“Dark Taste” by Thorn Dells

The first great new release of 2022 is upon us, in the form of an unexpected album “Silicon Pink”, the first music from Port Chalmers, Dunedin duo Thorn Dells. Here’s “Dark Taste”.

Thorn Dells is Nikolai Sim (Élan Vital, Kolya) and Lucinda King (Death And The Maiden, Bad Sav , Floating Island). “Silicon Pink” is a fantasia of dark hybrid electronic pop, each song a shift in time and space, mixing light and darkness, electronic pop and more exploratory sounds.

There are echoes of 90s dubby trip hop in places, as well as crystalline radio-friendly pop (the sublime “The One I Fear” with vocals from Sean Patrick Donald), and the gloriously sinister “Orlando” somehow channels an imaginary post-grunge Breeders mutation.  

The whole album all feels majestic and epic, the kind of album you would expect to hear on a major independent label (Mute, 4AD, etc.) but this is 2022, and self-releasing through Bandcamp is where you will find the sound of today’s essential exploratory music underground.

“impressionistic” by Waterfalls

Waterfalls (Anber Johnson) returns with a new single for 2021 and a show tonight at Dive in Dunedin along with crone and Death and the Maiden:

“Impressionistic” is an ever-morphing thing, beginning with sparse keyboard and vocals which give no indication of what is ahead. Soon enough the song loads up clanging percussion which adds evolving rhythmic and tonal twists and turns and a popping sequencer synth bass line.

It’s an unusual and glorious fusion of a kind of misty echoing dreampop with darker electronic dance music and looped sampled beats.

Waterfalls performs at Dive in Dunedin tonight, Saturday 16 January 2021, along with another Wellington/ Pōneke electronic duo crone and Dunedin’s electronic dream-pop post-punk electronic adventurers Death and the Maiden.

“Shadows” by Death And The Maiden

Our day 17 song for New Zealand Music Month comes from Port Chalmers trio Death And The Maiden with the dark swirling atmosphere of “Shadows”:

“Shadows” comes from the trio’s second album “Wisteria”. The song combines Death And The Maiden’s usual electronic rhythms (Danny Brady), guitar (Hope Robertson), bass and vocals (Lucinda King), but also layers on the additional acoustic drums (from guitarist Hope Robertson, who was also drummer for the last line-up of Snapper) and piano.

The song rises and falls, the unusual musical arrangement combining the enigmatic lyrical imagery to create a typically unique Death And The Maiden atmosphere of shadows, mystery and foreboding. Robertson’s guitar dominates, swarming glorious fuzz and tremolo clouds above the forest of textures and rhythms. Another extraordinary song from a modern classic of dark Dunedin music.

“Discontinuation” by Floating Island

Here in NZ we’ve just completed Day 30 of a COVID19 elimination lockdown. In another few days – Tuesday 28 April 2020 – the extreme lockdown is eased just a tiny bit… but essentially ‘quarantine’ continues for at least another few weeks. On 4 May NZ will achieve the noteworthy milestone of the Middle Ages plague lockdown quaranta giorni (40 days!).

Here’s the first local quarantine lockdown isolation song I’ve discovered. I’m assuming the perfectly-titled “Discontinuation” from Floating Island is a reflection on current affairs… it works as that even if the lyrics are a more general reflection on changing times.

Floating Island is “an online music work book of demos and solo explorations by Lucinda King (Death and the Maiden, Bad Sav & Denudes).”

“Discontinuation” is a glorious and disorienting solo electronic extrapolation of King’s work in Death & The Maiden. The washes of sounds, layers of ambient textures, crisp minimal beats, and especially that distressed woozy slow vibrato not-sax melody behind the melancholic voice create a wholly a complete(d) work. There’s nothing “demo” about this.

There are more excellent solo explorations uploaded just last week. Always great to have new music to discover, even more essential during a period of quarantine home detention.

“Hourglass” by Death And The Maiden

NZ Music Every Godzone Month! sign from Too Tone Records in Dunedin.

