“Lost Memories” by Vanessa Worm

Vanessa Worm originated in the Dunedin underground electronic/ experimental scene that developed in the now defunct None Gallery performance space. A move to Melbourne and EP releases on Glasgow’s Optimo dance label were followed by a hard to categorise first album “Vanessa 77”. Now back in NZ and based in Auckland, Worm has self-released a follow-up album “Mosaics”.  Here’s “Lost Memories”:

The music on “Mosaics” – written, produced and mixed by Tessa Forde (Vanessa Worm) – could be called “electronic” or “dance” or “minimal techno” or “industrial” or “experimental”, or all of the above, but its wilful oddness ensures “Mosaics” doesn’t fit easily in any comfortable singular music category or genre.

Some tracks start out as pneumatic techno or almost smooth Kruder & Dorfmeister style Balearic electronica before they are sucked through the Worm-hole to end up disturbed and disturbing ruminations, while one abandons electronic music altogether for post-punk guitar/bass/drums/vocals.

“Mosaics” might be a break up album of sorts, it seems to be processing trauma in a uniquely Worm way, with unconventional and distinctive vocalising ranging from creepy mouth-sound-effects sometimes bordering on demonic possession to confrontational echo-effected malevolent punk sneer. 

Although “Mosaics” is even less easily pigeon-holed than Vanessa Worm’s first album and spins in a wide orbit from its electronic dance music base, it is just as gloriously, subversively great as “Vanessa 77”.

“Workaround 2” by Beatrice Dillon

“Workaround 2” is the perfect soundtrack for a day – 29 February – that only exists once every 4 years. It’s from the first album by UK electronic music producer Beatrice Dillon, and it’s an album that blurs boundaries and stylistic conventions and exists in it’s own time-zone.

There seems to be a bit of genre-warping-everything about this unpredictable and ever-shifting combination of rhythmically-uplifting beats, UK club music (techno/ house), electronica, Afro-Caribbean jazz, experimental avant-garde, and musique-concrete.

There’s elements here in “Workaround 2” – with its disembodied vocal from Laurel Halo – that seem similar in approach to the “Fourth World” style of Jon Hassell (especially the recently re-issued “Flash of the Spirit” album with Farafina) but Dillon’s creations are light of touch and full of space to allow the tension and interplay between elements work.

“Pacha” by K2K

Day 15 of PopLib’s 31 Days of May  marathon for New Zealand Music month comes from Auckland based producer K2K (Katherine Anderson) and the dub-tastic dreamy dance music of “Pacha” –

“Pacha” is from K2K’s 4 track “Sugar” EP released on Margins.  If you like House, Techno, or any kind of leftfield dance/ electronic music this EP is an absolute treat.

All the EP tracks are heavy on the dense fog of atmosphere. Woozy tones weave fever dreams across the beats, while disembodied vocal melodies are beamed in from another solar system and all kinds of unexpected aural delights drift in and out of focus. Classy.

“Culture Clash (Encouragement Remix) by Estere

Day 28 of NZ Music Month is a re-mix of a track from Wellington producer/ composer/ vocalist Estere. Here’s the heavily atmospheric “Culture Clash (Encouragement Remix)”

This remix takes a completely different approach to the rhythm and atmosphere of the original song on Estere’s 2014 album. It is more of a dance plus ambient re-imagining and it works on so many levels from club banger to atmospheric soundscape while retaining the soulful heart of Estere’s vocal.

All the remixes on this “New Species Remix EP” are adventurous re-interpretations, so if you enjoyed Estere’s self-titled 2014 album, explore this further.

“Even If You Try” (Death & The Maiden Remix) by Introverted Dancefloor

Introverted Dancefloor has released a set of remixes of it’s eponymous album, lead by Death And The Maiden‘s dark industrial revolution re-arrangement of the atomic structure of “Even If You Try” bathing the track in mesmerising geomagnetic storm of sound particles and waveforms.

It’s such a perfect mood built and sustained here, incorporating a hazy narcoleptic kind of post-rave come-down, fusing sci-fi industrial drone ambience with a dancefloor pulse and  then blasting it all through space and time at 4:24 via a euphoric mind-altering sub-sonic interstellar hyper-reality transporter beam.

Introverted Dancefloor’s sound creator Bevan Smith mastered Death And The Maiden’s subversive debut album, and, in his Signer guise, provided a delirious remix of their “Dear ___” as a bonus download track with their album. This “Even If You Try” remix re-pays that gesture with something rather special indeed.

“A City, Spirit & A fall From Grace” (DATM Remix) by Graveyard Love

Dunedin’s Gothic trance-pulsing post-punks Death And The Maiden have re-mixed a track from Graveyeard Love’s “Dissociate” EP. It’s dark, disorienting & epic:

Graveyard Love say: “The original track taken from the 2013 EP ‘Dissociate’ by Graveyard Love is a song intended to be a narrative of the destructive nights getting obliterated and getting beaten up. It’s visceral but ephemeral.

Death and the Maiden, a Dunedin based New Zealand band, have taken this narrative and focused on one aspect of the story – the ‘club’. In true spirit to this visceral experience, D & M have created a truly frenzied electronic dance hall remix. It peaks and blows out. It swirls and gives justice to those moments among the chaotic and messy nights.”

And it’s true. This has the kind of primal pulsing intensity you’d expect finding yourself waking up with memory loss, head spinning with sensations, in an E-d up warehouse rave in an unknown part of town. I’m there right now.

Here’s the original.