has been an increase in the number of worthwhile bands coming out in New Zealand over the last year or so and lots of younger kids are starting to get involved in making and presenting music, which is super rad.”

Effectively, everyone seems to be working towards a situation where everyone can help one another out, between bands, and between labels. It’s this appreciation of mutual benefit that has helped so many bands across the country (mostly in Auckland though) get started, and get the recognition that they deserve. Mole Music has planned six releases, in addition to tours and shows on the back of these, just in the next few months. It’s the busiest they’ve ever been, and is probably a reflection of the burgeoning quality in the work that they are releasing. Walsh is contemplating a move to China next year, so will either “take Mole with me, or put it to bed. I’m not quite sure yet”. Either way, Walsh and Mole are yet another label reinforcing the quality of current music around New Zealand, and leading from the front too: they’re not just another independent New Zealand label, they’re one with the best roster of current bands around. Look it up.

(Or, In Which I Try Not To Say “Summer Vibes”)

Bethany Cosentino, newfound beach babe, used to be in a band called Pocahaunted. Delving into quarter-hour hypnotic drone jams, she has since moved to greener pastures, in the form of Best Coast. In collaboration with Bobb Bruno, she has been spewing out hazy summer tracks for the best part of the last two years. Now, on the eve of the release of her debut LP Crazy For You, we have a few mumblings from her (and us) about the Best Coast project, and probably a little too much talking about California.

Cosentino loves the beach. The sandy disposition is immediately evident in any of her tracks, from the early blog-hit ‘Sun Was High (So Was I)’ to her album cut ‘Summer Mood’. The sentiments are all Californian palm trees and beach blankets, seeing as she now lives Westside following a stint in New York. But where other summery bands like Ducktails manage to emanate these sunstoned sounds from the faraway reaches of New Jersey, Bethany found creating the music away from the source couldn’t work for her: “When I was living in New York, I really wanted to be playing and writing music—but I just didn’t feel any form of inspiration in terms of music. I went to college out there, for creative writing, and essentially EVERYTHING I wrote was about California—so I guess that is what I was doing there—and this is what I’m doing here. I really truly do feel that I couldn’t be doing this any place other than California, it just doesn’t feel like it would fit… at least not for me.”

Jumping from ten-plus minute drone ecstasy in Pocahaunted into 2–3 minute pop songs may come off like an active movement against her old band, or drone music in general, but apparently not. In fact, according to Bethany, Pocahaunted may not even be entirely defunct: “To be honest I’m not 100 per cent sure what is currently up with Pocahaunted. I didn’t start Best Coast to intentionally go against what I was playing in Pocahaunted. Pocahaunted was then. Best Coast is now. I am really happy playing the music I am playing, and I was really happy playing that music at that time. Honestly, it’s a lot easier to play two-minute pop songs than it was to sit on the floor and play 13-minute-long drone jams—but I had fun doing that, and I’m really happy to be doing this now.”

It’s this enjoyment of her current work which seems to have Cosentino on a roll, releasing Where The Boys Are on cassette approximately a year ago, and having it sell out almost immediately. There were a bunch of CD-Rs floating about, but they’ve been snapped up too. The last year has seen a plethora of 7” and 12” releases across labels such as Art Fag, Tightener, PPM (Dean Spunt of No Age’s label), all leading up to the July 27th release of Crazy For You on Mexican Summer. It’s all fairly straightforward, minor chord changes and longing for boys, the beach, or her cat Snacks, who features on the album cover. It’s a simple sound, but one that seems to have found Cosentino and current collaborator Bobb Bruno plenty of fans in the last year or so, fitting in snugly with those who enjoy lo-fi pop, but don’t want to deal with the tinnitus-inducing Wavves.

And now to the aforementioned Bobb Bruno. The partner in shine for the Best Coast tracks, Bruno is a “magically rad-sounding” collaborator, who helps record, produce and perform in Best Coast. If you watch her video for ‘When I’m With You’, you can see him loitering in the background, while Cosentino relaxes on the beach and orders burgers with a copyright-inducing depiction of Ronald McDonald. According to Cosentino, “(He) will say stuff to me like, ‘Okay, let’s do two layers of that vocal track,’ and as soon as I hear it back I’m like ‘FUCK YES!’ (We) just work together so perfectly that I don’t want to really ever add anyone else into the equation! Just two Bs hanging out, and we plan to keep this going for a while, taking it as it comes.”

So good news all round for those who dig the Malibu aesthetic and good feelings that seem inherently associated with California. And what of those who don’t dig her sound so much? It’s fair to say there’s been more than a little hate for the seemingly scrappy lo-fi output over the last two years, and the lack of production quality for much of her material, and in fact the general Best Coast aesthetic of weed / pizza / chords has been more than enough bait for potential detractors of her output.

“I mean, I’m sure there are already haters out there. It’s sooooo crazy to me how people on the internet act. I mean in all honesty, I haven’t had any direct negative feedback—which is nice, but I’m definitely prepared to deal with the haters when they start showing up, haha. I just think that people who sit around on the internet and blog about how much they hate so and so when they don’t even know them, is really childish and kind of pathetic. But there will always be haters no matter what.”

Until the inevitable hate waves hit Best Coast, it seems to be pretty smooth sailing. With internet kudos riding in from many corners of the globe and her Crazy For You set to be released in a mere fortnight, it seems she can look forward to a pretty stellar 2010. CFY itself is a continuation of what’s come before, albeit with much better production, allowing for vocal audibility, and therefore a chance to showcase her songwriting, without it being buried under fuzz. It’s good lyricism too, extremely self-aware and filled with wry humour about boredom and boys. And yes, the beach. It’s probably about time we had a moratorium on beach-blanket stoner pop (it’s all about Witch House now anyway, duh), so let’s hope that CFY is the last release of this type we have for a while.

In any case, babin’ Bethany looks set to move from blog fame (woooooo) into bigger things with her next single: in a true what-the-fuck move, she has collaborated with members of Vampire Weekend and Kid Cudi. From the beach to the big time, all the way.

Crazy For You is out digitally July 27th on Mexican Summer.

Label: Papaiti Records
Formed: 2009
Website: papaiti.com
Salient Picks: Mammal Airlines, BMX Rapists, EVERY SINGLE BOOTLEG

“For an artist with a small fan base I think making their music accessible should be more of a priority than making money.”—Giles Thompson

Papaiti Records, although decidedly smaller than previously featured MUZAI, is doing great things for music in and around Wellington. Originally formed out of boredom in 2009 by Giles Thompson, it was initially based in Whanganui, but given that the duo behind the label, Thompson and James Stuteley, live in Wellington, it’s essentially become a Wellington label. It exists as a vehicle for their own projects, as well as others who have expressed interest—a community of like-minded musicians.

“I always intended to release several groups, and did so from the beginning. We are open to new stuff and have already had a lot of people email us, which is awesome. It was never just James and I, even at the beginning there were a few other artists (e.g. Deathdream, BMX Rapists). Hopefully if someone likes an artist that has music on Papaiti, they might check out a few of the other artists. By forming a co-operative of sorts, all the artists get more exposure than they would alone. That’s the theory anyway. For example, a Deathdream EP was posted on a Brazilian shoegaze blog, and we got a whole load of traffic—which hopefully spilled over to some of the other artists.”

The desire for attention on one group to transfer into attention for others on Papaiti is just one facet of their altruistic approach to releasing music. While there are small physical releases of Papaiti albums and EPs, everything on the Papaiti roster is released for free via mp3 download on their site.

“For an artist with a small fan base I think making their music accessible should be more of a priority than making money. I don’t really believe in ‘owning’ music itself at all or in APRA and similar things. When you buy a physical release of a Papaiti artist, you’re paying for the physical product (case/plastic/booklet), not the music. So far our physical releases have been hand-made, non-traditional case formats, personalised and very limited runs, generally only charging enough to cover costs, and we plan to continue in this direction with other merch as well. I don’t think we’ll ever ‘sell’ the music.”

It’s a generous move, and one that has seen Papaiti get no small amount of love in recent months. The Mammal Airlines Two Songs, Too Much EP sold way more than we expected”, and their site is constantly updated with projects from around the North Island, mostly those of Thompson and Stuteley, but several other notables as well, particularly the abrasive BMX Rapists. But one of the main talking points with Papaiti of late has been their bootlegging. On their site you will find free downloads of live sets by Jeffrey Lewis, Grayson Gilmour, Street Chant, Seth Frightening and numerous other class New Zealand acts. It’s not direct ripping off, though: every bootleg on the site has been posted with the permission of the artists involved. Except a recording of Deerhoof’s Orientation show, which wasn’t posted because, according to Stuteley, “I just really don’t like Deerhoof.”

He goes on to explain why he’s bootlegging for Papaiti: “There were always people recording in Wellington, but not really releasing them nicely packaged and for free from the same website. It costs a bit to get into and takes a lot of time for basically no return apart from having the recording yourself and maybe a few compliments.”
Thompson adds: “I like the idea of being able to hear a show you couldn’t make it to, or check out a band you keep missing. The other thing I like about the bootlegs is the documentary aspect of them. I hope that they will be around for a long time.”

So, you know, you get it. They’re pretty good guys. The effort from Thompson and Stuteley put into the label is incredibly impressive, especially given that their main payoff is a sense of wellbeing, or the knowledge that they’re doing some good for the greater music community. But that’s the point: they’re (cheesily) in it for the music, it seems. No overpriced pen drives here. They’re releasing free music for all to enjoy, from a number of varied bands from across New Zealand. If you’ve got the bandwidth, they’ve got the goods.

In light of the buy-back of Flying Nun, we thought it prudent to take a look at some of the smaller labels that have existed in its absence. Over the next few weeks we’ll be profiling several smaller labels that have been in existence over the last few years. This week, we take a look at Auckland grunge outfit MUZAI Records.—James and Kim

“I think it was just trying to get stuff we really liked unearthed and exposed a lot more. You know, the kind of people that go ‘these guys should have more attention than they’re getting’—we pissed and moaned, but we actually tried to do something about it.”—Benjii Munro-Jackson

A little over a year ago, Benjii Munro-Jackson and Martin Phillips (no, not that one) joined forces to give birth to MUZAI records, an independent label based out of Auckland that was hell-bent on getting a series of noisy bands from Auckland the exposure that they merited. From small beginnings, they now have a roster of affiliated artists that’s into double figures, their bratty youngsters Bandicoot have had their Jurassic Warfare EP mysteriously available on the iTunes store (“A serious ‘WTF’ moment”), and are about to turn one. So, it’s been a pretty good year. We got in touch with Jackson, and found out a little more on their label ethos and plans for continued survival.

MUZAI run a pretty transparent contract setup between band and label, a method of business which benefits both parties pretty well. They help with the recording of a release, take a small amount of the profit (covering costs, etc) and promote said band to no end. Of course, that’s a rough outline: “It’s different for every band. It’s more agreements than contracts—no one wins when you’ve handcuffed a band to something and they don’t want to be there anymore. With some bands we’ll do one-off releases (like with Sworn To The King), but thankfully with most of the bands on the label they’re happy with what we do, and we generally map out a plan of what they want, what we want, and what we both agree to.”

In the last year, MUZAI have released and distributed albums, splits and EPs from the likes of God Bows To Math, Bandicoot, BMX Rapists, Sherpa and TFF. They bring on board bands they personally enjoy, and have more or less managed to have their taste be appealing to the Auckland music community (I might personally omit the decidedly MOR Sherpa though). But, with only two people running promotion and distribution for a number of very active bands, there has to be a breaking point: “It’s always fun to sign bands, I think that’s the dream everyone has of running a label—rocking up to a show and going ‘Hey, we like your stuff, we think you should work with us’. You know, the ‘cool’ side of it. But when you keep signing bands, the less time you have—and that’s something I really don’t want to happen. I’m happy with the roster and as you’ve said, it is sizeable. But it’s also manageable, I can keep being hands-on with the musicians involved for the most part and not spread out too thinly. There are a few bands I’d like to sign or work with, but at the moment I think we’ll stick with what we’ve got—but who knows what’ll happen. Music is a fickle creature.”

While MUZAI may not increase in size exponentially from here, they are, along with others, filling an important gap that hasn’t really been completely filled since the days of A Low Hum compilations and tours. MUZAI have released two sampler compilations to date, aptly titled Fuck These Bands and Fuck These Bands Too, and are consistently putting on shows around Auckland, while MUZAI-affiliated bands (such as TFF) play innumerable shows around their hometown of Dunedin. With more national touring to come, including a potential MUZAI show in Wellington in the coming months (“We would love to do something big with a few bands down in Wellington. Everyone down there is just so receptive to stuff and the friendliest bunch of people.”) and a large-scale birthday celebration in collaboration with the dubious but omnipresent music.hype website, there looks to be no slowing down on the MUZAI front. One step at a time, though: when asked where MUZAI will be in a few years, Munro-Jackson’s main concern was merely survival. “I hope we’re still around in five years. Maybe we’ll have worn out our welcome mat by then. Who knows.”

Age: One
Genre: Grunge / Noise
Salient picks: God Bows To Math, Nice Birds, Bandicoot
Website: http://muzairecords.com/

Primary school was fine, mostly because I was too young and naive to get the politics surrounding it. Upon returning there over the years (I’m the eldest of 5 to attend the quaint, yet terrifying Fairhall School), it has slowly revealed itself to be a poor, small-town imitation of a private preparatory school. You have the self-absorbed mothers, hell-bent on making sure their son/daughter is in the right volleyball team, or harassing the principal because their child didn’t win the prestigious Villa Maria scholarship. I’m not kidding. You could throw down a medal for ‘Most Promising Five-Year-Old’ and incite a fucking riot between permed 30-somethings attempting to live vicariously through their children—when they’re not buying Oprah’s favourite things.

That was only my school. For the ‘edgy’ 11 and 12 year olds, Bohally was your institution of choice. Situated right beside Marlborough Girls College, this place was notorious for pre-teen weed smoking and the start of the road to DUIs and teen pregnancy. I know at least two who started in my primary school class who have gone down this exact road. Not that it was all bad—it has churned out many a golden child who has gone on to complete high school. With Merit!

Entry to high school was an important time for those in form two with any hope of a hasty escape from the clutches of Blenheim. Many of my friends managed to scramble away to schools in Nelson or Christchurch, myself included, leaving once-beloved childhood friends for the firing line of fourth form resentment. You know the type—the ones who, after enduring a year of torture at the hands of sadistic fourth formers, deem the only reasonable option to be to pass on the legacy of pain. There were stories of daily firing squads, the hurling of apples at any third former who dared eat their lunch in public. I was fortunate enough to miss this sadism, as I was holed up in Christchurch, but regularly returned to Blenheim during holidays to view the town through my somewhat opened eyes.

Essentially, what makes Blenheim so soul destroying is its near-complete lack of anything to do. The council set up a skate park, but that was soon taken over by hoodlums and boyracers. It was situated right next to the train station, which was the unofficial home base of the boyracer tribes. Their favourite pastime? Parking up next to their friends in the carpark, and sitting there, getting high, talking about their cars and other times they were high, for hours on end. Two Cars, One Night, minus the innocence, thrown into Groundhog Day. There was the sporting option too, but even that only managed to fill a Saturday afternoon.

The easiest way to keep yourself occupied in Blehneim, short of going to Top Town Cinema 3 constantly, was to get into drama. At least, that’s how I saw it. For one thing, productions in Blenheim were the unofficial breeding grounds for awkward boys and girls. I saw many a love blossom from the middling-to-terrible choruses of ‘Man of Steel’ or ‘Fame’. But the best part of small-town theatre was, of course, the drinking. If you’re from Blenheim, there’s a 50 per cent chance your parents either work in the wine industry, or are close friends with someone who does. There’s your ticket. Stealing bottles from the pantry, going to stay at someone else’s house after the ‘Production After Party’, and unleashing 15 years of pent-up boredom in a series of ridiculous teenage singalong drinking orgies. Unfortunately, even this gets tired quickly. People never give up their houses for drinking, and there are only so many drama friends to ‘pash’ before everything turns into monotony. Especially when said thespians are addicted to a steady diet of Pink Floyd, Zach Wylde and musicals. Even the most positive outlook is shaken when you show up to a Blenheim ‘party’, only to find your friends sitting in a dim room listening to a friend covering ‘Comfortably Numb’.

When this becomes the highest point of your week, you realise the sad truth for those stuck in Blenheim for their formative years: there really is nothing you can do to escape the soul-sucking boredom of a town whose idea of ‘creating activities’ is to build a tacky amphitheatre that has been almost completely unused in the five years since its creation. All you can do is find a niche, crawl into it, drink wine and read books until your day to escape comes. Leave as soon as you realise you can. DON’T STOP BELIEVING.

