“From the Streets” by The Delvon Lamarr Organ Trio

Seattle jazz/ R & B/ funk/ psychedelic trio The Delvon Lamarr Organ Trio (DLO3) released their second album earlier this year. Here’s a track from it – “From the Streets” – that will have you wondering where the organ is in this organ trio:

Listen to this album on a good stereo and marvel at Delvon Lamarr’s left hand Hammond organ bass lines on this track. You’d be forgiven for thinking there’s no organ in this organ trio on this track but that bass-line is it…

The Meters, Jimmy Smith and Booker T. & the M.G.’s are all reference points of course, but it was actually deep affection for Beastie Boys “The In Sound From Way Out” (the only Beastie Boys release I own; a collection of previously released instrumentals gathered together from ‘Check Your Head’, ‘Ill Communication’, ‘Jimmy James’ and ‘Sure Shot’, released in April 1996) that drew me to this album when I heard it playing in Relics Music store in Dunedin today.

In addition to keyboard maestro Delvon Lamarr the trio is guitarist Jimmy James (tasteful master of funk, R & B, jazz, and wild psychedelic freak out guitar) and, on this album, drummer Grant Schroff. A new drummer Dan Weiss is on the trio’s latest single, the playfully-titled “Cold As Weiss”:

There’s a couple of recent KEXP Live to Airs you can find on YouTube if you are so inclined….

“Through the Venetians” by Troy Kingi

Our Day 4 song for 31 Days of May Madness, attempting to post a New Zealand track every day of the month of May, is “Through the Venetians” by Troy Kingi:

The Meters style funk of “Through the Venetians” is from The 4th album – “The Ghost of Freddie Cesar” -in Kingi’s planned series of 10 Albums covering 10 genres in 10 Years. While each album takes its inspiration from a particular genre, Kingi adds his own out-there personal and Pacific flourishes to create something familiar, yet also new. 

“Brooklyn” by Glass Vaults

Here’s PopLib’s 9th send as a gift tip for the month, featuring “Brooklyn” from the album “The New Happy” by Wellington smooth psychedelic funk outfit Glass Vaults.

Glass Vaults deliver one of the year’s great earworm singalong choruses in “Brooklyn”. It’s even better performed live to a room full of people singing along.

The vibe here on The New Happy” is a very clean and clear minimal style of bright flouro funky psychedelic hook-laden synth-pop with phat synth bass and some wobbly keyboard sounds.  Think Prince’s “Around the World in a Day” with New Zealand accents.

Recommended to send as a gift to lovers of funky synth-pop dance music.

“Mindreader” by Glass Vaults

Day 18 of our 31 Days of May New Zealand Music Month marathon is a cheerful pop song to cheer everyone up on a miserable day (snow is apparently on the way here in the south!). Here’s Glass Vaults with “Mindreader”

The vibe here is a bit like something from “Around the World in a Day” by Prince – bright flouro funky psychedelic synth-pop with phat synth bass and some wobbly keyboard sounds. The whole album delivers a very clean and clear minimal style of infectious hook-laden synth-pop.

Glass Vaults – Richard Larsen, Rowan Pierce and Bevan Smith – are from Wellington, New Zealand and you can read much more about them and the tracks on this finely crafted album at The Wireless.

Bevan Smith may be familiar to some as the prolific musical mastermind behind multiple musical entities including Aspen, Skallander, Signer, and more recently Introverted Dancefloor, and also the mastering mind behind Death and the Maiden‘s lovely debut album too.

 

‘Reptilian Journey’ by Estere

Estere – Photo by Tamara Jones Photography

Day 8 of the may month of NZ Music madness comes from Wellington based singer & MPC composer/ producer Estere.

‘Reptilian Journey’ builds up ingeniously from almost back-to-front beats to something odd & lovely by the time the sampled sounds and Estere’s elastic voice comes in.

It is part of a free to download debut album. There’s some very tasty work in here, combining playful samples & beats from her MPC – called ‘Lola’ – as a minimalist backdrop for standout vocal performances.

Estere describes the genre as ‘electric blue witch hop’ – I’ll take her word for that.