“Lull” by High Dependency Unit

NZ Music Every Godzone Month! sign from Too Tone Records in Dunedin.

Our New Zealand Music Month day #30 tune is the gorgeous instrumental “Lull” from High Dependency Unit (HDU):

“Lull” is from HDU’s 1998 album “Higher + +” which is one of the classic NZ experimental post-rock albums. It encapsulates perfectly the dreamy astral psychedelia side of the band, usually remembered for their searing futuristic “space blues” soundscapes of walls of firestorm guitar and thunderous bass over tight patterns of crunching drums.  It’s wonderful to see the whole glorious catalogue of HDU albums available on Bandcamp for new generations  and audiences to discover.

“For June (Forever Summer)” by Nhung Nguyen

Here’s PopLib’s 8th send as a gift tip for the month, featuring “For June (Forever Summer)” from the EP “For June” by Hanoi, Vietnam based sound artist Nhung Nguyen:

“For June (Forever Summer)”, with its glorious combination of field recordings of birdsong mingling with other-worldly hypnotic chiming, is a great way to escape the noise and stress of the world for a moment. Or play it on a loop and let that moment last forever. The whole EP is a perfect survival capsule of ambient soundscapes… as is the entire Bandcamp catalogue from this artist.

Recommended to send as a gift to anyone who needs a break from the madness for a bit. That’s all of us isn’t it?

“Apres le Temps” by Revolutionary Army of the Infant Jesus

Revolutionary Army of the Infant Jesus

Another selection from the wonderful new album “beauty will save the world” by reclusive music collective Revolutionary Army of the Infant Jesus. This one is my favourite from the album – “Apres le Temps” (which translates as “after time”):

“Apres le Temps” is just the strummed chords of an over-driven hollow-bodied electric guitar played through a reverb amp, sparse bass chords, some swirling melodica playing a ghostly melody and the enigmatic vocals of Jess Main. It’s a moment of simple, perfect beauty, mystery and wonder.

I’ve been playing their 1987 debut “Gift of Tears” recently as well. It was re-issued this year on US label Feral Sounds Recordings through Third Eye Records.

This extract from the sleeve notes with “Gift of Tears” by Jason Morehead is a good summary of the band and their music: “Taking their name from Luis Bunuels’s ‘That Obscure Object of Desire’ the Army formed in Liverpool in 1985 to integrate film, imagery,and performance elements to create environments and experiences that confounded expectations and interrupted the mere consumption of music… It challenges and overwhelms as much as inspires; it can be uplifting but also ominous and foreboding…”

If I had to describe “beauty will save the world” in a sentence it would be “the music in your head when you wander through a graveyard at night while whisps of mist swirl around and an aurora flashes across the sky above” but I imagine everyone will have their own strange reactions to its unusually intoxicating charms.