Speed. Raging, furious, speedy riffs, bent on hammering home the fact that, if nothing else, Male Bonding can slam the accelerator through the floor. This seems to be the ethos behind Nothing Hurts. Originally part of the Paradise Vendors label / circle jerk who hold onto The Slits and Husker Du viciously as talismans, this London trio’s brand of thrash-pop has been seeping into the ether via scrappily recorded 7” and cassette releases over the last two years, which has resulted in their debut LP, Nothing Hurts, coming out via the monolithic (and slightly ballsier of late) Sub Pop this week.

The most glaring step up from previous releases is obviously the recording—for a band who play fast above anything else, their garbage-can riffs don’t overwhelm like they previously have. It’s loud and fast, but no longer overbearingly so. Kevin Hendrick’s bass is a welcome addition to the realm of audibility, anchoring the ritalin highlights like the #1 party hits ‘T.U.F.F’ and ‘Crooked Scene’, and conversely lending some necessary fattening to the album’s low points, especially ‘Weird Feelings’, which attempts to get by on a decidedly pathetic hook, and Male Bonding’s halfway attempt to pull Abe Vigoda through a shoegaze-lite filter on ‘Franklin’.

The high-end guitar riffs here aim for catchy melody, but only manage to come across as screechy annoyances. While diversity is a good thing, you get the feeling that this album would have benefitted from being a straight-up punk record, instead of dabbling in the slightly more tropical guitar lines and falsetto hooks on ‘Nothing Remains’, or the all-too boring slowed-down version of ‘Paradise Vendors’. At 14 tracks, there are at least two or three which could easily be cut from the mix. However, it seems that for every feeble miss on the record, there is an equally affecting hit. Flooring it seems to be the go-to method for making Male Bonding hits, which is perfectly acceptable when they can smash out gems like album opener ‘Years Not Long’, with its hyperactive fills and blistering pace-setting.

Essentially, it’s a fun garage punk record. Lyrically, there is very little to get out of Nothing Hurts—a smattering of self-pity, enmity and desire for change here, references to their friends there—the lyrics really just exist as filling for the hooks, which are pretty abundant across the album’s 30-minute lifespan. Provided you can press skip across the more annoying numbers, Nothing Hurts easily establishes itself as a one of the most pummelingly fun records of 2010 so far.

3.5/5

So, we all know Gossip Girl has gone downhill recently, between Chuck Bass becoming a pussy and Hilary Duff getting in on the action. But don’t worry, Salient’s got you covered. In a manner of speaking. In a new weekly section, here’s some news you can really use.

Spotted: Roger Shepherd, Flying Nun figurehead, ogling Die! Die! Die! and Grayson Gilmour at recent Wellington shows. Signings on the horizon, perhaps?

The Mint Chicks, following a spectacular breakdown at a musichype show in Auckland (involving trashed stages, alleged fistfights, screaming ‘start your own fucking band’ at the audience, and rumours of core band members leaving), are, according to their Twitter, ‘Busted, but not broken up’. Controversial. But, for $3, you can watch the show on the musichype webstie.

In other musichype-related news, the website, which is selling the Bad Buzz EP from The Mint Chicks, had the audacity to proclaim it would be live streaming the VBC’s 3rd birthday party online, charging people to watch it! Obviously, action was taken, and the stream didn’t go ahead. Shame, bitches.

Need a new space to play? Cosmic Corner on Cuba St have played host to Rackets and Wilberforces in the last two weeks, maybe you could too. The catch? You have to start at 4.20pm.

That’s about it.

For what has been quoted as the best Orientation lineup in almost a decade, attendance told a different story at far too many events. Particularly Cool Town, which was brutally sodomised by apathy. Ten acts, playing for free, at your local student bar, with drinks specials. Yet, despite best efforts, these shows went largely ignored. The same went for gallery openings, with Kazaam Blam playing to a number of people that was countable on two hands. Roger Shepherd, founder of Flying Nun, drew a maximum of 30 people. And while the quality of these events was somewhat debatable (an overbearingly loud slide projector drowned out Shepherd in the Adam Art Gallery, Cool Town drawcards Nevernudes were far too sloppy/drunk on their last show ever with original lineup), there was a plethora of quality acts that were missed: The Body Lyre, Seth Frightening, and Vaults, to name a few.

Of course, it wasn’t all bad. In the wake of Martin Phillips’ inability to make his flight to play with The Chills, Die! Die! Die! stepped in to play a free show at SFBH alongside Joe Blossom and Secret Knives. And while my fourth experience of Secret Knives already feels same-y, Die! Die! Die! inverted their Campus A Low Hum setlist and proceeded to tear the stage a new exit. They then repeated this performance on the Friday at the VBC 3rd birthday party—pretty impressive that they can pack out and annihilate the Bath House twice in a week, with near-identical sets. Birthday billmates Bang! Bang! Eche! seem to be edging ever closer to poppy bangers, but their live show carried more than enough bite to justify their presence alongside Die! Die! Die! and headliners The Mint Chicks. For what retrospectively may be their last ever show in Wellington (only time will tell), it was certainly the most interesting set I’d seen them play. With two bassists (including the sorely missed Michael Logie), and Kody Nielson hacking at a second drum kit while singing “shit got real”. There were Fuck The Golden Youth hits galore, and the ‘Enemies / Life Will Get Better Some Day’ combo towards the night’s end completely sealed the deal as well.

Deerhoof fell victim to a hugely apathetic crowd, despite putting on an incredible show. Opening with ‘Panda Panda Panda’, Sutomi is officially the babe to end all babes. Combine the awkward pointing at crowd then self, cutesy shuffling, juxtaposed with the Need For Speed-paced riffs, the drummer who was giving off more energy than the sold-out crowd put together, and you have a fantastic show that, unfortunately, seemed to fall upon 500 passive sets of ears. At the other end of the spectrum was Hawnay Troof, who whipped a decidedly smaller Mighty Mighty crowd into a frenzy, culminating in an incarnate version of ‘This Is Our Invite’, his collaboration with LA punkettes Mika Miko.

Overall, the calibre of acts involved in Orientation 2010 was phenomenal. Wanganui’s Sets performed two shows in one night, writing entirely new material for each show, incorporating a telephone and a stereo speaker as instruments. Street Chant played one of their last New Zealand shows before opening for the fucking Dead Weather. DEERHOOF PLAYED FOR TEN DOLLARS. It was certainly an indie-leaning lineup, but the sellout crowds at the VBC Birthday Party and Deerhoof completely justified fleeing another Katchafire O-Week set. Hopefully the lazy among you actually get out there next time. Orientation: Because you’re worth it.

Oh. Ladyhawke played a one-hour iTunes Genius DJ set too. ‘Lovecats’. ‘Smells Like Teen Spirit’. ‘This Charming Man’. ‘Human After All’. I think the same songs might have been playing at Mighty Mighty for about $25 less, actually.

Following their less-than-spectacular set at Camp a Low Hum, you’d be forgiven for setting your expectations for So So Modern’s debut album, Crude Futures, a little low. But fret not—in a bizarre turn of events, the recorded So So Modern has managed to outshine the live beast. Despite losing fourth member Aidan Leong late last year, he was still on board to record with the band, and the album is all the better for it: the three-pronged vocal attack has always been one of SSM’s greatest assets, and it shines through on Crude Futures. Lead single ‘The Worst Is Yet To Come’ tears out of album opener ‘Life In The Undergrowth’, the typical SSM synths breakneck battling before the track breaks into wailing harmony (a little grating at times—Grayson, ahem), then held down with the A. Leong’s decidedly less ‘pretty’ refrain. Their propensity towards keeping a tight hold on everything going on in any given bar has never been better, especially given how chaotic certain moments on this album are—it’s Blade Runner on crack at times, before flowing smoothly into Battles territory, particularly on the epic ‘Berlin’ (or, The New New Internationale). It teases, builds, nearly erupts, then disappears over six minutes in. Failed orgasm, but incredible foreplay. A taut and amazing tease.

At the other end of the spectrum, ‘Dendrons’ is a total mathematical assault—completely meticulous and skullcrushingly intense. It, like ‘The Worst Is Yet To Come’, throws itself around on ritalin before a sudden break, only this time for a destructive bassline to take control. Save for ‘Berlin’, it is these full-on art-math-rock-(whatever genre they are) tracks that stand out from the rest across Crude Futures, highlighting their continued development and growth as a band. Other tracks have their moments (the anthemic hooks on ‘Give Everything’, the noodling guitar on ‘Island Hopping / Channel Crossing’), but often the album has a tendency to devolve into self-indulgence—the journey they’ve undertaken on Crude Futures is at times frustrating to listen to, due to the intricate nature of their sound. Bleeping polyrhythms and M.C. Escher arrangements are interesting and engaging, without a doubt, but the album as a whole can be difficult to swallow, particularly for those new to So So Modern. That being said, the songs segue perfectly, has more hits than misses, and most importantly, it’s the So So Modern album. Get your hands on it—there might not be another.

