I do not know precisely the circumstances of the new video for Lawrence Arabia's song 'Another Century'. But it features people dancing, a cat and several tortoises, so I'm sold right there. Also, it's a great song, a collection of notes (in both senses of the word) on summer with a swooning yacht-rock chorus.
It's from the album The Absolute Truth, which is out in a couple of weeks on a plucky little label a lot of people are talking about at the moment called Flying Nun Records.
There's also a tour in support of the album, which culiminates in a show at Auckland's Crystal Palace theatre on July 29.
–––
Hold the phone! First new track in aaaages from Ladi6, out this morning:
It's a taste of an album recorded at series of shows at The Matterhorn (in both Wellington and Auckland) where Ladi and Parks brought in Julien Dyne and Brandon Haru to play. Note that Ladi plays with Electric Wire Hustle and others next Friday at Canterbury Museum.
–––
There's a great quote from Peach Milk's interview in i-D's awkwardly-titled meet the female kiwi producers taking on the boys of soundcloud:
My parents introduced me to music at a young age. My older brother and I would go to almost every Big Day Out with them. When I was eight I watched Kraftwerk on my dad's shoulders in the Boiler Room. That honestly blew my mind; I would say it was the moment I became destined to create electronic music.
Go Dad! (But how did you sneak her in?).
Peach Milk (aka Madison Eve) is a graduate of the audio-engineering course at Auckland's SAE Institute and credits the supportive environment there for encouraging her to go out with her work. And although the i-D story focuses on the obstacles for young women in being taken seriously as producers, it bears noting that there have never been so many young women producing music in New Zealand. That's a very good thing.
I liked what I heard when she played the rather low-profile back-of-the-room second stage at 95bFM's Fancy New Bands gig recently, and since then her remix of Aaliyah's '4 Page Letter' has vaulted to second place on the 95bFM Top 10 (surely the first time an Aaliyah song has troubled the scorers at b). But her own work is better showcased in this live set from Chronophonium 2016:
She has a debut EP due out next month.
–––
The problematic lifeblood of the New Zealand economy is also in invoked in Fizzy Milk, the new album by Gareth Thomas, once of Goodshirt. It's a collection of finely-worked pop songs like this:
–––
Marlon Williams is achieving remarkable things out there. On the heels of his appearance on Later with Jools Holland comes this standout spot on Conan:
He has dates in Ireland, the UK and the Splendour in the Grass festival in Australia before beginning an American tour in September. This will have done him no harm at all.
–––
On Audioculture, Andrew Schmidt explores the mostly-forgotten history of the Waikato's early rock 'n' roll.
And Fact offers some deep cuts from the 200,000 (they reckon, seems kinda high to me) tracks that have borne the rhythms of Sly and Robbie. They include this, one of my favourite rocksteady songs:
Fact's primer on mystical Jamaican jazzman Cedric 'IM' Brooks, whose Light of Saba album I have played countless times (through probably not 200,000), is also well worth a look.
–––
Tunes!
Pitch Black have previewed their first track in, ooh, ages. It's a spooky little dub track (with a vocal!) and it's released on July 8, although you can pre-order now:
A new track from Thomston, this time with his familiar pop-R&B style swathed in moody electronics. This is sophisticated stuff.
The words of Muhammad Ali set to deep house. It works a lot better than that sounds:
And because there must always be kitchen-dancing on a Friday, get moving to this ultra-groovy new mix from Rocknrolla Soundsystem. You can download it if you sign in (your Facebook or Twitter credentials will do the trick) and click reshare:
–––
The Hard News Friday Music Post is kindly sponsored by:
