Our day 31 song to conclude our New Zealand Music Month 2020 parade of music worthy of your Bandcamp purchase consideration comes from Wellington’s Ingrid and the Ministers with “Love By Proxy” –
Ingrid and the Ministers’ music is succinctly described as “Psychedelic “frock”-n-roll from down-under” and it’s a kind of Australasian not-quite-country-psych, with a dark undercurrent, likely to appeal on both sides of the Tasman sea. Songwriter, guitarist and vocalist Ingrid Saker is joined by her Ministers, Tony Paine (guitar), Peter Scriven (bass) and Kim Andrews (drums). Saker’s accomplished set of songs is brought to life by the performance of the band who can keep it tastefully restrained and then let rip when required (check “Pepper’n’Sand” for a bit of that dynamic range). But the magic ingredient here which gives the music its distinctive heart is Saker’s vocal performance.
Listening to the whole album “Kill the Sights” from which the featured song today “Love By Proxy” comes, I was immediately reminded of an old favourite, and largely unheralded, Connecticut, US band called The Mountain Movers who started out with a style of ambitious not-quite-Americana-rock and not-quite psychedelic rock, but straddling the traditional and the contemporary in interesting and adventurous ways, as do Ingrid and the Ministers.
Pop Lib 