“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.

“Pocket” by Miloux

Day 17 of NZ Music Month is something not very underground but definitely a bit pop, in the form of “Pocket” by Miloux.

Miloux (or maybe MILOUX) is Auckland musician, composer, producer Rebecca Melrose. “Pocket” is from her first release – “EP 1” – which is 5 very polished darkly soulful downbeat electronica songs. There’s a hint of jazz and trip-hop and it’s all brought together in a restrained and tasteful contemporary production.

It is a track heard a lot on Dunedin’s student radio station Radio One in recent months, soon becoming a familiar (and welcome) ear-worm.

It rekindles memories of some of the early alternative pop (‘trip hop’) electronica music from the mid-90s like Morcheeba (“Trigger Hippie”) and Sneaker Pimps (“6 Underground”), although the influences cited by Miloux are understandably the more contemporary Purity Ring, Grimes and James Blake.