“Tunnel Vision” by Brian Tamaki and the Kool-Aid Kids

Melted Ice Cream is a record label from Christchurch. A pretty cool one (ha!). The City, on the east coast of the South Island, five hours drive north of Dunedin, was shaken apart by a series of earthquakes in 2010/2011 and much of the city centre was demolished in the aftermath. But from the rubble grows resistant weeds of underground music. “Sickest Smashes from Arson City: Legacy Edition” is a compilation celebrating those musical weeds. Here’s the first track – “Tunnel Vision”

It’s a fitting first track for the compilation album because (a) it’s a wonderfully great song, and (b) the ‘Brian Tamaki’ of the band’s name is a religious cult leader and bigot who infamously claimed the Christchurch earthquakes of 2010/2011 were ‘God’ punishing Christchurch for sins, including supporting same-sex marriage. Jerk.

It’s a great compilation, heavy on the scrappy melodic punk and bite, with a bit of experimental weirdness folded in towards to end.  Very Christchurch.

Here’s the Melted Ice Cream blurb: “Now that it’s sufficiently obsolete, MIC have decided to revive this antiquated music format, in the most proper way possible: buy this 20 track, NZ-Pressed CD and receive a 12-page booklet with extensive liner notes including bios and photos of each band, a map of Christchurch musical places, a network map of Christchurch band members featured on the compilation, extensive credits and a foreword lovingly written by Hannah Herchenbach. This is intended to be a document and keepsake of the 2018 Christchurch indie music scene. “

In the words of BTATKAK on their Fakebook page – “its a fucking banger, go buy the cd…”

“Ya Uedu” by Kosmetika

Kosmetika are a duo from Auckland/ Khabarovsk/ Melbourne, and “Ya Ueda” is a single from their forthcoming album.

Kosmetika are Mike Ellis & Veeka Nazarova, supplemented on this song by drummer James Sullivan. The song was recorded in Auckland and Melbourne and sung in Russian.

Regardless of the language the vocals are sung in the song is the international language of guitar pop understood by popLib and PopLib followers, so enjoy please…

The song appears to be about escaping boredom, leaving a “waste grey city” finding a new life and “in the cafe the machine promises noisy music. I do not want to go home”. Right then, I think we can all find some common ground in those sentiments, which is pretty much the history of rock and roll in a song lyric really. Perhaps Khabarovsk – the most populous city in Eastern Russia, located on the Amur River in southeastern Russia, near the border with China – is that “waste grey city”?

“I Met Satan” by Coyote

Here’s some messed up underground psych-rock from Dunedin Coyote from their just-released album “Hotel for Dogs”. The song is “I Met Satan” and it draws together the spirit of Led Zeppelin and Guitar Wolf in the same song.

Dunedin is well known for some ‘sounds’, but the sound of unhinged, feral, primal energy rock’n’roll with lupine howl vocals is not really one of them. That’s usually the kind of thing you’d associate with, well, Christchurch, or Hamilton or even Auckland.  So Coyote are like a breath of chili & garlic-flavoured air down here.

“I Met Satan” stands out for some particularly glorious guitar riffing, but the whole album is a festival of wild-eyed home-baked psychedelic lo-fi guitar skronk and underground rock weirdness. Those familiar with classic 60s/70s guitar rock themes may recognise occasional glimpses of those past sounds even after they’ve gone through Coyote’s cosmic blender.

If you like what’s on offer here, then after you download Coyote’s album, also fill your ears with this 17-minute live-to-air freak-out video: