I don't often upload music tracks directly here -- there's so much infrastructure for that it's usually not necessary. But I have a couple of special items this week. As you may have noticed, I've been repurposing some of the research that informed by Pacific Auckland story for the new Metro magazine as blog posts here this week:
Hip Hop Voices 1: Meet the Kingpin
Hip Hop Voices 2: Chip Matthews -- a hip hop testament
Hip Hop Voices 3 - Otara to Avondale
The third and last of those posts includes some interview material with Ermehn, which touches on his classic 1998 album, Samoans Part II. He gave me permission this week to share a couple of tracks from that very hard-to-find record (even he doesn't have a copy). So please do feel free to read the material and then right-click to download these two tracks:
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The Audience completes its first monthly run-off this week -- and thus the first No.1 track, as voted by users, goes off to NZ On Air for consideration for $10,000 in Making Tracks funding. The vote for funding was always going to be the trickiest part of the Audience model -- the danger being that tracks that just weren't that good would top the chart simply because their creators had marshalled a lot of votes.
Happily, this one has been sitting at the top for the Audience chart for the past week or so -- and it really is good. You can still help lock it in by voting for it before tomorrow. Thereafter, the totals are zeroed out and voting starts afresh:
The other unreleased track that I've been hammering in the kitchen, the car and everywhere else is this one:
I think we're going to hear a lot more from young Loui the Zu.
Meanwhile, a new contender:
And it turns out that Loui the Zu isn't the only new New Zealander making good music here:
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Bobby Busnach has uploaded another of his awesome archive remixes (some of which predate the digital era). He generally turns off downloads after a day, so if this is your thing, get in immediately and get that WAV file:
A certain music critic's rather silly column announcing Flying Nun Records' demise this week complained about a lack of archive releases from the reclaimed label -- but left out Bruce Russell's wonderful Time to Go collection of non-obvious gems. That prompted me to listen to that record again -- and remember how much I love music like this:
New today: ahead of its eagerly-anticipated release, Lawrence Arabia's The Sparrow album is being streamed on the Herald website.
Opposom's new video, for 'Fly', shot by director Sam Kristofski in the South Island. Kody Nielson told Spin magazine it depicts "a group of scientists as they attempt to study a mysterious moving pyramid in the country." Spooky.
And, you know, I think that will do for this week ...
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