Our New Zealand Music Month song for day # 23 is “Hourglass” from Port Chalmers trio Death And The Maiden.

“Cold ocean…” intones Lucinda King as we are led into the eery, hypnotic world-in-a-song of “Hourglass”. Hope Robertson’s guitar swoops in time with Danny Brady’s subtle drum machine beats and synth arpeggios. “Collected hourglasses, filled the room up, but all that time: useless…” 

Death And The Maiden’s second album “Wisteria” is shrouded in a cool, misty ambience. It is an unusual but thrilling and muscular hybrid between electronic music and dark post-punk and an a Gothic kind of psychedelia.

“Hen’s Teeth” by Bad Sav

Hope Robertson (guitar, vocals) and Lucinda King (bass, vocals) of Bad Sav. (Absent is drummer Mike McLeod) – photo by Chris Schmelz.

“Hen’s Teeth” by Birdation will be familiar to regular followers of PopLib. Birdation is the solo experimental noise workshop of Port Chalmers musician Hope Robertson. Robertson is guitarist in electronic+post-punk dark dream-pop trio Death And The Maiden and the long-running, slow-moving noise rock trio Bad Sav. Next week, Bad Sav finally release that long-awaited first album. The first track shared ahead of the release is “Hen’s Teeth”

The slow trance-like lo-fi churn of Birdation’s “Hen’s Teeth” has been turbo-charged by Bad Sav into an uptempo slice of chiming guitar rock. The first second is arresting in unexpected ways with the intake of breath before the song starts.

I love the way Robertson’s stabbing sparkling guitar chords dance from side to side in the mix, like a delay echo in a huge cathedral. Then there’s that euphoric chorus and the crunch of additional guitar horsepower to seal the effective assault on the senses. There’s still a thrill and a power to be found in a trio playing guitar, bass and drums, loud and with distortion and Bad Sav’s album delivers that tonic in 10 measured doses.

With Bad Sav less is more. Whereas My Bloody Valentine would have spent years burying the song in sonic molasses, Bad Sav achieve the same dizzying chord-bending melodic blaze with a recording as immediate and monstrous as their live performances.  Their churning guitar-heavy sonic distillation of melodic post-rock, noise-rock and shoegaze is a thing of sonic beauty to experience live, the guitar sound building patterns of glorious saturated noise that fill every corner of the venue and your head.

Bad Sav have been around for 10 years – long enough to have started out with a MySpace page, the internet equivalent of carbon-dating a band’s vintage. They had an early song on a Radio One sampler CD, then a long wait until 2014 when they self released 4 songs on their Bandcamp. These 4 songs make for an essential pre-quel EP-length introduction to the band.

Here’s the original Birdation formation of “Hen’s Teeth”. The Bad Sav and Birdation versions on a split 7″ single would be a lovely thing indeed. That won’t be happening, so best you download the Birdation version below and keep it safe.

 

 

“Wisteria” by Death And The Maiden

Death And The Maiden – Hope Robertson, Lucinda King, Danny Brady [Photo Chris Schmelz]

Day 9 of our 31 Days of May marathon for New Zealand Music Month is the title track from “Wisteria” the second album from Port Chalmers, Dunedin trio Death and the Maiden.

I’ll leave it to the words of Mick Middles,  writing about “Wisteria” in The Quietus today.

“From the outset, this is an urbanite noise blessed with an eerie glow. I do not know if DATM are even aware of The Haçienda, but as the title track kicks in, I can almost smell the rubber tiles and the equally aromatic metallic stairwells. This track is a beauty and perfectly sets out the stall. Central to DATM stands Lucinda King, whose bass and vocals dominate. The bass is the killer here; hypnotic, controlling and as moody as a Brontë-esque Yorkshire village. While underpinning King’s detached vocals, this central force is circulated by Hope Robertson’s spiralling guitars and super-snap percussion. Danny Brady’s soothing synth (and machines) fog the edges.”

The writer – who wrote the book (quite literally) on Factory Records, Joy Division and New Order (among others) – understands the atmosphere and also the substance of their work. “Beautiful, scary and endlessly evocative” indeed.

