“Everything You Do” by Vanessa Worm

Can’t have a daily NZ music post in May without featuring Vanessa Worm. Here’s the atypical bass/ drums/ guitar/ voice song “Everything You Do”:

Vanessa Worm originated in the Dunedin underground electronic/ experimental scene that developed in the now defunct None Gallery performance space. A move to Melbourne and EP releases on Glasgow’s Optimo dance label were followed by a hard to categorise first album “Vanessa 77” in 2020. Back in NZ and based in Auckland, Worm then self-released a follow-up album “Mosaics” last year.  

The music Tessa Forde (Vanessa Worm) writes, produces and mixes could be called “electronic” or “dance” or “minimal techno” or “industrial” or “experimental”, or all of the above. Its willful oddness doesn’t fit easily in any comfortable singular music category or genre.

Although this track abandons electronic music altogether for post-punk guitar/bass/drums/vocals, the more usual VW approach involves tracks starting out as pneumatic techno or smooth Kruder & Dorfmeister style Balearic electronica with disturbed and disturbing vocal ruminations which are then sucked through the Worm-hole. It’s an agreeably subversive approach in this conformist age.

“Chord Work II” by Ludus

Ludus, April 2021 – photo by Stella Gardiner

Our Day 8 song for 31 Days of May Madness, attempting to post a New Zealand track every day of the month of May, is “Chord Work II” from the recent album “Two of the Same” by Ludus:

Pōneke/ Wellington based electronic composer-producer Emma Bernard has been making music for 5 years under the name Ludus and with “Two of the Same”, released in March of this year, delivered one of the best electronic albums of recent times, pulsing with lush, atmospheric music. The album blends more familiar minimal techno and electronic music styles with its creator’s own exploration of sounds, field recordings, tones, moods and subtle rhythms.

The album has “a strong connection between composition and live performance” which helps explain the more spontaneous feel of human-operated-technology over programming which is often evident in the compositions and performances captured on the album, particularly in the two gorgeous downbeat electric piano compositions “Chord Work” and “Chord Work II” here.

“Satisfaction” by Vanessa Worm

Vanessa Worm originated in the Dunedin underground electronic/ experimental scene that coagulated around the now defunct None Gallery performance space. A move to Melbourne and EP releases on Glasgow’s Optimo dance label followed and now there’s a first album just released, called “Vanessa 77”. Here’s “Satisfaction” from the album:

There is a highly individual non-conformist ‘punk’ element to the music and performance. “Satisfaction” is one of the more ‘regular’ tracks on the album, coming across like Kruder & Dorfmeister re-mixing mid 1970s Can fronted by a demonically-possessed Grace Jones.

To say the album is all over the place is an understatement. The opening tracks are formed on guitar before being dragged backwards towards the thump of electronic dance beats and an ominous tolling bell (send not to know for whom the bell tolls, It tolls for thee as John Donne wrote some 500 years ago).

The music has bucketloads of variety and character and Worm’s unconventional vocalising ranges from mouth-sound-effect oddness to a kind of electronic punk sneer.  I guess you could call the music “electronic” or “dance” or “industrial” or “experimental” but it’s not going to fit in any comfortable singular genre.

The music on “Vanessa 77” has more in common with boundary-pushing weirdos of the post-punk avant garde music art scene – a bit of dancefloor Throbbing Gristle malevolence here, some fried Fred Frith guitar deconstruction there. For all those reasons and more it’s gloriously, subversively great.

“Vanessa 77” is available on LP on Glasgow dance music label Optimo Music with mailorder via Boomkat.

“Rainbow City” by Micronism

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

Our New Zealand Music Month music for day #15 is “Rainbow City” from the recently re-issued Micronism album “inside a quiet mind”.

“Rainbow City” is busy and restless compared to most of the album, but it still demonstrates the odd kind of organic hyper-world of “inside a quiet mind”, which was re-released on double LP in 2017 by Loop Recordings. The initial album release was a limited CD run in 1998. Micronism was/ is Denver McCarthy and the recordings were made from 1996 to 1998 when he was in his late teens and early 20s and developing his sound, influenced by Detroit techno and the burgeoning electronic music scenes of the 90s. Twenty years on and “inside a quiet mind” still sounds… different and hard to pin down. A world of sound to explore for a long while yet.

