“Cool Magic” by The Melancholies

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Continuing our theme of soundtracks to ‘escape from Dystopia’ with here’s something a bit closer to home, the now Dunedin-based duo The Melancholies and “Cool Magic” from their recent self-titled 4 track EP:

“Cool Magic” is all decelerated minimal bass and drum-machine post-punk, as gloomy as it is exotic. It has a bit of that languid time-stretching cadence of HTRK and the dark energy spells of Young Hellions mixed in too.

As with both of those musical outfits sparse guitar and chunky bass riffs provide the textures over the electronic percussion, while synths, drones and other sonic treatments are the atmospheric wash over and through this hypnotic song and throughout the EP.

The duo is Holly Coogan and Tom Young and the other standout track on this strong 4 song EP – “Cute Aggression” -was apparently released 3 years ago. Good things take time. The 4 songs on this first EP are all Good Things. Perfect soundtracks for your escape from Dystopia.

“You’re A Stranger (to me now)” by i.e. crazy

“We captured every roaming shark in our own rotten net… and wore their teeth around our necks. You’re a stranger to me now.”

“You’re a Stranger (to me now)” is “the woozy rant of a jilted lover” from enigmatic Auckland musician i.e. crazy.

i.e. crazy (or maybe it is I.E. CRAZY?) is the new music form and name adopted by Claire Duncan, formerly of Dear Time’s Waste fame.

I say “new” although this name has existed since not long after the last Dear Time’s Waste album “Some kind of Eden” was released at the end of 2012. And I say “fame” although Dear Time’s Waste never achieved the kind of recognition befitting an artist with such extraordinary talents as a songwriter, wordsmith and musician.

However the i.e. crazy/ I.E. CRAZY name is still “new” in the sense that it has taken a while for this first formal release to appear.

Anyway, “You’re A Stranger (to me now)” delivers a rawer shock of sound than the often more manicured Gothic dream-pop soundscapes of Dear Time’s Waste, with the help of some accomplices (Seth Frightening alter-ego Sean Kelly and GPOGP drummer Catherine Cumming) well-qualified in the dark arts of music from the borderlands.

The words continue the writer’s skill for forensic examination of life experiences (whether her own or imagined others’ is unclear and unimportant) with a novelist’s eye for detail and a poet’s ear for phrasing. So everything you want from your experience of Dear Time’s Waste is still here, just rubbed raw by the stubborn refusal to conform.

The words of the song are self-explanatory in their own obtuse, coded way. “You’re a Stranger (to me now)” is a bruised/ bruising examination/ exhumation of post-relationship life, expressed and delivered in a way few others would attempt or have the imagination or courage to pull off.

If you need a prologue, an introduction, a pre-amble to orient your mind to the what and the why of all this then there’s a great letter-of-sorts about it all, and about the frustration borne by those with an impulse to create to communicate through un-valued art in NZ’s culture-shaming/ asset-whorshipping society on the artist’s Facebook page.

“tyranny” by pesk

This is great. Stone cold dead bloody wonderful in fact. It’s a dirge-like infinity of reverb inside a vast cavern of beautiful lost noise. And it’s from Dunedin. Of course.

I’ve seen pesk play and been paralysed by the stark gothic beauty of their two-piece sound. Though it’s more than two-piece because drummer Raff somehow plays keyboards at the same time as drumming skeleton beats and Amee layers muddy sediment layer upon muddy sediment layer of thick, doomed guitar and then sings redemptive lullabies over-top in a slow, ominous hymnal voice.

Recorded here on ‘tyranny’, pesk sound even better. There’s some subtle guitar work, minimal beats, a background rush of noise and some lovely whistling that is so menacingly cheerful it’s chilling. There’s an unsettling slow-wave layered minimalism about this track that is close to perfect. Keen to hear more from pesk.

“A Bottled Brain” by Lucy Hunter

Strap yourselves in folks, it’s time for piano ballads from the edge of the planet from Opposite Sex multi-instrumentalist Lucy Hunter, with the disturbed, unique oddness of “A Bottled Brain” via The Attic Singles Club series.

Lucy’s solo performances on piano have elements of Gothic show tunes about them. Dramatic, melodic, with vivid images, baroque piano flourishes, and occasional dissonant touches to break the spell. All of those are here on “A Bottled Brain”.

The Attic Singles Club releases have featured on Pop Lib a bit. One original song, one cover selected by The Attic. This time around its a David Lynch song and it’s just perfect. Perfectly weird. Lucy on piano, bass and trumpet and that vocal performance is part malevolence, part helium-toned freakiness, thanks to Adrian Ng’s inventive production.

I’d love to hear a whole album from Lucy like this. She’s a courageous innovator and risk-taker. Her lyrics (assisted by the music) often create fictional worlds rich in nightmarish imagery. I love the sometimes unconventional approach taken to her playing and song-writing – breaking the rules and challenging, while remaining accessible if you invest the time to connect with the spirit of the music.

[Photos: The Attic]

‘Sleepwalkers’ by Haunted Love

Here’s Day 18 of the New Zealand Music month Bandcamp challenge. I’ve been trying to keep it to current music as much as possible, but I miss Haunted Love (in maternal recess for a bit). This is from a couple of years ago now and from their first EP but it is Dunedin’s pop heart at its very best. Haunted Love took a long time to get to this EP (and the following album) but the crafted pop on each release was worth the wait.

The album ‘Spirit Revival’ is very classy electro-pop but I still prefer the EP ‘Darkness in Diamond City’. As the title indicates, there is a bit of (Dunedin) Southern Gothic wrapped up in it all. The addition of Logan Valentine’s twangy guitar in this version of Haunted Love added a new dimension that fits the songs perfectly.

On ‘Sleepwalkers’ it’s not just the great song that captures attention but also all the subtle background details from Valentine’s guitar.