Blue July

A belated half year recap.

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.

Last week, I shared BLUE: an 84-song, 6-hour and 5-minute-long Spotify playlist of blue-themed songs and blue-themed groups through this newsletter. Over the weekend, I condensed BLUE into a one-hour DJ mix of some of my favourite songs from the playlist and uploaded it on Mixcloud. You can check it out here.

This week, I’m taking a moment to pause, regroup, and recap everything I’ve had going on over the last six or seven months. If you’ve been subscribed to this newsletter for a while, you’ve probably read one or two of these types of posts before.

FEATURES:

Audio Culture: Denver McCarthy

Denver McCarthy spent the 1990s creating electronic music in Aotearoa under the Mechanism, Chaos Reader and Micronism aliases. In 2017, he told RNZ’s Tony Stamp, “For those 10 years, my whole life was just writing, producing electronic music, playing electronic music out, and listening to electronic music with friends. It was full immersion into electronic music.” [Read here]

Variety: The Australian Child Actor Who Became a Star in Sri Lanka

In 2021, Australian singer-songwriter Georgie Fisher started noticing comments from Sri Lankan social media users on her Facebook and Instagram pages that sent her spinning down memory lane. [Read here]

Audio Culture: The Upbeats

As the 2000s began, Dylan Jones (aka Downie Wolf) and Jeremy Glenn (aka Terror Snake), the New Zealand electronic music producer/DJ duo better known as The Upbeats, were finding their way into Wellington’s underground drum & bass scene. [Read here]

Test Pressing: Seasons Change - Fuemana & New Urban Polynesian

In 1989, Soul II Soul’s breakout singles ‘Keep on Movin' and ‘Back to Life (However Do You Want Me)’ weren’t just running up the charts in the UK, Europe, and North America; they were also having a significant impact in Australia and New Zealand. At the time, the late great Polynesian Renaissance man Phil Fuemana heard something special in the combination of hard drums and soulful vocals. [Read here]

Audio Culture: Look Blue Go Purple: Looking Back

In the late 1980s, Look Blue Go Purple (LBGP) was one of the most important acts to emerge in the second wave of the seminal New Zealand indie rock label Flying Nun. “They were one of the best bands of their time and the most undeservingly underappreciated,” says musician Penelope Esplin (French for Rabbits). “They’ve inspired a generation of female musicians, most of whom stumbled across them and wondered why they weren’t more famous.” [Read here]

BeeHype: Classic Albums from Around the World

To celebrate beehype’s 10th birthday, their experts present legendary albums from their countries – and they are amazing! From classic Argentinian rock to the first Vietnamese concept album, from Belgian electronic body music to South Korean melancholy. Enjoy this special selection of super classic albums from around the world. [Read here]

Audio Culture: Christoph El Truento

Over the last 13 years, Christopher Martin James, better known by his musical moniker Christoph El Truento, has crafted one of the most interesting and diverse discographies of any 21st-century musician from Aotearoa. [Read here]

Rolling Stone: Inside Australia and New Zealand’s Reissue Record Label Scene

Meet the passionate music fans on an obsessive quest to dig deep into the record crates and unearth forgotten gems. [Read here]

Audio Culture: Ten future hip-hop soul jazz tracks from the 2000s

In the 2000s, underground nightclub dancefloors around New Zealand were moving to a loose conglomeration of sounds that combined jazz, soul, funk, hip-hop, R&B and electronica. Depending on who was performing or DJing, you’d sometimes see this stylistic mélange advertised on flyers and posters with terms like Hi-Tek Pacific Soul or Future Soul, which the music more than lived up to. [Read here]

Selected Works: A Lifetime Later, Christoph El Truento Finds His Way Back To Dub

An interview with the longstanding New Zealand DJ, beatmaker, and producer about dub music, his two dub reggae albums and working with Haymaker Records. [Read here]

Audio Culture: Ben Lemi

A skilled multi-instrumentalist, vocalist, band leader, producer and recording engineer, Ben Lemi has spent the last two decades adding musical colour and vibrant detail to countless acts from New Zealand’s avant-garde jazz, folk, country, soul, reggae, indie rock, RnB and hip-hop communities. [Read here]

Audio Culture: Anita Clark

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. [Read here]

LINER NOTES / PROMO NOTES:

HI-FI SCI-FI 003: Frank Dorrey, aka DORIS, is a Haitian-American multimedia artist, rapper, producer, and DJ from Linden, New Jersey. Whether crafting eye-popping, hyper-colourful pop art illustrations and digital collages on a smartphone app or eclectic sample-based dance rap records, his angular creative output offers a prismatic window into the small tender moments that make up the fabric of everyday life. Influenced by Dean Blunt, DJ Taj, Sugar Hill Gang, reality TV, Disney movies, kompa, disco, Southern rap, sadboy rock, viral Tiktoks and classic soul music, he’s an artist who draws from everywhere and could make anything.

Sublime Records: Ken Ishii, Reference To Difference (Remastered 30th Anniversary Edition)

The musician and DJ Ken Ishii sits right at the pinnacle of techno’s most noteworthy, but although a game changer for the artist personally – and for Japanese electronic music in general – his 1994 album ‘Reference to Difference’ is something of an unsung gem today. Remastered, with original track-list available on vinyl for the first time. New liner notes by Martyn Pepperell.

HI-FI SCI-FI 002: WEAR POUNAMU is an experimental musician, DJ and producer from Aotearoa (New Zealand). Over the last two years, they’ve built a cult following on SoundCloud by uploading a series of impressionistic, wry and tender DJ mixes and collaborative tracks that connect the dots between ambient, club music, sonic improvisation and found audio clips that speak to the unvarnished realities of the day.

Samuel Forbes, Here/Walk

Dubby breakbeat science and bass abstractions from a low-profile New Zealand producer. Based in Wellington, the capital city of New Zealand, Samuel Forbes grew up in the port town of Lyttelton, just outside of Christchurch. Raised on dub reggae, D.I.Y sound system culture, and freshly cut acetate dubplates, he was fascinated by UK-born hardcore continuum sounds of jungle/drum & bass, grime, and dubstep from a young age.

Gazebo: Fuemana, New Urban Polynesian

Thirty years after it was released on CD and cassette, Fuemana’s cult classic New Urban Polynesian album is finally available on vinyl. Born from the blood, sweat and tears of the late great Polynesian renaissance man Phil Fuemana and his family and friends, Fuemana’s music transports the listener back to the autumn and winter days of 1994 in the antipodes, where they turned love, loss, grief and acceptance into the finest R&B/street soul album ever recorded in Aotearoa New Zealand.

HI-FI SCI-FI 001: Seattle-born, Philadelphia-based DJ and producer ESTOC is representative of a generation of artists who see popular music club edits, techno, hardstyle, gabber, industrial, ambient and drone as different frequencies in the same waveform. Citing sci-fi and horror movies, video games and global culture as crucial influences, she’s a voracious, musically omnivorous listener who can dial up a stylistic allusion or reference at a moment's notice while delivering her messages and values with a refreshing combination of humour and sincerity.

Boosted: Crytal Chen

The work of an old soul with a young heart, or perhaps an analogue girl in a digital world - no, literally, during the day, she works as a film photographer - Crystal's debut album unfolds at its own unhurried pace. Unencumbered by concerns about trends or formulas, Crystal’s music is an outgrowth of her love of jazz, soul and improvised live performance. Animated by the idea of playing and performing music as a way of life, Crystal seeks to make the most of every instrument, from the delicate touch of the harp to the vibrant tones of the trumpet and Wurlitzer. [Read here]

Holiday Records: Mokomokai, Whakarehu

Three Māori boys from the winterless north who grew up fast in Central Auckland. Mokomokai, is the group project of Manu (formerly Dirty), and producer duo, Dusty & Ghos. Over the last few years, they’ve dropped two effortlessly stylish hip-hop albums, in which Dusty & Ghos’ drumless soul, jazz chops and low-slung neo-boombap instrumentals serve as the backdrop for Manu and his unvarnished storytelling. [Read more]

DJ MIXES/PLAYLISTS:

Mixcloud: On The Beach

Summertime: It's a sunny afternoon, and we're dancing on the beach. Just over an hour of new and old tunes by Summer Vee, Cantoma, Double, Peech Boys, TC Curtis, Beats Workin, Genji Sawai, Chris Rea, Warp Nine, Liquid Liquid, Manu DiBango, Sueno Latino, The Residents, The Woodentops, TC Curtis, Steve Monite & more. Listen here.

Mixcloud: A UK Thing - Dubstep, Grime, Purple & Bassline

The year is 2009. You just read an article about Joker in The Wire magazine. Tonight, you're going to Plastic People in Shoreditch to hear Benga DJ. Lately, you've been listening to the 5: Five Years of Hyperdub compilation album, the tracks by Ikonika are amazing. Tomorrow, you might leave some comments on Blackdown's Blogspot and upload a gallery of photos on Facebook. Life is good. Listen here.

Mixcloud: Blue

Here's the topline: Blue is a one-hour DJ mix of songs with blue in the title, artists with blue in their name, and albums with blue on the cover. Listen here.

Spotify: Blue

Spotify: Songs About Flowers

DAZED DIGITAL:

The Q1 and Q2 editions of my new music column for Dazed Digital are all live on the site at the links above.

DJING + OTHER THINGS

So far this year, I’ve played DJ sets opening or closing for Marcellus Pittman, Oddisee, Mick Harvey & Amanda Acevedo, Machinedrum, Onra and Dujon Cullingford. I was also recently lucky enough to be asked to play a six-hour DJ set at a Bastille Day event in Wellington and spin to a capacity audience at Wellington Stadium during a football semi-final. When I was younger, I would have never expected I’d still be doing this stuff. It’s pretty humbling to reflect on what a privilege it all continues to be. That said, I’m always looking for more gigs. Feel free to hit me up about that!

FIN.