“Ghost Lights” by Francisca & Alexander Griffin

 Our song for Day 15 of New Zealand Music Month 2020 comes from locked-down-in-isolation-in-Port-Chalmers duo of Francisca and Alexander Griffin, sharing “Ghost Lights”:

Recorded during isolation lockdown, “Ghost Lights” reprises some of the themes on former Look Blue Go Purple musician Francisca Griffin’s recent album “the spaces between” observing both the natural and spiritual worlds around us and also the human experience within it: “free-falling moments in time.”

The song was released recently on “Ps-Isolation: a global compilation of music made in lockdown” a 119 track (!!!) compilation on the Celebrate Psi Phenomenon label.

“Ghost Lights” has an optimistic widescreen freewheeling soundscape, built on acoustic guitar with Kilgour-esque electric guitar and keyboard flourishes, with Griffin’s spoken word voice-overs providing poetic context for the song. It’s easy to imagine walking around Port Chalmers’ wonky street patterns during lockdown, the ghosts and memories intensified in autumn’s eery evening light, with this as the soundtrack.

Francisca Griffin provides guitars and vocals and keyboards and synth by her son Alexander, who also recorded and mixed the song at Griffin’s home in Port Chalmers.

“Stardust” by Francisca Griffin

Dunedin musician Francisca Griffin releases a new album “The Spaces Between” on 25 January. “Stardust” has been shared ahead of the release. It’s an intriguing forewarning of an album that promises to be just a little bit different to what you may have expected from the former Look Blue Go Purple bassist.

Sure enough “Stardust” starts with a distinctive made-in-Dunedin jangling strum. But the busy tumbling drums of Griffin’s son Gabriel (better known in Dunedin for his extraordinary drumming with improvisational free-noise ensemble Sewage) warns this may not conform to preconceived expectations.

Then, at about the 1 minute 30 seconds mark “Stardust” explodes like a supernova, solar flares of plasma manifesting in Forbes Williams’ structural guitar noise. That unexpected combination of prototypical Dunedin jangling folk-rock and equally prototypical Dunedin noise-rock forms propels the song into the “Stardust” of the title.  It all makes for something quite unusual and glorious.

In addition to Francisca Griffin, Gabriel Griffin, and Forbes Williams here, the album  includes contributions from Alastair Galbraith, Ro Rushton-Green (Sewage), Deirdre Newall (Tiny Pieces of Eight), Alan Haig (The Chills, Snapper), Mick Elborado (The Terminals, Negative Nancies), Alexander Griffin, Peter Stapleton (The Terminals, Dark Matter, Eye), and Kath Webster (Look Blue Go Purple).

“The Spaces Between” can be pre-ordered on all the usual formats on Cocomuse Releases now.

“Falling Light” by Francisca Griffin

Day 30 of our 31 Days of May New Zealand Music Month marathon comes from Port Chalmers (above), formerly home to Xpressway Records and still home to many Dunedin musicians. Here’s local musician Francisca Griffin with “Falling Light” –

If you are thinking “that sounds a bit like Look Blue Go Purple” then that may be because two of the three musicians playing on this track are former members of Look Blue Go Purple. Francisca Griffin was Kathy Bull back then, and she’s joined here by LBGP guitarist Kath Webster.

The third musician is drummer Gabriel Griffin – Francisca’s son. You’d normally hear him providing the scattershot rhythms behind the inimitable free-form experimental improv drum & woodwind ensemble Sewage.

“Falling Light” has the kind of freshness and instantly recognisable light and airy guitar tones of its place of origins. Psychedelic folk perhaps, Southern NZ style, and in some respects as reminiscent of David Kilgour’s solo music as it is of LBGP.

It’s a track from a forthcoming album set for release on CocoMuse Releases this year.