Thursday, April 23, 2009

music video

a very nice bit of video using old 8mm stuff by jamie strange. he tells me that he was thinking of me when he put the video together because i love old footage. he's right:




Sunday, April 19, 2009

droppin' kiwi style

darn there's some nice kiwi music floating around these days.

on friday night anna and her sister and friend and i went over to hamilton for anna's birthday outing. we cruised into hamilton on the weekend of the V8 street races. we were in 'boganvillia' (not to be confused with the island in the solomon's group or the red-flowering creeper of the same name). at each intersection in town rock poured from pubs while blokes in high-waisted tapered jeans (motor racing shirts tucked in) wandered the streets in various states of inebriation checking out pit girls in outfits described by the female occupants of our car as 'underwear'.

our destination was the casino and the slot machines. i always find casinos pretty surreal places - so much money leaving people's pockets, surrounded by gaudy glittering lights. expressions range from out and out excitement to tired wan resignation. i feel an intriguing mix of sickness and fascination.

anyway, on the few occasions that i visit a casino it's always my aim to beat the house, even if just by a little. in the event my $20 capital grew to $30 (twice). unable to exceed that $10 profit i gave up trying.

all this is an unnecessarily long story to say that because i didn't lose my money at the casino i had some extra disposable income in my pocket today. unable to think of a better self-indulgent outlet, i decided to download some tracks from amplifier.co.nz. (i thought of using it at itunes but amplifier looks less like 'the man' and i imagine that the artists see more of the revenue from there.)

i came away with 11 nz tracks which proved to form a rather cool / crunchy / dubby / trippy / catchy / stomping / quirky mix. i list the tracks below with glowing recommendation:

4 tracks from sola rosa's latest album 'Get It Together':

Lady Love Featuring Bajka
I've Tried Ways Featuring Serocee
Turn Around Featuring Iva Lamkum
Love Alone Featuring Spikey Tee

the p-money single:

Everything feat. Vince Harder

all 7 tracks from the kora remix album 'Kora! Kora! Kora! The Cabaret Voltaire Versions':

Skankenstein (Cabaret Voltaire Remix)
Pop Your Bubble (Cabaret Voltaire Remix)
Flow (Cabaret Voltaire Remix)
On My Mind (Cabaret Voltaire Remix)
Burning (Cabaret Voltaire Remix)
Crazy Things (Cabaret Voltaire Remix)
Burning Reprise (Cabaret Voltaire Remix)

all this is evidence of good things happening in nz music, especially when you consider every one of these tracks is a collaboration - and in some cases these collaborations are transglobal (with appearances by german and british artists).