Hard News by Russell Brown

Quick props to the new Lee Scratch Perry joint, Roaring Lion out on the reliably clever and quality producing Pressure Sounds label.

Amazing how new treasure just keeps getting unearthed out of the Black Ark vaults. Here's a sample;

There's a great saturated dub version of this by Althea & Donna on there as well.

I'm not sure why Flores is being glossed as "the feminist", when her critique was based on racial commentary (which I didn't agree with, btw). Seems unnecessary.

I'm not sure why Flores is being glossed as "the feminist", when her critique was based on racial commentary (which I didn't agree with, btw). Seems unnecessary.

Fair enough. It's how she describes herself tho.

Hopefully not doomed to the unfortunate "former X Factor NZ contestant" moniker forever, a little psychedelic folk and blues rock from Tom Bachelor's The River Jesters. More of this on X-Factor in the future please.

Range song sounds great! Go Blair!!

managed some nice lunchtime finds...

midtempo groover wot builds nicely with some bonus bass sax.

I can't get enough mod jazz era Mongo Santamaria, stoked to hear Hammer Head on this, wot has a more than passing resemblence to the Skatalites' Phoenix City, and the sampled to within an inch of it's life Afro Lypso.

no clip for either on youtube so this is the album's title track - Georgie Fame played it as well, not sure who came first but.

and a cheapie from the bargain bin, Bobby Emmons' Blues with a Beat with an Organ - boasts a bongotastic beat version of Mack the Knife. bloody youtube lets me down again.

Hopefully not doomed to the unfortunate "former X Factor NZ contestant" moniker forever, a little psychedelic folk and blues rock from Tom Bachelor's The River Jesters. More of this on X-Factor in the future please.

This is pretty good. It's obviously where Tom's strengths lie, far beyond the X Factor mandated covers. The River Jesters seem like they'd be good live band. I hope they get some sweet orientation gigs.

There’s a great saturated dub version of this by Althea & Donna on there as well.

Ah yes. Caught this one when you tweeted it this week.

And like an hour late for inclusion in this week's post, High Hoops posted a really beautiful new tune.

It got raves overnight from the Earmilk MP3 blog, among others.

Big Day Out Australian dates struggle...

Well, it's music related: Band bills the Pentagon.

We went to see The Pa Boys - the theatre was empty which is a pity because it was a great Kiwi movie - go see it while you can

'Hard rock'? 'Gothic themes'? Nurse, get me 10cc of anti-fuddy-duddy serum up in here, stat! This patient is showing dangerouly low levels of 'with it', and 'hipness'.

Anyway. Would it be awfully cynical of me to point out that Skinny Puppy have an album out at the mo' that needs promoting? I'm sure that has absolutely nothing to do with this particular press release.

a great Kiwi movie

looked that way on the tv3 fim review

This is some trippy shit!!!

God, I loathe that “appropriation” thing. It embodies an ignorance of how popular music – and hip hop more so – actually works and evolves.

How black people's music is ignored until a white person picks it up and then other white people fall over themselves to say how great it is--that sort of evolution? It's not like a lot of hip hop hasn't critiqued opulence either--incl NZ groups like Homebrew--but I didn't see the Labour Party playing Listen To Us at their national conference. Maybe critiquing white opulence just isn't seemly?

IMO, while the racism in the Royals lyrics is a bit ambiguous, Lorde's subsequent interviews where she said she was taking hip hop's beats to critique its materialism--that is racist, for a white person to waltz in late and take hip hop's work that was hard-built-up in a racist climate and then admonish it for a materialism which is largely aspirational anyway. (For the record I like Lorde a lot, both in music and persona, and think she's responded fairly thoughtfully to the criticism of Royals. And I think Flores' critique was somewhat flawed in content, writing style and subject choice--is a pop song by a teenage girl really that pressing an issue for race relations?--but the chest-puffing by a lot of white people about the accusations is tiresome.)

(Apologies for not addressing anything else in your article; been dealing with a racist person this afternoon so it's made me irritable about the whole subject.)