End of Year Beats + Pieces

My final thoughts for 2023 + some beats and pieces

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.

2023 was tough, but it was interesting as well. There’s a theme of transformation going on out there. I’ve seen it happening within the lives of friends and acquaintances and within my own life. There’s been a lot of it in the news over the last twelve months as well. We’re in a time of reckonings, realisations and change. Growth can be painful, but if you’re not growing, you’re not living, and if you’re not busy living, you’re busy dying. I’m sure some of you can guess who I’m loosely paraphrasing here.

I started the year feeling pretty ambitious and gathered together the energy to reach out to some media outlets I hadn’t contacted before, like Clash Mag. I also landed a few decent pitches early in the year with Bandcamp Daily and Mixmag, but by the time we were three months in, most of my energy seemed to be going towards writing reissue liner notes, artist bios, press releases and sprawling historical features for Audio Culture - The Noisy Library of New Zealand Music.

Between 2014 and 2019, I spent several months a year overseas in North America, Europe and the UK. Since the pandemic hit, I haven’t been back. In fact, the furthest I’ve gotten outside of New Zealand since 2019 was a trip to Melbourne in 2022 for Rising Festival. Prices have gone up, things have changed, and the dollars just aren’t stretching like they used to. This year I realised that I often can’t really write about music from the rest of the world without experiencing the contexts and scenes that these artists are emerging within. Unfortunately, for me, an email and some mp3s generally just aren’t enough to build a real vibe. Hopefully, I can turn this around in 2024, but it might not be that simple.

All of that said, one of my big joys for the year was putting together, producing and selling my PLACES photo zine (which I will shut up about soon). Saying you’re “humbled and blessed” has felt pretty cliche and pointless for a long time now, but the response to that project has been really special. I’m currently thinking up a couple of new ideas for follow-up projects. My photography story is far from over.

In other news, I believe that we’re not far off a release date for the second season of the Aotearoa Hip-Hop: The Music, The People, The History podcast series. I’ve been working on this project with DJ Sirvere and the Rova App team on and off since 2019, and it’s going to be great to be able to finally let go of the rest of it We cover a lot of ground in season two. It should be fun.

Anyway, here’s my final beats + pieces recap/roundup for the year. Please enjoy.

Sidebar: I’m also hoping I’ll be able to share some exciting Susumu Yokota-related news with you all early next year.

WHAT I’VE BEEN READING:

How Black Musicians Carved Out a Space in Ambient Music: We take a historical look at the relationship between Black music and spirituality, while speaking to contemporary Black musicians about the ways they’re using ambient music as a part of their respective wellness rituals. John Morrison for Okayplayer.

RA Pro Newsletter - Deals, Deals, Deals: The music business is experiencing one hell of a gold rush. High-profile investment and acquisition deals are growing pervasive across all areas–festivals, venues, licensing and streaming–as financiers take notice of shifting, and evidently lucrative, industry dynamics. Last month, music rights behemoth BMI was sold to US private equity firm New Mountain Capital. That followed Songtradr's purchase of Bandcamp, a $440 million proposal from music royalties fund Hipgnosis to sell 29 catalogues, news of Universal buying a partial stake in NTS Radio and scores of others. Nyshka Chandran for Resident Advisor.

Busta Rhymes - ‘David Bowie’s Hunky Dory is the illest music ever’: Answering your questions as he releases new album Blockbusta, the veteran MC recalls his childhood in Morecambe, fiery encounters with 2Pac and his love of Benny Hill. As told to Thomas Hobbs for The Guardian.

This Is the Strangest Life I’ve Ever Known – A Psychological Portrait of Jim Morrison: Join Portuguese writer Ana Leorne as she takes us on a trip into the mind of troubled rock star-poet-genius Jim Morrison. Diving into the era, the man, his art, the surrounding people, and not least the myth of The Doors’ enigmatic frontman, Leorne paints an illuminating picture of seemingly inevitable self-destruction – but also one of undeniable brilliance. Out now through Trapart Books & Editions.

The Shoegaze Revival Hit Its Stride in 2023: The 30-year-old subgenre has found new life in the hands of indie rockers, digicore artists, TikToking teens, and reunited first-wavers. Philip Sherburne for Pitchfork.

A. G. Cook - how PC Music defined a generation of pop: As part of Dazed’s PC Music takeover, the artist and producer talks 10 years of PC Music, Dungeons and Dragons, and why mainstream music needs a reboot. Günseli Yalcinkaya for Dazed.

HoneyLuv - smooth operator: Some people know exactly what direction their life will take from an early age. Then there are the rest of us, feeling our way through existence until we hit upon the right course of action. The Cleveland-born Taylor Character, better known as HoneyLuv, falls firmly in the latter camp, with years in basketball (with dreams of going pro) and a stint in the Navy before finally finding her true calling: DJing and production. Ria Hylton catches up with the rising house music star in London to find out more for DJ Mag.

WHAT I’VE BEEN LISTENING TO:

Breton language 1970s folk music from the singer-songwriter and Celtic harpist Kristen Nogues. In 2009, I spent a couple of weeks in the Brittany region of France, and there’s something about that experience that makes this melange of guitar, piano, violins, flutes and voice so compelling. The interesting thing is this isn’t traditional Breton music, Marc’h Gouez is music about the social, cultural and geographic landscapes and psychoscapes of the region.

Chinese-Australian composers Mindy Meng Wang 王萌 and Becky Sui Zhen team up for Origin of You, a musical exploration of 空 (Kōng), or Emptiness; 疼 (Téng), or Pain; 气 (Chi), sometimes known as ‘Energy’. Expect spoken word, psychomagical ambient/avant-garde composition, Guzheng, synthesisers, percussion and more, all swirling together into, as they put it, “a celebration of family, friendship and connection, grieving the irreplaceable loss of some bonds while celebrating their existence and finding joy in the creation of others.” I need to dig into this all more.

80s/90s Goa DJ/production pioneer Ray Castle serves up a compilation album of some of his best work from his Insectoid, Rhythmystec, Masaray and Sonic Sufi studio projects. This stuff is hypnotic, driving, ascendent and still futuristic. I’ll be publishing a major profile of Ray on Audio Culture next year.

FIN.