“The Point” by Best Bets

While we are talking about guitar pop bands apparently influenced by the likes of Teenage Fanclub, The Replacements, velvet Crush, etc., here’s another storming album, this time from Rangiora/ Christchurch band Best Bets. “The Point” here from Best Bets first album “On an Unhistoric Night” is the same kind of bold opening statement of power-pop goodness that “The Concept” was on Teenage Fanclub’s “Bandwagonesque”.

Best Bets were formed by drummer/vocalist Olly Crawford Ellis and guitarist/ vocalist James Harding (both formerly of Christchurch punk band Transistors). They released an EP “Life Under the Big Top” in 2018, with James’ brother Luke and Matt Phimmavanh completing the lineup, before Joe Sampson (Salad Boys, T54) joined afterwards on bass.

Some of those punk roots from The Transistors show through here at times on the album. When that punk approach is mixed into Best Bets big brazen power pop it sometimes evokes the wild euphoric guitar-pop enthusiasm of Doublehappys, which is a good place to be.

Let’s leave the last words to Best Bets: “this is a band with day jobs. They’ve not yet had a hit. The album was made on a shoestring budget in a lock-up in Ōtautahi Christchurch. They care about writing great songs, doing it themselves, and defining their own style whether or not it’s the sound of the week, or the year, or the decade.”

“WASTE” by No Broadcast

Shop display of re-purposed NZ Music Month poster at Too Tone Records (2010-2017) in Dunedin.

Our New Zealand Music Month song for day # 17 is from Christchurch noise rock trio No Broadcast and their most recent single “WASTE”:

No Broadcast hail from Christchurch and evoke the spirit and sonic fury of High Dependency Unit/ HDU in the way they use sonic guitar textures combining elements of noise-rock, post-rock, shoegaze and post-punk into a frenetic stew of noisy but melodic guitar rock.

No Broadcast are Josh Braden (Guitar and Vocals), Thomas Isbister (Drums) and Kieran Colina (Bass) and are an impressive and powerful live act as well.

“Thin Air” by Motte

Motte (Christchurch violinist, composer and sound explorer A. Clark) has released a fine and other-wordly album of ambient experimental improvised violin, voice and synth called “Strange Dreams”. Here’s the opening track “Thin Air” which is as good a place as any to start your experience in this strange and beautiful soundscape.

It’s an album that defies conventions as much as classification. Depending where you venture you’ll find satisfyingly rich and layered ambient experimentation to rival the classics of Brian Eno and Laraaji – particularly where loops and reverb are used on the violin to create layers of subtle melodic and rhythmic textures.

There’s also adventurous modern classical music (eg: “Bathhouse”) that at times fleetingly evokes the spirit of  Ralph Vaughan William’s “The Lark Ascending” although addition of unusual impressionistic synth tones and percussion textures keeps it well towards the experimental end of the classical spectrum without sacrificing any of its luminous musical qualities.

There’s a kind of modernist experimental take on folk and pop music too in the songs with conventional vocals, like the sublime smokey mystery of the title track and “Give it to Me”.

It truly is an album of strange dreams and one that will reward repeated listening.

“Strange Dreams” is out on LP from new label CocoMuse and available here.