Christchurch musician Blair Parkes (All fall Down, The Letter 5, etc.) released “Always Running” back in July. Here ‘s “What’s Love” from it.
“What’s Love” is only two minutes long and in that time mixes in the essence of motorik synth-heavy psychedelic space rock. If your attention span is too short for Hawkwind’s extended astral excursions take this short trip around the sun instead.
If you like this there’s plenty more such sounds on “Always Running” which continues on from the heavier pulsing space-rock/ shoegaze development throughout Parkes’ previous album “Saturations” which PopLib featured a song from last year.
Here’s an atypical track called “Run Electro” from a new album called “Saturations” by New Brighton, Christchurch musician Blair Parkes.
“Run Electro” is an attention-grabbing song, bursting with luminous colour and surging along on an insistent rumbling bass line with phased distorted organ swirls, like a kind a super-charged Stereolab on steroids.
It’s a bit of an odd one out on a curiously sequenced album which seems to morph from reflective guitar folk-pop at the start into more effect-driven shoegaze territory before exploring even deeper into electronic synth-pop. It’s not the sort of album you can dip into for a quick listen here and there and come away with a sense of what it is all about. It rewards the full journey.
“Saturations” is a curiously timeless collection of songs. The first 4 songs of the songs could fit comfortably in the late 80s/ early 90s NZ/ Australian reflective guitar pop scene, while the second half of the album crackles with more electronic energy, sometimes reminiscent of UK synth-pop band Frazier Chorus. Both halves of the album are bursting with fine songs.
Listening to this Blair Parkes album has sent me on a trip back to NZ pop underground of the late 1980s. Keen students of obscure Flying Nun Records releases may recognise Blair from All Fall Down (FN0989) and The Letter 5 (FN169).
Parkes’ blog post here on the All Fall Down years is also a fascinating insight into the life of a young musician playing in an obscure ‘2nd wave’ Flying Nun Records band in the mid to late 1980s in New Zealand.
As a bonus here’s the Bats-meets-Triffids styled perfection of All Fall Down’s “Black Gratten” from 1987:
Christchurch musician Blair Parkes (All fall Down, The Letter 5, etc.) released “Always Running” back in July. Here ‘s “What’s Love” from it.
Here’s an atypical track called “Run Electro” from a new album called “Saturations” by New Brighton, Christchurch musician 
Pop Lib 