As part of Flying Nun 2.0, he is coming to Vic to discuss the rebirth of the iconic label, and I had the immeasurable pleasure of speaking to him about restarting the golden age of New Zealand guitar pop, and how he plans to go about re-entering a music industry that has changed immensely since he last held the reins at a label.

The Flying Nun repurchase ended up surprising even Shepherd himself. He was hoping to have ample time to contact old bands and acquaintances in order to settle affairs before publicly announcing the news. Unfortunately, it wasn’t to be.

“Well, I was hoping to have until the end of the holidays, just to get things a little more organised… It came out in Australia a day after the deal was finalised. Panic stations and phone calls were my entire next two days,” he says.
The first thing that Shepherd has done after buying back the label is to ensure the longevity of Flying Nun’s ‘classic’ bands, with particular reference to those that are still in action—notably, The 3Ds.

“Yes, well, we’re not re-releasing them as such, more re-pressing them—it’s the first time in a very, very long time that those three albums will be available. It can’t just be a reissue label, there is so much more to do.”

While they and fellow luminaries The Clean are getting the reissue treatment, it has proven to be a hard road to reacquire all of the Flying Nun canon.

“I really did underestimate just how much music there is in the back catalogue, it’s going to be a long task to get it all back out,” Shepherd admits.

“But in the long term, what we hope to achieve is getting out a lot of the historic material in a much more definitive form, material coming out with extra tracks, comprehensive booklets with visuals from the period, and so on.”

There’s obviously a plethora of material to look forward to from the early Flying Nun catalogue. However, it does seem to have come at the cost of some more ‘popular’ material, notably, the Mint Chicks’ back catalogue, which has, as of yet, not been re-bought by Shepherd. Given the strife that was endured to repurchase Flying Nun, it’s quite understandable. At what was essentially the 11th hour for the buyback of the label, Shepherd’s silent partner in the transaction, Ben Howe, was unceremoniously cut out of the deal, and Neil Finn was called in to save the situation. A controversial decision, but as Shepherd points out, a necessary one.

“Well yes, it was very hard, but [Howe] didn’t have the money, we weren’t going to be able to raise the money. It was unfortunate, and maybe I managed it really badly, but I just had to do what I had to do, really. I’m not happy about it, but it just got too difficult.”

Shepherd describes Finn as “someone who has had more experience in these sorts of things, and has had more exposure internationally than anyone else in this country—no one else can really compare to what he will bring to the operation”.

Despite slight hiccups along the way, Flying Nun is most definitely back. While Shepherd wasn’t particularly keen to discuss the new Flying Nun recruits, he was adamant on it continuing as a fresh label: “We refuse to be a reissue label. There are three bands we’ve been talking to, but nothing is finalised as of yet.”

To find out more on New Zealand’s best and most influential label ever, check the discussion Victoria Student Media is hosting with THE Roger Shepherd at the Adam Art Gallery on campus. Sure, go see The Chills, but be sure to go and listen to the man who is responsible for them ever being released at all. You owe it to yourself.

Victoria Student Media presents
‘Hold on to the Rail’
A discussion with Roger Shepherd.
Tuesday March 2nd, 4pm, at the Adam Art Gallery, and broadcast LIVE on The VBC 88.3FM.

#1 Animal Collective
Merriweather Post Pavillion

Where Kid A served as the perfect opener to the decade, capturing the paranoia and technological uncertainty rife during the early 00s as well as smashing down the barriers of acceptance for experimentation in popular music, Merriweather Post Pavillion is the ideal closer to 10 years that have seen this influence unfold, expand and flourish. A veritable cornucopia of found sounds, dreamy, synthetic soundscapes and giddy vocals, Merriweather Post Pavillion is the perfected product of a group who have spent the decade pushing boundaries of noise, sound and song, and sees them strike the ideal balance between palatability and discovery. It’s also just a really brilliant album, able to give you all the things great music should, be it a broad, uncontrollable smile, a soundtrack for a beautiful summer’s day, a brief respite from cold, harsh reality, a journey back to childhood, or just something awesome to dance to. Above all, Merriweather Post Pavillion shows that regardless of whatever else has happened in the world, in music at least the Oughties have been a decade of expanded horizons, increased acceptance and an embracement of difference.
—Ryan.

#2 Raekwon
Only Built 4 Cuban Linx Pt. II

Raekwon first announced plans to release a follow-up to his 1995 solo debut, Only Built 4 Cuban Linx, in 2005. In effect, therefore, anticipation for this album has had four years to escalate. By all means, it should have resulted in a Chinese Democracy scenario—and yet, somehow, Raekwon managed not only to meet, but also to exceed expectations that were already sky-high. Guided by an impressive arrangement of producers, Pt. II marks a fine return to the form of The Chef’s formative Wu-Tang salad days. Consider the tense, ‘Idioteque’-referencing beat of ‘Penitentiary’; the atmospheric, drawling ‘Black Mozart’; the insistent, uneasy throb of ‘House of Flying Daggers’, all of which could comfortably go toe to toe with any highlight from the original Only Built 4 Cuban Linx. Even if there have been several more notable hip-hop releases this year, Pt. II is, by some distance, the best.
—Elle.

#3 The Antlers
Hospice

The Antler’s debut, Hospice, is a concept album told from the perspective of a hospital orderly that focuses on his relationship with a young girl suffering from terminal bone cancer. Peter Silberman’s (The Antler’s singer and principal songwriter) musical representations of the vicarious suffering and alienation felt by the album’s protagonist are both chilling and captivating in their honesty. But for all its great emotional heft, Hospice is also a work of serene beauty. In combination, Silberman’s quivering vibrato and delicate arrangements render what might have been an unbearably painful listening experience into a touching work of transcendental catharsis.
—Kim.

#4 Grizzly Bear
Veckatimest

Veckatamist stomps out its own genre: the so-called ‘Baroque pop’. Grizzly Bear’s follow-up album builds on the groundwork laid by Yellow House nicely, with more technical songwriting and experimentation than their previous effort allowed. Pedants debate over which track reigns supreme: ‘Two Weeks’, ‘Ready, Able’, or ‘While You Wait for the Others’—all contenders for song of the year. Once again, Grizzly Bear prove that they are the superlative pop practitioners of their class. They are choir boys extraordinaire, with nary a step awry as their voices sway sadly towards graduation; I wanna matriculate where they’re matriculating.
—Maggie.

#5 St. Vincent
Actor

Actor is an aptly named album: singer Annie Clark sets about creating a carefully staged production of pretty voice as narrator against a frenetic backdrop. Clark’s vocals remain calm, even when the arrangements are anxious, even hostile. The listener wants to warn our charming protagonist of what lurks behind her, but her occasionally wavering voice indicates that perhaps she knows: one suspects this is what Feist would sound like if she fell down the rabbit hole. ‘The Strangers’ remains the standout track with prettily whispered lyrics “paint the black hole blacker”, representative of St Vincent’s clash of light and dark; pop and melodramatic avant-garde float separate like oil and water.
—Maggie.

#6 Japandroids
Post-Nothing

Where no small part of 2009’s musical output seemed predisposed to a trashy garbage sheen (not necessarily a bad thing), Japandroids simply turned up the volume. Pummelling out eight tracks of pure garage anthem nostalgia, they created an album of singles that still stands out as one of the catchiest records of the year. Between near-emo wordless hooks in ‘Young Hearts Spark Fire’, the carefree playfulness in ‘Wet Hair’s’ refrain (something about French-kissing French girls) and their predisposition to having the volume knobs at 14, Post-Nothing comes off as a wholly impressive, aggressive, and unforgettable listen. Somehow Harder // Faster // Catchier // Better than any other rock album this year.
—James.

#7 Yeah Yeah Yeahs
It’s Blitz!

With It’s Blitz!, the Yeah Yeah Yeahs took a turn for the accessible, the melodic; the pop-y. It’s a change in direction that often sets a band’s career on the downward spiral (N.B.: ‘selling out’), but I don’t feel that this is the case with the YYYs’ third. Granted, it contrasts with the blistering Fever to Tell, but it also stands alone as an example of the YYYs’ distinctive sound: the game is the same, but the rules have changed. Instrumentalists Nick Zinner and Brian Chase experiment with setting concepts of distance and nostalgia to music on vintage Arps, which Karen O grounds with her inherent white-hot heat and larger-than-life persona. It’s Blitz! is fun, infectious, emotional, and, yes, it’s a stellar YYYs record. Sure, there’s no ‘Maps’ equivalent, but that’s a sign of a band that’s looking forward, rather than back. P.S. Also best album artwork of ’09 IMO.
—Elle.

#8 HEALTH
Get Color

While HEALTH don’t strike 9/9 on their sophomore effort Get Color, there are so many incredible moments enclosed within its industrial noise shell that it’s pretty indispensable in terms of this list. The LA noise band have always been capable of incorporating badass dance beats into their work, but never more so than on lead single ‘Die Slow’. It’s all pulverising riffs and eerily robotic vocal lines, and comes bursting into life on its half-speed-banger chorus. Despite the dance influences all over ‘Die Slow’ and standout ‘We Are Water’, Get Color still holds its own as an incredible noise-rock record. While Nine Inch Nails may no longer officially exist, there’s no need to worry—HEALTH have that market cornered on Get Color, and don’t look to ease up on their trade anytime soon.
—James.

#9 Handsome Furs
Face Control

If you’re looking for an album that shows just how much a social environment and life experience can affect a band’s sound, look no further than Face Control. Inspired by their tour of Eastern Europe, Face Control reflects the area’s harsh and unforgiving landscape and culture. Combining sharp, angular guitars with heavy, processed beats, the Handsome Furs have created an album that exudes swagger and attitude while simultaneously avoids pretension. With songs like ‘Legal Tender’, ‘Evangeline’ and ‘I’m Confused’, Face Control meshes a minimalist punk aesthetic with strained, earnest vocals and storytelling surety in a way that feels both vibrant and immediate.
—Ryan.

#10 Underwater Peoples
Summertime Showcase 2009

2009 has seen a seemingly endless succession of unknowns emerge from the amorphous realm of blogs, rapidshare sites and torrent trackers, all with the same goal in mind: to produce the perfect soundtrack to a summer of sun, nostalgia and poolside parties. The Underwater People’s label has been responsible for many of the finer exponents of this breezy aesthetic blend, and in the form of their Summertime Showcase 2009 they’ve also produced a perfect introductory document. So hurry up antipodean sun. We need your solar rays so that we can bask, beachside, with beer in hand, blasting Real Estate’s ‘Backyard’ on our
boomboxes. Now that’s what I call bliss.
—Kim

#1 Radiohead
Kid A

Kid A. Even the name suggests enigma. To hear the gentle modulations and eerily disembodied vocals of the first few bars of ‘Everything in its Right Place’ in y2k was to hear the sound of music being reshaped, forever. Thom Yorke’s processed voice on the title track, the Eno-esque ambience of ‘Treefingers’, the whirring no-dance drum machines of ‘Idioteque’ and the Dadaist randomness of the lyrics (Yorke famously pulled lines out of a hat in an attempt to overcome writer’s block) were, in combination, a potent deathblow to the rhetoric of instrument-based determinism.
After Kid A, anything was fair game for anybody, and the notion of a major band producing its “difficult” or “experimental” album had become banal, if not redundant. In a decade where music has been defined by its variety and democracy, it is entirely apt that Kid A be remembered as a kind of a singularity, a jump-off point for the advances which were soon to follow in its wake. That Kid A hit #1 on the billboard album charts as a result of buzz generated by a series of viral “blip” advertisements and an advance Napster leak was not only delightfully serendipitous, but also further evidence that Radiohead were, as always, ahead of the game. They had, in one fell swoop, erased the past, defined the terms of the present, and forecasted the future. Simply put, Kid A is the best album of the last ten years because when it came out it sounded like nothing else, but by the decade’s end you could practically hear its influence in everything that had been made since.
—Kim.

#2 Arcade Fire
Funeral

I can think of at least ten albums that I’d rather listen to right now than Arcade Fire’s Funeral—but that’s a good thing. It means it’s become an integral part of my collection, in the vein of Abbey Road, Chutes Too Narrow and Kid A. Sure, I may stray in favour of newer and more exciting releases, but I’ll always return to my old faithfuls—and when I do, I’m once again struck by their brilliance, which never grows old. Funeral is one of those albums where you pick up something new with each listen. It’s sincere, thoughtful and emotional, as well as astonishingly well-formed for a debut—and despite its theatrical element, it has none of the pretentiousness that plagues certain other indie bands. And what’s more, it acts as a reminder of music’s cathartic power, in an era when unfortunately, it’s all too easy to see it as a commodity.
—Elle.

#3 Panda Bear
Person Pitch

Panda Bear just seems to nail everything on his 3rd album, Person Pitch. Even though it seems kinda reductive to reference Brian Wilson when talking about Person Pitch, it’s somewhat unavoidable—while reggae/dancehall and minimalist techno play important parts in the album’s construction, it’s the exultant warmth and beauty of Lennox’s voice over his flawlessly looped pop dreamscape that sees Person Pitch rise head and shoulders above the rest of the pack. Children playing among handclaps, chants and a fucking Cat Stevens sample may not seem credible ostensibly, but once you finish the epic ‘Bros’, it manages to fit wonderfully. An incredible album that not only subverted the expectation of music fans entirely, but became a Wilsonic tome that is yet to be equalled. As close to pop perfection as you’ll get in this decade.
—James.

#4 Kanye West
The College Dropout

Of course there’s going to be something by Kanye in the top ten albums of the decade. The question was which: Late Registration is a gem, and Graduation ain’t half bad either (there was no 808s as far as I’m concerned). It was, however, The College Dropout that won the enviable number four spot. This album marks Kanye’s leap from first-class producer to respected rapper/pop-star, a role he’s adopted with aplomb. It’s The College Dropout’s frankness (the forthright discussion of religion in ‘Jesus Walks’) and humour (the frenetic pace and tongue-in-cheek comedy of ‘The New Workout Plan’) that make it an instant classic. Hell, on ‘Through The Wire’, the dude is rapping with his jaw wired shut. I’ll just come out and say it: I love Kanye, and if you dispute this placing, I’ll fight you. Okay then? Okay then.
—Elle.

#5 LCD Soundsystem
Sound of Silver

Imagine for a moment that you’re in a room with a friend or two, just relaxing, having a conversation. Meanwhile, unbeknownst to you, people are quietly slipping in through the doors and windows, and before you know it, there’s a full-blown party going on with you at the centre. This is what Murphy’s beautifully subtle dance/punk hybrid feels like: he builds his songs up with such a quiet, workmanlike intensity that they often catch you by surprise. The culmination of his talents is Sound of Silver: a painstakingly crafted work that roots you to the spot as you discover its layers of complexity while simultaneously commanding you to forget your troubles for a moment, get up, and just dance. 
—Ryan.

#6 Grizzly Bear
Yellow House

With atmospheric flourishes used to intensify core pop sensibilities, Grizzly Bear’s second album marked a turn away from the oughtie’s instrument du jour: synth. Yellow House is like a collection of sinister little lullabies, but just as we drift off to sleep on Droste’s droll voice, eerie knocking sounds (‘Marla’) or crashing cymbals (‘Lullabye’) jolt us back to reality. ‘Knife’ and ‘On a Neck On a Spit’ are standout tracks; their hum-ability testament to Grizzly Bear’s impeccable melodic songwriting, while their inability to be done justice in the shower point to the vital layers of instrumentation stacked into every song. Yellow House heralded a welcome return to vocal harmonies: Fleet Foxes, Department of Eagles and Bon Iver soon followed suit, but none so delicately, none so darkly, none so well.
—Maggie.

#7 The Strokes
Is This It

Is This It is important for a couple of reasons: firstly, it served as a broker between the mainstream and the growing underground garage rock revival, and secondly, in a time when bands were beginning to discard the traditional ideas of what a rock band should sound like, it showed what great music you could still make with a couple of guitars, bass, drums and vocals. Lead singer Julian Casablancas has called it a “time capsule” and that’s exactly what it is. In fact, Is This It sums up the prevalent garage rock sound of the early 00s so well you wonder why the other bands even bothered.
—Ryan.

#8 Death From Above 1979
You’re A Woman, I’m A Machine

 “FUCK DFA RECORDS FUCK JAMES MURPHY WE DECLARE JIHAD ON THEM HOLY WAR ENDING IN THIER DEATH AND DISMEMBERMENT… james murphy is a selfish piece of fuck that will burn in the flames of a specially dedicated rock and roll jihad. if i had the resources i would fly a plane into his skull.”
This is what Sebastian Grainger and Jesse F. Keeler wrote after Murphy’s label forced the then-1979less Death From Above into changing their name. Their singular album, You’re A Woman, I’m A Machine, doesn’t so much speak the same sentiment as it does scream it. The whole album is the decade’s loudest “fuck you”, sizzling by in a maelstrom of kiss-off shallow lyrics, curb-stomping riff brutality, and the ability to deliver more beats than Ike Turner. They broke up soon afterwards, but thanks to this album, DFA1979’s legacy remains brutally untouchable.
—James.

#9 Interpol
Turn on the Bright Lights

One of the least discussed musical trends of the last ten years has been the quiet death of the guitar solo. It is entirely fitting, therefore, that the best guitar album of the last decade doesn’t feature a single moment of 6-string showboating. The clever dynamics and telepahtic interplay of Paul Banks and Daniel Kesseler on Turn on the Bright Lights captivate in a different, and altogether more genuine fashion than the often heavy-handed attempts of axe heroes of yore. But despite the peerless excellence of Interpol’s musicianship, the central irony of Bright Lights is that it’s the consistently unshowy vocals of Paul Banks which really steal the show. The essence of his performances is an at times unsettling tendency towards naked emotional honesty. And like Ian Curtis before him, the dryness of Banks’ baritone voice ensures that he can deliver great lines (“She puts the weights into my little heart / And she gets in my room and she takes it apart”) without ever running the risk of sounding overwraught.
—Kim.

#10 Danger Mouse
The Grey Album

To those who would pose the question of whether the mashup is a valid form of art in and of itself, I would respond with a three-word answer: The Grey Album. Yes, it represents a landmark moment in music history, and yes, it took some serious confidence to mix and mangle the work of the most successful band and the most successful MC of all time, but none of that really matters. What matters is that The Grey Album succeeds unequivocally as an album. Furthermore, Danger Mouse’s arrangements not only cast Jay-Z’s songs in a new light, but they also extend them into previously untraversed realms of sonic possibility.
—Kim.

Remember the Maurice Gee book Under the Mountain? The one where the two kids got crazy stones and had to stop some badass aliens from taking over the world via the five volcanoes around Auckland? Those aliens were called Wilberforces, and the current Auckland incarnation of the name have taken the ruthlessly badass ethic of their alien counterparts to heart. They cop the usual Flying Nun suspects like the 3Ds and The Clean, going so far as to ‘borrow’ a riff from ‘Point That Thing Somewhere Else’ for their track ‘Sirens’. They also take cues from 90’s noisemakers like Fugazi, but without dwelling on the intense scuzz that their brand of grungy pop could so easily have fallen into (see—Wavves). In fact, this brisk 9-track album doesn’t dwell too long anywhere across its half-hour romp. The closest you get to a pause for breath is the 3-minute outro to ‘The Red Lights’, yet even that’s more of a cathartic build of noise than a breather. Lead single ‘Tidal Waves’ busts down the door with its hammering jangle, as mic combatant #1 Thom Burton implores the listeners to “Get out of your cars / Just start fucking on the motorway” in his Kiwi twang. Seconds afterwards, mic combatant #2 Emily Littler (Street Chant) shouts her two cents into the fray, the two trading off words and lines as if they were fighting for control of the same mic. It’s like this throughout the album, yelping shouts and punk-ass grooves—think a ballsier Surf City on crack.

The lyrics are easily made out thanks to Burton’s weirdly meticulous delivery, which enriches the album even further. Lyrics like “Whatever, I don’t even care / It’s not my planet anyway” reinforce the slightly manic/weird side of the band, true to the sweaty, shape-shifting Wilberforces of Maurice Gee. Yet while the roots of this album lie in the noisy grooves of their forebears, this album sets itself apart with a bizarre sense of fun. Spooky keyboards and delay effects uphold the album’s title, and subsequently give the album an almost parodical feel. Rather than haunt you in the way that Gee’s Wilberforces do, this album haunts and hunts with hooks and ghost-rock vibes and graveyard keyboards that wouldn’t be too out of place on Rock Lobster. Essentially, the Medieval PS1 game soundtracked by The Clean’s darker moments.

While this album isn’t exactly brazen about its influences, it does manage to be more than the sum of its parts. Between the abusive vocal tantrums of Littler, the tongue-in-cheek otherwordliness of Burton’s lyrics and the general ghostlike temperament around the guitars, this album stands apart from the recent crop of NZ noise as a bona fide accomplishment. It’s weird without sounding alienating, its noisy yet retains familiarity and melody at the fore, and it’s F U N. Waaaay better than those bastards in that Maurice Gee book.

At the risk of setting the tone of this review in the first line—fuck this band. The powers that be have pushed yet another black hole of creativity into the limelight, to the eagerly awaiting zombie hordes. Let’s be clear here: Midnight Youth are the last thing NZ music needs. Rigidly formulaic to the point of crippling depression, this Rockquest-born outfit (not a bad thing, but LOOK WHAT YOU SPAWNED HERE, ROCKQUEST) have released their debut album, The Brave don’t Run, to mixed reviews at best. And thank God for that. I mean YES, It sounds ‘epic’ and ‘grandiose’ and ‘reminiscent of U2/The Killers/Kings of Leon/whatever’, and that might please some people too. That’s ‘nice’.

But if there’s one point where I’m going to take a high-horse position in this publication, it’s here. Seriously. This is the kind of band that makes Motocade look like Animal Collective on the creative front (OH NO JAMES YOU JUST PIDGEONHOLED YOURSELF WITH AN AC REFERENCE, HOW SELF-INDULGENT). This is an album whose opening track contains the novel ‘put your money where your mouth is’, a precursor to lyrical gems like ‘do you think I’d change your world if I could?’, some bullshit about the Garden of Eden, and grass being greener. I reiterate: FUCK. THIS. BAND. The overdose of clichéd lyric might have been okay if they were pushing the envelope musically, but alas, no. This is a ‘solid rock record’, which essentially equates to ‘boring bros with faux-epic melodies we’ve heard five times already from other bands this week’. I’m listening to ‘The Letter’ now, he’s crying about a letter that ‘had some words and a picture’. ARE YOU FUCKING SERIOUS??? By the time the backing harmonies come in (covering ‘Use Somebody’ by Kings of Leon, basically) it’s too late. These guys ooze ‘High School Talent Quest Winner 2005’ in the very worst way. The whimpering, ‘earnest’ intros and outros, the oversized choral hooks, the Snow Patrol-esque rhythms—it’s like this was made for the climax of a Grey’s Anatomy finale or something.

Those of you that read Stevie Kaye’s stellar review of The Veils’ Sun Gangs (OMG they have a song called The Letter too) in last month’s Real Groove may have read the point that nothing is worse than empty lyric, and that Finn Andrews’ furious angst signifying nothing was embarrassing. Consider Midnight Youth an even worse case of that. At least Andrews had the audacity to look outside his parents’ U2 records and new copy of Only by the Night for inspiration on the art of empty lyrics. ‘Good on ya bro’ I guess though, I mean singer Jeremy Redmore does have a really good voice. But in a day and age where talent is rife and doesn’t equate to originality, I really hoped we’d get something more interesting than this in the Salient mailbox.

Seriously. On one end we’ve got Pitchfork pushing the fuck out of ‘lo-fi noise-pop’ like it’s the apocalypse and tape-hiss is holy water, and then on this end we’ve got Midnight Youth playing SXSW and hitting #2 on the charts. WHAT THE FUCK IS WRONG WITH EVERYBODY??? Fuck this, I’m done with the vitriol. Gonna go eat a mean burger. YEAHHHHH. XOXO GOSSIP GIRL

MSW have got the stock angular guitar parts down, but where other New Zealand acts take those and boost into either mathematical (So So Modern) or brutal (Bang Bang Eche) lanes, MSW lean back into cheeseball keyboard melodies and shyly cheeky vocal parts masked behind a layer of sharp guitar. It’s hit and miss for the most part, the first two tracks, ‘Sleep’ and ‘Eat’, use the same tricks to the same end, neither really failing to ignite past the often vacuous ‘It’ll sound good live’ judgment. Whether for shyness or ‘lo-fiauthenticity’, the vocals on these two tracks are harder to make out—it gets mildly frustrating. Did I mention they’re still in high school though? Fuck, I was still in a terrible Tool covers band at that point. PROPS. The main redeeming factor on the album is the last track, ‘Natalie Touch Me There Again’. Laying off the ‘dance-punk’, guitar-driven shtick, they put out a catchy ode to a schoolmate, lamenting Vodafone and not being a boy on the way. Heavy on the repetitive keyboards, and with Alessandra Banal’s vocals properly discernible among the twee (but not that twee) keyboards, it’s the 16 year old girly anthem that’s more likely to be lapped up eagerly by people several years older.

