Amplifier

27.07.09

I keep reading reports in various media informing me the album is dead... and possibly to some accountants in recording companies offices it just may be... but let us not be that person. So this week we're looking back over some of the significant, to us, album releases of the year to date. Some of these are releases by well known artists and some are those by relative unknowns. We've two such albums featured today. Read on and see what they are.

Also today thanks to countingthebeat (via Twitter) we came upon the following German release on Morr Music that pays homage to some of the music released in NZ back in the 80's, primarily those from the Flying Nun roster.

"Indie electronic label Morr Music gathered its roster of artists for this two-disc set of favorite songs from the New Zealand pop explosion of the 1980s and '90s. Songs by favorite Kiwi acts like the Chills, the Clean, Chris Knox (whose wedding day classic "Not Given Lightly" is the title track), and the Verlaines. These versions, by artists like American Analog Set and Benni Hemm Hemm, are in the usual style of Morr Music, all breathy vocals and drifting synthesizer lines."
www.cduniverse.com

I must admit I really enjoy hearing how others see and interpret music from here and on this 2CD/3LP/MP3 release the results are enjoyable but not life changing. Doug Mosurock over at Dusted magazine in the US isn't convinced either;

"Not Given Lightly, a double-disc compilation that, at least in part, pays tribute to a handful of New Zealand artists. Morr's latest signing, Surf City, hails from New Zealand, yet that act chooses not to take part in the first disc, an 18-track love letter from Morr-minded artists to an overall very safe list of NZ staples. The success ratio for these covers, from the mechanical take on the Verlaines' "Death and the Maiden" by Tarwater, to the plangent wall of guitar of Electric President's Yo La Tengo tribute in David Kilgour's "You Forgot," is about half and half. The material selected - songs originally written by the Chills, the Bats, the Clean, Jean-Paul Sartre Experience, Tall Dwarfs ... hell, a group of eight or nine people responsible for the lion's share of their country's quality musical exports - shines through whatever treatments they're given, unless that particular treatment doesn't click with you. Hearing B. Fleischmann's breathy take on Chris Knox's dazzling ballad "Not Given Lightly" is a treat, even if his version sounds like it ought to be overlaid on the end credits to some hour-long drama on HBO. It's a great song, and would be very difficult to mar, but Morr artists don't necessarily make errors.

...suspicions mount once you hit disc 2, which has only vague connections to New Zealand music. Surf City appears here, offering up an unreleased track, along with everyone else on this disc. Many of the artists doing the covers return here with some scrap or rarity from the Morr vaults, making it difficult to tell if this really is a tribute to Kiwi pop or just another way for Morr to get a backlog product out there. Either way, it's incongruous; a better idea would have been to license the Flying Nun catalogue and make a personal NZ best of, if for no other reason than to provide a frame of reference for what Morr's artists accomplish here."

A patchy and odd tribute to some of our own that for the curious can be found on the local itunes store.

So what do we feel are significant releases that you might have overlooked thus far you ask...

First up we have perhaps an obvious choice Lawrence Arabia's Chant Darling, a stunning album that won many a critics praise. Our Amplifier reviewer had this to say of the album:

"It's been three years since the release of his first album Lawrence Arabia, a rather intimate affair in comparison to a lot of his work with The Reduction Agents. This time around on Chant Darling it's a fuller, more rounded album, which combines the strengths of his previous works, to become something that will undoubtedly prove to be one of the best releases of the year.

From the onset of opening track "Look Like a Fool", with it's swirling Beatlesesque harmonies and twangy seventies guitars, we are carried away on an Antipodean Journey of the finest variety. Along for the journey is a star studded homegrown backing crew, including no less than Liam Finn, Luke Buda, Samuel Flynn Scott and James Dansey all of whom cement the collective goodness available on Chant Darling."

The songs for the Chant Darling were penned half and half between NZ and London, where Lawrence has been based for the past two years. The subject matter varies from the NZ space programme to naughty liaisons on Quay Street, from laziness and drinking problems amongst the shy, to sexually frustrated hipsters, drug-induced death visions, lust for teacher and a theme-in-waiting for the National Government's soon to be announced war on drugs.

Our other stand out album today is John Dryden from Wild Bill Ricketts.

Will Ricketts, percussion player and award winning songwriter (Hitchcock) with his band The Phoenix Foundation, releases his first solo album, John Dryden, under the Wild Bill Ricketts moniker.

Written, arranged, recorded and produced by the man himself, John Dryden takes its name after Will's ancestor the 17th century poet.

The album features strong vocal performances from Mara TK (Billy TK's son), Connan Mockasin, Rio Hemopo and Ben Fulton.
Riki Gooch aka Eru Dangerspiel from Trinty Roots plays the drums as well as Julien Dyne and Dave Norris. Joe Lindsey and Toby Laing from Fat Freddy's Drop add horns on many of the tracks and Mike Fabulous from The Black Seeds helped with the final mix.
John Dryden was mastered by Kelly Hibbert in LA.

Amplifier's Mr Business Manager almost ruined us on this with his playing the wonderful Coconut Tree over and over and over... and both the song and us held up well and it still sounds great.

Two artist albums and a compilation from Germany... add to that a dig at record company accountants - that's not a bad start to the week I reckon.

Enjoy.