Spa, Salon Kingsadore & Audiac Announce Tour
Those near Auckland, Wellington and Christchurch have something to look forward to later this week, as Spa, Salon Kingsadore and Audiac are all setting out on a short-but-sweet tour to the main centres this February.
Spa are a New Zealand rock band, based in Auckland. The first two Spa singles are Neil Of Diamonds and Yale. The former was nominated for Indie Video of the Year at the Juice TV Awards, while the video for the latter was a finalist in the Best Animated Video section of the Kodak Music Clip Awards. Spa will be using the opportunity of this tour to preview their new album Spells For Travelling Forth By Day.
Salon Kingsadore's third and latest full-length release, Mountain Rescue, features the classic line-up of Fender Rhodes/Hammond organ (Billy Squire), electric guitar (Gianmarco Liguori), bass (Hayden Sinclair) and drums (Steven Tait) with the addition of some freaky saxophone and flute from ex-Small Faces/Four Tops/Nucleus instrumentalist Brian Smith and additional brass from Edwina Thorne.
The album starts off full-speed with Jump Cut where it's business as usual, SK dishing out more of their distinctive brand of psychedelic surf-jazz. There's a revisit of The Lost Chord from their first album, but by the time we get to the Iron Curtain of Project Wolf halfway through the album, things start getting weird. The brief, but frantic free jazz workout High Orbit Catastrophe sounds just like its title, with Brian Smith delivering scorching waves of sound on tenor sax, yet Mood Lightening features the same man delivering a delicate, haunting performance on flute reminiscent of 60s English folk-rock.
Mountain Rescue makes use of live and unpolished improvised rehearsal jams like the epic Floating On The Nile with Edwina Thorne's hypnotic trumpet narration and a snappy first attempt at Scuba Tank, Spear Gun, Explosion. While rough edges are exposed in places, Salon Kingsadore's special chemistry is at work here, taking the listener to strange and unexpected places possibly more than any of their other albums.
Audiac are touring in support of their latest album El Toroloco. Recorded at Hothouse studios in St Kilda, El Toroloco moves on from their debut in that it embraces technology without losing the essence of their original sound. The brief was to make a record that
used the studio rather than be limited by the live arena. Whereas Audiac's previous album No Come Down was minimal,
El Toroloco is expansive. Highlights include Light Years Away, If You Were Ever Meant To Be There and No Feelings. No Come Down was described as 'a three car musical pile up involving the Dunedin sound and '90s Brit rock' and 'super catchy pop with genuine inspiration'.
The visit of these three bands to the country's main centres will undoubtedly be very welcome this weekend.
TOUR DATES
Thursday 17 February
Mighty Mighty, Wellington
Friday 18 February
Fat Eddies, Christchurch
Saturday 19 February
Luchalounge, Auckland