Their thing is too-cute pop songs, which is going to be totally overbearing if they stick with it for a full length. It even gets a bit too much after four or five listens. But given that they still can’t drink (legally), have already attained a following that belies their age, and aren’t covering Jonas Brothers, it’s kinda exciting to think that they might grow up over the next few years and actually become a really good band. This is the cream of the high school crop (at least until TFF or Nevernudes release an EP): achingly happy, wry and sugar-coated pop. I can’t see them evolving their sound without losing their innate sense of playtime (or the name Moron Says What), but if they keep this sweetly punk-pop, they could probably charm their way out of maturing. Better than Jonas Brothers, still not as good as Hanson.

Equal parts “tragically superfluous”, “a circle jerk”, and “ethnic joke rap”, Crackhouse 5 are the force behind the most recent residency at Mighty Mighty. Taking the Lynchian stage by storm every second Wednesday, Crackhouse 5 lay down hilarious in-jokes, not-so-hilarious toilet jokes and all things over-the-top in between. Initially hailing from the mean streets of Mt Victoria but now situated in various sects of outer Wellington, their shtick is denim-clad Beastie Boys emulation. Sampling acts from their Jewish whiteboy heroes to local tropicalia fiends and friends The Ruby Suns (with whom they play in Auckland at the end of this month), their brand of rap is at once entertaining and self-deprecating. After emerging from the ashes of the second (of three) Holiday With Friends’ ‘Last Show Ever’ late last year, they have since gained a cult following via their blog, www.crackhouse5.blogspot.com, coupled with extensive proliferation throughout the NZ media. A week after their inception they joined fellow artists Bang Bang Eche to perform live on the Good Morning show. Following on from this bodacious seduction of the nations eyes and ears, they set about recording their debut EP, Wack The Crack. Released to blog comments ranging from “A modern day Soggy Bottom Boys” to “This shit is awesome!!!” to “Well that was shit”, it was the beginning of a whirlwind ride that has seen them ad-lib jokes into their lyrics with bands such as The Sneaks, Tommy Ill (long-time collaborator and sugar daddy to CH5), and Thought Creature.

Extensive advertising (it has even been claimed that their rapping prowess is second only to their self-marketing skills, to phrase it nicely) led to the start of Crack Wednesday, a collaboration between Crackhouse 5, Tommy Ill & Buck Beauchamp, and various bands who join them on a romp through Wednesday nights.

Dealing with the trials and tribulations of cask wine, being inundated with women, and where to find the next party, their brand of rap humour is tragically hilarious, endearingly sleazy and not to be missed—particularly with the added bonus of touring Melbourne DJ Keiran Austin and his mind-fucking bangers. Love it or hate it (there’s plenty in both camps), chances are it’ll be the best free night you can have at Mighty Mighty. If you’re lucky, you might make a sexy friend too.

Crack Wednesdays:
The Crackhouse 5 and Tommy Ill &
Buck Beauchamp @ Mighty Mighty

However, if there is a just and fair God/Allah/(insert chosen messiah here), their debut album Post-Nothing won’t be tossed aside onto the mountain of Woodsist/Fuckittapes bands piling up all over the world in 2009. For starters, Japandroids don’t just make punk songs, they write punk anthems. Six. Line. Punk. Anthems. Actually I say ‘punk’, but it’s hardly the three-chord pummel classic punk bands. The songs are longer, the lyrics are snappier (and fewer), and the drums are THIS MUCH LOUDER.

Young Hearts Spark Fire is probably the best track of the year so far for yours truly, five minutes of yelps, soaring “whoah-oh” moments, lyrics like “We can keep tomorrow out/tonight we’re not gonna need it/beat up, beat down/we’re too drunk to feel it,” which underline the point of this album—not world-changing turns of phrase or ‘meaningful’ authenticity, but holy-shit-keep-the-accelerator-on-the-floor youthful urgency and nostalgia. It’s a theme underlined by their penchant for covering McLusky’s ‘No Allegiance to the Queen’ live. Japandroids (in keeping with web 2.0 grammar, also referred to as JPNDRDS) soundtrack the nostalgic dream that Courtney Love fantasised about in Malibu (holla).

Accusations of lyrical complacency kind of miss the point too—the eight tracks on this album are pummeled out with the vigor and intensity of, well, feisty teenagers. The drumming is simple; the chord progressions loud and proud, most of the vocals are shouted rather than sung. Anything to lift the hooks over the top of the buzzsaw guitar attack, really. It’s eloquent in its simplicity, and brutally kicks more ass than Denzel in the last half of Man on Fire.

With all the emphasis on the fuzz recently, it’s miles beyond refreshing to listen to an album where the hailstorm of drums and way-too-fast chords actually play second fiddle to the massive choral hooks—you can make out the lyrics and buzz out to the riffs. Excessive to the point of elation, Post-Nothing is the best garage anthem record album I’ve heard in a few years. So, um, you should probably go buy it or something.

Sun Gangs isn’t really a departure from his previous work, but with a snarl like Andrews’, it’s always going to be hard to break the mould. His piano-bashing angst has mostly subsided, in favour of dimly lit jams. The low points are few and far between—soft piano crywank on the title track fails to recall anything but Nux Vomica b-sides, and his lyrics have often descended into forced rhyming couplets that sound more Simply Red than Shakespeare. That aside, there’s enough genuine feeling and energy going on to make this album a success. Bernard Butler’s sole touch on the album, opener ‘Sit Down By The Fire’, builds through to a warming choral hook that’s at once longing and warming. ‘Killed By The Boom’, when it’s not sounding like Absolution-era Muse (come onnn finn, that’s Evermore shit!), busts out guitar-driven angry yelps that are short, hard, fast and angry—basically packing enough mid-life crisis brutality to smack your divorcee Dad out of buying that Burger Wisconsin chain in 3 minutes. ‘The Letter’ revives the jangled guitar pop of ‘Advice For Young Mothers To Be’, but Andrews’ strained high notes distance it from being straight self-plagiarism. Oh yeah, his voice is fucking sweet on Sun Gangs. The Evil Dead moans all through ‘Larkspur’, the 8-minute beast of an epic. so legit. Pretty sure the lyrics are a haiku as well.

The piano rhythms are, for the most part, mega downbeat and demure, which is probably where I’m calling a lot of the Nux Vomica parallels from too. That changes at the album’s close with ‘Begin Again’, a kind of farcical pop piano melody weaving in with Andrews’ rhyming (not necessary yo) musings. It’s a quaint finish to Sun Gangs, underlining why it’s actually a good album. Less Nick Cave ripping + the whole band sounds like it has input (less Muse please) + a legit balance of snarl and swagger = yay. Now stop kicking in windows and keep getting better. Heaps good eh.

Lyrically, it’s an album that deals with how digitalised and compressed everything around us is getting, in the worst sense. ‘Screens’, the track, is an ode to how much of our lives are lived through various screens, from Facebook to flip-phones. ‘Enemies’, besides having the best noise explosions this side of 9/11, does to the idea of friendship what Sylvester Stallone does to ethnic minorities in the Rambo films. Even an untraceable guest spot from Finn Andrews fails to taint the upbeat urgency of ‘Sweet Janine’. Last but not least, the distorted fuckery of closer ‘Life Will Get Better Some Day’ proves an H-bomb of an ending. Coming across like Imogen Heap put through a concentration camp, it’s all tortured vocal delivery and shimmering snare hits, fazing in through what sounds like a force-field generator gone awry.

It’s not all futures on Screens, though. There’s as much owed to The Cars and The Clean as there are the sounds of 2020—even if it’s not as prevalent. The keyboard line in 2010 is vintage Flying Nun, and the breakdown in ‘Red, White or Blue’ is a straight-up King Arthur dance party. These are fleeting moments though, in an album that shows a crazed rabbit-hole through which music can go. Let’s hope more bands follow them down it, just not all the way to Portland. There are few enough good local bands here as it is.

Final verdict: soooooo good. Past, present and future rolled into a Technicolor robot. Not a lot else I can say to praise this album, so the final words on it I’m going to leave to a wise young blogger on www.sleep500.com, who once said (a few days ago):

“I’m not going to write anything about Screens except that the boner that I have for The Mint Chicks is so much larger than my actual dick that whenever I think about it I feel sorry for my girlfriend.”

Touché.

I wasn’t sure if they could get much more awesome after their eponymous debut, but it seems they can. Essentially a pop band, but with enough punk guitar and dreamy fuzz to entice those with a narrow view of the ‘pop’ canon, Vivian Girls’ jams are all-girl vocals, all lo-figuitars, and all-amazing melody. Think The Pipettes, coupled with the dreamiest grunge-pop grooves this side of ‘About A Girl’ by Nirvana (yeah, you know that guitar part warrants a positive adjective).

