Anita Clark aka Motte

My profile of Anita Clark is live on Audio Culture now

Selected Works is a weekly (usually) newsletter by the Te Whanganui-a-Tara, Aotearoa (Wellington, New Zealand) based freelance music journalist, broadcaster, copywriter and sometimes DJ Martyn Pepperell, aka Yours Truly. Most weeks, Selected Works consists of a recap of what I’ve been doing lately and some of what I’ve been listening to and reading, paired with film photographs I’ve taken + some bonuses. All of that said, sometimes it takes completely different forms.

Born and raised in Northern Canterbury, Anita Clark is a longstanding violinist, cellist, composer, and vocalist. Over the last two decades, she has played strings with Irish bands, folk ensembles, indie rock bands, and some of New Zealand’s most legendary singer-songwriters. Along the way, she’s carved out a distinctive compositional voice through her ambient/experimental solo project Motte and become an in-demand soundtrack artist and sound designer within New Zealand’s film, theatre, and contemporary dance scenes.

Last week, Audio Culture uploaded my career overview profile of Clark. It’s a sprawling story that spans decades, including islands, cities, and countries. Most excitingly, though, even in light of everything she has already done, I really feel like Clark is just getting started. There’s so much good music ahead. You can read the full story here.

BLUE:

Earlier in the year, I read a very sweet and sentimental article penned by the New Zealand writer Constance McDonald - who some of you may be familiar with from Instagram as Princess Constance - titled Blue is the coolest colour. Here’s a short excerpt.

Blue is the FRAKTA bag by IKEA, beloved by me, stylists, and laundromat-goers. 

Blue is the text stating “You And I Are Earth”, on a tin-glazed earthenware plate from 1661 found in a London sewer. 

Blue is the high concentration of 100-year-olds in Zones in Greece, Japan, and Italy. Blue is the ‘Indigo River’ in China, as it is colloquially known, the part of Pearl River that connects to the Xintang township, and suffers run-off from the 200 million plus pairs of jeans produced annually. 

Blue (1994) is Derek Jarman's last film. A blue screen with audio, as Jarman was going blind, due to AIDS-related complications, and blue was the last colour he could see. (There are ‘blue movies’, and there is Blue, the movie.)

I think about the colour blue a lot as well, just generally more in relation to music. When I think about blue, I’m thinking about the cover art for the British photographer and musician Steve Hiett’s classic ambient guitar album, Down On The Road By The Beach, the new Music From Memory group Total Blue, Joni Mitchell’s Blue, or any number of other music related or adjacent blues. Sometimes, I’m just thinking about blues music.

Over the weekend, I put together a sprawling playlist of songs with the word blue in the song title, album name or artist name, and then, feeling unsatisfied started adding in songs from records with the ocean or sky on the cover art, and perhaps just a few with loose ocean themes. You can tap in with it below via Spotify.

BEATS:

For the first release on his Public Possession sub-label, Big Beat Manifesto, the well-loved New Zealand producer/DJ Eden Burns brings Colter Carson into the mix for a solid five-track dance record.

Based in Christchurch, Mr Carson is a DJ, producer, music lover, graphic designer and one-half of Craiglist Soundsystem, a promotions crew who have been helping contribute to the reinvigoration of the garden city with a series of well-loved late arvo/evening parties at Smash Palace and larger multi-zone events held in venues like The Loons in nearby Lyttleton.

Kicking off with the glossy, post-ambient textures, galloping UK funky slanted groove, and throwback Euro touches of ‘Tabu’, the EP is a delight of dancefloor riches. On ‘Love Cave’, things get squelchy, hypnotic and percussive before ‘Bass In Space’ does exactly what it says on the tin (think Balearic beats, but if they were levitating) and ‘DJ Drum Tool (Edit)’ and ‘Alto Voltaje’ round things out with a shuffling, late night stomp. Carson has done his time as a listener and a dancer and it comes through loud and clear across these songs. More of this, please.

If you enjoyed the French composer Éric Serra’s audaciously aquatic soundtrack to his fellow countryman Luc Besson’s ode to free diving, Le Grand Bleu, you absolutely have to check Total Blue out.

Based in Los Angeles, Nicky Benedek, Alex Talan, and Anthony Calonico have been collaborating together on music for over a decade in some shape or form. With all of that being said, Total Blue represents a new chapter in their journey and, more than just that, a major moment for the modernist post-ambient jazz new age, vaporware scenes. Basically, this is exactly the sort of music to throw on in the background while you drift away somewhere.

In his excellent review of the album for Pitchfork, the great Philip Sherburne quipped, “Los Angeles’ Nicky Benedek and Alex Talan may not live in the past, but you can bet they have summer houses there,” is as about as great an opening liner as I’ve read all year.

South Carolina’s Teddy Bryant, one of the great modern soul voices of the late 2010s/early 2020s, is currently on a sidequest exploring his own take on the sounds of 1090s new wave and goth music in the style of The Cure. I absolutely love that Mr Bryant can do this - and more importantly - is doing this. Less borders, more truth.

PIECES:

Healing won’t happen in a bootcamp: The New Zealand government’s military-style bootcamp programme for young offenders begins tomorrow, with a pilot group of 10 teenagers. E-Tangata’s Teuila Fuatai speaks to Michael Blakely, who worked as a chaplain at a military-style bootcamp in Tongariro in the late 1980s. He tells her why he believes bootcamps will never do young people any good. Read here.

Each Sunday, Pitchfork takes an in-depth look at a significant album from the past, and any record not in their archives is eligible. Over the weekend, Isabelia Herrera revisited Daddy Yankee’s breakthrough album, the unforgettable year of “Gasolina,” and how the Puerto Rican rapper helped make reggaeton a global sensation. Read here.

Why does nothing feel real anymore?: Whether it’s Donald Trump’s much-memed assassination attempt, Prada’s SS25 show or Harmony Korine’s latest film, culture is beginning to feel a lot like some elaborate TV plot. For Dazed, Günseli Yalcinkaya. Read here.

Revealed: the impact of New Zealand’s changes to policies affecting Māori: Guardian analysis of changes in six key policy areas explains the coalition’s rationale for the shifts and provides expert views on how they will impact Māori. For The Guardian, Eva Corlett and Jamie Tahana. Read here.

FIN.