“Skip on Trak One” by Asta Rangu

After what seems like (but probably wasn’t) a quiet few months in the never-ending production-line of left-field underground pop-craft from Dunedin, NZ there’s been a bit of a buzz of activity of late. Last week we introduced you to the mysterious strathcona pl, and now it’s Asta Rangu, with “Skip on Trak One”

“Skip On Trak One” is fidgetty pop with almost psychedelic glam-rock feel to the darting twisting guitar runs, the expansive layered guitars in the chorus and the intriguing lyrical flights of fantasy.

Asta Rangu is the solo brainchild and solo recording and performance project of Males‘ guitarist and songwriter Richard Ley-Hamilton. It’s a further progression from the more complex, layered, progressive pop of Males’ recent “None The Wiser” album, which was in turn a progression from the infectious helium-powered guitar-pop of their much-loved debut “Run Run Run/ MalesMalesMales”.

Even more exciting (and “Skip on Trak One” is pretty damned exciting) is that this is the first release on a brand new Dunedin label called trace / untrace records. The label plans to provide a collation and discovery point for a collection of new bands and musicians, and intends to offer digital and cassette releases initially. Bookmark their website – I have a feeling we’ll be revisiting their catalogue a bit over the coming years.

 

 

“Pull Down The Shades” by Toy Love

“Pull Down The Shades” closes Toy Love‘s “Live at The Gluepot 1980” album, which first saw the light of day as a Record Store Day release in NZ in 2012. Now it’s available as a digital album via Bandcamp and Goner Records, who were responsible for the initial release along with Auckland record store Real Groovy Records.

Dunedin’s proto-punk band The Enemy – who feature on the cover and inside the recently published photo-book “The Dunedin Sound – Some Disenchanted Evening” – disbanded in 1978 after a move to Auckland.

Three of The Enemy – Chris Knox, Alec Bathgate and Mike Dooley – went on to form Toy Love, adding Christchurch musicians Jane Walker (keyboards) and Paul Kean (bass).

Toy Love called time in 1980. Kean subsequently went on to join The Bats, a band which lasted a bit longer than Toy Love (over 30 years now and they are still releasing fabulous albums, with a new one out soon).

Knox acquired a 4-track reel-to-reel recorder, recording the infamous “Dunedin Double” EP which helped kick-start the careers of a handful of Dunedin bands and their Christchurch label Flying Nun Records.

Knox and Bathgate formed Tall Dwarfs and the rest, as they say, is now history…

 

 

“Child” by Koizilla

Koizilla is another supercharged band from the guitar-drum axis of Dunedin brothers Zac and Josh Nicholls along with bass accomplish Connor Blackie. They’ve provided stellar progressive guitar-based music since high school through their bands A Distant City and The Violet-Ohs, but in Koizilla they’ve found their most natural and most explosively adventurous spark to date. Here’s “Child” from their “Blunder Brother” debut EP:

The EP – and especially the opening track above – channel perfectly the imaginary Dunedin version of Amon Duul II which was my first reaction to seeing Zac Nicholls playing guitar in A Distant City four years ago.

It wasn’t just the long hair but his guitar playing style, which combined serious technical skill with what seemed to my ears a real early 1970’s feel for fluid psychedelic adventure and melodic improvisation. That stood out as unusual in Dunedin in 2012 and he’s only refined that impression since, particularly with Koizilla.

While A Distant City maybe took the proggy post-rock soundscape thing a bit too far in one direction, and The Violet-Ohs perhaps pushed the guitar-driven pop a bit too far the other way, Koizilla seem to have these two elements in balance and have injected a bit of cartoon-colour-saturated fun into the equation (like the over-exuberant “Krill” for example).

Highly recommended for lovers of psychedelic power-trio music which dares to fly higher than the limits of the earth’s atmosphere.

“Tides” by Dinowalrus

“Tides” is the opening track from brand new, just-released album “Fairweather” from Brooklyn, NY based Dinowalrus.

Dinowalrus describe themselves as psychedelic synth punks. There’s certainly a lot of psychedelia and synth but not so sure of the punk bit.

It is however a harder-edged psychedelia than 60’s era cosmic exploration and seems to take its inspiration from the late 80s early 90s UK fusion of psychedelic pop and dance music. Think early Shamen and Stone Roses stirred through with a bit of Screamadelica era Primal Scream perhaps.

In other words, it’s a great collection of sparkling danceable psych-pop, blending human and machine. It’s also a sound in tune with the latest album from NZ psych-texturists Ghost Wave so if you loved their “Radio Norfolk” then check out “Fairweather” from Dinowalrus too.

Dinowalrus will be playing with Dunedin cosmic psych rockers The Shifting Sands at Bar, New Haven CT on 12 October.

 

 

“We Will Rise Again” By Shayne P. Carter

Seven years on from the last Dimmer album “Degrees of Existence” here’s Shayne P. Carter back with the brooding and challenging “We Will Rise Again”

Even though “We Will Rise Again” is centered around Carter’s piano playing, it is still recognisably Shayne P. Carter and there are bursts of brutal guitar noise to remind us of the 6-string sonic background we normally associate with this enduring New Zealand musician.

The other musicians playing on the track are drummer Gary Sullivan (Dimmer, JPS Experience),  bassist Nick Roughan (Skeptics), saxophonist Richard Steele (who played on The Puddle’s “Playboys in the Bush” album) and the intense string arrangements from Tamasin Taylor (Nudie Suits, Peachy Keen).

It’s a somewhat experimental, challenging listen in places, even a little bit Scott Walker at times, although without the difficult angles and baffling weirdness. Shayne P. Carter has always been about the tune and about the sensations of emotion and this song is no exception, despite its differences.