“Talk In Tongues” by Thought Creature

Thought Creature performing in the Radio One studio in Dunedin during their 2018 “Ocean Dream” album tour.

Day 6 of PopLib’s 31 days of May New Zealand Music Month madness marathon on psychedelic Sunday is “Talking in Tongues” from the new album “Ocean Dream” by Wellington via Berlin group Thought Creature.

Thought Creature have a distinctive sound and “Talking in Tongues” here shows the range of influences; combining dance music, some Cure-ish post-punk/ New Wave, the raw spirit of garage rock, and a liberal dusting of psychedelia effortlessly into a cartoonish fusion of danceable grooviness.

There’s a good interview with Thought Creature on Under the Radar NZ here.

Here’s Thought Creature’s recent live-to-air in Radio One’s studio in Dunedin – first track is “Talking in Tongues” and hang around for more psychedelic dance goodness after that (including the glorious “Paradise” to finish).

If you recognise the bassist here, it’s Danny Brady of Dunedin bands Death And The Maiden and Élan Vital. Thought Creature was the first band I saw Danny play in, on an A Low Hum tour show at Arc Cafe about 10 years ago. After Thought Creature moved to Berlin, Danny met a couple of other travelling NZ musicians – Lucinda King and Renee Barrance. On his return to NZ and move down to Dunedin he formed Death And The Maiden with Lucinda King and then Élan Vital with Renee Barrance.

As well as Danny, Thought Creature still has it’s original nucleus of guitarist/ vocalist Will Rattray (also in the excellent and closely-related psychedelic garage rock band Full Moon Fiasco) and supplemented on their recent NZ tour by drummer Andy Frost (Coyote) and Jelena Mirceta (Full Moon Fiasco) on keyboards.

 

 

“Costume Cave” by Thought Creature

Went to see Wellington-via-Berlin band Thought Creature play the first show of their NZ tour last night at the Cook in Dunedin. It was a brilliant night of energetic and therapeutic psychedelic garage dance music. If you are in NZ, make sure you catch them on tour this week. In the words of Will Creature on “Costume Cave” here – “don’t be late!”

“Custom Cave” is from their new album “Ocean Dream”. It fully captures the live energy of their distinctive mix of dance music energy to which a miasma of psychedelic guitar and keyboards and overdriven bass is added.

Thought Creature still has it’s original nucleus of guitarist/ vocalist Will Rattray (also in the excellent and closely-related psychedelic garage rock band Full Moon Fiasco) and bassist Danny Brady (also of Death And The Maiden and Élan Vital) and supplemented on this tour by drummer Andy Frost (Coyote) and Jelena Mirceta (Full Moon Fiasco) on keyboards.

There’s a good interview with Thought Creature on Under the Radar NZ here.

“We Shouldn’t Have to Wait” by Carla Dal Forno

First PopLib post for 2018 or last post for 2017 – depending on where in the world you are at this moment – is “We Shouldn’t Have to Wait”, the opening track from Carla Dal Forno‘s October 2017 EP “The Garden”.

Dal Forno’s 2016 debut album “You Know What It’s Like” was on many ‘best of 2016’ lists. But somehow it avoided the PopLib radar until late on 31 December 2017. It’s wonderful, but the subsequent EP this track is from is even better. The album was a grand exploration of psychedelic folk built around minimal lo-fi experimental electronic sounds, the EP is more focused and a kind of minimal electronic pop – slow, moody, damaged, melancholic.

What struck me on first listen to the EP was it was the first thing I’ve heard to remind me of local sonic explorers Death And The Maiden. The Dunedin trio also take an oblique approach to decelerated melancholic minimal post-punk slow-dance music, with lyrics that dwell on the dislocation of life and existence.

As with the EP, a refreshing feature here is how Dal Forno’s DIY approach to experimental electronic music creation is turned to approachable pop-craft ends. So weird industrial noises and distorted deconstructed wave-forms are incorporated into song arrangements in musical ways that they are in service to the melody and rhythm and the song itself.

Here’s the 2016 album to explore too.