These tracks take on a far more carefree vibe than earlier material, singing about escape and dating over relaxed chords, without the intense scuzz that permeated through their debut. They’ve also channelled this amazing sense of 90s Americana, the skatepark nostalgia that you thought only existed in the movies.

But on top of that, and better than that, there’s also this totally danceable feel. As in, Vivian Girls could play Second Date at the prom just as easily as they could the skatepark. You know the one—those proms where everyone knows all the same swaying dance moves, grooving with their smarmy suits and billowy floral dresses in sync, while the band plays infront of some cheesy ‘Senior Prom 85’ banner. Now that I think about it, kinda like that prom in Back to the Future (which was totes more 80s than the 60s prom they made it out to be so there). Only more lo-fi, less Michael J Fox.

Yes, it’s only a 7-inch, barely an EP. But its also worthy of the praise being lavished on it here—it’s not often enough that A) I discover awesome girl bands, B) lo-fipop gets this authentically nostalgic, and C) either A or B get the recognition they deserve. So go download it, it’s only 10MB. That’s, like, 0.2% of the size of the new Lost episode. Better too.

It’s a compelling record, if somewhat tardy—the 30 minutes of animal sounds that round out the record, far from reasserting her control over the album, prove an irritating and meandering home straight. The missteps are few, but noticeable. The 60’s pop stylings of ‘Never Turn Your Back on Mother Earth’ are hardly befitting of Case’s strong, impassioned vocal delivery, which isn’t helped by the sheer awkwardness of the track itself. Middle Cyclone is a strong effort. Case wavers towards the safe side of instrumentation, but upon the strong side of heart and lyric. What Case needs is a sense of adventure. Where tracks on her previous effort Fox Confessor Brings the Flood dabbled in pieces of experimentation, Middle Cyclone sets itself as a safe record. ‘Nice’ comes to mind, but Neko Case has too much cojones (maybe literally—she looks tough on the album cover) to quantify that judgement. Neko Case is a strong woman with a strong voice, who is starting to get to the point in her career where she needs more than her voice to get by. Release a hip-hop record. Dabble in tropicalia. Do some three piece fuzz-pop. Please, Neko Case, do something different.

After releasing their second album, Slow Burning, Katchafire’s Hawaiian fan base exploded, leading to them headlining the 10,000-capacity Waikiki Shell, and being invited back to their dominant festivals year after year. “It’s a massive part of the culture over there”, Bell states. “Reggae is huge in Hawaii, and I think we kinda do something different with it, which they really love”.

The point of difference between Katchafire and other reggae acts, he explains, is the pop sensibilities that they exhibit throughout their music. Not content to stick to the cookie-cutter mould that defines the majority of bands in the reggae canon, “…we use a lot of really nice harmonies, lots of afro-beat rhythms, it all pretty much comes together in a sweet, pop sound.” The Afro-pop influence is nothing new to music, from Paul Simon’s Graceland to the recent Merriweather Post Pavilion by Animal Collective, and it’s an influence equally prominent in reggae.

However, when your genre is as distinct and easily recreated as reggae, it becomes a challenge to distance yourself from the slew of groups who sound all too similar. Despite this sameness among its disciples, reggae has remained wholly relevant and popular since its inception in the late 50s, something which Bell puts down to its timeless nature. “It obviously peaked, you know, with Bob Marley, he concentrated all these elements of rock, funk, even some gospel stuff, and really pushed it. I suppose he made reggae more than a genre, he made it an idea eh, and it’s just made it really timeless, lasting music.”

For Katchafire, the idea of making music to cross generations isn’t expressed solely in the music itself. With different generations of the Bell family coming and going from the band, their very lineup exhibits the intergenerational qualities that he attributed to reggae music. Given this closeness within the band, it comes as no surprise that they are inseparable as a unit. “We’ve had a lot of lineup changes over the years, but it was all done amicably, no bad feelings, we all get along. I don’t think we’d ever get to a point where we’d want to stop doing what we’re doing- you can’t stop the fire.”

And when things are going as well as they have been for Katchafire, it’s a pretty difficult statement to argue with. A glance at their Rhythm and Vines show last year showed the massive following they have, with “…the young kids who come to our shows, but also their parents, and grandparents- the crowds really reflect the diversity we’ve got going on in our band.” Funnily enough, for a band whose live show seems perfectly suited to the sun-drenched stages of festivals like Rhythm & Vines, Bell actually prefers the indoor show. “The 500-capacity bar man, that’s it for me. Standing right up by the front row, the intimacy, you can’t beat it.”—something which bodes well for their upcoming show here.

Being what is essentially the headliner act for Orientation, Katchafire have worked themselves up the NZ music ladder diligently over the last decade or so. As a band who is relatively experienced in the NZ music market, I asked Bell which upcoming NZ bands he’s enjoying the most at the moment. “The Electric Confectionaires are pretty cool, tight vocals, good vibes—real nice sense of harmony.” Consider them plugged. And where to after Orientation? “We’ve got a lot of hits and requests to play from our MySpace for all over, heaps in Japan, and places in Europe, so we’re in talks to get that going, and hopefully get ourselves out there more.” Following that, they plan to get album #4 underway “…maybe late this year, but probably 2010. We do a lot of our writing on tour, so we’ll see how that all goes.”

If you like your reggae all drenched in harmony and family vibes, look no further than Katchafire’s show in the Student Union Building next week. Funked-up roots (take it how you will), harmonies to put the Soggy Bottom Boys to shame, and enough hazy high times to make you see in sepia for a week will be the order of the day: you’d best not miss it, or they might just relocate to Hawaii. Party on, kiddies.

The opening keyboard notes of ‘Soldier’s Grin’ are reminiscent of ATQM’s ‘I’ll Believe In Anything’, before dissolving into a chirpy, fast-paced rocker. But the overall finish is lacking; a fault that is thematic throughout the album. Sharp, short chords are characteristic of many songs here, which although immediately likeable give the impression that Wolf Parade just don’t have as many ideas here as there were on their debut.

That being said, lead single ‘Language City’ is an excellent song, with Boeckner lamenting miscommunication amidst a rhythm section that rearranges itself and travels through three brilliant melodies, reaching its crescendo amongst a hopeful keyboard line and the steady chant of ‘We’re not at home/Hang up the telephone’. Krug’s distinct voice cuts through personal favourite ‘Bang Your Drum’ like a guiding light through a mess of guitars and stomping drums.

At Mount Zoomer doesn’t explore particularly new territory, but it shows that Wolf Parade promise excellent consistency and write undeniably good songs. It doesn’t pack the intense quirk that their debut did, but considering that was one of Sub Pop’s best ever releases, you could do so much worse than buy At Mount Zoomer.`

Opener ‘Miner’ blasts out of sonic haze with manic chords over Dean Spunt’s hammering drums and clouded vocals, lasting barely 90 seconds before blasting back into haze, leaving you exhilarated and desperate to hear more. Employing a My Bloody Valentineesque method of layering vocals behind the distorted guitar, No Age invite the listener to listen beyond the punk aesthetics of tracks like ‘Here Should Be My Home’ and descend into the glorious, looping haze of atmospheric tracks like ‘Things I Did When I Was Dead’ and the instrumental ‘Keechie’. No Age swing between dreamlike aural landscapes and distorted riffery, integrating the two into thirty minutes of sonic bliss.

Far from the garage rock revolution that essentially produced a series of Gang of Four cover bands in the early 2000s, Nouns has wrought its punk influences into an album that forges a fresh new way of looking at ‘post-punk’. Saturated with lush, distorted textures and driving, simplistic guitar, this LA two-piece have created a truly excellent album.

The appeal of Bang! Bang! Eche! is not their recorded music, but the live show and ‘scene’ that goes with it. That said, their recently released self-titled EP is a selfaware, raucous synth-rock party, and despite sounding similar to what’s gone before it’s got great potential. Vocalist Zach Doney can carry a song – if not a note – with charm and ease, and their songs build nicely into solid party anthems (“We’ve got a beat and we know how to use it”), even though most of their lyrics rip the shit out of the crowd they appeal to most (“fuck your scene … trashy glamour, fall down the stairs”).

Their challenge now is to diversify their sound, and thus outlive the ‘flavour of the month’ status that their recent success now puts them in. Despite the inevitable ‘sceney’ aesthetic there’s a good deal of fun, and promise, in this EP.