The shifting times signatures, sense of foreboding, dynamics, and especially the muted saxophone part at two and half minutes here are even a little reminiscent the kind of thing serious prog-rock legends Van Der Graaf Generator did back in the 1970s.

This progressive experimentalism was signalled in the notes to that 2009 Dimmer album where Shayne set out a manifesto which could equally apply to “We Will Rise Again” –

“i also wanted to make a return to the more experimental vibe evidenced on our first album which remains my favourite dimmer record to this point. i liked that record because it was brave and unafraid and because it didn’t sound like anything, or anyone, else. while “degrees of existence” is sonically a different beast altogether i think it has that sense of trying things while still dealing in ‘songs’. i’m not interested in music that goes from A to B to C in a fashion you’ve heard a million times before. i’m not interested in pastiche or ripping anybody off. i’m not interested in ‘irony’. i’m also not interested in becoming a ‘family favourite’ , a musician a ‘country can be proud of’, going on game shows or gradually diluting my music as i weary with jadedness and age. fuck that. i wanna make the kind of music that i’d like to hear – and that involves originality, vitality, and, yes, the sense of trying things.”

For the uninitiated, a trip through the back catalogue of Shayne P. Carter bands is a trip through the very best of NZ’s post-punk music. Start with his high school band Bored Games, work your way through Doublehappys and Straitjacket Fits to Dimmer.

 

“Bamboozled” by Yesses

“Bamboozled (supercilious boy)” is the latest single from Dunedin music creation entity Yesses. It’s a huge leap ahead from Yesses’ impressive self-titled 2015 EP.

Even more exciting is the indication there’s an album from Yesses to be released on 17 June 2016. It was recorded in Hamburg, Germany and Yellowknife in the Canadian Arctic Circle, an unlikely combination of international circumstances explained by Yesses’ Jack Brosnahan here.

“Bamboozled” sounds wonderful and the mixing from regular co-conspirator De Stevens is spacier and more restrained than last year’s hyperactive EP sounds. It keeps the focus on the sun-dappled dreaminess of the song and gives it a kind of XTC-meets-Tame Impala hyper-psych-pop sheen. The album -called “Fixated” – promises much more of this.

Rock art in Yellowknife, Northwest Territory, Canada.

“Janina” by Elan Vital

Élan Vital are an intriguing dark and danceable trio from Dunedin. After an early song “Albtraum” surfaced on a compilation late last year they’ve just released their first single proper, called “Janina” which you can stream and download free/ pay what you like from their Bandcamp page.

“Janina” is one of the (many) highlights of their impressive live performances. Performances which often incorporate the visuals of Lady Lazer Light – visual and video artist Erica Sklenars. Lady Lazer Light’s video for the song combines fake palm trees, swirling foggy mist and black and white images to create a perfect visual setting for the song.

The music of Élan Vital is an unusual combination of darkly psychedelic garage organ sounds and a more European synth-pop stylishness. Having two keyboards working together and no guitars gives the music a dense swirl. Using analogue drum machines, vocoder and other effects gives their set a satisfying and diverse range of moods, from feedback-strafed soundtrack instrumentals to upliftingly gloomy melodic pop.

The band is comprised of Renee Barrance (keyboards, effects, vocals), Danny Brady (synths, drum machines, electronics, live mixing) and Nikolai Sim (bass). Renee and Danny first jammed in Berlin, where they were both living a few years ago, before each finding their way to Dunedin years apart.  You can read more about the origins of the band and what “Janina” is about in a short interview with Renee on Noisey.

Danny’s other current band – Death And The Maiden – also originated in Berlin, so there’s a case for that European cultural capital being something of a musical and spiritual sister city to 21st century Dunedin.

Élan Vital are on tour in NZ this weekend and play at Borderline Festival at Aucklands’ Whammy Bar.

“Chartreuse” by Males

Richard Ley-Hamilton of Males

Day 31 of NZ Music Month is a song from the debut album “None the Wiser” from Dunedin’s mighty falsetto pop-Gods Males. It’s called “Chartreuse” –

“Chartreuse” demonstrates just how far their helium-voiced guitar power-pop has come since their double EP debut release “Run Run Run/MalesMalesMales” in 2013.

It’s a sophisticated slice of melodic and multi-layered noisy guitar pop, the kind of thing which would not sound out of place on an early album by US band Spoon.

At the time of its release on March 21, 2016 Males “is/are/were” Richard Ley-Hamilton (guitars, vocals), Sam Valentine (bass), and Paul ‘Pipsy’ McMillan (drums).

“Palz” by Fazed on a Pony

Dunedin. No pony. Unfazed.

Day 27 of NZ Music Month is a home-recorded mumbled masterpiece from Dunedin’s reclusive Fazed on a Pony, called “Palz”

I’m often reminded of Sparklehorse when I listen to Fazed on a Pony.

It’s not that the music sounds particularly alike, but it shares that sense you sometimes get from Sparklehorse songs like they are an intimate confessional from a close friend going through a difficult time.

The DIY recording, unusual ideas used in the arrangements, the general woozy melodicism of the songs and that can’t-quite-make-it-out vocal delivery all conspire together to draw you into the recording.

“Palz” is from a now sold out 5 song cassette EP called “Hunch” released last year by UK cassette label Fox Food Records.

“The Riff” by Space Bats, Attack!

Day 25 of NZ Music Month is “The Riff” – a live recording from Dunedin’s masters of crafted outer-space noise-rock Space Bats, Attack!

They say this was recorded live at a show in Dunedin late last year and at about 2:30 am. Remarkably, all present are awake and flying as one. The way this instrumental ebbs and flows and then bursts into a breath-taking and frenetic race-to-the-end with some remarkable drumming is something else.

Here’s hoping Space Bats, Attack! have another recording mission lined up this year.