TV3's decision to broadcast the Vodafone Music Awards live to air was a great call. Not that I was able to actually watch it, but being able to read tweets both from Vector Arena and the living rooms of home certainly brought it alive the other morning in a hotel room in Prague. Twitter is an event medium, and y'all are some clever buggers.
The event itself seemed impressive. The only disappointment for me was that an award couldn't be found for Ladi6. With no disrespect whatsoever to Lorde and David Dallas, Ladi's Detroit-recorded album Automatic is such a strong and graceful record; a career statement. I never tire of hearing it and it would be nice to see it recognised.
It inspired a couple of good remixes too -- mostly notably this one:
I'm also hoping that someone took some good photographs of Ladi on the night. Styled by Sammy Salsa, wearing a World couture gown and Michael John jewellery: she looked sensational.
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One great little discovery in London: my hosts Glenn and Jen's default "radio" station is Seattle's KEXP FM. It's cool, eclectic and, as Jen pointed out, pretty much never drops a dud tune. I'll be listening to this plenty from now on.
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The recent untimely death of Soane Filitonga touched a lot of people; not just here but, I can attest, as far afield as London. The music the big man played in the club was emblematic of a special time in Auckland. Moreover, as Damian Christie pointed out on Facebook, Soane was someone everyone liked. DJ can be a bitchy trade, but no one had a bad word for him.
Nice work, then, to Loop Recordings for re-upping this 2011 remix of Fat Freddy's Drop's 'Shiverman' and making it a free download. It's house music perfection:
I love it when rappers loosen up and embrace the disco, and that's what Onehunga's Spycc has done here with the smooth assistance of High Hoops:
Rap goes another place with Raiza Biza guesting on this slow-burner by RosaDub on TheAudience. So nice. Click through for the free download:
She's So Rad have made one of their effortless shifts between genres -- off the dancefloor and back-to-mine with huge big slab of shoegaze that signs of with the most glorious 1970s lead break. It's like Brian May had a jam with My Bloody Valentine. You can buy it here on Bandcamp at a price of your choosing:
Yumi Zouma's 'Alena' gets a moody bass treatment from Ewan Strauss:
The nice guys from Rocknrolla Soundsystem have posted another edit for download: this time it's a low ride through George Benson's lounged-up version of Donny Hathaway's 'The Ghetto':
Leftside Wobble has reworked 'Take Ten', the would-be follow-up to 'Take Five' by Paul Desmond, the man who wrote that tune for the Dave Brubeck Quartet. It was never a hit, but damn, it's groovy:
And finally, some pure disco to download: Junior Byron 'Inch By Inch' (Joey Negro Moody Edit):
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