NZ Musician February March 2017

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Fe b r u a r y / M a r c h 2017 VO L . 20

NO.2

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Nadia Reid talks with Dave Dobbyn

LYDIA COLE A GIRL NAMED MO GREAT DANES THE ALL SEEING HAND TONY DAUNT TWEED MIKEY MAYZ THE BOLLANDS SHOUTIN’ PREACHIN’ BLACK SCIENCE NEIL WATSON ABIGAIL KNUDSON

NZ MUSICIAN magazine PO Box 99-315, Newmarket 1149 Auckland New Zealand Phone: (09) 373 2572 editorial@nzmusician.co.nz

www.nzmusician.co.nz

VOL.20

N O . 2 Fe b r u a r y / M a r c h 2017

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Publisher / Editor: Richard Thorne richard@nzmusician.co.nz Assistant Editor: Silke Hartung editorial@nzmusician.co.nz Advertising: editorial@nzmusician.co.nz Designer: Silke Hartung Pre-Press & Printing: MHP Print

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Contributors Dave Dobbyn, Rob Burns, Jean Bell, Felix Mpunga, Charlotte Crone, Jennifer Shields, Dixon Nacey, Ally Su’a, Thomas Goss, Greta Yeoman, James McDonald, Kevin Downing, Lana Andelane, Aleisha Ward, Andrew Witty, Amanda Mills, Aabir Mazumdar, Briar Lawry, Reuben Rowntree, Ailee Slater, Olly Clifton, Stu Edwards, Dee Muir, Bing Turkby, Ania Glowacz, Jesse Austin, Emma Moss

NZ Musician magazine is published six times a year.

Available direct by subscription and free through selected outlets.

For advertising or subscription enquiries please contact: editorial@nzmusician.co.nz or phone (09) 373 2572

Contents and design remain the property of

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FEATURES

REGULARS

Nadia Reid. . . . . . . . . . . .

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Black Science . . . . . . . . .

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Shoutin’ Preachin’ . . . . .

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Lydia Cole . . . . . . . . . . . .

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Mikey Mayz . . . . . . . . . .

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Neil Watson. . . . . . . . . . .

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A Girl Named Mo . . . . . .

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The Bollands. . . . . . . . . .

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Abigail Knudson . . . . . . .

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The All Seeing Hand . . . .

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Tweed . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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Tony Daunt . . . . . . . . . . .

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LESSONS

Ex-Pat Files. . . . . . . . . .

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Fresh Talent . . . . . . . . .

10

X-Factory . . . . . . . . . . .

12

Building Blocks . . . . . .

14

Get Yer Kit Off . . . . . . . .

18

Finding Your Voice . . . .

27

Fresh Cut . . . . . . . . . . .

28

Tutors’ Tutorial . . . . . . .

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5

Guitar Cool . . . . . . . . . .

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Feel how the wind still blows Solemn oaks keep growing And the songs come flowing Hide, hide me from the silence Feel how my cheeks are aching Smile when I’m close to breaking And the words fall empty Shelter, shelter from the silence Times have gone and times have come When I might wish it’s never this It’s never this again Shifting - Tweed, p36

COVER Nadia Reid

New Zealand Musician.

All rights reserved.

Deep Thinking. . . . . . . .

Classified Ads. . . . . . . .

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Photograph by Rachel Brandon

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Nadia Reid

TURNING TOWARDS THE LIGHT

Photos: Justyn Strother

It’s little more than a year since the last glowing international reviews of Nadia Reid’s PledgeMe-funded first album, ’Listen To Formation – Look For The Signs’, were published. Though not all included a rating, it’s no exaggeration to say they averaged four-out-of-five stars, an incredibly resounding endorsement for a well-backed album of any genre – surely near miraculous for a crowd-funded and self-released, folk-oriented Antipodean debut. Numerous reviewers praisingly likened her to Laura Marling, Gillian Welch and Mazzy Star’s Hope Sandoval.

Released here late in 2014 and promoted to the northern hemisphere a full year later, US and British music press were matched in their enthusiasm – the likes of Pitchfork, MOJO, Uncut, The Guardian, BBC 6 and Sunday EV\Z '

Times all praising her ability to write honest, introspective lyrics and a self-assured voice that combines intensity with intimacy.

Britain’s Guardian found a ’… preternatural ability to translate internal weather into chords and words,’ Pitchfork confirming, ’… she shapes her words into characterful, sticky hooks, which feels rare for this genre of music.’ Nadia Reid’s impeccable debut will maybe set a wider orbit in motion’, predicted Uncut, while Folk Radio UK remarked, ’New Zealand native Nadia Reid is the real thing, a fact that her debut album backs up in spades.’

As she prepares to launch her sophomore album ’Preservation’, this time backed by Australian and British labels, Nadia admits to still being surprised at the strongly positive lll#COBjh^X^Vc#Xd#co

response and the wide-ranging performance opportunities that resulted from her first album. As she told Paste magazine her sophomore is going to be more gritty. “Not so down and out on love but a bit wiser. It’s certainly folk driven, but the themes are a nice progression.”

No stranger to what makes for a great song himself, Dave Dobbyn, is among those who have publicly lauded her, selecting her song Call The Days as a favourite in a recent Radio NZ National Matinee Idle appearance. We asked Dave if he might like to talk with Nadia about her new album on NZM’s behalf – and are both pleased and very grateful that he jumped at the chance.

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rom the moment I first heard Call The Days As They Were Known from Nadia Reid’s first album, ’Listen To Formation – Look For The Signs’, I’ve been moved by her music. Her songs were transporting. I would stop what I was doing and listen intently as if the world and its noise had at last, shut up for a change. For me, that welcome suspense continues with the release of ’Preservation’, Nadia’s second album. It is without doubt a work that should grow her global audience.

Seeing her perform live, I was spellbound by the way she surfs the notes and they all feel so right. There’s a spirit to it, an economy, pure and lovely, that sometimes belies the turbulence of the lyric.

So it was with pleasure that I met with Nadia at the offices of NZ Musician to talk about the writing and recording of ’Preservation’ in advance of the album’s release and a day ahead of her departure for a tour in Europe.

Recorded and produced by the artful and prolific Ben Edwards at The Sitting Room in Lyttelton, these 10 songs hold together so very well. That’s not surprising, given the depth of Reid’s songwriting and assured performance, coupled with her superb team of dedicated players.

Asked about recording, she spoke of the bond she had developed with her band and producer, the ease with which they worked and how she felt transcendent in performance during takes. She said that easiness was an ideal situation for an artist to be in – at home in a studio with your trusted crew. This resonates with me. As an artist I have found great relief in the chemistry that frees you up to perform, unshackled by anything that would distract from making the best possible recording of the songs.

Was it a nervous process for her?

“I met Ben [Edwards] when I turned 18 and I moved to Christchurch,” she recalls.

“He is beautifully mad. He makes anyone feel comfortable. I actually made an EP with him when I was 18. I had no idea…

I was so new to everything and nervous about playing in a band. He was really passionate about working with me. We built a great friendship, so by the time I came to make the first record I knew him so well and trusted him so much that there has never been any anxiety for me.

“When I go into other studio situations, which isn’t very often, I can feel uncomfortable and nervous. I feel totally at home with Ben. The way I like to work is to be in the room with the band and to be playing live. I’m really not a perfectionist – I’m not someone who wants to do a million takes. I’ve got maybe three or four takes and the first couple are the best and it is all about feeling… just a feeling”.

Recording can be a fraught process. It often needs to be as solitary and private as songwriting itself. There is a natural threshold that you have to step over and a welcoming room always sounds good. This record sounds like everyone has hit their stride in terms of choice of songs and how they hang together,

and the production style throughout is really consistent. Here there is a sense of committed unity in serving the songs. ’Preservation’, the album project, was born from a shared generosity of belief that is abundantly clear here in the music. Nadia’s players are Sam Taylor on electric guitar, Richard

that speaks of truth and life and loss. She uses three-to-four chords, interesting inversions, ripping and jangly guitar, open chords. I love the drone effects and harmonics at that folk core – it’s an ancient timeless sounding thing that suits her voice perfectly.

And where Ben Edwards has balanced her

“Preservation was the last song I wrote and I finished it in the studio, and although I had another album title it became the title track.”

Pickard on bass and Joe McCallum on drums.

Throughout the album the dynamic live feel has been captured to glorious effect.

This underpins Reid’s soaring voice. With Sam Taylor’s fluid and melodic guitar work creating a wall of harmonic chiming textures, a joyful unfolding backdrop for Nadia’s moving vocal deliveries. And all over a solid, certain rhythm section.

“I’m so lucky to play with these three musicians, all jazz trained, who are so sensitive musically and so in tune with me as a person,” she says.

I can hear Nadia and Taylor’s guitar playing are intrinsically linked, and his treatments and atmospheric work are beautiful, such a complement to her voice. I commented that she has my favourite guitarist in the band…

“Did you call him a NZ great on National Radio?” responded Nadia. “It’s totally gone to his head. It’s a running joke at the moment!”

Well it’s true. I saw the pair perform at the APRA Silver Scrolls when they sang Lydia Cole’s Dream and they owned it. His guitar playing was phenomenal. That’s all they needed to really hold the room (Vector Arena), just the voice and the guitars.

There are many great guitar hooks on the record, layers of them interwoven. I love the fact that Reid has embraced this kind of folk

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vocals in the mix is really great. The groove they get where they surf the dynamics and the tempo is fluidly moving around the vocal. From the wall of sound of The Arrow And The Aim to a plaintive vocal and acoustic of Reach My Destination or Hanson St Part 2 (A River), there is pure craft on display throughout this set of true gems.

I ask what acoustic guitar she uses?

“At the time of recording I was playing my old Crafter, Korean-made, that I was attached to after 10 years of playing. And they gave me two new, exquisite guitars that are very similar in character and beautiful wood,” she enthuses.

I suggest she would feel at home with any guitar.

Was there a whole crop of songs that she harvested before she went into The Sitting Room, or was it a work in progress?

“I think I just had maybe the 10 songs.

Preservation was the last song I wrote and I finished it in the studio and although I had another album title it became the title track.”

Right On Time sounds a bit like a single to me.

“It’s a little bit poppy and a little bit cheesy and fun!”

So Richard [a song about what seems like an emotional, drawn-out break up and finding yourself and your freedom as a result] is real?

“In the past I’ve used false names, so this time I was just being true to the song and the process of writing. Not an ounce of me wanted to hurt him and part of me was thinking, ’Am I going to get bad karma?’ But all the best songs in the world are written about people’s ex-lovers. He’ll be fine,” she laughs.

Hanson St uses elements of a traditional folk song, with its sparse arrangement and timeless lyrics. Using images taken out of nature – a river, the seasons, growing, cold temperature – it evokes the aftermath of a break up, the regret, but also acceptance of the change and subsequent pain involved.

“I wrote that at the same time as Call The Days, so it’s Part 2, and I think of them as almost the same song. I lived there in Wellington. Now I don’t live anywhere really… but my things are in Dunedin.”

How does it feel looking back at previous recordings?

“A couple of years go past and you play it

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and you think, ’Oh my lord, that’s intense.’ That’s the beauty of capturing a moment of your life and creating it into art and you are growing and changing and you don’t feel those things any more.”

I’ve read some of the glowing quotes, wonderful reviews of her music and performances from The Guardian and Pitchfork or Mojo, and they all talk of her confidence and how surprised they are. I’ve just turned 60 and facing ageism. Is there a hint of ageism in their praise, I ask, that they should be surprised that you are young (she’s 25 right now), standing exactly where you want to be, doing exactly as you would wish?

“People want to know why or how I got my confidence and are often surprised at my age,” she agrees. “I guess I don’t feel that confident all of the time. I’ve felt pretty certain about the performing side of it, writing songs, for the last couple of years. But then in and around that, the other bits of being a musician are terrifying on a daily basis. Every day I think about going and becoming a schoolteacher or getting a 9-5 job. And I really don’t like flying. There’s a point in which it’s your hobby becomes this thing that has to generate income or be successful.”

I heard her mention “being wired differently” in a Kim Hill interview. Everyone who writes and performs has different wiring – airports, bright lights, all triggers for panic – so you’ve got to navigate all that as well. I’m fairly anxious until soundcheck, then a siesta, then back to the gig but every other aspect of it can get to you. The excitement can be scary and it’s only when you are on stage and fully present that at last you can release the nervous energy.

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She’s grateful for the goodwill from band and producer.

“I love that it has always been about the music for all of them.”

Nadia had talked of her biggest concern being how to pay for everything.

and the lawyer, and then it starts to become this serious thing. I’m with a new label there, Basin Rock. I love their work and their design aesthetic.”

I love Nadia’s live performances, most of which are just her and guitarist Sam Taylor

“We toured in Europe last May I was hit by this massive revelation of how much music has comforted me through so much of my life, which I think I was taking for granted.”

“My friend [and fellow songwriter musician] Anthonie Tonnon is really good at budgets and money, so he’s helped me. ’I’ve made you a budget,’ he’d say and I was resisting and now it’s like – he’s a genius. I’m still taking care of everything over here.”

Picked up following the local release of her debut album by Kiwi-friendly Australian record label Spunk, Nadia is now also signed to newcomer Brit label Basin Rock. ’Preservation’ will be just the label’s second release.

Earlier touring through the UK also led to a management contract with Manchester-based Andy Moss and David Cooper, which made organising her February 2016 European tour a whole lot easier.

“We toured in Europe last May, my first time over there since I was a child. I was hit by this massive revelation of how much music has comforted me through so much of my life, which I think I was taking for granted. Things began to shift with being over there and then you get the management, and the publishing

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who is currently travelling overseas with her.

I find myself thinking, ’What’s her voice going to do now? Where is she going to go with that wonderful melancholy?’ And after experiencing the song I have that big sigh of relief. Now, listening to the new record, I’m moved by the great balance instrumentally with her pitch-perfect delivery. After every song there’s a kind of landing you have to make to get your breath back, reminding me of the power of art and what it demands of you.

It’s really exciting that Nadia is launching this new album and will have plenty of gigs under her belt upon her return to tour NZ and Australia in late March/early April.

“Yes… nothing like back to back shows to get your fingers blistered up!”

I suspect her fingers and her wonderful, inspiring voice will be very busy for many, many years to come. lllYP"7J"_9J7Y3SO

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irstly a belated happy New Year and I hope all your 2017 bass stuff is everything you want it to be.

In this issue I am looking at a tune from a musical I saw when I was 15 years old. It was one of the reasons I became a professional musician in the ’70s, and it has

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of whom were the top session players in London, and I was fortunate to work with some of them over the years.

Hair – The Rock Musical was written by James Rado and Gerome Ragni and the music was composed by Galt McDermot. The score is a mixture of funk, rock and

as a ’vamp’, which means you keep playing them while there is dialogue on-stage/film and you watch for a cue at which point you play the last bar. Most of the line is more or less the same as that on the film with a couple of small variations. I haven’t put TAB in this time because the line just

Graham!) but they certainly were in 1979, so feel free to include them.

There are some great new musicals out there at the moment with some excellent songs that demand top bass playing, so get your reading together and you could find yourself in demand.

Copyright 2007 - Shaun Evans Professional Entertainment Production - www.shaunevans.com been covered by some great people.

The musical was called Hair and, for its time, it was a real shock to the crusty theatre world.

It contained some very direct commentaries on the American socio/political situation in the late 1960s and it also had its share of sex and drugs and rock ’n roll (acknowledgements to the late Ian Dury). All in all, it was considered shocking for a bunch of reasons I won’t go into here, look at what is said on Wikipedia or ask your mum and dad!

Anyway, when I dropped out of school a couple of years later and became a pro musician, it was partly because I had watched the musicians in this musical, some

soul, and the bass lines drew on the music of the period.

The band played on stage on the back of a flat-bed truck and not in the pit, so I spent most of the musical glued to what they were doing. Aquarius is probably the biggest hit from the musical although there were others, such as Let the Sun Shine In. You should check out a cover of these songs done as a medley on YouTube by the Fifth Dimension. Joe Osborne’s bass part (the Wrecking Crew played the music on the recording) was left purposely loud as it is so good.

This version of Aquarius comes from the 1979 film of the musical directed by Milos Forman. The first two bars of this are played

follows a basic groove and you can also follow the guitar chords once you have listened to the recording a few times. It can be played between the nut and fret 5 (except bar 5 where you need to go between frets 7 and 9 on string one).

Also, in bar 5 there is a low D meant for a five string. If you play a four string, just play the E to D phrase up an octave.

There are several sections that were obviously influenced by James Jamerson, especially the descending rakes (bars 4, 5 and 7) and the chromatic passing notes in bars 6 and 9. The YouTube film recording also has some pulled notes that weren’t used very much in 1967 (except perhaps by Larry

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See you next issue!

(Dr. Rob Burns is an Associate Professor in Music at the University of Otago in Dunedin. As a former professional studio bassist in the UK, he performed and recorded with David Gilmour, Pete Townsend, Jerry Donahue, Isaac Hayes, Sam and Dave, James Burton, Ian Paice and Jon Lord, Eric Burdon and members of Abba. He played on the soundtracks on many UK television shows, such as Red Dwarf, Mr. Bean, Blackadder, Not the Nine O’Clock News and Alas Smith and Jones. Rob is currently a member of Dunedin bands Subject2change and The Verlaines.)

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Black Science

Black Science was conjured up when Dylan Clarke, Alex Willi and Joss Colling joined forces in 2009 to form a raucous and robust alternative rock act with punk and psychedelic undertones. With one EP already under their belt, the Auckland group are set to release a debut album named ’Burn & Rave’ in March. Jean Bell chatted with the band.

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Other acknowledged influences include Sonic Youth, Dinosaur Jr., The Rolling Stones, Neil Young and The Replacements.

“As we get older, we discover a lot more different music and it comes subconsciously into your head,” admits Dylan. “We write whatever we feel, it happens organically.”

The Beatles are definitely one of the main ones,” Joss adds. “They’re the godfathers, like education.”

“The Beatles are like the meat and potato,” Dylan agrees, “We’ve got a song on the album dedicated to Paul McCartney.” ’Burn & Rave’ is the self-proclaimed magnum opus of the band, their first full-length release.

With a diverse and full-bodied range of sound the gusto throughout the album is infectious.

Vigour that makes you want to rave until you literally burn out. The album title was inspired by a Dylan Thomas poem.

“Basically, it’s not going gently into the good night, but to rip shit and bust and go to your dying breath,” explains Dylan.

“Out of all the songs that we’ve worked on over the years, the songs we’re releasing capture the best light of all of that,” Alex reveals.

“We always find something fresh while practising,” adds Joss. “The stuff that we’ve recorded is great, but I can see it evolving into extended cuts and mixing things up.”

As with their conversation, the group work on songs collaboratively, everyone having a hand in penning the music and lyrics.

“It’s good to have dudes who share the same goals. If you’re fucking up somehow and not getting it right, these guys will tell you,” says Dylan smiling.

Their music and lyrics explore a range of emotions with an overall uplifting message.

Things are kept real by touching on topics like depression.

“It’s like a scrap book for our 20s,” reveals Dylan. “It didn’t start off as a concept album, but now it has become one. We don’t want it to be pretentious though, it’s more a story.”

“Our first single, I Fell Off The Edge Of My Mind, came from a big night out,” Dylan recounts. “It

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was raining as I was walking home with water in the potholes in the road, and the sun was just rising. I got home and was having a look at the newspaper, and the song inspiration came to me and I wrote it down on a scrap piece of newspaper. I found the tune hummed into my phone a few weeks later and it fitted in exactly with what I’d written about.’”

Ed Castelow (Dictaphone Blues) produced the album and the recording was completed over a couple of weekends within a six-month period at Castelow’s studio in Mt Eden. His input was valuable for the band, they describe him as being like a fourth member during the recording process.

“He’d push ’record’ but then have his headphones on and be dancing around in the studio. He’d be like, ’Here’s the feel, this is the moment, make sure you hit it hard.’ He’ll make sure the little things are there, as we’re too in another zone and concentrating on other things,” recounts Joss.

Keeping things simple, each track was recorded three times, with the best take chosen.

“It becomes really complicated and too much in your head if you do more takes. It’s about being well rehearsed before recording,” Joss advises.

“The energy is there when you’re first starting as well, after a few takes it can be a bit like, ’Ahh shit, I’m not getting it,’” Dylan adds.

“Just gotta let it go. Once we did 70 takes, well at least it felt like 70 takes!” confides Alex.

Come March, the band will be releasing ’Burn & Rave’ on CD and online. As well as plans to jump on a nationwide tour, the ambitious bunch are planning to release an EP within the next year.

“Our long term goal is to tour Australia and the States,” expresses Dylan. For now, the band is stoked to be releasing their first album.

“We’re all really excited to get our music out there and to play for more people. People are excited already at the prospect of having an album in their hands by Black Science. People are saying it’s about time for us.” ,M"3L`3J9P39Y,"P73"OUY3SO

Photo: Karl Sheridan

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ith the sun shining and beer aplenty, the camaraderie of the three Black Science bandmates is crystal clear.

Teasing and free-spirited banter between the guys reveals their musical partnership is based upon a solid and genuine friendship.

Drummer Alex Willi and Dylan Clarke (guitar/vocals) go way back, having known each other since primary school. They started playing music together as teenagers, before teaming up with Joss Colling (bass/vocals) to create Black Science.

Active on the scene for five years, the trio have locked down a solid live performance.

“We pride ourselves on our live shows. It’s high energy. You can’t slip a cigarette paper in-between, that’s how tight everything is,” Dylan smiles. “It’s like a therapy session for me, like I have something to give to the world.”

“As cliché as it is, it’s great to see the crowd getting into and loving it,” agrees Joss. “You look at other members on stage and it gives you a buzz when they’re into it too.”

“It’s always a reflection of how much I love doing it inside, so seeing it in the crowd is great,” Alex adds.

Beyond Auckland gigs, the band has regularly ventured down to Tauranga to perform at the annual Woodcock Festival.

“We’ve played every one. It’s like Christmas for us,” smiles Dylan.

“We played at Woodcock one year and it was a real high energy show and the three of us ended up vomiting together afterwards. We were holding each other arm in arm, holding back each other’s hair. I wish we had got a photo – it was album cover,” recalls Joss. “But that’s it, you give all you’ve got.”

Beyond delivering a riotous live performance, the guys are dedicated musicians and self-confessed music nerds, drawing inspiration from a range of musical sources.

“We all read that book Our Band Could Be Your Life [by Michael Azerrad]. It’s basically all the bands that are our influences. Also, any Flying Nun or SST Records from the ’80s, like Black Flag and Minute Men,” says Dylan.

Nurture vs Nature

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Chester Travis is one of those driven, uber onto it people that started playing music and promoting shows as under age kid, before heading out to find success overseas. After a stint in London he was ready to settle back in his hometown of Christchurch, just to see his life complicated by earthquake-related issues such as the destruction of his precious guitar collection and difficulties finding a place to live. Frustrated, he decided to see what life in current Kiwi OE hotspot Berlin would be like, and it turned out that he loved it there. Alongside former colleague, Brit Tim Hook, Chester has since recorded a duet with under-age gig chum Kimbra under the moniker of Great Danes, toured with Scottish band Travis (Why Does It Always Rain On Me), and charmed them into helping him to record his upcoming album, due later this year.

Who are Great Danes?

A question that shouldn’t be at all difficult to answer but somehow is!

My name is Chester Travis, and a few years ago I met a guy called Tim Hook in a small vintage guitar shop in London. We both worked there together, often alone, and I’d play Tim songs (he’d later confess he was terrified customers that came into the store would think I was serenading him).

This shop was on Denmark Street (remember this).

After moving to Berlin I lured Tim over with the promise of musical possibilities etc. and he eventually caved and moved over. We began playing together and settled on the name Great Danes after discovering they were German dogs, and the fact of us having met on Denmark Street.

We recorded an EP together, played some shows, then I travelled around the world for a few months on my own and ever since it’s been a kind of buffet band set up. Sometimes it’s two of us, sometimes a full band and sometimes just me. Depends on the appetite.

As far as music is concerned, what projects were you involved with back in NZ? What’s your background?

I made a couple of EPs when I was 16-17. I burned them myself and printed the cases out on manila folders which I then cut and glued into CD sleeves. I think I broke a couple of my family’s printers as the card was so thick. Worth it.

I also started renting out overly ambitious venues at around this age.

I’d find other NZ musicians on MySpace and get them to fly down to play shows at places like The Great Hall in Christchurch. They were called Acoustic Footprint (bleugh) and it was through one of these I originally met Kimbra. You can still see one of her performances from this show, her covering Jeff Buckley’s So Real, on Youtube.

When and why did you move from NZ to Berlin?

Well before Berlin I’d lived in London for a few years. I eventually decided to move back permanently but it turned out to be mere months before the earthquake. I’d worked in this acoustic guitar shop called Hanks in London and shipped back this huge collection of guitars I’d

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acquired during my time there. Before I had time to sort out any insurance they were all destroyed in the February 22 quake.

Before the quake I’d been staying at my Mum’s house, but that was a near write off so we all squeezed into Dad’s place, like a clown car. All my friends had moved away, I had no job and it was near impossible to find a place to live, so I decided to move back over to Europe again. I’d been to Berlin before and it seemed like a good alternative, so I just made a snap decision.

When you first arrived there, what were your biggest challenges?

For me personally it was finding my feet as a musician and songwriter again. London is a fairly oppressive place to try and be any sort of artist.

A lot of time disappears while working non-stop to pay rent, battling big crowds and scavenging to try and make any kind of name for yourself.

Someone once told me that no great musicians were ever born in London, they moved there. I’m not sure that’s entirely true but it resonated with me and made me think perhaps the reason so much great music comes out of places like Scandinavia and NZ is space, time and capacity to create.

The four years I spent in London, while enlightening and exciting, were detrimental to me as a songwriter. I virtually stopped writing and playing.

It took me a while to find a natural sound and surround myself with musicians that had the same sensibilities. In many ways I’m really happy it took this long as I think I needed to develop a lot before really putting anything out there.

How difficult was it to get integrated into the local music scene?

Berlin is particularly accommodating when it comes to new musicians.

It feels like stepping back in time in a way. In London, every bar or music venue’s live music is run by an outside promoter, shaking you down to bring audiences or requiring payment in order to play. But in Berlin there’s a music venue on every corner. Or a bar without a sound system that sets up acoustic nights. I was pretty blown away by the way in which Berlin crowds really come to listen to music, forming a circle, silent as anything and as the hat would come back round there’d often be EU150 in there.

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Before Berlin I felt as though this kind of dynamic didn’t really exist anymore, so it was a pleasant surprise. We were gradually asked to play bigger shows and eventually small festivals and Berlin has a very familial music scene, so people get to know you pretty quickly. I’d say Berlin is one of the easier places to integrate yourself as a musician.

What sort of support team do you have around you these days?

Well up until now it’s been pretty DIY. We have arranged our own shows, pressed our own EPs and done our own promotion etc. The biggest help to us are our two producers, Josef Bach and Arne Schumann, who fortuitously came to one of our gigs and said they’d like to produce an EP with us. It was extremely generous of them as we weren’t in a financial position to do something of the scale (it ended up to be) ourselves.

They own a publishing company so it just became a kind of contra deal as they welcomed us into their beautiful studio in Charlottenburg.

They put an enormous amount of work and time into creating this thing with us and we learned a lot from them. They’re our mentors I suppose, so of course we roped them into doing the upcoming album as well.

How have you found the German reaction to you and other Kiwi acts?

Berlin has an astonishing amount of NZ acts and Berlin, in particular, is extremely receptive to us as people. They find the accent amusing.

In general, German music is quite straight, they love their four-to-the-floor acoustic/electronic party ballads, but Berlin seems to be an island within Germany that is as progressive as the most musically innovative cities on the planet.

But the whole of Germany is just like any other country really. Their collective music taste cannot be determined by what’s on the radio and, while there doesn’t seem to be a big alt-country/folk audience here, the audience that is here is brilliant.

Could the success you’ve had overseas be replicated in NZ do you think?

It’s hard for me to say as I’ve been out of NZ for quite some time now. From what I understand a lot has changed. It certainly seems as though there’s a bit of a folk movement going on there so I think in the sense of finding venues and crowds there’s not a lot of difference. What I will say, however, is Europe allows you a lot of freedom in terms of touring internationally cheaply, or being offered a gig in another country and being able to arrive the same afternoon.

People say that touring is the key to an artist’s growth and that’s a much bigger upheaval if you’re coming from NZ. In saying that, my friends French For Rabbits and Nadia Reid seem to tour Europe every year with great success, so who knows? I think the world has gotten a lot smaller.

We decided to go on tour without ever having met! We started in Dunedin and moved up through the South Island, but it quickly became apparent we had inadvertently booked our tour alongside the ABBA Tribute show – which absorbed most of the crowds in the small towns. It was a disaster.

We’ve kept in touch since and in 2015 she came to Berlin. I was making the video for Goldmine at this time, with our mutual friend Timothy Armstrong, and I played her the song.

She said she’d like to feature so that was that!

She recorded her parts in New York and sent them over for us to mix in. Definitely a big boost for us, especially as her previous duet went number one in basically every country in the world. No pressure.

You toured with the Scottish band Travis recently and got along rather well…

Yes, that was truly bizarre. I grew up listening to Travis. I think Fran is an exceptional and classic sounding songwriter. His songs are incredibly McCartney-like. Along with the Beatles they were sort of my earliest songwriting teachers.

So it was fairly surreal to get a call from him while on the bus back from a friend’s dinner asking me to support them the next night in Berlin and then to have them ask if I’d like to join the whole European tour.

Near the end of the tour Dougie and Neil asked if I was planning on recording an album and whether I’d like them to play on it. What a question! So they flew out in December and we did a week of tracking. It was so exciting to have such seasoned and musical players for the rhythm section, they really transformed the songs.

What else is on the cards for you in 2017?

We should be releasing our first album mid year sometime, we contributed a lot of music to a new Amazon series called You Are Wanted which comes out in March. Doing a German tour supporting one of my favourite artists, Thomas Dybdahl, and plan to come back to NZ at some stage. Hopefully to play some shows!

What would you suggest to any musicians considering a move to Europe?

I would hands down suggest Berlin. It’s cheap, easy to find work quickly as an English speaker and it’s one of the most vibrant and creative cities I’ve had the pleasure of living within. The quality of life here allows a lot of time to create, form connections and make a name for yourself before branching out into other parts of Europe.

Anything you wish you’d known before moving?

Chutney doesn’t exist. They’ve never heard of squeegee mops and for all the talk of German efficiency – get ready for a lot of paperwork and long lines when it comes to renting a place or getting a tax number.

Do you have any favourite/secret spots over there that you frequent?

So many! Prachtwerk is a great venue to play when you first get to Berlin. Big stage, great sound, lovely people and excellent coffee. Ä Bar is another great venue for intimate shows.

And for non-musically related excursions, The Technology Museum is fascinating. Also our place is pretty nice, so get in touch if you need a place to stay while you’re here.

Maybe your best known song thus far here is Where The Down Bit Starts with Kimbra – that was quite a coup to get her involved.

As mentioned earlier I met Kimbra through MySpace. She was about 17 and I was 19 I think.

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ailing originally from Warkworth, Bobandii is a one man project inspired by acts like Chance The Rapper and Bon Iver. Silas McClintock sings, raps, writes, mixes and masters his own projects from his Auckland bedroom.

“I was about 18 when I started picking up beats, and three years ago is when I started working on vocals. I dropped a song called Daffodils and it was the first track I properly sang on. At that point I was like, ‘Oh snap, my voice can actually do something as per the usual jokey raps.’ I was 19 going on 20 when I started raps and vocals. I’m 22 now.”

McClintock picked up his music through rock bands at a young age before he discovered beat making.

“I learnt the guitar growing up, I was all about trying to be this crazy lead guitarist and I wanted to get good at it, but I never got that good. As I started making beats I was tired of trying to piece it together without any

musical knowledge, so I tried to pick up the keys and I’ve been learning the keys for about a year now. All self-taught!

“The first track I made was Gardens, about a year ago, and at that point I knew I wanted to save up beats for something bigger than a Soundcloud single, but I had no idea what I was doing really. I felt like it was about time to give a project that says I’m here to stay. I picked my favourite tracks from 22 that I had.”

Bobandii’s ‘Of The Forest’ mixtape appeared online with a teaser video that gained nearly 5000 views within a month. ‘Of The Forest’ is a 13-track project that really is as conceptually cohesive and versatile as a Bon Iver record. It’s an ambitious project melding together hip hop, soul, ambient and folk with guest features from Olivia Collier and Pearl McClintock.

“She’s my sister and she was 15 last year when we recorded those vocals.”

The debut mixtape is influenced by critically acclaimed producers Flying Lotus and Mr Carmack.

“Mr Carmack was the producer that made me go, ‘Damn, I wanna make beats,” McClintock enthuses.

In regards to the future Bobandii doesn’t look to be slowing down anytime soon. Currently studying for a degree in Creative Technology he plans to keep writing music through it, and has picked up videography and web development as options.

“I want to have the financial freedom to attack projects beyond music and create a trans-media world. In terms of Bobandii, I’m just going to shoot as high as I can.”

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romz is a new band of twenty-somethings formed in Dunedin mid-2016.

“Gromz can be any little nippers, trying to make their mark.

Grommits are just little kids running around causing mischief – I guess that's what we are!” Semisi Maiai, singer of Gromz, explains the name of the band and how the guys got together.

“I met Mo, our guitarist, February last year at uni and we had a wee jam just for fun. I knew Isaac Kennedy was a drummer and I kind of knew him mutually through mates. We got together and had a jam and it was sounding alright – wasn't amazing, it was pretty rusty! We wrote up like six songs and then just played them at our first gig.”

The full band line up is Max Gunn (bass), Mo Winders (guitar), Isaac Kennedy (drums) and Semisi Maiai (vocals and guitar) who combine contrasting influences of ’70-’80s British sound from bands like Velvet Underground to funk/soul/reggae grooves that can be heard in Gunn’s melodic bass lines.

From these casual beginnings the band has founded a carefree, fun, dreamy style that Maiai dubs as “romantic surf-rock”. The band started to

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get a bit more serious about the tunes they were writing after performing sold out gigs of up to 400 in pub and student venues. Deciding to record an album they took themselves to that gem of the Dunedin music scene, Port Chalmers’ Chicks Hotel Recording Services run by Tom Bell (David Kilgour and The Heavy Eights).

Following the digital release of ‘Two and a Half Days’ they were pleasantly surprised when, by a stroke of good fortune, they found new listeners all over the world via Spotify.

“A track from our album got onto a playlist on Spotify, one of those ‘Lazy Sunday’ ones or something like that, with 300,000 followers. There are only 20 songs on the playlist so we got heaps of listeners from that.

From there on it just kind of kept going. Heaps of people know us all around the world just from that one song on that playlist… it was pretty interesting to have people from places like Manhattan listening.”

The bandmates are now all living in different locations around Australasia, so getting together isn’t easy. This summer, however, the band had a few weeks living in close quarters as they road tripped around the country on an extensive Summer tour put together by Queenstown’s Harry Petit (Birds Nest Entertainment).

“He did heaps, completely smashed the tour for us basically – sold out heaps of places and we didn’t have to do much!”

The band visited over 10 cities and towns, including Christchurch and Maiai gives a glowing review of their experience there.

“We went to the Darkroom and just packed the place out. It had a mean energy, everyone was just frothing the music! We all had great impressions of the mixer. He was really easy-going, set us all up and the sound was amazing. It was probably the best sound we had all tour.”

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iting a range of musical influences from Kevin Parker (Tame Impala) to Lady Gaga and Marina Diamandis, to Coldplay, Blenheim resident Stefani Gray (aka Hybrid Rose) self-produces tunes that vary from chiptune ditty Video Games to the poppy, dance-y Pixel and distorted dubstep of Expectations.

Her influences go beyond music, however; the opening chords to Pixels came to her while watching an episode of Adventure Time for example. She also cites vintage design and graphics as an influence, especially in terms of the visuals she produces alongside her songs.

“They’re not very detailed. Simple colours and graphics, which I find really fascinating because I love colour – anything colourful and sugary.

Marina’s ‘Froot’ era was like that a lot; she could write these really personal stories but have this really happy dance-y vibe to them, as if she was getting something sad and sugar coating it so people could enjoy it.”

While Gray doesn’t consider herself a political person, she says she’s very passionate about making change.

“There’s a lot going on in the world and it’s very frustrating to see people struggling. It’s really hard to put yourself in that position or to fall

into that position because it can just ruin you. It’s important that we make a change.”

Her musical character is a little more involved however, and the music is occasionally politically inspired.

“Hybrid Rose doesn’t hold anything back. Say there was something controversial going on in the LGBT community, like Trump was signing an anti-LGBT law, she would go all in and she would protest the hell out of it.”

Mermaid Lovers, her latest single, is however less political and more escapism.

“I wanted to make something that wasn’t related to what’s going on in politics and the world and have something people can enjoy, just a little fun track.”

The song is exactly what it sounds like from the title, about “…two lesbian mermaids falling in love.” Using heavy compression to create that underwater feel, it is indeed very pretty and aquatic, as the artist herself describes it.

Hybrid Rose’s debut album, ‘Cosmic’ is due for release in March/ April. With 12 tracks so far, the album tells a story inspired by Gray’s own experiences.

“I wanted to get personal stories from my life and turn them into vibrant and exciting tunes,” she explains.

Between now and then, Gray intends to create and release more videos from the album – she’s just as passionate about the visual side of things as she is about the music. She describes ‘Cosmic’ as “…a multimedia project of audio, images, and visuals.”

In the meantime Gray is looking at performing where she can, but for the most part is just having a good time, enjoying what comes.

“I’m going to take everything as it comes to me and embrace it and whatever happens, happens.”

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Bic Runga – Close Your Eyes

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eleased in November 2016, ‘Close Your Eyes’ is Bic Runga’s fifth studio album, a 12-song tribute featuring interpretations of some of her favourite covers to which she also added two new original songs. Bic was recently inducted into the NZ Music Hall of Fame, deservedly so, following a successful 20 year (plus) career of unique and iconic releases.

And this latest is yet another gem.

The lo-fi psychedelia-styled production present throughout knits the whole album together beautifully, providing a warm landscape for her delicate vocals and some well-played,cleverly crafted and arranged instrumentation to dance around. Live drums, fat bass, acoustic guitars, strings, subtle synths, beefed up by clever modern recording techniques and wrapped in tape-compressed valve lushness screams 1960s with contemporary cool – I’m guessing Kody Nielsen, her partner and co-producer, played a strong role here.

Close Your Eyes is also the name of the first single and stand out original track. Although I was hoping for a higher Bic-composed song ratio – the only other original Dream A Dream is a strong, well-written tune (with a super-hip disco outro!).

At 142bpm Close Your Eyes really moves. A flamming snare and tom-tom figure on the drumset at the intro is the main propulsive force, echoed in the guitar and bass parts, driving hard under dramatic high strings. I’m guilty of comparing new music to something I already know, but that is most certainly a deliberate and desired effect here – my music memory scanned through everything from ’60s Bond themes, Boney M, The Beatles to Tarantino film scores with repeated listening –

the scene is set!

The melodic source throughout is diatonic (A major / F# minor scale tones and chords, with the exception of a C#7 in the second measure of the chorus) which might imply a bland harmonic palette. However, 12 seconds in we hear the title lyrics ring out through counterpoint layers of vocals that entwine and echo against each other. ‘Close your eyes, God is everywhere at once, don’t you realise we are the luckiest ones,’ Bic’s gentle singing style eliciting a dreamlike feeling over a busy, punchy rhythm section.

This sophisticated blend of vocal tracks, from unison – to harmonised – to overlapping counterpoint, creates a rhythmic tension, adding momentum without being cluttered.

In the key of F#minor, the verse chords move through a repeated 8-measure cycle that descends via familiar harmonic terrain (F#m to C#m to Badd9 to A6 returning to F#m), although the darkness of this progression, heightened by an eerie muted synth pad, minimal cymbals and no hi-hats, is contrasted by the sweetness in her vocal tone and demeanor.

Greater contrast comes in the next section ( ‘chorus’ is the best-fit term), double-time tambourine brightening the mood as chords now rise from Bm through C#7 back home to F#m, then E major. Strummed acoustic joins here to support; ‘day after day, I still want to, want you,’ these last lyrics breaking into two-part harmony, drum fills and crashing cymbals underpinning the accents.

Interestingly, the ‘close your eyes’ lyric at the top of the tune hints at a chorus section; except that the following sections’ lyric and melody could arguably be the ‘hookiest’, albeit subtly,

hinting at more of a ‘chorus’ feel. Debatable!

Looking back across her plethora of pop hits it’s apparent Bic tends to let the melody do the work – she’s not overly fond of vocal theatrics, which makes her music even more appealing in my opinion. This is clearly evident throughout Close Your Eyes and many of the other album tunes; melodies sung straight and pure where any embellishment is a hint – a beautiful but imperfect doubled vocal or subtle shift in tone, as opposed to wow-factor arpeggio or scale runs and trills. No auto-tune here.

The album features many longer-thanexpected interludes, again harking back to a different era of music where instrumental themes or even entire instrumental sections were explored and developed. At 2:43 long it’s surprising to find an extended interlude (16 generous measures long!) after the second chorus – usually the place for a contrasting middle 8.

Then, another variation from the norm; following the third and last chorus is a shortened third verse identical to the first 8 bars of verse one – which might create a tidy book-end except that the final 4-measure outro is entirely new harmonic material.

Here an interesting and uncommon song form is revealed, a means by which an artist might bend or disguise the ‘golden ratio’ (a gradually building dynamic arc across the whole song, with an apex somewhere around the 62%[-ish] region that dissipates rather quickly towards the end) – yet still create music that is satisfying to listen to. On Close Your Eyes the job is well done; while the overall song dynamic is fairly consistent, movement and interest is generated by mood intensity and dramatic, contrasting vocal and instrumental parts.

I’ve always enjoyed Bic’s voice, her distinctive tone with a hint of Kiwi-ness, cute, lilting, even raw on occasion but never raspy or edgy – yet an edginess is introduced in this album, more prominent on other tracks where her vocals are processed through a subtle ‘clipping’ effect; compressing and dirtying the tone.

This could be Kody Nielsen’s producer chops, or something she arrived at organically.

Either way, the sense that there is more to her than the softer Bic we know from earlier hits is welcome and refreshing; not a total reinvention but certainly a subtle progression and development.

Dixon Nacey is a guitarist, composer, producer and MD, who teaches music at Auckland & Massey University, CPIT in Christchurch, and online at www.jazzguitarlegend.com.

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The name’s genius right? Adding a sixth member to the group, Auckland brass-heavy hip hop act Shoutin’ Preachin’ announce the upcoming release of their album ‘From The Echo Chamber’. Ally Su’a talked with hard working vocalist Andrew McCormack and bassist Yves Yang.

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hile their lyrics subtly encompass concepts of impending doom through party-starting anthems and socially conscious rap, Shoutin’ Preachin’s sound stems from various elements; hip hop, punk and brass. It’s a fused sound of New Orleans’ jazz parade horns, punk energy and hip hop beats blending to what the band describe as “… music from and for the millennial generation, and a rallying cry for the 99%.”

“It’s a punk influenced anti-establishment energy – but the music itself really stems in different directions,” vocalist Drew McCormack explains in person. “There are soul influences, there’s New Orleans second line stuff… but recently we’re trying to keep it more modern.”

The band's first release, a five track EP which they badged ‘New Low Humans’ came in early 2014. The catchy single of the same name will be remembered by student radio listeners with an ear for brass hooks, scathing lyrics and profanities.

“We’ve creatively developed since, our sound is always developing and one thing that’s changed – that I’ve noticed – is the sense of ourselves and the sound that we’re making has matured.”

“I definitely saw that our sound isn’t as simple as it was before,” agrees bassist Yves Yang.

“Our stylistic choice changed and our band just figured out what path we wanted to be on...”

Drew cites fellow Auckland bands Mason Clinic and Black Science as among their main influences.

“Mason Clinic went through what we are going through right now, and not only them but also Black Science. They’re one of the bands that have influenced us specifically with our values.”

In regard to their hip hop influences, he prefers the band keep moving forwards.

“We’re trying to avoid sounding like one thing… I don’t like the idea of becoming a mimic.”

With the addition of Hayden Walsh on trumpet, Scott Thomas on saxophone, Christopher Chatwin-Ward’s trombone and drummer Jared Taylor, Screachin’ Preachin’ have no real problem sounding like themselves and no on else.

When we talk the band is in the final steps of preparing their debut album ‘From The Echo Chamber’ for mid-March release.

Talking about the musical process involved in making the tracks the pair agree it’s a variation between starting with a beat, casual jams and improvisation.

“Recently, we found ourselves starting with the beat… but there have been times we have a jam. We find that sometimes directionless because your intuition can only provide you so many avenues. And also the band tries to meet each other halfway with the sounds that we individually create,” Yves reflects.

“We’re trying to get it to sound like what’s in our head. There’s six of us in the band and trying to reflect that it’s difficult.. but a few of the tracks on the new album have been initially

created by some of our improvisational jams,” elaborates Drew.

One of the key challenges in making the album was the act of recording itself.

“We are quite disadvantaged in recording situation because we sound so much better and different live,” admits Yves. “Just so much fuller and more energetic, and with studio recording it needs to be adjusted.”

“It’s hard to have the same energy in our recordings,” chimes in Drew. “The horns are clipped out in recordings sometimes – but we always find a way to do it.”

‘From The Echo Chamber’has many elements in the sounds and concepts it can create.

Primary lyricist Drew explains its darkness by pointing to the current state of the world.

“I find that a lot of what I write has a sense of impending doom… I somehow find myself always including it for some reason, but it's more in the sense of righteous indignation.

Three good words to describe it are ‘bankrupt political establishment’, I’d definitely say this album has really refined that, which to a point that would be the main focus, but we try to lighten it up with energetic beats.”

The new album is not only a combination of the band’s individual sounds but also their process of development since the last release.

“Expect six tracks on the album but more importantly expect equal parts cynicism and equal parts righteous indignation. Expect just that,” advises Drew.

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Stage Trek, Episode 5: In Search Of Wedding Gigs My last article left us orbiting Planet Party, and away missions visited a few lucrative locations; playing at private events, graduation shindigs, and even corporate wingdings. But the mother ship won’t beam us up until we’ve made our final visit to the most well-paid, but potentially perilous location of all – the wedding gig. .O .EWBIES This is a place you don’t want to visit until you’ve got some experience, or even a proven track record. Why? Every wedding gig you play will be the most important day of someone’s life, and you’d better not mess it up. (And that person is the mother of the groom. B’doom tish!) You’ve got to bring your A-game and keep it razor-sharp for every minute you’re at the event. So until you’ve got one, there’s no point even considering it.

Every caution I made about playing private parties goes double here. You aren’t there to tie one on, but to stand in for the hosts and really show people a good time. You need to be professional in the way you behave, dress, and deal with the inevitable changes that will occur.

You need to be ready for anything.

"OOK @EM $ANO Getting started in the wedding circuit – and it is a circuit – relies heavily on reputation.

This is a business in which recommendations play a key role. You get the next gig because at the last one someone thought you did a fantastic job. People talk about that great band at their mate’s wedding, and soon enough you get another call, then more. Every wedding attendant is a potential referral – inded ongoing bookings may be made right there by guests planning their own nuptials.

All the same, there are other avenues for finding clients. One is simply word-of-mouth.

You hear about an upcoming wedding of an acquaintance and you let them know you’d be delighted to play their gig if they’re hiring a band. Or you may be approached directly after a club gig and asked if you play weddings, which is just one more reason you need a few business cards in your back pocket at all times.

Wedding-circuit lounge lizards will have web pages and even directory listings – but one of the best calling cards of all is simply a YouTube link to some really great footage of you playing, preferably at someone’s wedding.

That will tell your potential clients exactly what they need to know right away, and can save the need for a demo CD. 4HERE IS A 3EASON 4URN 4URN 4URN Wedding gigs are tied down to the late spring to early autumn months, with a peak flurry in the middle of summer. For NZ that means a lot of gigs in January and February, dying down through March and April. Weather

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is always a constant concern, and may result in a cancelled gig. Whatever happens, maintain your cool. Remember that while such changes may be an inconvenience for you, they’re much more of a catastrophe for the wedding party.

5PFRONT 3TYLE AND 5PFRONT #HARGES Nearly every wedding service provider nowadays has some kind of down payment.

The reason why is that bookings tie up business and personnel on vital days during a limited time of year. The more important weddings are to a band’s income stream, the more likely it is that the band will charge a deposit. At my own California wedding the band wasn’t too dear to hire – but the deposit was 50% of their fee.

Now your band may not be so ambitious, and you’ll probably play a few very casual weddings at first. But deposit or not, you will need some negotiating chops and a bit of a business plan when booking wedding gigs.

Don’t be afraid to ask what you think your band is worth – and to increase your rates if you hear that a peer band is making much more. Don’t gouge, but don’t grovel.

The wedding planner may want a professional-looking invoice, and maybe even itemised costs if you’re renting equipment like a PA or lights. The most important thing is to speak with confidence about your ability to play the gig, and your willingness to work with them to make the special day unforgettable. That will put their minds at rest, and get them off your back about micro-managing everything. )T S A #EREMONY .OT A (OOTENANNY Every wedding has its own playbook, but there’s a pretty common schedule to most. The part where you come in mostly follows the ceremony and wedding meal – for the wedding dances. After a couple of sets, the bride and groom depart the wedding, and guests remain until the food and drinks run out.

A big issue here is around soundchecking.

Some planners will tell you, “Oh, just show up around dinner time and set up.” They don’t know how loud, or important, a soundcheck can be. Don’t believe a single word of what these people say. The time to show up and set up is 90 minutes before the wedding starts, and that means the ‘arrival from’ time and not the ‘tying the knot’ time. You want to be set up, soundchecked and at ease before anything else happens. This will give you time to deal with emergencies and you absolutely do not want anything to go wrong on this day.

Yes, you’ll be hanging around, waiting for things to start for quite some time. Make it clear to the wedding planner that your band will need to eat something during the wedding feast. This usually isn’t too much of an ask, especially at bigger weddings – but they need to know in

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advance in order to make sure enough food is ordered. Don’t fill up too much – you don’t want to lose your edge to a carb crash.

2OCK !ROUND THE #LOCK So your job is to fit in that schedule in any way requested. Your keyboardist may be asked to play the wedding march or you may be asked to play (quietly!) during dinner. You absolutely must accept that you’ll be making frequent announcements, and you’ll have to be at your most charming and sincere for the whole time.

You might even have to play favourite songs on request of the bride and groom, so be prepared and learn those in advance. Certainly one of these will be the first dance, which might even be a waltz – a strange thing for a rock band to play, but there it is.

You never know how long you might be up there. Some weddings go on and on for hours, so make sure that you’ve contracted a certain maximum playing time, maybe even stipulating an extra charge for additional sets.

Two sets is the norm.

Don’t get all hurt and defensive if you’re told that the wedding doesn’t need a second set after all. It’s almost never a comment on your playing.You have to understand that sometimes people start to leave earlier than expected, especially if the wedding runs late and there’s a long drive home. Then again, be ready to play a third or even a fourth set because some people really know how to party!

"UT 7ATCH 9OUR "ACK -ATE The strangest thing about weddings is that they can be more out-of-control than any club gig. People really drink a hell of a lot, especially in front of an endless supply of alcohol. Usually, this is just a happy simmer of booziness, but occasionally things erupt. There are a lot of mean drunks out there, and they get set off very easily by meeting the new in-laws.

Since punching out the father of the bride is usually not a safe option, then the next best thing can be that musician who’s been flirting with their girlfriend in between sets.

In the roughest of the rough clubs we played my bands were treated with huge respect by everyone – but at weddings we had more than our share of rough-housing from drunken guests. So really just stay out of it. Don’t mingle when people are out of control. Don’t give anyone an excuse to abuse you, and usually you’ll be safe.

Join me again for our next Building Blocks Stage Trek mission; In Search of Nightclub Gigs.

Thomas Goss is a producer, band coach, and composer/orchestrator with an international clientele that includes Billy Ocean, Melanie C, and Canadian jazz star Nikki Yanofsky.

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Lydia Cole

There’s a strong visual link between Lydia Cole’s 2012 debut album and this year’s sophomore release; softened, messed-with artwork in textured shades of brown, printed on matt card. The effect of each is a sense of contemplative introspection well matched to her brand of gentle vocal-led folk.

They also share the same producer in Nic Manders, but with five formative years between them the background to the two albums differs considerably, as Greta Yeoman discovers.

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ydia Cole is back with new songs, a new outlook on life and a new instrument on board. While still built around her trademark spaciously quiet acoustic guitar songs, the Auckland folk musician’s second album, ‘The Lay of the Land’, adds a welcome variation into synths and electric guitar.

“After ‘Me & Moon’ [her 2012 debut album] and touring that, I just really felt I needed something new,’’ Cole explains.

While the move from playing folk tunes on an acoustic guitar onto an electric “felt different’’, it was still folk music she was writing.

“It’s not a groundbreaking genre shift.’’

On the new album she plays three tunes on acoustic guitar, two on piano and three on electric guitar. She wrote Time Is A Healer on a nylon-stringed guitar. The song’s traditional folk song-style simplicity meant she and longtime producer Nic Manders could play with it – and the track includes Adam Tobeck on drums, piano, synth and even a backwards electric guitar solo from Cole.

“I feel quite proud of that.’’

While her 2009 EP ‘Love Will Find A Way’ and debut album were both recorded at Auckland’s Roundhead Studios, the first funded by an NZ On Air grant and the latter paid for her by former management, Cole’s newly-self-managed career and limited funds meant an album recording budget that didn’t stretch that far.

The album was recorded in Manders’ home studio.

The location near to a school meant they might be all set up for a take when Manders would realise the bell would go in five minutes and advise her to catch a break.

“Certain times of the day were out of bounds,” she laughs.

The pair have worked together on all of Cole’s previous records, including EPs ‘Twenty Years’ and ‘Love Will Find A Way’, as well as ‘Me & Moon’, but it was the first time they had recorded in Manders’ own studio.

Almost five years after her last release, Cole put out the call to crowdfund the new album via Kickstarter. It was a

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matter of faith in her fans, and the response was overwhelming, bringing in more than $15,000 to a campaign (from 261 contributors) that had originally aimed for $10k.

“The support from people… you can’t put a price tag on that.’’

She says the success of the crowdfunding had given her confidence to step out and book three Australian gigs, even though she had not performed there in years. The Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane shows – all in the space of a weekend – fall just before Cole’s planned NZ tour on which she will be accompanied

by Manders with Jol Mulholland on synths, guitarist Luke Oram and Adam Tobeck on drums.

While two of her Aussie shows see her singing solo, several members of Australian folk-pop band The Paper Kites will join in her Melbourne show. The connection that goes back years, to when the Kites’ frontman Sam Bentley joined her on stage when she toured as support for Brooke Fraser’s ‘Flags’ album tour in 2010.

“I’m real pumped for that,” Cole enthuses.

The release of Fraser’s 2003 debut album ‘What To Do With Daylight’provided inspiration for a teenaged Cole to pursue music.

“A Kiwi girl with a guitar, it’s possible,” she recalls.

However, while the opportunity to make music her career was fast taking root, it first had to overtake her long-held dream of becoming a visual artist.

“I would spend years watching people [working

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Previously she hasn’t felt inclined to move away but Lydia has now decided to transport her life to Berlin where she can pursue visual art and also hit the streets busking.

on a craft] before stepping out and doing it.”

A renewed reconnection with visual art is part of the reason Cole is set to uproot her life in Auckland this April and move across the world to Berlin, a city she has never even visited.

While Berlin was not an expected choice she says observing several Kiwi friends being able to pursue making an income from their art there was an exciting thing. Several well-meaning friends have for years asked when she was going to move to LA, Melbourne or London – but previously she hadn’t felt inclined to move.

She finally decided to transport her life to a new city where she could pursue visual art and also hit the streets busking.

“It is encouraged and… respected,” she points out.

Cole’s willingness to jump into new adventures ties in with the title of ‘The Lay of

the Land’ and the themes behind it.

“The last few years have given me the realisation that I need to accept things they way they were – and also not accept them!” she says with a laugh. “While people can look at mountains ahead and think they could not change them, if they walked the same route for years they will eventually make a path and quietly change the landscape.”

The mountainous inspiration of the album title transformed into the album art – once again created and photographed by Cole, moving from a 3D layered mountain scene to album artwork.

“I always love looking out and seeing different layers.”

The theme of acceptance or changing things also interwove into other parts of her life, including leaving behind CRS Management to become self-managed. There was no major fall out she says, but admits she always had a default tendency to take advice and orders from anyone else in the room – leaving her with little “clarity” to think for herself.

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“It wasn’t their fault and it wasn’t mine, it’s just the way I am.”

Having set out by herself she immediately started songwriting again.

“The lack of support scares me into action,” she laughs.

In between albums Cole hasn’t been quiet on the musical collaboration front, sharing backing vocal duties with Annie Crummer on Ed Waaka’s No Enemy Of Mine, gifting an old single Feels Like for a remix by Loui The Zu, sharing vocals with Sam Bentley for a song on fundraising album ‘Jonny Be Good’ and contributing a song to her church’s 2016 Best Worship Album Tui-winning album, ‘Edge Kingsland Vol. 3’.

But, for now, Cole is focused on touring, moving cities, creating new art and living out the themes behind ‘The Lay of the Land’.

“This is me saying, ‘This is how things are and I accept it.’’’

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Having previously been behind the kit for the likes of Kingston, No Wyld and Kidz In Space, for the last few years Aucklander Ben Barter has been from keeping time with Lorde. After relocating to LA the 31-year-old can also be seen drumming for Broods, Australian Jarryd James and US band Passion Pit on occasion – be it on major US talk shows or on some of the largest stages in the world. He interviewed fellow drummer Jimmy Mac of Scuba Diva for NZM’s last issue, and here we’ve turned the tables, with Jimmy Mac questioning his sometime bandmate.

7HAT HAVE YOU BEEN LISTENING TO LATELY I’ve been enjoying Bongo Rock by The Incredible Bongo Band lately.

The new Childish Gambino album is amazing. I really liked the latest Francis And The Lights’ album and can’t wait to see them at a festival this year. UMO’s new 20min song SB-04 is great and also have been enjoying the new Run The Jewels’ album.

7HO DO YOU REMEMBER SEEING AS A KID THAT MADE YOU WANT TO BE A DRUMMER I grew up watching the older guys in a little church my family went to. They were really into Christian heavy metal bands like Mortification and Tourniquet which I enjoyed in primary school but haven’t managed to play Christian metal since. My friend Brent had this ’90s Zildjian day video with Dennis Chambers, Vinnie Colaiuta and Steve Gadd etc. and I remember it being the first time I had seen drumming at that level as the internet was only just really taking off. ) KNOW YOU PRACTICE LIKE A DOG 7HAT KIND OF ROUTINE DO YOU HAVE I do some basic practice, slow singles or paradiddles to make sure I’m rebounding properly and getting timing between notes even. Benny Greb’s drum alphabet is great, keeping a pattern going and moving a note along the bar with every combination of hand and foot. With trickier patterns it helps to find stuff you find awkward and smooth them out.

I try to not just play them through and be done, but record myself, making sure everything sounds as good as I can get it. I don’t see any point to being able to simply play something without it feeling good as tricky or simple as it may be. Then either track drums for friends’ projects, learn new songs for upcoming shows or play along to different albums.

7HO ARE YOUR FAVOURITE DRUMMERS AND WHY I love the ’60s and ’70s drummers. Clyde Stubblefield, James Gadson,

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Ernie Isley, Jim Gordan, Steve Gadd, Charlie Watts etc. They had the best feel and were able to self mix the drums as they played so well with limited recording technology. Matt Chamberlain’s recording creativity.

Zac Starkey has a great simple feel. Nate Smith who did a record with a Japanese trumpeter Takuya Kuroda and Mark Guiliana who played on Bowie’s last record both have a unique language which I think is one of the most important things for a drummer. Marcus Gilmore is another guy I like for that reason.

0LAYING FOR ,ORDE WHAT DO YOU THINK WAS THE BIGGEST LESSON YOU VE LEARNT AND WHAT IS THE MOST IMPORTANT THING YOU KEEP IN MIND The drum parts weren’t written by a drummer, so certain parts don’t feel natural to do and making sure the timing is right is the biggest thing.

It can be the most subtle little time tweak of a snare hit etc. but will make such a big difference to the overall sound. You can often gauge how it’s feeling by whether the crowd is dancing or not so it’s a fun challenge to try and make them move around a bit while playing a really simple beat. ) THINK IT S CRUCIAL TO INTEGRATE TECHNOLOGY WHEN PLAYING FOR A MODERN POP ARTIST #AN YOU TELL US A BIT ABOUT YOUR SET UP FOR ,ORDE Ella generally wants her live show true to the album, so I use a mix of electronic pads and real drums with triggers on them. Everything I play is what you’d hear on the album, apart from some hi-hat and floor tom which is mixed to match the recording. I load samples into a Roland SPD-SX and the pads and drum triggers come out from that. I try and keep the set up as simple as possible so there’s less chance of something breaking during a stressful live to air TV show etc. It’s a safety thing more than anything.

The hybrid drums work well live for her music because it is a big sound and the acoustic drums get mixed in just under the samples which add an extra depth and punchiness.

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7HEN YOU WERE ON TOUR WHAT BANDS DRUMMERS BLEW YOU AWAY MOST AND WHAT DID YOU LIKE ABOUT THEM I thought Stella Mozgawa from Warpaint is great, she has incredible feel. We played with New Order who are one of my favourite bands, so got to meet the drummer Stephen Morris who had a huge impact on early hybrid drumming. Julien Barbagallo, Tame Impala’s drummer, makes simple stuff sound great and Thomas Hedlund from Phoenix is incredible to watch. $O YOU THINK IT S IMPORTANT FOR DRUMMERS TO LEARN A $!7 Yeah definitely for electronically produced music where samples or backing tracks will be used. I have to use Ableton for most artists I play with so it helps knowing how to set up backing tracks and export samples. Being able to adjust samples or tracks in the moment saves so much time and will give you an upper hand for getting work.

7HAT S THE BIGGEST DIFFERENCE IN GOING FROM PLAYING CLUB SHOWS TO ARENAS Because the space is so much bigger everything needs to be a lot more simple and solid or it won’t come through the speakers. The drums need more volume to be heard so I’ll hit harder and switch to heavier sticks so I don’t break as many. And then I make sure my stamina is up so my arms don’t get tired quickly and feel like they are about to fall off! ) ALWAYS FEEL LIKE THERE S A BIT OF A GAP BETWEEN MUSIC SCHOOL KIDS AND REAL STUFF BUT DO YOU REGRET AT ALL NOT GOING TO MUSIC SCHOOL Sometimes I’ll hear a jazz drummer shredding and wish I’d gotten into studying that more. But I doubt I would have met the people that helped my where I have got to now if I’d been at jazz school.I think just taking as many opportunities as I could and playing different types of music helped me the most ’cos hopefully now I’m a mix of those experiences have my own sound/skills going.

I think possibly that gap has to do with getting so good at say jazz drumming means that your naturally going to go and play jazz gigs so you can use the skills you’ve learnt at school to their full potential but it’s often a smaller audience. It doesn’t mean it’s not real, it’s just a different way of performing music.

I think generally working as a session musician in pop music is less about a niche style of drumming you might learn at a school, but more about you as a person and the relationships you make along the way. Being able to play well is very important obviously, but often its quite simple and if you can make that simple stuff sound good, and most importantly be a person others want to be around it’ll do the trick‌ plus some luck.

'OT ANY EMBARRASSING STAGE MOMENTS ) HAVE ONE IN MIND n ) VE NEVER SEEN YOU LOOK MORE WORRIED Haha, when my battery pack died and I kept trying to play along to the main speakers with

the delay? I missed a snare once that threw Ella off, which was the worst feeling in the world.

Thankfully she’s very forgiving!

At a Vector Arena show one of the guys from Kidz In Space was spinning his mic stand around which broke so he was left holding a Freddie Mercury style stand and the heavier part flew six metres and hit me in the head during a busy fill. I think I blacked out for a second, came too and bled through the rest of the show and went to hospital for some stitches.

7HAT S BEEN THE BIGGEST DIFFERENCE ABOUT BEING IN THE ,! SCENE COMPARED TO !UCKLAND I think there is a lot more opportunity for work here and easier to make a living from it, I couldn’t have survived from just drumming the last couple of years if I was in Auckland. It’s such a big place that it’s pretty competitive but there is a really nice community here, everyone helps each other out recommending each other for work. You’re exposed to some of the best musicians so it’s helped me to be driven and practice as much as I can.

9OU RECENTLY PLAYED A SHOW FOR 0ASSION 0IT (OW DID THAT COME ABOUT AND WHAT WAS THE PROCESS OF THEN PREPARING FOR THE SHOW My friend Ray plays for them and Childish Gambino, and was playing for Jarryd James at the time. Passion Pit’s drummer Chris Hartz also plays for Gambino and they had a clash so they got me to fill in. Chris Hartz is so good so there were a few bits that I had to work at but if I have a one off show like that make sure I have good notes to read whether notated or basic song structure. I often write tricky parts

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in MIDI and then print out a screen shot of it.

We had a quick rehearsal about three weeks before the show with just the band ’cos we were in the middle of Jarryd’s tour, then a quick sound check on the day. I met the singer about 30mins before we played – but it went great thankfully! )F YOU COULD TRAVEL BACK IN TIME 7HAT WOULD YOU TELL YOUNG "EN Ooh, good question. I’d probably tell him to stop listening to so much pop punk and listen to Steve Gadd. I’d tell him that you’re never once going to use those triplet Bonham-type fills you’re trying. Younger me probably could have done a bit more practice and sped up the process a bit. And your dreadlocks look nothing like the kids do in Bomfunk MC’s Freestyler video clip.

7HAT S YOUR FAVOURITE KIT AND WHY My favourite at the moment is a ’67 Ludwig Burgundy Sparkle. Apparently it belonged to Matt Chamberlain and it sounds amazing in the studio. Nice and warm but with lots of character.

7HAT DO YOU WANT TO DO MUSICALLY IN THE FUTURE If our comedy sketch show for some reason doesn’t take off I’d really just love to keep doing what I’m doing at the moment. I love studio work and am getting there with my own recording set up. Being able to record drums for people remotely is something I love doing.

I have a few friends that are doing really well producing or making their own music so it’s exciting getting to drum on different projects around the place they are all working on.

Learning more about mixing would be helpful and I’d like to eventually learn more musical theory so I have a greater understanding of what’s going on. I’m so fortunate to be playing for Ella and other artists between her tours so I hope to continue doing more of that.

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Mikey Mayz Having spent his early years growing up on a boat, without a specific country to call his own, Michael Gibson has firmly established a presence in the local hip hop scene. Mikey Mayz, as he is these days becoming well known, talked with Lana Andelane about his recently released debut album, ‘Alpha’.

Beta, Gamma, Delta, Epsilon...

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aving settled in NZ as a child, British/ Tongan Mikey Mayz cites musicals and Disney movies as his earliest musical inspiration.

“They got me singing in the first place,” he says. “But actually pursuing music and recording, was when hip hop came into my life… that whole 2000-2006 era was my fuel to get into the industry.”

A love for West Coast hip hop is evident in ‘Alpha’, his own recently released debut album.

“I used a lot of synths that are very West Coast as a theme,” he explains.

The album’s seven tracks feature input from some leading hip hop talents. Discussing the inspirations Mayz is quick to credit his audiences. “‘Alpha’ came from doing a lot of live shows, trying to connect with the audience… I know people love a nice beat, so I put a lot of effort into what beats I chose, and got a lot of good producers in there to make sure the final master was epic.”

The album showcases Mayz’s unique sound, a smooth amalgamation of RnB, hip hop and soul influences.

“I found a blend of the soul and the hip hop which gives my singing tone a cool feel.

I’ve found a lane, that bouncy hip hop with the rhythm of RnB …that’s my niche.”

The new year has also brought professional changes.

“We used to have a manager, Matt [Pula], who’s stepped off to pursue his own dreams and goals. As of 2017 we manage ourselves… everything that you see which we post is done ourselves.”

By ‘ourselves’ Mayz is talking about Juvenile Music Group, a collective of artists headed by himself, Donell Lewis and Sesh. The collective is not a record label – the artists are all presently unsigned and rely on themselves to promote, distribute and create hype around their music.

“You need people with the same goals around you to push forwards. Donny and Sesh set a standard for me… they give me feedback. If I can impress them, I feel like

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I can impress the fans.”

“It’s scary, but I have so much control over my music and direction, which can be compromised by getting into a label… I enjoy having the freedom to release music when and how I want.

“We’re always looking for people to work with that have the same drive and goals, to help us and relieve some of that stress… even little things like a poster can take the focus away from music,” he candidly explains.

Mayz’ film school background, with a post-production major, has been helpful not only for the creation of music videos, but also in terms of audio recording.

“We record with the basics… we’ve managed to find the blend that captures the perfect recording sound with Logic.”

Growing success was evidenced in 2016 with two tours, multiple international support slots, and the popularity of singles including Solid (featuring Façade) and Sunshine (featuring Sid Diamond). He also quit his 9-5er in order to focus on making music. Discussing the creative process behind his collaborations with other established artists, Mayz demonstrates how

important it is to think about all aspects of a song – strategically as well as creatively.

“I always do the song first, then they add their own thing to it. With Sunshine, I wrote it then left Sid a 16-bar verse to do his thing.

When thinking who to put in that gap, always think strategically… Will it get as much hype?

Will I enjoy the guy who’s on it? Can I take this collaboration and do tours with it?”

“I give [collaborators] a lot of guidelines on what I expect… but let them do their thing, because I know I wouldn’t want to be micromanaged. I do my thing, they do their thing… like Donny [Lewis] recorded his part in Aus [for the track Winning]…but I trust he’s gonna kill it.”

Of course the choice of producers play a large part in creating his sound and success.

Edy, Elkco, Façade and Styleztracks have credits on the new album.

“They give me a canvas – their role is as crucial as mine. The whole song is based around their initial progression of chords… their idea sparks the whole song.”

The album title has a poignancy for Mayz.

“As a whole project it was supposed to be my foot in the door. Like, ‘Take this guy seriously’. It had to be epic quality, epic music, good melodies… something you can play from start to finish.

“I’ve already started on my next project, called ‘Bravo’, but right now the future is focusing on ‘Alpha’, pushing it and touring, promoting online… Online is where we make the most money from sales. For solo artists these days, without a record label, distribution deals are the way to go.”

Asked about challenges he has faced in his career, Mayz reveals a surprising modesty.

“I don’t like praising myself…

I struggle with having people compliment me, like there’s only so much I can say to make someone feel my gratitude.”

He concedes that despite being a performer, he is highly introverted, breaking the common stereotype that hip hop artists are over-confident and cocky.

“The only place where I’m 100% confident is in the studio or on the stage,” he admits with a smile.

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HVJUBS DPPM HVJUBS DPPM with Kevin Downing

The Rhythm Guitarist’s Role

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he role of rhythm guitar within a band setting is often overlooked, misunderstood and undervalued amongst fellow musicians. Not many guitar players actually understand what the role entails either, but here I will explain some of the most basic things you need to know to become a better rhythm player immediately.

If you are in a band setting where you are the only guitarist, then you are likely playing rhythm and back up parts around 95% of the time and solos for the remainder. If you are in a band with two guitars then you will be playing rhythm 100% of the time!

Rhythm guitar is not just about strumming chords all the time as many people think, but rather uses everything you will ever learn in music. One common tendency is to overplay by strumming too much, which can kill a song. This is where the saying ‘less is more’ comes from – playing a lot less can really make the song come alive and groove. Exercises 2 and 4 demonstrate this.

First of all, to be a great rhythm player you must know the song off by heart. By that I mean the song form, the chords, and where on the beats they change, where the hits (accents) are, what dynamics are used, what the other musicians are playing etc.

Yes, it takes a lot of discipline and effort to do this, but if you do you will be well ahead of the pack already. Writing stuff down on paper helps you to memorise the parts – you don’t have to read music to do this, just write it any way you want to that will help you. It doesn’t matter how much your band practices, if you don’t know your individual parts well before you get to the rehearsal, your band will suck.

If you listen to favourite recordings you will come across a few basic parts that all the professionals employ regularly. The first one is to play nothing at all. Yes that might sound strange, but in many songs the rhythm player ‘lays out’ for the first verse and sometimes the third verse. Sometimes a ‘tacit’ is called for – just another name for laying out.

When the guitar does come in it all adds to the dynamic levels of the song, remembering that verses are normally quieter than choruses and dynamic levels can change a lot during a song.

Looking at the examples in the music/tab I have outlined four different

rhythm guitar parts you hear often. Sometimes you might hear only one of them and sometimes all four within a song. Keep your ears open.

Exercise 1 gives you a chord progression using a bar of G and one of C, and within it are partial chords. Under beats 2 and 4 are dots which indicate a staccato note meaning to stop it just after you play it. So it sounds like – long, short, long, short. This is a type of rhythm part you hear a lot, but many players miss. It really is a good thing to get used to doing as little things like this can take your playing to the next level.

In Exercise 2 is what many people call the ‘diamond strum’, you strum on beat one and let it ring for four beats. The wiggly arrow means to run your pick down the strings so as to get a slight arpeggio effect. It sounds best played very close to the bridge as well.

Exercise 3 is a triad part played up the neck further with an accent on 2 and 4, which is the back beat. This type of rhythm part really gives a song a lot of drive and energy. The accent mark is the little direction type arrow over beat 2 and 4. You will hear accents on any beat within a bar, so listen to your favourite songs very carefully as the accents make the groove.

Sometimes a guitar part is just to play the back beat and nothing else, which can give even more energy to a song.

The bubble part is what is in Exercise 4. It is best played with muted strings and on fretted strings. Normally they are just one note and are played staccato as well.

Now try playing these parts using your looper. Try two parts at a time, mix them up, then three, etc. You might be able to invent some other small part that can accompany these parts.

Of course there are many other parts you will hear, but these four different rhythm parts will transform your playing immediately, and they are all very easy to do with a bit of practice. Over the next few months keep your ears open to see if you can hear these parts in your favourite songs. If you have any trouble, it might pay to see a good guitar teacher.

Kevin Downing is a professional guitarist, teacher, and author. His contact details, along with many other articles and freebies, are on his website at www.guitar.co.nz

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Neil Watson Photo: Maddy Stockford

Jazz guitarist and academic Neil Watson has a well-earned reputation as one of Auckland’s go-to sidemen. His played- and recorded-with credits traverse ground as varied as the Finn brothers, Tami Neilson, the Auckland Philharmonia Orchestra, and fellow local jazz legends like Frank Gibson and Mike Nock. He tells Aleisha Ward it’s just that sort of genre variety that keeps him interested and helped lead to his recently released album ‘Studies In Tubular’.

Constructed in Jazz

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uckland guitarist Neil Watson began his musical journey at age 11 after seeing Eric Clapton at Auckland’s Supertop.

After a few years of emulating the usual rock guitar gods Watson discovered jazz, and soon became a “fully fledged member of the jazz Gestapo”.

Like many Kiwi jazz musicians he had dreams of attending Berklee College of Music in Boston, or the New School in New York to further study jazz – and he got into both schools. Unfortunately, the exorbitant costs in the 1990s to get a student visa and pay the

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U.S. fees meant that, even with scholarships, it was impossible for him to to attend. Instead Watson stayed in Auckland wood-shedding, taking lessons with local and visiting guitarists, and getting gigs anywhere and everywhere.

“In the early days I learned from a lot of people like Johnny Bradford, he was great, and as far as the jazz kind of thing went. I guess a lot of people like Andy Brown, and Frank Gibson, and a lot of those people that I looked up to.

Murray McNabb as well, and Brian Smith – he was a tutor of mine at high school and helped me out a lot. Neville Grenfell too was teaching

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at my high school. Also, Martin Winch and Joel Haines – this is going back to the Cause Celebre years [1990s], and I used to enjoy going to watch those guys there. Greg Tui was another huge influence on me.

“I had a number of lessons from Bruce Forman. He really set me straight on a couple of things when I was 18 or 19. He just told it straight, and I needed that. When I went to the States on a Rodger Fox tour I had lessons with guys over there, including Peter Bernstein who’s one of my favourite guitar players, and another guy called Peter Mazza, who’s really great.

“On the second Fox tour I did, we were at the Monterey [Jazz] Festival, and Bill Frisell was headlining. I saw him three times over two days! And that just totally blew my mind, and changed my perception of how to play the guitar. Before that I was trying to emulate horn players, which is a great thing to do, but watching Bill I realised I could play the guitar – bend strings, use open strings, use effects pedals, and actually embrace the nuances of guitar and make the most of it. It really opened up my eyes to playing the guitar as a guitar.”

Over the past 20 years Watson has developed into one of Auckland’s go-to sidemen, performing and recording with a wide range of artists from the Auckland Philharmonia to Mel Parsons to Mike Nock to the Finn brothers, criss-crossing his way around almost every musical genre.

“I love the variety, and that’s what keeps me going. In a week I could be doing a duo gig with Frank Gibson, playing with Tami Neilson and then some other side project with Jim Langabeer – and then maybe a theatre show rehearsal or something like that. So it’s always kind of different and that’s what keeps me really interested, I guess.

“I like that challenge, all the different feels and genres, and just playing with so many great musicians as well. And while it’s sort of a necessity, these days I don’t find myself in an environment where I’m not enjoying playing music, which is great.”

It brings up some great possibilities as well and one recent highlight was being able to open for American guitarist Marc Ribot.

“Just seeing him play – because he’s been a huge influence on me in the past decade.

He’s another guy that I really respect because he traverses all these different genres and has these different projects.

One day you might see him doing this really avant garde/classical solo thing, and another he could be playing thrash-punk, the next day he’s backing Robert Plant and Alison Krauss. And through all that you can really tell that it’s him – you don’t hire Marc Ribot to sound like someone else!

“That’s what I’m trying to do. I made a decision about a decade ago to consciously try and do that. Say if I was doing a jazz gig with Caitlin Smith, I didn’t necessarily have to take my jazz guitar along and play bop lines – I could play country lines if I wanted to!

“So I’m influenced by lots of different types of music, and that was the idea behind ‘Studies in Tubular’. Just putting all of those influences together; blues and rock and country and jazz, and trying to improvise and compose – without going, ‘Well, now I’m playing a jazz tune so I’d better have nice clean lines,’ or ‘I’m doing a rock gig so I’d better take my Strat along.’ So instead of putting on different hats, now I just wear my Neil hat all the time, no matter what scenario I’m in.”

This diverse approach also transfers across into his leadership roles with groups ranging from jazz to Hawaiian-influenced pop, blues, rock and country.

“One group I’ve got – The Doughboys – that just came about organically. I was doing a jazz trio gig with Cam Allen and Rui Inaba. I wasn’t even supposed to be doing it, I was just filling in for the drummer, playing guitar. I’d just bought a lapsteel guitar so we did a couple of Hawaiian tunes on the gig, and it just went from there.

Now we’ve got an album that’s about to come out – we’re mastering now and it should be released soon.”

‘Studies in Tubular’ is being released nearly 16 years after his first album ‘Unification’. This album came out of his Masters of Music study back in 2011.

“I guess I saw the Masters as a great opportunity to do this album and some of the things that I’d wanted to do anyway, so it was the perfect time to get me off my butt and do it. So that was a good motivator to get the momentum going.”

Doing it as part of his degree work also helped push him to not only compose, record and finish it, but also to actually get it out to the public. ‘Studies in Tubular’ features several other well known lecturers from the University of Auckland’s jazz programme: Ron Samsom, Roger Manins, Oli Holland, Grant Winterburn plus Louis McCallum and Geoff Maddock.

The album was recorded in live sessions over two days at Rick Bryant’s former Auckland Studios in Eden Terrace.

“We had two days in there with Ed Cake engineering. That studio space was sort of a collective of people and their gear, but it was really well set up, which was really great.

It was important to me to take it out of the university environment, just to get away from the academia thing going on.”

‘Studies in Tubular’ reflects Watson’s diverse approach to music.

That was the idea behind ‘Studies in Tubular’. Just putting all of those influences together; blues and rock and country and jazz, and trying to improvise and compose – without going, ‘Well, now I’m playing a jazz tune so I’d better have nice clean lines…’

“A lot of the tunes on the album are actually quite old, things that I had written around or just after ‘Unification’. So I decided to use them as a vehicle and bring them all together for that idea of trying to create my own sound and voice.

“Wes De Money I wrote in my early 20s as a Wes Montgomery call and response sort of tune, so that was initially a straight ahead swing tune, but another influence that came in was a Hendrix tune Driving South, which was a jam tune of his. On the other hand Kerala,

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which is sort of a country tune, I wrote that in India and I was trying to do a sort of Travis picking thing. I had a travel guitar and I’d play for about 10 minutes before travelling each day. Boog A-Gee was my interpretation of The Sidewinder [Lee Morgan] I love all of that kind of 1960s Bluenote, Grant Green, Lou Donaldson boogaloo stuff. I like to take little bits and pieces, mashing it together in a big gumbo. It’s good to have musical references that you’re familiar with.”

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A Girl Named Mo

Who They Say You Might Be

Reasonably described as an edgy perspective on neo-soul, the music of A Girl Named Mo is an engaging combo of soulful electronica, hip hop and RnB. Slade Butler on keys and Marcus Gurtner on drums/samples provide a highly coloured, rhythmic but space-full backdrop to the smart lyrics and vocal versatility of Moana Ete. Andrew Witty spoke with Moana about their introductory live album, ‘Platonic\Romantic’, recorded live at a series of Wellington concerts and digitally released at the end of 2016.

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ed by singer Moana Ete, Wellington three-piece A Girl Named Mo is going from strength to strength. After selling out five shows at Bats Theatre last October leading them to add a sixth, the electronic neo-soul group has gone on to release a live album, ‘Platonic/Romantic’ “I like the idea that what you hear was a take. Even though it is electronic there’s that element that it’s very spontaneous. There were moments where me and my band could find places to jam… it really pushed us as performers to open up that process.”

A Girl Named Mo is given structure through the rhythms of Slade Butler and Marcus Gurtner. The trio has stuck together honing their craft, with the gigs at Bats helping to refine the sound. Slade took control of the MIDI controller and bass, while Marcus, with just an 8-pad drum machine, looked after percussion.

“We were trying to make the most of these little machines,” Moana laughs. “He [Marcus] really had to dig into the machine and see what sort of sounds he could find… we were really milking them for what they were worth.”

While the performances were an outlet to showcase and experiment with new songs, there was also a sentimental aspect. The shows allowed them to play to her friends, family, and also a continually growing fan base.

“That was the most exciting part!”

“It makes you think of when I first played and nobody came, or like four people. I really felt the worth of Wellington and my peers.”

Moana is a proud Wellingtonian, which contributes to her musical identity. Although, as she says, her own Wellington style is not street, nor something you’d find in the fast-paced movement of the city.

“It’s more in the suburbs!”

This suburban chic led to an ongoing joke on her recent outings with Fly My Pretties.

“On tour the joke was, ‘It’s Mo from Wellington,’ like it’s the Wellington chick. The joke being that I am the epitome of – so I’d be wearing jandals and socks and just rocking it. They’re like, ‘Oh that’s so Wellington!’”

Moana is bracing her style, hoping to retain her local pride, while setting foundations to reach new audiences. Looking forward to recording a new studio album she’s in flux about her image, and her message. Hot off sold-out shows and a tour with Fly My Pretties, A Girl Named Mo has seemingly transgressed unabashedly the limitations of the local scene.

Inspired by other passionate musicians, her grounded demeanour finds a way to make the most of the opportunities she has.

“It’s what’s kept me coming back to music. It’s like people on Soundcloud and bedroom producers would have beats and message, ‘Oh hey, do you want to sing on this? I’ll send you the file.’ I definitely feel like it is now ‘the world is your oyster’ just with how easy it is to share, the idea of virality, of being viral and phenomena on the internet. It’s like a big snowball. Put your songs out there and see how they go.

“And you’ll see on social media, I’ll be like ,‘Oh comments!’ But it’s not really comments. It’s people tagging other people, to be like, ‘Listen to this, listen to this.’ It’s just as cool as someone being like, ‘Hey, I love this!’

Sometimes it’s even more of a compliment really that someone is like, ‘Take the time out of your day to listen to this.’”

Inspired by powerful female RnB singers, Moana stays down to earth by following her own processes when it comes to music making. She says she’s a stickler for anything that doesn’t sound wholly original, and enjoys the task of finding her own brand of originality. Embedded in interesting melodies, she hopes to highlight the importance that a potent message in music can make.

“It’s like a whole new level now! What I write about is what’s on my mind, what I’m thinking about a lot.

“Especially for the studio album, I really want to be more conscious of it. I don’t want to be like, ‘I write whatever I want to.’ That’s fun, but I think I want to be a bit more conscious. It’s getting a little bit political without getting political. It’s more, I have a platform, what am I gonna say? What’s my contribution? As hard as that is, I do want to look back when I’m an old lady and be like, ‘What did I have to say?’”

Sentient about the platform she has earned, she navigates a limbo of a grounded, socks-and-jandals local girl intertwined with a message of female empowerment in the social media age. It’s an interesting juncture she now finds herself in. Freshly established, she’s looking bigger picture about her representation.

“Though I love to write about romantic love there’s never any element of ‘…if you leave me I will die’, or ‘…you are the one and only’. That idea of ‘there is only one person’ I think can be really harmful, especially with young people. To be fed that and to listen to that now, and then be surprised that our suicide rate is so high…

“It’s a bit more, ‘My body is my body, you can’t tell me what to do with it,’ in a warm, fun, pop music kind of way.”

She admits that politics overseas, however removed from our shores, cause her to reflect on the difference she can make through her music.

“I’m also patriotic about it which is not a very Kiwi thing. I could wave a flag if I wanted, it’s that kind of thing. You see these Trump supporters and they’re just so proud of where they come from and who they are. They’re so proud of bearing arms. It’s horrible to watch but what I take from that is, ‘Do I feel that strongly about anything?

What do I feel as strongly about?’”

So, what does Mo feel that strongly about?

“Girl power.”

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GJOEJOH ZPVS WPJDF with Caitlin Smith

The Myth of Self-Confidence

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hich came first, the chicken or the egg? Is it confidence that makes you capable of performance, or performance the gives you confidence? I believe it is the latter.

Confidence is NOT a prerequisite for singing well. And yet, the self-diagnosis for most new students is that they just lack confidence (and I need to teach it to them). Hell no gurrrrrrrl….

You need skills! There are 1001 reality TV programmes that love to exploit overconfident delusional individuals who back themselves, but can’t back it up with chops. Think of any trade, like plumbing or electrical engineering; it’s not about confidence, it’s about knowledge, experience, and the demonstration of well-honed, well-practised skills.

You can have all the confidence in the world and still be a terrible singer. I for one, have extreme low self-confidence. I do, however, have unshakable faith in vocal technique. I believe the world needs to hear the songs I’m singing and this becomes my motivator – not self-belief. (Though it must be fun for those lucky souls who have it.)

Weirdly enough, my most talented students tend to lack self-confidence. The more confident ones often rank themselves highly and are hard nuts to crack because they don’t perceive themselves as having anything to work on – they’re already there. (And just need to be discovered by a record company!) You either have it or you don’t, right? Wrong!

I think the apparent need for self-confidence stems from a mindset that equates singing with public performance. My singing doesn’t have to be heard or appreciated by an audience or listeners. That would be a bonus, but essentially, I sing because it settles my soul. I learn/write songs in order to sing/play them to the best of my ability. This is because I love what songs do to me – they educate, inspire, delight, reveal, heal, soothe, give voice to emotions, deepen my experience and understanding and make sense of life. I don’t need to hear applause or receive compliments in order to feel complete.

If performance is your goal, and you believe that self-confidence is a pre-requisite to getting on stage, you may be waiting a very long time before you feel ready. Remember: preparation creates opportunity. If we prepare a gig’s worth of material, gigs often miraculously appear. If we say yes to a gig with a reasonable amount of lead-in time, there’s a job needs doing and

we can rise to the challenge. Confidently?

Probably not. However, we’re never presented with things we can’t do – even if we’re terrified and believe wholeheartedly that we ‘can’t’ do it. (That is the way of the Jedi.)

Over-confidence and under-confidence are both ego-based recipes for disaster. Best we not even mention the ‘c’ word. Both mindsets tend towards seeing ourselves as exceptional (rather than anatomically standardised to adhere to universal principles of acoustic engineering!), but for different reasons. The Under-confidents (UCs) don’t believe themselves capable of adopting/using good vocal technique because they are fundamentally flawed, slow, talentless etc. The Over-confidents (OCs) consider themselves exceptional because they exist above and beyond all rules and norms – they are just better than other people, don’t need to practice or warm-up – they were just born that way. Yaaaay!

have an entitlement and right to receiving other people’s attention and praise; believe that simply being onstage is more important than what you do when you’re up there; talk themselves up to feel better, disregard mistakes or faults; not be able to discern between good and bad technique; ignore pain or set-backs and not listen to anyone else’s opinion.

I hope you can appreciate what a minefield it is to duck and dive around and through the OCs and UCs, when all you want to do is offer up some mighty tools for beautiful vocalisation. Mind you, I’m a UC and have safely navigated myself far from the turbulent Oceans of Confidence and into the calm Sea of Skill.

Sadly, the myth of confidence being essential to singing is one of several mind traps. Another is buying into the stereotypes and generalisations of what it is to be a singer/songwriter/ rock star. That is, thinking that singing and

If performance is your goal, and you believe that self-confidence is a pre-requisite to getting on stage, you may be waiting a very long time before you feel ready.

UCs tend to: give up very easily; not try for fear of failure or not being good enough; generalize about how bad their voice is; compare and contrast themselves negatively with others; procrastinate; over-intellectualise; not trust their own instincts and indicators when practising, rely on affirmative feedback that they’ll discredit anyhoo; be hypersensitive; never celebrate successes or breakthroughs; view all/any feedback as critical; view singing (especially high notes) as difficult or impossible; shun the use of deadlines or ultimatums; live in the past; remember negative experiences that back-up supposed under-function in the present and remain stuck in bad-practice because it’s familiar.

OCs tend to: think they know what’s best for them; distrust experts, authority-figures or advice of any kind; make assumptions about why they do things the way they do without understanding what’s actually going on; under-estimate how long it takes to properly learn and memorise songs; over-estimate their own abilities; have low standards of accomplishment; believe they

songwriting should be automatically effortless and easy – therefore, if you struggle, then clearly music isn’t your calling. “Say whaaaaaaat?!”

This is why I love to read interviews, biographies and autobiographies. Sia with her crippling stage fright, bi-polar disorder and subsequent recovery from addiction… We’re only seeing/hearing a tiny percentile of the talent that’s out there – the confident ones. I’m privy to some most amazing voices and songs that may well never reach the labyrinths in your inner ears. Why? Because a certain amount of self-belief goes a long way. According to the Tall Poppy Syndrome, any parts-per-million self-belief are interpreted as arrogance. So we best think of gymnastics…

When I was young, I did gymnastics. Loved it. If you asked me to do a backflip, I’d say, “I can’t”. But, I used to and with the right training, may well again. Is it about confidence? No. Practising skills? Hell yeah! www.caitlinsmith.com bravecaitlin@gmail.com Fb: caitlinsmithjazz and caitlinsmithmusic

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THE EVERSONS: Stuck In New Zealand Wellington foursome The Eversons moved to London in the middle of 2015 to finish this album that’s been in the works since the release of their debut album in 2013. The incredibly bold and playful sound they carved out on ‘Summer Feeling’ is carried over, but exaggerated with catchier hooks and punchier sounds across nearly all tracks. Good At Making Enemies is one of the most single-esque tracks, unapologetically pop punk with its ‘ooh la la la’ backing vocals and ridiculously fuzzed out guitar solo. It’s followed up with the equally fun Baby You’re a Jerk, complete with the corniest synth sounds possible and quick New Wave-y rhythm guitar. The band seems to have a lot of fun jumping around genres, parodying them, adding their own distinct sound and mostly avoiding sounding too cheesy. The slowed down I Found God is a refreshing tremolo-filled ode to Phil Spector-era Californian pop. Emily is a chugging Bowie-ish glam rock experiment with lyrics that reference a bunch of iconic NZ songs.

There are a couple of weak tracks on the record, most notably Generation Wimp which seems to lyrically attack the overly PC attitudes of the modern-era, sung in mocking tones over one rolling guitar riff. Satirical no doubt, but it is hard to tell, and one in which the Eversons over-the-top aesthetic veers a little too much on the abrasive side – clearly intentionally, but nevertheless unattractively. The line is also probably walked over on final track London City Town in which the vocals, lyrics and in your face production become a little tiring. ‘Stuck In New Zealand’ is definitely not for everyone, but the more I listen the more it grows on me and the more I must struggle to get the Eversons’ licks and riffs out of my head. s /LLY #LIFTON

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Born from the ashes of Helbourne and Wall Of Silents, Palmerston three-piece metal act Government Pest deliver their debut album/EP. Recorded at The Stomach by Cam Wilkes, this six-track self-titled release has enough material to get a good sense of what the band is about. The Rise opens the playlist with groove and grunge in equal measure suggesting the band take as much influence from Black Sabbath as they do Metallica and Iron Maiden. Guitarist Kristov Raven’s raw punk style vocal delivery maintains a convincing level of energy and aggression throughout.

Rhythmically (Murray Shaw’s bass and Aaron Sanko on drums) there is plenty going on to capture interest with riffs that frequently develop into a greater sum of the part of the songs they serve. Involve avoids repetition and cliché and manages to scatter its hardcore aggression smoothly over an easily digestible three minute sound bite. Tempo changes keep you guessing and tracks like The Train have plenty of rhythmic and harmonic twists to lure you into the listen. ‘Government Pest’ will easily appeal to punk and metal audiences alike as there is more focus on the songs and structure than solos and selfindulgence. The band’s attitude and convincing recorded performance will surely translate to a live act worth catching. s 3TU %DWARDS

JOHN WHITE: (ENRY 'REEN AND THE )SLAND OF 4ULIARTS

The words ‘concept album’ can be a deterrent, but when done well they are often spectacular. Dunedin’s John White (ex-Mëstar and The Blueness) has created something intriguing with his new release ‘Henry Green and the Island of Tuliarts’ – loosely about a sinking island inhabited by the native Tuliarts, who are colonised by pirates, but saved by the titular Henry Green. White’s lush dream pop accentuates the stories and music, rather than overarching conceptual themes, though recurring motifs of the nautical twist through

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the songs, with strings evoking sea shanties and tales of travel. The album (recorded, mixed and mastered in Berlin by Nigel Braddock) is multi-instrumentalist White’s fourth solo outing and a welcome return. There’s much to unpick; trad folk arrangements weave throughout and match the themes well, especially on Sally, which (seemingly unrelated to the concept) tells the story of a woman emigrating to NZ in the 1880s, and the isolation and sadness attached. As a contrast, melodic and elegant chamber-pop or chamber-folk moments such as Batholemule Brixton, or the darker Noneoir reveal White as comfortable writing in any idiom. One truly personal moment peeks through; Farewell Song is for a late (and missed) friend, and White’s musical range changes with electric guitar, rather than strings, providing the backdrop. This wistful, often whimsical record is a reminder of how enticing John White’s brand of dream pop can be. s !MANDA -ILLS

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If you’re listening to The River Jesters’ ‘Beautiful Mire’ for the first time, ready yourself to be cunningly welcomed in by danceable grooves, hooky riffs, well thought out melodies, as well as being hit with punchy snares, grunty guitar riffs and an indignant “Get f^#ked!” only two bars into the opening track. The uncompromising arrangements and solid, controlled playing of each instrument display that these attitude-fuelled musos knew exactly what kind of album they wanted to make and their role in making it. Lead singer Tom Batchelor gained a national TV profile in 2013 when he was a stand out performer on New Zealand’s X Factor and his edgy voice is the centrepoint of the album. From the Beatle-esque chord progressions and feel choices, like the quirky ¾ circus rock time signature in Dream Burlesque to Zeppelin-inspired squeaks that escape with Batchelor’s grungy vocals in the same track, these musical gems really keep the listener’s attention and show the band’s influences. Think a trifecta of The Doors, The Darkness, The Datsuns... The juxtaposition of imagery in the album’s name ‘Beautiful Mire’ (celebrating beauty in the clutches of a deadly swamp) is matched by mood changes throughout the album. Some songs momentarily show a softer side, dipping into slower tempos like on Follow Me Down that gradually climb up to thrashy epic-ness only to drop out again to a sparse, mellow outro, letting you into the many dimensions of the band’s dynamics. s #HARLOTTE #RONE

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The debut album by Alargo (the multi-talented, multi-instrumental, multi-faceted duo of Kingsley Melhuish and Alan Brown), ‘Central Plateau’ is a set of three long, ranging interconnected works (the shortest track is just under eight minutes and the longest clocks in at 17 minutes) that traverse a deliberately peaceful and minimalist ambient soundscape. Recorded and mixed by Paul Streekstra, mastered by Angus McNaughton, this is very much a MAINZ tutors’ inside job. ‘Central Plateau’ gives rise to comparisons with ECM’s more atmospheric works and northern European ambient electronica, with passing nods to greats such as Brian Eno. However, at the same time that these comparisons can be drawn, there is something very Kiwi about it – you can hear connections to, and influences from, free improvisation/in studio composition groups such as From Scratch and Subject2Change. This is such an experiential album that it’s actually difficult to quantify in words. It wraps around the listener and transports them to whatever minimalist atmospheric landscape they imagine (mine was a dichotomy of snow bound forests and isolated west coast beaches). The pieces are whimsical and dark, sculptural and fluid, and very filmic with a great visual quality.

If a filmmaker doesn’t pick this up for inclusion in a soundtrack for some atmospheric exploration of the NZ psyche, I’d be very surprised. This is an album for people who want music to explore and expand their imagination. s !LEISHA 7ARD

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A self-taught musician and polished vocalist, Kiri Eriwata’s debut album was produced and recorded by Neil Baldock at Roundhead and Revolver studios some years back, but only just released. The nine track, 33-minute album delves into a variety of vocal styles and musical elements. Contributing to Eriwata’s keepsake collection are a number of very well-known names including Jol Mullholland, Derek Solomon, Christine White, Bones Hillman and Andy Lynch. ‘Muse and Memorabilia’ has tracks that would effortlessly slot into a variety of radio playlists with Watch Over Me, Baby Come Round and Why Won’t You. But Eriwata doesn’t stop there. She dares to show off more of her versatility with the Americana blues-styled Get Back Home, and adopts a moodier tone with Not My Lover and Goodbye Chicago. Without doubt the highlights are in the way that the album begins and ends; Love You But and Mohicans take the cake with their musical composition, vocal pairing and creative chemistry. The atmospheric styling of these tracks brings them to life, breathing air into the lyrics, setting an emotional undertone to Eriwata’s stylish vocals. It’s obvious that Kiri Eriwata can take on whatever genre she chooses. Don’t let this gem fly under the radar. s $EE -UIR

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Kara Gordon’s guitar-playing prowess is well-established. With this five-track EP he presents a quick hit of stripped-back blues numbers, with a little accompaniment from producer Barnaby Weir, and some harmonica from Harpo Strangelove of Alabama 3 on a couple of tracks. Recorded at The Surgery with mix and mastering by Lee Prebble it proves a very successful combo. Gordon’s guitar tones range from scuzzy electric to delicate acoustic. Each song has its own vibe, but everything sits comfortably within conventional blues styles – indeed the EP is subtitled ‘Blues EP’, so you’d hardly be expecting a genre-defying statement. Instead, you can rest assured that you’ll hear someone who really knows how to deliver a blues song, whether it be a Robert Johnson-style finger-picked tune, some Son House-style slide, or a John Lee Hooker stomp. There’s a slow-burning soulful track in there too. Gordon’s voice tends toward the

plaintive tenor of the aforementioned Johnson, which is obviously a good thing if you’re doing a blues showcase album. And, as you may also expect, there are enough deft guitar solos to send you back to your practice space. Gordon displays the good taste to only play the notes he feels, never trying to wow you with an emotionless flurry of notes played at light-speed. Whatever shade of blue you’re feeling, ‘Settle The Score’ has a song for you. s "ING 4URKBY

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If you haven’t heard of Catherine Tunks before or seen her perform this EP may feel a little disjointed. With five tracks, Tunks takes on five different musical styles which make sense when the niche she’s trying to fill is part ’70s folk rock, part deep south country and part jazz and blues. The vocalist is well-established in NZ with Black Sand Diva, however, this EP is an international collaboration with German musician Thomas Koenig (on guitar) and is stated to be a reconnection with her Irish and NZ Māori roots. Opening with Thursday Morning, simple lyrics are given an alt-country treatment with fluent instrumentals. Tears Of The Sky blends a plain strong beat with Tunks’ rich vocal sound. The Space Between The Seasons’ bolder sound clips along and it’s here that Tunks sounds most at home. The remaining two tracks provide an ideal backdrop to a Sunday chill session. With two more EPs (of a planned trilogy) to come, here’s hoping the duo will find their niche. s %MMA -OSS

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As a co-writer of one of the most ubiquitous pop songs in local music history (Counting the Beat, in case you were wondering) Phil Judd needs no introduction. A long career with Split Enz, The Enemy (briefly), Suburban Reptiles, The Swingers, and Schnell Fenster has seen him dip into various genres, with intriguing results. ‘UniQue’ is his fifth solo album in a decade, and on first listen has all the hallmarks of his writing; melodies that twist in every direction, chord changes verging on

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Beatlesque, and that distinctive voice, which has changed with age but oddly stayed the same. Links to the sound of the early Enz abound, but none more so than the mandolin on Into the Zone, which melds nicely with original Split Enz-er Miles Golding’s violin. There are songs here that fit well with the classics in his songbook. Two Timer is a hook-filled, frothy pop number, boasting a typically idiosyncratic vocal, while Karmabomb features almost Baroque pop chord changes, and a melody that floats along easily. The moment when ‘UniQue’ becomes truly personal is Papa, Judd’s clear-eyed, but loving tribute for his father. The album isn’t perfect; it’s too long, occasionally veers into self-indulgence, and songs like Maa-Ya-Ha and Crème Brulee seem sonically disjointed from the rest of the material. Judd’s albums are often frustrating. The talent is undeniable, but for every gem there’s something equally abrasive. ‘UniQue’ is everything Judd has always been – impressively left-field, off-kilter melodically and rhythmically unpredictable. Maybe that’s the root of his musical genius. s !MANDA -ILLS

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Mature beyond her years, musically and lyrically, Abigail Knudson is evidence that youth is not always wasted on the young. Singer/songwriter really doesn’t cut it, Abigail is a musician and composer – an evident talent for whom inevitable Lorde comparisons seems reasonable. Loosely keyboard/ electronic pop backings are brought to life with more prosaic lyrics, decorated by her own cello and father’s violin, but mostly her effortlessly versatile vocals. The title track provides a fine example, a dirty word for some, she gives it a wonderful and seductive timbre in the repetitive chorus. The atmospheric Missy and Ever Since might evince tears.

With a classical ambience reminiscent of Kate Bush, Abigail’s warm and enveloping voice can turn to sharp cut through in a beat, turning music to magic. Her vocal and emotive range is quite stunning, and pleasingly there’s no evidence of overplaying her hand in his regard. It seems impossible that ‘Nicotine’ was self-produced and recorded in a bedroom of her Dunedin home. Even if from a name producer/studio this would be judged as being absolutely stunning. s !NIA 'LOWACZ

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With a cover that pays homage to Black Sabbath’s ‘Vol. 4’, you might expect a blast of metal when you pop this album in your disc-spinner, rather than lo-fi psychedelia-tinged pop rock. It’s a pleasant surprise, as David Sutton takes a Phil Judd-style trip over the course of the album’s A and B sides. The songs are mostly introspective. There’s something of the vibe of Hospital by Jonathan Richman and the Modern Lovers at times, particularly on the song Why, but the overall feel of ‘V’ is still positive – an underlying cheeky cheerfulness. Sutton proves himself an adept musician with a great feel and a willingness to take musical risks. One that pays off nicely is the chorus of Love Is A Crime, switching from the mellow vocal style of the verses, to a soaring, distorted wail. Though his voice isn’t a strength, throughout the album there are some great vocal melodies and some really interesting chord progressions. Almost every instrument was played by Sutton, and played well too. While clearly not made in a fancy studio the sounds are well-recorded and tidily mixed – so it’s ‘V’ for Victory with this captivating album. s "ING 4URKBY

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Predominantly just voice and acoustic guitar, this is gentle, folky, slightly country outings across all five tracks, with a bit of a rock out on Japanese Girl. The other song titles indicate the simple reflective nature of the material – No Time For Keeping, Across An Ocean, Come Away With Me, All My Roads. Nelson singer/songwriter Ryan Johansen has a voice that’s easy to listen to, with no particular invitation to say anything positive or negative. Whilst it’s unclear how long he’s been doing this, his is a natural style – unforced and mellow. When he plays out he performs both originals and covers, such as those of Ben Harper. It’s great that he’s released some of his original material. Recorded at Lions Den Sound Studio in Nelson, this is both local and universal at the same time. s !NIA 'LOWACZ

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The All Seeing Hand are certainly not your average three-piece.

Very, very far from it. The short description is throat/turntables/ drums and they are not for the fainthearted – if you don’t like being challenged by sonic artistry, don’t even go there... To elaborate further, it’s Jonny Marks (throat singing, synth AKS, jaw harp, tovshuur) David Morrison (aka Alphabethead – turntables, electronics, voice) and B. Michael Knight (drums and voice). It’s a wild ride of experimental industrial world music madness masquerading as avant-garde jazz and it’s absolutely fabulous. It’s not their first foray – they released a self-titled album in 2011, ‘Mechatronics’ in 2013 and ‘Fog & Debris’ in June 2014. It’s somewhat anarchic, highly original (Happy Flowers meets John Zorn and Test Department), and a hell of a lot of noisey fun. Based in Wellington, but often darkening the doors of genre-open establishments such as Whammy Bar, they are assisted on this release by Hannah Salmon (vocals), Dean Hunter (guitar), Rani Ella Slingdottir and Rupert Hunter (voice). Fans of interesting and/or industrial music Ü ÊLiÊÜi ÊÃ>Ìi`°Ê/i ÊÌÀ>V ÃÊ vÊ i>ÃÞÊ ÃÌi }ÊLÀ > Vi°ÊU !NIA 'LOWACZ

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This sophomore release from Auckland-based artist Eli Dobbyn, aka Affsid Kidjhagiffy, embraces the minimalism of ambient music. Created over 2016, a well-refined aesthetic helps hold the nine tracks of this album together. The stripped back cover artwork reflects the space that Kidjhagiffy leaves for the music. Rather than sit as a collection of songs it works effectively as a single work. While seeming to never overstate himself, this release can be placed somewhere between experimental beats and electroacoustic composition. War Is Ugly is an aggressive and confrontational piece that along with its title, feels almost like a direct commentary of the current political climate around the world. The soothing Antipro follows, almost as if to calm the listener, telling them that everything will be okay, with its drones and evolving textures. Surprise is one of the few tracks with vocals, however these have been distorted and pitch shifted down, blending the voice within the texture of the piece, effectively becoming another layer rather than >Êv V> Ê« Ì°ÊU *ESSE !USTIN

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Guitarist Neil Watson’s latest album is a confection of funky rock/soul/jazz, with a little bit of blues/country thrown in for good measure. Produced and recorded by Watson back in 2011 it also features a who’s who of Auckland jazz, with Olivier Holland on upright bass, Ron Samsom drums and percussion, Grant Winterburn on organ, Roger Manins’ baritone saxophone, Lewis McCallum, alto saxophone and Geoff Maddock on acoustic guitar. Mixed by Jeremy Toy and mastered

by Alex Bennett the album takes a hybrid approach to the many and varied influences Watson has in his music. From the acoustic country styling of Kerala, to the hip Wes Montgomery blues jazz style of Wes De Money (bonus Easter eggs for Montgomery fans in that track!), through to the southern rock of Sweet Corn And Melon and the 1970s funk and boogie styles of Metres Ahead, Boog A-Gee and other tracks ‘Studies in Tubular’ might seem all over the map, but it adheres to hybridity as its core and takes the listener on a fun, toe-tapping ride. The core group of Watson (electric, acoustic and synth guitars), Holland, and Samsom provide tight, fierce, interplay with more than capable assistance from the other musicians. Grant Winterburn’s organ is of particular note, providing both }À ÛÞÊÃ ÃÊ> `ÊÃÕLÌ iÊ>VV «> i ÌÊ Ê i>ÀÊiµÕ> Ê i>ÃÕÀi°ÊUÊ!LEISHA 7ARD

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Merk’s digital release is a colourful trip down nostalgia lane.

From the get go we are met by lo-fi beats and twangy synths as playful as the early production heard on Deep Sea Divers

by Darwin Deez. Wonderbuzz is reminiscent of Miike Snow as Merk’s falsetto floats above the toe tapping beat throughout the chorus. 22-year old Mark Perkins shines bright on this solo effort which was written, recorded, produced and mixed by himself with additional help from Alexander Wildwood

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and Ben Jeffares. Djeisan Suskov is credited with mastering. Manchuria sounds as dreamy as The Last High by The Dandy Warhols, powered by lush distorted guitars and Merk’s clean and unwavering voice. The melancholic piano chords in Melody are reminiscent of the quiet before the storm experience in listening to a Queen ballad. The record feels like an instant classic and you’d be falling yourself not to get it on cassette! Across Spotify and Soundcloud ‘Swordfish’ has about 70,000 plays which is impressive for a debut album that didn’t have much media surrounding its release. Even more striking is how Merk has managed to keep his project short and sweet at 25 minutes, whilst showing off his skills as musician and producer. s &ELIX -PUNGA

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There would be few who couldn’t connect to the heartbreak that pours out of Renny’s ‘Everywhere I Turn’. This is a crafted and slickly produced (by Renny and Dave Carnahan) EP that tells a story from beginning to end. The acoustic guitar and touches of keyboard or percussion run as a beautiful compliment to Renny’s unique, dusty and direct vocals. The New Plymouth-dwelling Australian artist recorded at Carnahan’s King Street Studios as well as in NSW, with a couple of tracks done at Tsunami Sound Studios in Levin. Opening gently with Since You Went Away, the journey of love starts with lightness both instrumentally and from a production perspective, allowing close connection with the lyrics. The heavier lead guitar in Everywhere I Turn lends an intensity and sadness, building to the musical and relationship crescendo of Till You Can Be True. As if coming out of the darkness, the EP closes out with the tentatively hopeful All Of Me. There is similarity between the six tracks so the links between each are clear and connected, but plenty of difference. In 24 minutes Renny takes you on a journey of love held, love lost and hearts healed. If her EP is anything to go by Renny M is a well of untapped songwriting and production potential. s %MMA -OSSS

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The beauty of this Auckland garage pop outfit has always been in their palatably abrasive sound. Their back catalogue includes ‘Grind State’, a refreshing slap to the face of grunge-pop rock.

Next was ‘Soft’, aptly named with its smooth and dreamy synths. ‘9MM’ stays true to P.H.F.’s signature lo-fi sound with distorted vocals riding a wave of garage rock guitar instrumentation and energetic drumming. Drummer Reuben Winter produced the album and is also known for his work as Totems. Joe Locke’s fuzzy vocals act as an instrument at times, distorted like a satellite signal bent by time and space. Fresh Gallon boasts metallic guitar (Sam Wieck) over neatly processed drums and Nigel Wight’s bouncy funk bass, a sonic re-imagination of surf rock. The calmly ominous guitar melody of Queen closely follows. Ripe with guest appearances, ‘9mm’ features Clairo, Sachi, Daniel Smith and Arthur Shea. The range of sound ensures the album remains fresh throughout, save for Hella verging on being a little repetitive. Santa Maria offers an eerie moment of whispered narrative before diving back into the vigour of Girls. ‘9MM’ sits very pretty in the band’s collection of work, this talented group have carved out a unique sound and continue to own it. s *EAN "ELL

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Entertainer, Rich Manic, has again unleashed his alter-ego, Captain Festus McBoyle, for the release of this sophomore, kids’ album,. Self-produced and recorded in Auckland, ‘Ships N Giggles’ comes as a long-awaited follow-up to ‘The Pirate’s Life’ – a finalist in the Kids Album category of the 2013 NZ Music Awards. The 12-track playlist consists of infectious boot-stomping, thigh-slapping tunes that range in length, from The Mummsy Blues at only 56 seconds, to The Lullaby Song running blissfully at just under four minutes. Definite kiddie crowd pleasers include Pull My Finger, Bug Stew and Wally The Whale. The musical comedy is sharp enough to entertain the most unruly scallywags – young and old. Midway through the playlist, Captain Festus shares a piece of NZ history as he tells of the 1863 HMS Orpheus disaster.

The delivery of this story is captivating, factual and educational. The CD cover caricature

by Elliot Stewart is an eye-catching piece, and telling of what you can expect in the way of musical chaos and fun on this album. The CD sleeve includes a handy lyric booklet and an array of live photos of the Captain and his crew. s $EE -UIR

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Wellington-based American Jeshel Forrester has had an intriguing career in and out of the music industry, recording country albums in Australia in the mid 1980s, both as a solo artist and as part of award-winning Rank Strangers. After a lengthy break this new self-titled double album is a combination of original tracks and covers, recorded over 2015/’16 at Te Ahumairangi Studio. Sparsely arranged, with emphasis on finger-picked guitar and vocals, the music is mostly in a folk or country vein, with Forrester (vocally) channelling at various points Johnny Cash or Neil Young. He shows an obvious affection for his material, but across 25 tracks some of the songs sound the same, with little breaking up the steady acoustic folk/country flow. Live-recorded tracks Koori Man and Kamara shine with Ian Tritt’s added dobro and mandolin respectively. Two other songs stand out for me; the urgent Hoka Hay, which tells the story of Crazy Horse, and Bob Dylan’s Girl Of The North Country (one of several covers including two from Gillian Welch), where Dylan’s songwriting style and more complex chord changes provide a different energy than Forrester’s straightforward structures. Despite being packed with well-written and performed songs there isn’t enough to make ‘Jeshel’ stand out from the myriad of other albums in this style, regardless of his evident talents. s !MANDA -ILLS

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Slip into Dunedin based singer/songwriter Rubita’s ‘Brutal Yet Dulce Soap’ and slip away from the confines of NZ. Sober Kisses starts you off on a remote island with a drink of your choice.

Amodern day version of The Girl From Ipanema the tropicalia vibes will sweep you off your feet. Produced and engineered by Hamilton native Scott Newth, Black Underwear is an enticing number as you might expect from the title. The general motif of which is spoken through the lyrics “Don’t you wanna come home with me, don’t you wanna see what you’re missing out on?� Alex Sipahioglu provides bass on this modern groove track whilst a rock groove comes in to tie up a catchy chorus as the saxophone lick by Luke Kibblewhite carries the melody. Milky Moon is a dreamy number with blues and jazz chords played over an acoustic guitar whilst Rubita’s voice takes command over stripped back drums. Why is propelled by an a capella intro as Rubita’s voice shines through falsetto. Seth Clement plays the drums with a mesmerising swing giving the track energy and bounce. This is a CD you’ll want to put on after a long hard day and sip a mojito to, or better yet dance a cha cha step to its soft yet poppy jazz vibes. At four tracks deep the EP is short yet ‘dulce’ (sweet) and definitely demands repeated plays. s &ELIX -PUNGA

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Draghound are a four-piece based in Wellington, though three of them are originally from Hamilton. It all began as a solo project of Emerald Rose (guitar/vocal), but for the last few years she has been joined by Helen O’Rourke on keys, John Wilson on drums and Stenn Francis-Deare on bass. (Very recently replaced by Tom Jenkin). They have all been in many other bands, including Thunderdykes, Milktrain, Swamp Doctor and Big Rick. This is a woozy, groove-based, somewhat eclectic, slightly psychedelic, funky, dirty, poppy, rocky melange! Opening and feature track Flange In The Bedroom is an instrumental, with its own dancing-in-the-forest-in-freezing-cold-Wellington video on Vimeo. The other three tracks – Golden God, Shy (a sweet and innocent one), Fuzzy In The Brain (deceptive beginnings) feature Rose’s sweet girly vocals, backed by a variety of interesting instruments, including brass, swirly keyboard sounds, psychedelic guitar, huge drums... you get the idea. You might lose yourself in the ’70s, ’80s or even in the present moment! The extended jam at the end of Fuzzy In The Brain is a great way to finish. Total musical value and really kind’a cool... s !NIA 'LOWACZ

To submit your album or EP for review in Fresh-Cut, please send TWO copies along with a brief bio to NZ Musician, PO Box 99-315, Newmarket, Auckland 1149. It must be available for sale and only CDs provided with completed artwork are forwarded for review.

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When musicians describe their new album as ‘vulnerable’, that’s all too often code for ‘this album lacks real inspiration’. It will likely consist of slow ballads and the lyrics will be a mix of tortured metaphors and navel-gazing narcissism. The tunes won’t be catchy, or memorable, lest they take away focus from the artist’s all-important inner pain. Vulnerable is all too often code for dull and whiny – but not so when it comes to The Bollands.

Ailee Slater caught up with the now Auckland-based globetrotting folk duo to talk over their new third album, ‘All My Ghosts’.

The Bollands

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ith Christian Bolland on guitar and vocals and his wife Joyce on keyboard and vocals, The Bollands practically live on the road. They met in New Plymouth, lived in Taiwan and honed their sound in Hong Kong, touring three continents in the meantime.

Their brand of foot-stomping folk is infectious enough to warm the most cynical of hearts, with the type of choruses that leave your throat sore and your beer spilled.

Ballands’ songs are populated by a cast of hard-luck chancers that you cheer for and pity at the same time, best typified by the forlorn, drunksince-breakfast narrator of Down To The Bone, or the hapless creep of Stalker. Throughout their career, Christian’s rasping, tender voice has given these characters life, and a typical Bollands song is one that doesn’t just celebrate human frailty, it makes it get up and dance.

The Bollands’ third studio album, ‘All My Ghosts’, released in late January, provides a new take on the hearty campfire jams that have won the duo fans around the globe. Yes, the songs are still catchy. Yes, beer will be spilled, and feet will stomp. Yes they’re still about drinking – but this time it’s a lot closer to home.

“With this album I wanted to write songs that were real, honest and personal,” says Christian. “Getting personal is something we’d never really done. Most of our songs were written about characters, up until this point.

But I thought – why not give reality a crack?”

‘All My Ghosts’ takes inspiration from Christian’s own tumultuous youth. From the quiet conflict of family and romantic struggles, to the raging moments of chaos that define the journey from boyhood to adulthood, to the experience of joining a cult. Yes, that’s right – Christian joined one in his teens, and he sings about it with raw, compelling honesty in the album’s closing track Fielding.

“I’ve never been that good about writing about myself,” he says, explaining that it’s not easy to open up about his personal experiences on stage.

“It feels too vulnerable. It took me a few years just to get up the confidence to write about me, regardless of what other people think.”

Fielding, for example, nearly didn’t make in onto the album.

“Chris wanted to throw out quite a few songs, including Fielding,” Joyce explains. “I had to fight for those songs. I had to convince Chris that his personal stories were worth telling. Normally it’s me filtering out songs and saying they’re no good, but with this album it was the other way around.

“I’m really glad he’s taken the journey to be able to write songs about himself. I’ve heard many of these stories from Christian’s past, he’s got

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a lot! He was scared about being vulnerable and sharing them, but I’m happy he has. It’s been a good journey for him.”

The evolution from writing about characters to telling personal stories is striking in light of Christian’s reluctance to expose his history on stage, yet at the same time completely natural for a band that thrives on experimentation and evolution.

“We’ve learned to let our songs grow, improve and take shape through the audience,” says Joyce. “It’s a process that’s developed during our time touring in Asia. We used to be worried about making a mistake on stage, but audiences in Asia are so forgiving! It means we can be more confident playing live and explore a song without needing it to be ‘perfect’ from the start.”

“Over the years, our touring and travelling has brought a kind of healing to me,” Christian adds. “We’ve met amazing people and played amazing shows while travelling the world, which has also allowed me to travel to my own past. When you know there’s a great community of people around the world, that makes it easier to write the songs that make you feel totally vulnerable.”

Both say that the most interesting musicians they’ve shared the stage with have all managed to surprise the audience.

“We played with a band called Junk Roach in Japan,” says Joyce. “They had props and costumes and soundtracks, and then they were playing Goth metal on two Spanish guitars. It was mind-blowing! And it also gave us ideas.”

“I love anything that surprises you, or makes you say, ‘I totally didn’t expect that!’” Christian agrees. “It’s about having the balls to be unpredictable, to give yourself over to pure creativity. Sometimes the audience doesn’t like it, but I love that bravery – just getting up there and doing your thing. I aspire to do that.”

The stories The Bollands tell, fictional or real, are nearly always universal.

On ‘All My Ghosts’, their songs whisk the listener into lost memories and snapshots of both overpowering and everyday emotion – from drunken bliss to haunting guilt, to the simple delights of spicy Mala hotpot, as sung

by Joyce in Stare Into Space.

“We want people to experience moments, of the hard times and the good times,” Christian explains. “I think it makes the world a little nicer when people can experience those things together through the vehicle of music.”

Music is a vehicle that’s taken The Bollands around the globe and back again. Wherever it takes them next, the story is sure to be a good one.

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Do As You Please Little more than a year into her recording career, Dunedin native Abigail Knudson has already proven herself to be incredibly prolific, establishing a digital release profile that is elegant and darkly artful – a good match to her genre-blending musical output that combines elements of choral and classical with hip hop and electronic pop. Amanda Mills talked with the inspiring songwriter/composer about her debut album, packaged as ‘Nicotine’, released late last year.

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bigail Knudson has an intense relationship with music. From an exceptionally musical family (her mother was director of Dunedin’s Knox Church Choir and an uncle plays drums in The Chills), she describes herself as “indoctrinated… from a very young age.” Her adventures in music started with playing the violin (which she gave up by the age of six), and then the cello, while also singing in choirs.

“Whether I wanted to or not,” she laughs.

Classical vocal lessons followed for a couple of years. Her start in songwriting came from an encouraging music teacher at high school, who she remembers as being incredibly supportive and giving her opportunities to develop.

However, any epiphany on a music career came recently.

“Obviously I was thinking, ‘Yes, this is what I want to do’, but I wasn’t 100% focused.

I was always unsure of how I could make it work. When I decided to start doing my own production was when I sort of had that lightbulb moment of confidence.”

Knudson’s solo artist career started with a bang, with the release of an EP, ‘Religion’, followed by a debut album called ‘Nicotine’ in 2016 – both opulently produced recordings.

While mostly created with studio production wizardry, Knudson plays cello on both releases, while her father Dean Hollebon plays violin on ‘Nicotine’.

Having amassed a small number of songs she wanted to produce her ‘Religion’ EP was recorded in a studio on Dunedin’s Bond Street, with co-production by Timothy Greenslade.

The dramatic and lush three-track collection incorporated classical music, choral vocals, hip hop and beats.

The debut EP largely slipped under the radar, though it was given airplay by Dunedin’s locally supportive Radio One. “I don’t think there was very much of a response… but it was a good way for me to open a conversation with other people in the music industry.”

She continued writing, and collaborated with others, before deciding to go it alone for ‘Nicotine’, including producing the record herself.

“The decision to start producing things on my own came more from taking agency over my work and completing it within a timeframe that was reasonable – and be able to finish the product in a style that I was happy with.

I gave myself a month to finish the album, which is insane, but I just really wanted to have something out.”

‘Nicotine’ was recorded in her bedroom at her Dunedin home. She admits having to teach herself production as she went along.

“I didn’t have a budget for ‘Nicotine’, or else I would have loved to get a few other people on board to help with production advice and mixing,” she laughs. “I was, like, ‘I will complete this project to teach myself production… I’m going to work at it for hours and hours until I know how to do it!’ “‘Nicotine’ is more sort of me gathering everything – all the scraps of songs that I have – and trying to flush them out there and start fresh. I wanted to go for a really big [sound], I love the choral sound, that was me just at the start, just when I was starting to branch away from I suppose you’d say my roots, which are obviously choral music … I’m still finding my way to a style that I mesh with.”

On both recordings, Knudson’s lyrics are subjective.

“A whole album is personal, and impersonal… I do discuss our addiction to relationships that aren’t necessarily good for us,” she smiles. “I’d like to continue to develop a way of talking about feminism in music in a way that is non-confrontational, and also listenable… feminism also branches out to talk about body image, and how pop music negatively affects it…

I’m still developing the lyrical and songwriting ability of bringing in what I think is important myself into my music.”

It’s of little surprise that she is already working on new recordings, planning another EP then album. The EP, she says will be more in the vein of ‘Religion’, though she does have her sights set on a particular sound, one similar to Missy (trip hop beats mixed with classical music textures), which she considers the best track on ‘Nicotine’.

“Objectively… Missy is my best song, but my personal favourite is Ever Since, which is very poppy, and it came out unexpectedly so.”

“I needed to bring that one in more, so that the next release is not so much a shock to the system, you’ve sort of heard

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Abigail Knudson something like that… I’m very dark when I write music, and ‘Nicotine’ is very happy sounding... I prefer the orchestral, very moody music.”

She’s unsure about what influences her work, saying she doesn’t actually listen to very much music.

“I suppose Brahms, and then I did start listening to Lana Del Rey. I think she’s a very good example of the kind of music I’m interested in.

It should eventually be like classical hip hop with electronic pop undertones. I’d love to do way more choral hip hop, I’m a big fan of that combo.”

Having recently made the move to Auckland, Knudson is looking squarely at the future, lining up her potential gigs.

“I’m setting up and figuring out a live set…

I’ve been gear shopping this week! I also want to expand on my abilities, learn a lot while I’m up here, see lots of other musicians who are doing lots of other things and are incredibly talented.

“This is my starting point. I’m going to continue to get better, and I just need to let go of it, finish it, move onto the next project.”

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The All Seeing Hand

e l a p e h t d n o y e b y a w Combining a drummer with a punk/hardcore background, a champion turntablist and a Mongolian throat singing exponent The All Seeing Hand are challenging on numerous levels. Off-kilter rhythms, futuristic mechanical drones and ancient chants somehow come together to make impossible to describe music that can somehow lull you into a trance. Primarily a live act, Aabir Mazumdar spoke with the Wellington trio of Jonny Marks, Ben Knight and David Morrison about their newly released fourth album ‘Sand to Glass’.

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he All Seeing Hand is a Wellington-based band comprised of now close friends Jonny Marks (vocalist and throat singer), drummer Ben Knight and turntablist David Morrison (aka Alphabethead).

They have a strikingly unique sound, partially due to the staggeringly disparate, multi-stylistic influences being brought to the table by the three members, and partially due to their conscious efforts to avoid mimicking those influences, thereby creating something truly original.

Their most immediately evident point of difference though is Marks’ extraordinary throat singing.

“I think each of the three of us brings really quite different influences to it,” explains Knight. “The drumming is definitely heavily influenced by the punk tradition of frantic, energetic, fast drumming. And that sort of fuses with David’s hip hop background and Jonny’s experimental background to push me in different directions that I would never go in otherwise.”

Nodding agreement, Marks elaborates.

“We never approach the music making process with a model in mind.

We never approach it as a genre specific thing in a hole. The decisions we make are informed by the music itself.”

This approach, in tandem with their individual idiosyncrasies and disparate backgrounds, has coalesced into the genuine creature that is The All Seeing Hand.

Morrison has been a DJ and turntablist for several years now but originally he studied physics and computer science, hoping then to eventually build his own audio and music equipment. He amusingly admits that this plan never bore fruit and he found himself turning to performing.

“I fell in love with sample-based hip hop when I was a teenager and I wanted to get into it, so I got turntables.”

Knight, originally from Dunedin, studied cognitive neuroscience but

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played in punk bands throughout his time at university. Where the two worlds met for him was when he came across an album by a French experimental musician from the late ’60s called Pierre Henry.

“He put electrodes all over his own head and then converted his brain activity into signals for a synthesiser and there’s this crazy album called ‘Cortical Art’ which is just his brain signals going through a synth and making this insane music. And one of the first things we did was David cutting that up and me improvising drums to it and that was one of the things that worked really well.”

Knight also plays the drums in bands Unsanitary Napkin and Rogernomix.

Marks, who studied sonic arts at Victoria University, has spent a considerable amount of time travelling through China and Mongolia.

During his time there he was able to further develop his talent for the traditional Mongolian art of throat singing, which heavily features in their music. Throat singing, also known as overtone singing, produces an unusual and exotic sound where resonance paired with timbral shaping is the primary form of manipulating the voice. This is different from more conventional forms of singing where the primary focus is on melody.

He also brought back a tovshuur, a two-stringed, traditional Mongolian instrument mainly used to accompany the voice. The instrument is featured on Rag & Bone, the last track on their ‘Sand To Glass’ album.

The others initially started jamming when Knight was part of a band called Teen Hygiene and Morrison was performing as Alphabethead.

“Me and David started jamming together, fully improvised drums, turntables and sampler. We used to just turn up with no prep, just turn up to a show and play for half an hour to forty minutes”, recalls Ben. Knight remembers his first time seeing Morrison perform as Alphabethead.

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“As soon as I saw him beat-juggling Deep Purple I was like, ‘Yeah this guy gets it. I wanna make music with him.’”

Knight and Marks met for the first time when that pair were having a jam in an old church. Marks walked in and started singing over the top of what they were playing.

“It was so full and loud but we could still hear it well and we just had a really good half an hour of playing together, and then David introduced us,” Knight recalls. Dave exclaims, “It was so rude! Morrison laughs loudly. “I hadn’t seen Jonny in like five years. We didn’t even stop playing. A good friend would have thought, “Let’s stop and talk,” but I was like, ‘Nah’.”

where after creating the sounds, he chooses to re-amp them through a bass amplifier.

All agree that at its core The All Seeing Hand is primarily a live band. Marks describes the experience he wants to share with his audience.

“It’s important that it encompasses the positive and the negative and is honest about the shared human experience, trying to present something that isn’t obvious. It isn’t obviously happy or obviously negative, it just is.

“I really like it when I get a sense that people come out the other side of the gig and feel that we’ve shared an experience together and that we are all in this together. I think that is something an immersive live show can do.

“The visual element has been really important to us, really wanting to create these all-encompassing multi-sensory experiences, rather than just a band on a stage playing a series of songs to an audience off the stage.” – Ben Knight They had already worked with a number of vocalists but agree now only felt the band was complete once Jonny Marks got involved.

Released in December 2016, ‘Sand to Glass’ is the group’s fourth album.

“The aim for me at least is I’d love for people to have an album that they actually give a shit about,’ says Knight. “That’s why we always press things to vinyl, so that they can have a physical object, that has artwork that they get lost in, that they’ll really sit down and listen to from start to finish.”

Despite being influenced by various styles of music, including many traditional varieties less exposed to western audiences, The All Seeing Hand do not adhere to formal structures or traditional musical organisations when composing. The approach seems to focus on capturing and translating the live experience into a recording.

That said, the overdubbing textures and parts can help describe an experience truer to the way they sound live.

“I suppose the (recording) process is about how to best serve the music,” says Marks.“We’re a really live band and it’s about how to translate that sense of movement and intensity that happens in a live setting.”

The majority of the recording was done

by Vanya Vitelli in a DIY studio by the airport in Wellington. Vanya an invaluable role in Wellington’s punk scene and also works on Ben’s other projects. The vocals were recorded at a bach in Flat Point, using a larger, more characteristic space in order to capture more of the room sound.

Morrison’s preferred sawtooth-esque textures are created by initially feeding a mixer back in on itself, no-input mixer style, sampling those sounds, and then filtering, pitching and effecting those sounds heavily. A layered approach is used for his low frequency tracks

It means that people are looking around at each other and going, ‘Yeah, that’s right. We’re sharing this,’ and that’s one of the things that bring me joy.”

“We’ve been going to gigs all our lives and there are certain things that have moved each one of us,” Morrison chips in. “For me it’s not virtuosity or the crazy solo, it’s a sound or a really dense harmonic section that makes me feel really elated. I hope the main thing people take away is something that’s really moving and inspiring and something that is unique.”

