“Pacha” by K2K

Day 15 of PopLib’s 31 Days of May  marathon for New Zealand Music month comes from Auckland based producer K2K (Katherine Anderson) and the dub-tastic dreamy dance music of “Pacha” –

“Pacha” is from K2K’s 4 track “Sugar” EP released on Margins.  If you like House, Techno, or any kind of leftfield dance/ electronic music this EP is an absolute treat.

All the EP tracks are heavy on the dense fog of atmosphere. Woozy tones weave fever dreams across the beats, while disembodied vocal melodies are beamed in from another solar system and all kinds of unexpected aural delights drift in and out of focus. Classy.

“Flight Instinct” by Peach Milk

Photo credit: Imogen Wilson for iD AUNZ

Peach Milk‘s EP “Finally”, is a perfect introduction to new electronic musician/ producer Madison Eve from Auckland. It’s part Euro-dance/ post-dance music, part ambient electronica as the opening track “Flight Instinct” demonstrates:

The whole EP is superbly tasteful in the sounds and the moods created, the sheen and shimmer of the synth washes, the understated beats, and the icy ambient minimalism.

When vocals appear they are injected into the ether, a presence rather than anything direct, dancing through atmosphere of the music like ghostly spirits.

It’s what Peach Milk leaves out that gives the music on the “Finally” EP the space to set the mind free to wander and imagine.

There’s a song-by-song break down interview with Peach Milk on the EP on The Wireless if you want to dig a little deeper into the stories behind the music.

 

“Expression #14” by Strange Harvest

Strange Harvest – photo by Phoebe MacKenzie & Emily Berryman

Day 10 of the May Month of Madness Marathon for NZ Music Month is a track from “Pattern Recognition” – the brand new third album from Dunedin duo Strange Harvest.

“Expression #14” is one of the more atmospheric songs on the album. Just synth, delay guitar and voice. And all the better to showcase the words.

Those words are one of the big standouts on “Pattern Recognition”. The lyrics (or sometimes spoken word pictures) are mysterious and evocative short stories about places and feelings that are from some parallel world. The lines “Come quickly/ you mustn’t miss the dawn/ it will never be quite like this again” have stuck in my mind ever since I first heard this song last year. They capture the fleeting impermanence of human experience perfectly.

Most other tracks are propelled along on beats programmed by keyboard player & vocalist Skye Strange. Some of them enter the territory of dance music. Death Disco dance music perhaps, but some of those slinky/ crunching beats are at BPMs that will get limbs twitching.

There’s a graininess about “Pattern Recognition” which gives it a sinister claustrophobic feeling at times. It’s not lo-fi but it’s less glossy than “Inside A Replica City” (2013). It does feel like it was recorded in an “Abandoned Airport” building.

In fact it was recorded in a decaying inner city Victorian era building in Dunedin. I’m sure in some of the quiet passages you can hear plaster from the ceiling falling into the inflatable paddling pool used to collect leaking rainwater in the recording room.

According to this Radio NZ interview “Pattern Recognition” was meant to be about some kind of dystopian future, but they say it turned out all that stuff happened last year anyway.

In case you haven’t noticed already Strange Harvest do the best band interviews ever.

‘Wellsford Video’ by Moppy

Day 14 of the NZ Music Month daily NZ music madness is ‘Wellsford Video’ from the dark imagination of Auckland sound-charmer MOPPY.

This from Muzai Records Bandcamp page: “Moppy (a.k.a Thom Burton) produces wonders of glitch and IDM that take their cues from the ambient works of Chris Morris and the soundtrack to television classic Jaaaaam. Cultivated through a period of fasting in a tin-foil hat, with a brief period of time working with Cute Banana (who appeared on the single “Big Bad Wolf” from his first album, Mokai), Seconds is more than mere electronic music and EDM.”

No idea what any of that actually means sorry but I do like this Moppy album. ‘Seconds’ reminds me in places of early Eno (eg: Music for Films) and Boards of Canada and in other places of the experimental side of Broadcast. But there’s also a lot of musique-concrete & avant-garde sound manipulation going on here too which means it is hard to pin it down to being any one thing.

It’s all very exotic yet accessible while also being fresh & a little challenging. Which pretty much sums up the modus operandi of Muzai Records really.