“Possession” by Élan Vital

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

New Zealand Music Month day #10 song is some dark, cold, noisy but dancefloor friendly analogue electronica from Dunedin trio Élan Vital. From their “Shadow Self” album here’s “Possession”:

Élan Vital formed in 2015 in Dunedin’s None Gallery, an artist-run creative community in a former pharmaceutical factory near the city centre. After years of operation the owners of the building are selling it so None’s community and physical existence is sadly coming to an end. It will be the end of an era for the noisiest, most experimental parts of Dunedin’s music underground, and the the place where experimental art co-existed with music. As well as home, practice and recording space for Élan Vital it was also once home to related band Death And The Maiden.

Élan Vital is Renee Barrance (keyboards, effects, vocals), Danny Brady (synths, drum machines, electronics, live mixing) and Nikolai Sim (bass) and the album – unusually for electronic music – was recorded by the band playing live together in their None Gallery space.

“Heretic” by Peach Milk

Day 31 of PopLib’s 31 Days of May marathon for New Zealand Music Month ends the month with the dark minimal techno of Auckland producer Peach Milk and “Heretic”

Peach Milk’s “Finally” EP has been a favourite round here for a while now.  Electronic musician/ producer Madison Eve  has created something as Peach Milk that is part Euro-dance/ post-dance music, part ambient soundtrack/ soundscape.

“Heretic” is superbly tasteful in the sounds and the moods created, the dark sheen and shimmer of the synth washes, the understated beats, and the icy ambient minimalism. When vocals appear they are injected into the ether, dancing through atmosphere of the music like ghostly spirits as a disembodied presence. It’s what Peach Milk leaves out that gives “Heretic” and the music on all of the wonderful “Finally” EP the space to set the mind free to wander and imagine.

Thanks for following these posts throughout May. While it’s easy to be cynical about the tokenism of one 12th of the year being a time to recognise NZ Music – Every month is New Zealand Music Month – it is an excuse to do something like PopLib’s 31 Days of May, and hopefully turn people on to new music they may not have heard before. As always, if you’ve found something you love here share it, and let others know.

 

“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.

“Inside” by Dalot & Sound Awakener

Continuing the instrumental theme with another atmospheric track, this time from a new album “Little Things” which is a collaboration between Vietnamese sound artist Nhung Nguyen (Sound Awakener) and Greek sound artist Maria Papadomanolaki (Dalot). Here’s “Inside”:

The album combines field recordings from cities and natural surroundings with synths and almost infinite reverb and delays at times to create 10 different and fascinating experimental soundscapes.

“Inside” here rides on a throbbing low frequency, arpeggiated synths bustling among found sounds. That combination of the artificial machine-world with the more organic sounds and textures of nature and human city-scapes is at the heart of “Little Things” and it delivers something exotic and also evocative of alternative realities.

“Dreams” by Élan Vital

Élan Vital – Photo by Phoebe Lysbeth K http://www.phoebelysbethk.com/

Day 13 of our 31 Days of May New Zealand Music Month marathon comes from Dunedin trio Élan Vital. It’s the closing track of their “Shadow Self” album and the song is called “Dreams”

“Dreams” has been a fixture in the Radio One Top 11 in Dunedin for the past 3 months. It’s not hard to work out why: it’s a great song with a compulsive kind of rhythm and lyrics most people can relate to.

“Dreams” stands out on “Shadow Self” for a couple of reasons. It’s the singing debut of Élan Vital (and Death and the Maiden) synth and electronic equipment alchemist Danny Brady.  It’s also the most human of the seven tracks which make up “Shadow Self” – a love song even.

When I first heard “Shadow Self” in its entirety the order of the tracks seemed a very deliberate progression from the harsh mechanical world of the opening title track, through worlds (each of the seven songs is a “world” in my imagination) which progressively incorporated more human elements from the voices and lyrics and emotion.

The album is a fantastic dark and richly textured exploration of scientific and human themes, incorporating lyrics and soundscapes inspired by dreams, nightmares, and horror movies. The music features an unusual combination of contemporary electronic dance music with more diverse influences from 60’s garage psych-rock (the swirling hypnotic keyboard parts by Renee Barrance), post-punk and muscular distorted bass playing a kind of mutant disco rhythm.

The closing track on the album, “Dreams”, conveys the clearest human connection of the seven experiences. It’s a song about release and freedom, love and hopefully even redemption.

From the cha-cha analogue drum machine at the start through to the breakdown and the echoing reprise by main vocalist Renee Barrance coming in at the 3 minute 30 mark the whole song is a seductive dance-floor classic. Danny’s morose yet caring vocals are the perfect understated voice for the song.

If you are in Dunedin there’s an extra chance to catch Élan Vital live at the Pioneer Hall in Port Chalmers tonight, Saturday 13 May 2017 along with another PopLib favourite Bad Sav.

“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.