Live shows often feature intense and immersive visual elements including projection mapping, soft sculptures and a giant pink latex suit that the entire band performs within, called The Blob. Collaborating with visual artists is high up on their priority list and something that they are always excited about.

“We’ve loved working with visual artists pretty much since the band started,” Knight explains. “The visual element has been really important to us, really wanting to create these all-encompassing multi-sensory experiences, rather than just a band on a stage playing a series of songs to an audience off the stage. We really like the idea of bringing people right into an immersive experience.

“Wherever possible, especially on tour, we’re always on the lookout for visual artists that are keen to do something collaborative. Ideally we’d have people in every city that we play that are keen to collaborate.”

In the near future The All Seeing Hand are planning to play shows in Wellington, Auckland, Brisbane, Melbourne and Hobart, Tasmania.

Later in the year they will be performing at the Nu Art Festival in Cheng Du as well as other cities in China.

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Tweed

Sparingly strummed mandolin and delicate French horn introduce ‘High-Brow Blues’, the debut album from Auckland alternative folk trio Tweed. From there it’s all meaningful lyrics and shared vocals to the fore in a part-rollicking, part-reflective, always thoughtful 10 track offering. Briar Lawry spoke with the Tweed three; acoustic guitar/bassist Nancy Howie, mandolinwielding Steff Werman, and Devin Ashton who looks after the percussive bits.

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business manager, an academic equity administrator and a piano tuner walk into a bar. Or a home-based rehearsal space. Or an open-air folk festival. Wherever they go, this trio are more importantly musicians to the bone. Meet Tweed, an alternative folk band weaving together harmonies and lyrics in new and exciting ways.

For five years, they’ve been playing together in this current configuration – ‘they’ being Nancy Howie, Devin Ashton and Steff Werman. The trio decided on the name Tweed with the idea that the intricacy of the fabric reflects that of their combined sound. With all three providing vocals there is plenty to pay attention to. As Nancy points out, getting to a name that suits your sound, even as you evolve, can be a fraught task.

“Coming up with a band name is difficult. It’s one of the first things that you do, you choose them really early on and you might turn into something else, but the name is still there.”

“It’s like having your intermediate school-era hotmail address on your CV,” Steff interjects. “Like ‘westliferules’ or something.”

With luck, although Steff’s ukulele has been swapped for a mandolin and Devin’s drum kit for a cajón, the essence of the band has remained the same. In the summer of 2017, after years of honing their sound – and cramming in as much music as possible around their day jobs – Tweed release their debut album, ‘High-Brow Blues’.

Rewinding a little first, Steff says she played a bit of piano and guitar while growing up.

“But when we started Tweed I played ukulele – it was a bit of a joke because I had such tiny fingers that I needed a tiny instrument. And then I switched onto mandolin – no training or anything, I just started bringing it along to practices.”

It’s created something of a unique technique, according to Nancy.

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“Whenever we play for a folk crowd, especially an older folk crowd, we get people saying, ‘You play that very interestingly…’”

Devin’s background is more classical.

“I was a boy soprano – but that’s going back – and then lots of musical theatre.”

“None of us have any formal training in the instruments we play in the band currently,” says Nancy, the band’s songwriter and guitarist. “I play a Taylor GS Mini, which I love. It’s a slightly miniaturised version of a Taylor guitar – not scaled down very far, but enough that it makes a difference for me, making it so incredibly comfortable.

“I used to be a bassist, and when we went travelling with the band I didn’t really think there was much point in taking a bass and an amplifier and all that. So when I went to LA, I bought a guitar, since you can get instruments for nothing in the States, and I really started trying to write originals.

“I suddenly had a whole lot more time on my hands so I could really start to focus – and then when I got back to NZ I could really start to get into it. I think having a band helps too. It helps you hone your songwriting a bit more, and you’re being depended upon and held accountable.”

Steff found her mandolin in a pawn shop and Devin’s cajón playing is the result of pure chance. Created by local manufacturer Tukituki Instruments, Steff and Nancy bought it as an experiment, of sorts, but it’s ended up working perfectly for Tweed’s need and sound.

“Turns out, carrying around a plywood box is a lot easier than bringing a drum kit!”

Portability’s important when it comes to managing to create a sound that can align the live and the recorded performance.

“I think it’s so important to be able to hear an album and then see the

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by Reuben Rowntree

Mix Buss Processing

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he mix is close to being finished and it’s time to add the final touches. Time then to talk mix-buss or mix-buss processing – the plugins that are often used to finish off your mix.

The overall approaches to the master fader are of course varied, but typically most mix engineers use plugins sparingly and with the intention of leaving room for the mastering stage of processing. There are no real rules in terms of order but one sensible approach is to start with a little saturation or analogue emulation.

There are several popular choices for this type of effect now, with Slate Digital VCC or McDSP Analogue Channel being two of the earliest examples. These types of processors add a subtle character to the mix that suits many modern styles of music. You might notice a slight thickness due to the effects of a specially tuned light distortion and compression. The idea here is to generally add a light touch, nothing too extreme. One thing you might look for is a little crosstalk and individuality with regard to dynamics between the channels (L and R) to simulate a real mixing desk or tape machine.

Secondly, we might add a compressor. Some reckon this is best left for mastering and some argue that mix compressors often feature on mixing desks – so why not use them? If you fall into the ‘compress’ camp, then there are several great options to choose from. One of my personal favourites is the SSL style VCA compressor set to a ratio of 2:1, with the slowest attack (30ms) and the fastest release (100ms).

Then dial in the threshold so that you are only getting a couple of dB gain reduction in the chorus (2-4dB would give you a moderate effect).

This works for many styles of music however the use is obviously tied to how much compression has already been applied to the individual tracks and even to any samples / instruments used on those tracks. The key to a good mix compressor is a low ratio, this ensures that the effects aren’t too extreme and louder elements aren’t likely to influence the compressor as much. When to add the compressor is another interesting choice. It adds an interesting dynamic to the mix (pun intended) so that when you turn a channel up, the compressor may indeed turn it back down. Therefore, if unfamiliar with this phenomenon, then adding the compressor near the end of mix completion is probably the right answer. The mix should already sound well balanced within itself and the frequency spectrum should be nice and smooth.

Now, should you use EQ? This one is also a little contentious in some circles. The mix stage is the last time you will have true freedom to fix any frequency issues at the source, so if you feel the mix is a

band live and actually hear something close to what you first heard,” Devin explains. “With us, what you hear is what you get.”

With five years of playing together under their belt, it’s fair to say this first album has been a long time coming.

“Ages,” Steff offers. “Too long,” adds Devin.

Whatever the case, the three of them are delighted to have gotten to the point of actually releasing ‘High-Brow Blues’.

“We went into the studio at Roundhead and recorded it about a year ago,” Steff explains.

“Prior to that, we were workshopping material, arranging – organising when we’d go to the studio for about 12 months.”

“And the year before that, the songs were written,” Nancy continues. “It’s pretty incredible how much of a time lag there is, especially for independent musicians.”

little dull, boost the high frequency tracks in level (hi-hat, cymbals, percussion etc.) and add a little treble to them as well if needed. This is a good time to calibrate your ears to some commercially released material – listen to the brightness of the hi-hat on something popular and use that as a gauge. If you do decide on EQ many engineers opt for a high quality linear phase EQ processor similarly to why you might use one in the mastering stage – but equally there are engineers that opt for a colourful EQ like the Pultec EQP-1A. Levels. To begin with, I generally like to have the master fader at unity (0dBFS). Ultimately, the only really hard rule for the level of your mix is don’t allow clipping. (Arguably exporting in floating point can alleviate this, but that’s a whole other story.) If you are getting the track mastered professionally you may want to check what levels they expect, but as a good hard and fast rule – don’t allow clipping and don’t use a limiter.

The last plugin should be dither... if you are exporting as a 16-bit wav/aif file, and your DAW doesn't allow for this in the bounce dialogue (eg. Logic Pro). If you add dither, don’t lose sleep over it, just add a 16-bit option with some noise-shaping and forget about it.

So in conclusion, keep the master fader at unity. Apply minimal EQ if it can’t be avoided. Use light compression with a fairly low ratio.

Some sort of analogue emulation goodness is always great, and if dither is used, it should be the final plugin.

For further experimentation, stereo expansion and psychoacoustic processors such as exciters could be employed, but this definitely overlaps with the mastering stage and should probably be treated as a once-in-a-while type of processor.

Reuben Rowntree is a lecturer at SAE Institute. In his spare time, he spends way too much money on building hardware compressors. He can be contacted at r.rowntree@sae.edu

“So we’re really excited to finally get it out in the wild and see what people make of it,” Steff concludes.

“I think we’re all pleased with how it came out, it’s a fair representation of what we were setting out to try to achieve. And it also means that we can finally get started on new stuff. It’s exciting to be able to move onto something else,” Nancy adds.

According to Steff they already have some ideas in the works and want to keep the momentum going so that they’re not always playing songs from a few years back. Harking back to the band naming dilemma, Nancy points out that being able to create more new music is vital in keeping the band’s direction.

“The more you play and create, the more time goes by, the closer you get to that essential sound that defines you as a band.”

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One of the major changes for Nancy as a songwriter over that time has been a move from wholly introspective lyrics to a more outward looking, political approach.

“A lot of it has been autobiographical, musing on the human condition. And recently, it’s started to take a more political tone, in the wake of the US election. As a musician, I feel like I have a responsibility to give a voice to some of the opinions.”

And in turmultuous times it seems incredibly appropriate for a folk band – alternative or no – to be part of that voice of dissent. In the modern era, bouncing between homespun memoir and politically charged opinion is an essential part of what folk music has presented to the world – and with a team like Tweed at the musically vanguard, we should count ourselves lucky.

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Tony Daunt

Trouble

Among the 30 or so tattoos that decorate Tony Daunt is a colourful rendition of a Gretsch hollow body electric guitar, mostly covered by the short-sleeved shirt on his upper left arm. A whimsical piece of art in its origin perhaps, given that he’s played bass for most of his musician life, these days it has a close match in the beautiful pearl jet Gretsch Country Classic he wields as lead singer and frontman of Tony Daunt & The Dauntless. Richard Thorne talked with him ahead of the release of his own debut album ‘The Gypsy’, the culmination of a life-long, and hard-won dream.

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or someone who’s been a musician for well over 30 years, is clearly a talented songwriter, experienced bass player and more than competent frontman/guitar slinger, Tony Daunt is hardly well known.

There are an abundance of reasons, more on which later, but cutting to the chase, having just turned 50 he is about to release a first album of songs under his own name, or close to it, Tony Daunt & The Dauntless being him and a recently compiled band.

“This really is the ‘Tony Daunt project’ – they are a bunch of songs I’ve written over a period of time that didn’t fit into my current units. A lot of them I wrote while I was in Swampland, but they didn’t fit the format, or the guys don’t like them. They’ve just niggled away at me cos they are really good songs, I really like them.”

Swampland was a four-year long Auckland psycho-billy rock’n’roll outfit.

It dried up when guitarist Thomas Landon-Lane headed to Germany, though Tony admits to running on a little bit of denial in hoping he’ll return.

Ahead of that he played bass with The Blue Roses and other similar Auckland country outfits, most enduringly Bernie Griffen & The Grifters. By the time that band was winding up he was ready to go.

“I had all my resentments, I was angry, it was time to get out there and play some rock’n’roll. I guess that’s why Swampland is fairly angry! I think Swampland deals with my anger issues and Tony Daunt & The Dauntless deals with my sadness. It’s my therapy!” he laughs.

He wouldn’t be alone in turning to music for self-therapy. Now eight years sober, Tony has an almost self-harming need to be open about

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alcohol abuse and a variety of other demons he’s been facing down for much of his life. Most of the songs on ‘The Gypsy’ are related to one or more.

Leaving NZ at 16, he hints at surprise that the authorities let him get on a plane to Brisbane, describing Australia as “…where I had my big party.” It lasted 23 years.

“I was living with a 17-year old girl I’d met here in NZ and we just got heavily into drugs and the gangster life and all that stuff. I was really into the punk scene over there and got involved with a couple of bands – bands that have come up again in the last few years when people have looked back at Brisbane in the ’80s.”

Aside from the drugs, he says, it was all about the music back then.

“I was a little punk rocker when I left Auckland in ’83, and gravitated to like-minded people in Brisbane. But it was a really different scene there, born of a place called Sandgate actually. I think it was the last train station out of Brisbane going north, and Sandgations were an interesting lot.

“The guys I was with were all into rockabilly as well, so I got exposed to The Gun Club and others that were punky enough for me, but at the same time had a country crossover. That was my first exposure to country music, and Australian country has some deeper, darker elements. Tex Perkins would be one of my biggest influences, definitely – he was in a band called Tex Deadly and the Dum Dums then – he’s from Sandgate.”

In the mid-1980s Queensland was a virtual police state, heading towards the end of the notoriously corrupt reign of Kiwi-born premier Joh Bjelke-Petersen. Tony and his crowd were staunchly left wing, disruptive and not afraid to stand out.

“It was really hard to be a punk rocker in Brisbane at that time, you couldn’t walk three abreast down the street, so we were pretty passionate about our music. The police were everywhere. I learnt that if I needed a lift home after a night out, if I stumbled about enough a police car would take me home. They’d ransack the house, but at least you’d get a free lift home!”

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Band followed band, opportunities got squandered and triumphs repeatedly turned into disasters. Leaving Brisbane after 13 years, to follow his latest love interest to Melbourne, he was soon playing in a Brit-pop band called The Waiting Room.

“Again they were just about to get a record contact and we had a meeting in a pub where I was generally disruptive, drinking out of jugs and having arguments, and sabotaged the whole thing. So that was the end of that. I played in various bands but the behaviours were all the same – definitely not proud of that.”

“There was a whole 23-year period where I was playing rock’n’roll, but I was living the rock’n’roll lifestyle, without collecting the milestones.”

Most wouldn’t admit to any such faults but the days of denial seem well behind him and Tony talks easily about it now. He says he spent 23 years thinking the rest of the world had it in for him, recalling again those early Brisbane days, wearing a mohawk and getting beaten up for it by the local football team.

“And wondering,‘Why did those bastards do that?’ And ‘I hate society’, when actually you’re the bit that’s the problem!”

When he made the decision to return to NZ a decade ago, he had literally come to the end of his rope.

“By that stage I was unemployable. I wasn’t functioning and needed to get myself sorted out. Once I made my mind up I just needed to get out, so using alco-logic I took everything I owned (amps, guitars, everything) down to a pawnbroker and just accepted the few hundred bucks they offered. Sold my guitar and just got enough for a ticket out. Crazy.”

Back in Auckland and around family it still took him a few years to find out how to get sober. There was no music in that period, he says he wouldn’t have shown up. What might have started as good intentions would have turned into a trip to the pub. He can’t really point to what finally kicked him clear of the bottle but eventually he got into de-tox and things moved from there.

Bernie Griffen played an important role in getting him back into music and on-stage.

They’d known each other since when as a 15-year old he had rehearsed at Griffen’s space in Anzac Ave. “We had that history, and when he ran into me back in Auckland he got me straight back into playing music. I was in rehab and life was pretty uncomfortable, I could have just as easily hidden under a rock somewhere. Bernie taught me lots of stuff that was really important – first of all he helped me live sober… and perform sober.”

They formed a duo called The Grifters and “…played some really, really bad shows.”

Tony also battles a perfectionist trait, and remains image conscious and evidently fastidious. Clean-shaven, his freshly trimmed black hair is immaculately gelled back. He hasn’t ever visited the States but wears only American clothing, buying Lucky brand shirts via e-Bay – the same place he found his gorgeous Country Classic guitar four years ago. He now owns two Gretsches.

“Bernie was all about, ‘She’ll be right, let’s go and do it.’ That was when he decided to go out and start singing, fronting a band – which he’d never done before – and that was the most valuable thing he taught me. From playing with The Grifters I learnt that I didn’t want to wait until I am that old, and all those fears I had I had to put aside me now. I’ve got the songs, I’ve got a mission that I’ve had since I was 17, and I have to go and do it.”

Tony Daunt & The Dauntless arose to fill the void left by Swampland’s hiatus.

“I ran into Sebi [Balazs Sebesteny] first and with just acoustic guitar and him on double bass we started to get some ideas about the direction I wanted to follow. How sad did it want to be sort of thing. Then we got Kevin Place in to play pedal steel – which is really important cos it’s the saddest instrument in the whole fucking world. It just reeks of melancholy!

“This is his first band playing pedal steel – he’s a perfectionist and still doesn’t think he’s good enough to play it in public. He is, it sounds amazing!”

“He has got this really deep voice and he’s about six foot four – he’s still at high school but he’s an amazing guitar player.”

The mood of ‘The Gypsy’ is forlorn, reminiscent of ‘Boatmans’ Call’-era Nick Cave.

Song titles like Misery, Tied Up In Chains, Momma, Bleeding and Lonesome Highway tell their own story of sadness and despair. Though veiled by metaphor they are personally honest and candid songs. Tony maintains that’s not by design.

“I don’t know – I think it’s really cool sometimes! I can get to the end of something and be surprised by it myself. It’s really scary shit when I look back at the stuff I wrote when I was drinking and realise how much of that was about my current situation then – although at the time I never thought of it as being my current situation. I do that a lot. Even in some of the stuff on this album, at a sub conscious level.

“I don’t think there’s resolution in any of them really,” he shrugs with twinkling eyes and a wry smile. “There’s hope in some…”

The line,‘I’ll take you by the hand… and take you by surprise…’ leads to the easy assumption Misery is about some stalking evil, when it’s about depression – something Tony has battled since childhood.

“It’s something that I live with I guess, not very well sometimes, but I’m getting better at it. You learn strategies and so forth.

“The album is definitely about love gone wrong but if I had to say it was anything it is related to depression – and relationships.

Destructive relationships – I’m the king of those.”

“I’d get into bands and then my unreliability and all the pitfalls of being involved with drugs and alcohol would slowly push me out. So many opportunities were passing me by but I had no idea why – I couldn’t understand it was my behaviour that was wrong.”

Drummer Chris Kemp who was also in Swampland (as well as Labretta Suede & The Motel Six and All Torn Up) joined the group, which importantly includes backing singer Kati Ohens – joined on the album by Kendall Ellise.

“The general idea was that it was my band and a vehicle for my songs. It does work that way quite a lot in that my songs end up sounding how I want them to sound.

“I’ve always written songs for bands I was in, sometimes the full set even, but have the lead guitarist or someone else to front it all. This is the first band where I have actually written the album and brought it to practice and said, ‘This is what we are going to do.’ So that makes it different.”

Teenager Louie Mortlock is the most recent addition. He didn’t play on the album, but Tony had recorded someacoustic guitar tracks that he liked so much he decided he had to employ an acoustic player.

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After a life of very evident hurdles the album recording and release proved an easy process, for which he highly praises producer and RedRoom Studios’ owner Matt Smith.

“He’s Zenmaster 2000 – seriously – he’s a really calming influence with a million good ideas! That was great fun recording there.”

The release on Smith’s AAA Records is Tony’s first on any record label, and he’s excited by the opportunities it brings.

“There’s so much that comes from that. You can bash your head against the wall playing music as an independent for as long as you like, but if someone else adds their support then it attracts the support of others.”

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