Midweek Beats + Pieces vol. 38

Selected Works Podcast, Flying Nun, Mixcloud, Proud, etc.

Selected Works is a regular newsletter by the Te Whanganui-a-Tara, Aotearoa (Wellington, New Zealand) based freelance music journalist, broadcaster, copywriter, and sometimes DJ Martyn Pepperell. Yes, that’s me. 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.

WHAT I’VE BEEN DOING:

Last week, I debuted the first-ever edition of the Selected Works podcast with a close feature on the Baltimore, Maryland-based composer, instrumentalist and producer John Lane, who records ambient music as A Journey of Giraffes. We looked at his sixth album, Empress Nouveau. If you missed last week’s edition, you can check it out here.

Broadcasting online from Te Whanganui-a-Tara/Wellington, Tāmaki Makaurau/Auckland, Mangawhai, Melbourne, and more recently, Berlin, Mouthfull Radio is an independent non-profit online radio station and community collective. Similarly to more established overseas platforms, the station serves as a digital third space for an ever-growing community of open-eared show hosts and listeners who often congregate together in the station’s website’s chatroom. Last week, I interviewed some of Mouthfull’s founders, DJs and friends for a special feature for the Flying Nun website. Check it out here.

Over the weekend, I recorded a 58-minute and 22-second DJ mix of 1980s Japanese City Pop called Slow Nights and uploaded it on my Mixcloud. You can listen to Slow Nights here.

WHAT I’VE BEEN READING:

Mourning the Stranger that is Yourself: Circuit des Yeux’s -io. Devon Chodzin for Bandcamp Daily. Read here.

Satsuki Shibano, Wave Notation 3: Erik Satie 1984: Originally released in 1984 as a companion to Hiroshi Yoshimura’s Music for Nine Post Cards, this collection of Satie’s solo piano pieces is a cornerstone of Japanese ambient. Shy Thompson for Pitchfork. Read here.

SBTRKT is ready to tell his story: In a mask off interview, Aaron Jerome AKA SBTRKT speaks to Dhruva Balram for Mixmag about his new album 'The Rat Road', industry frustrations, and why he's - still - letting the music speak for itself. Read here.

On turning pain into art - Guvna B and Michaela Coel in conversation: ‘It’s astounding what can come from pain’: as the rapper’s new album is released, which tells the story of being involved in an unprovoked, racist attack, he comes together for a conversation with his cousin, Michaela Coel. Halima Jibril for Dazed. Read here.

The Untouchable Tina Turner: Some people perform music; some people become music. Amanda Petrusich for The New Yorker. Read here.

Barry Jenkin Remembered. John Dix on Barry Jenkin, for Audio Culture. Read here.

WHAT I’VE BEEN LISTENING TO:

In a recent review for Pitchfork, Philip Sherburne described Tracey Denim by Bar Italia as “without a doubt, record-collector rock, a finely calibrated tribute to the evergreen sounds that have fueled underground rock for decades.” Fittingly, as the album plays out, Bar Italia, the London trio of Nina Cristante, Jezmi Tarik Fehmi and Sam Fenton show off a rich array of influences that draws from The Raincoats, Joanne Robertson, Mica Levi, Pavement, Moin, The xx, and Gorky’s Zygotic Mynci. After recording a series of hyped cuts for Dean Blunt’s World Music, making the jump to Matador Records makes sense. Now is the time.

As I Look Back, by the Midwest-born, London-based singer-songwriter Kristi Kimsey, is a collection of songs written and recorded half a century ago with a cast of collaborators, including Keith Richards, Alvin Lee, Mick Ralphs, Frank Carillo and Chris Kimsey. Sitting somewhere between blues, rock and roll, soul, pop and country, its nine songs are a window into a major talent who nearly slipped completely from view. If you’re after vinyl, Hayama, Japan’s Bright Size Records, are releasing a very plush, deluxe, all-the-bells and whistles type edition, which you can check out here.

At the crossroads of ambient music, impressionism, sound poetry, and jazz, Dog Dreams (​개​꿈​) finds the San Francisco-based sound artist Lucy Liyou and a cast of collaborators, including producer Nick Zanca exploring the doublesidedness of trauma and love. I’d suggest waiting until you’re in the right headspace to listen to this one and really taking your time with it. It’s worth it.

Here’s a collection of eleven sensual down-tempo, IDM and electronica cuts collected by the Berlin label INDEX:Records from their roster/cyborg love horde. They’ve called it a “selection of lustworks”, and there’s something in that. Texture and touch, embrace, tension and release.

PROUD: AN URBAN-PACIFIC STREET SOUL COMPILATION

Back in 2020, I put together several archival projects exploring the secret and no-so-secret histories of street soul and swingbeat in Aotearoa/New Zealand. There was a playlist of videos for Low End Theorists, and two one-hour DJ mixes, recorded respectively for NTS and Dublab. Between them, they painted a series of visual and audio portraits of a golden moment in the late 80s and 90s, when a generation of Polynesian musicians took inspiration from UK groups like Soul II Soul.

Something else that documents this moment extremely well is a compilation album from 1994, fittingly titled Proud: An Urban-Pacific Street Soul Compilation. Assembled by a team that included OMC producer Alan Jansson, DJ Andy Vann from Voodoo Rhyme Syndicate, Blam Blam Blam bassist/OMAC liaison Tim Mahon, and future Urban Pasifika Records founder Phil Fuemana, Proud brought together a bevy of young hip-hop, RnB, swingbeat and street soul groups who were rocking youth parties across South Auckland at the time.

Released through the late Andrew Penhallow’s Australian label Volition Records (and Second Nature in Aotearoa), Proud spawned the NZ Top 40 hit "‘In The Neighbourhood” by Sisters Underground and introduced the Otara Millionaires Club, which later became OMC, the act behind the global mid-90s mega pop hit ‘How Bizarre’. There was also an accompanying national tour, which in the decades since has become the stuff of legends.

Last week, Proud was issued on vinyl for the first time in a plush 2xLP package that includes the original tracklist, several rare remixes and liner notes penned by DJ Sirvere and Andrew Penhallow. If you’d like to grab a copy, you can pick one up here.

BONUS:

Ngāruawāhia, New Zealand-based dancer, record collector, and DJ Dujon Cullingford, has just released the second volume of his Electric Aotearoa mix series. This time, he zones in on New Zealand records from 1983-7 at the antipodean intersection of street and synth.

FIN.