Music for your bubble
May is New Zealand Music Month. What better time to tune into some great Kiwi artists, says Simon Burt.
My neighbours sell quality hi-fi equipment. I've been concerned about their business in these socially-distant times, but they're upbeat, hoping we'll all use the money we currently can't spend on concerts and festivals to upgrade our stereos. OK, I'll stop fretting.
However, I am very worried about my friends in the music industry, especially the performing artists whose income has simply dried up while we're all self-isolating. To help them out, why not head to Bandcamp or your other favourite supplier and buy some homegrown sounds to play on your new gear?
Here are a few suggestions.
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Reb Fountain (pictured above) has released a cracker of a new album. Recorded at Neil Finn's Roundhead studios, produced by sideman-to-the-stars Dave Khan and engineered by the golden-eared Simon Gooding, Reb Fountain will be her most accomplished album yet. Great songs, terrific playing and one of the best singers in the land.
Speaking of Simon Gooding, a favourite recent release is Weatherless, by Simon's band The Map Room. Essentially a duo with fellow audio engineer Brendan Morrow, they produce beautifully crafted, grown-up pop music full of ear-wormy hooks and intricate musical detail. Uplifting and danceable.
Honey-voiced Nadia Reid took a big punt last year and accepted a telephone offer to record an album at legendary Richmond, Virginia studio Spacebomb. Armed with a bunch of new songs, Nadia and her “musical rock”, guitarist Sam Taylor, set sail into the unknown. Using Spacebomb's house band and resident producer, the result is Out of My Province, a gloriously intimate collection of road songs, worthy of the best audio system.
At Wairarapa's groovy Tora Tora Tora music festival in 2018, Wellington composer and musician Grayson Gilmour delivered the set of the weekend for me. Now too busy in his elegantly designed home studio to venture onto the stage much, the best way to enjoy Grayson's sonic masterpiece Otherness is via turntable, compact disc or streaming device. A sophisticated fusion of pop sensibility and electronic inventiveness.
Barry Saunders should need no introduction to Wairarapa (or any other) music lovers. His 2002 album Red Morning still regularly populates the drawer of my aging CD player. Co-produced by The Muttonbirds' David Long, Red Morning was a real stake in the ground for Barry's solo career. Barry's Greytown neighbour Alan Galbraith, the veteran producer, musician and guitar maker, released an excellent, streaming-only album last year. Titled So Far Gone, it's like he had a crystal ball.
At the house concerts my wife Pip and I occasionally hold, we've hosted some real treasures. A recent jewel was Auckland singer-songwriter Lydia Cole, whose 2017 album The Lay of the Land begins with the line “I have lived my life / Heart out on my sleeve”. And she proves it with a collection of hugely personal songs, her folky vulnerability accented with confident stabs of electric goodness. You need to lean in for this one – I promise you will be rewarded.
So, if you've got time to kill, give some of those albums a spin. And don't forget to buy the teeshirt.
