Midweek Beats + Pieces vol.11
Life continues at Level 2
Well well well! Another week, another newsletter. Before we get into it, a few updates. First off, although I probably had a bit of a mental breakdown over last week’s artisan coffee cup falls apart over laptop fiasco, I can happily report that I’ve managed to recover my data and have got my hands on a new laptop. Sadly, Tāmaki Makaurau (Auckland) is still in a full Level 4 COVID-19 lockdown, but down here in Te Whanganui-a-Tara, we’ve got more freedom of movement, so I was able to go and shoot some photos B+W photos on my old Olympus MJU II. As usual, you’ll see them throughout this newsletter. With that all out of the way, here we go.
WHAT I’M READING:
This week, my reading list is quite heavily focused around life (and history) down here in Aotearoa (New Zealand).
Prison Break: The Extraordinary Life and Crimes of New Zealand's Most Infamous Escapee, by Arthur Taylor (Allen & Urwin)
Arthur Taylor is New Zealand's best known, most influential, and colourful career criminal. A household name, he was paroled from prison in 2019 after more than 38 years behind bars. His life story is nothing short of remarkable. He has more than 150 convictions ranging from bank robberies to fraud, theft, escaping, and having weapons and explosives. He has served in New Zealand's most notorious high security prison, Auckland Prison at Paremoremo, including eight months in solitary confinement. But Arthur isn't what most people might expect.
Prison Break is billed as written by Arthur himself, but if you look inside the front cover, you’ll see another name, the Sunday Star Times News Director and True Crime Author Kelly Dennett. Kelly’s almost always kind enough to leave a like on my cooking photos and knows exactly how to get an interview subject comfortable while still keeping them at arms distance. I’ve just started this one, and will report back properly in a week or two. For more details, click here.
NZ Herald: How Dawn Raid's Brotha D came to the aid of the AOG Church cluster, by Justin Latif.
Danny Leaosavai'i is among those supporting New Zealand's largest cluster who say health officials need to learn some important lessons from this outbreak.
When hip hop producer Danny "Brotha D" Leaosavai'i heard the church group afflicted by the community delta outbreak was having issues with public health officials, he called up the ministers at the AOG Church of Sāmoa and offered to help.
Danny Leaosavai'i aka Brotha D is one of the founders of Dawn Raid Entertainment, arguably the most important record label in the history of hip-hop in Aotearoa. Right now though, Danny’s doing a lot of community work, in particular around helping tackle one of the main clusters in the COVID-19 Delta Variant outbreak that emerged down here a few short weeks ago. Read more here.
The Spinoff: What the 50 person limit means for New Zealand’s live events industry, by Sam Brooks.
If you’re living outside Auckland, Monday’s 4pm press conference likely came like a wave of good news. You can leave the house! You can hang out with friends! You can go to the gym (two metres away from everybody else)! However, there was one piece of information in the press conference that would have been a shock to many.
The prime minister announced that the capacity of indoor venues under level two would shrink down to 50 from the previous level two limit of 100. The explanation from the podium was the same as the one for many of the new restrictions: “Delta is different.”
TL; DR: For the last three weeks, all of Aotearoa has been in a full national lockdown in response to a COVID-19 delta variant outbreak. As of this week, it appears to have been mostly isolated to Tāmaki Makaurau (Auckland), and the rest of the country is in a mode called Level 2 (yes, we do this in levels here). However, if you run a hospitality business, venue, etc, recent revisions to Level 2 restrictions present quite a few difficulties. Read more here.
WHAT I’VE BEEN LISTENING TO:
Patricia Wolf, Sotto Le Stelle (Self-Released)
Sotto Le Stelle is a set of recordings the Portland, Oregon-based musician, sound designer, and curator Patricia Wolf recorded live on March 31, 2020 and premiered on April 2nd, 2020 as a streamed performance part of "Close Up Non-Stop" for the Ferrara Sotto Le Stelle Festival based in Italy. Wolf has an interest in produce non-linear compositions that draw listeners to a hypnotic inner world, and through the use of atmospheric field recordings and elegantly arranged electronics, Sotto Le Stelle does exactly that; and more!
Supplementary: I was introduced to Patricia’s work though the equally excellent Out of Season ambient/experimental compilation album. Check it out here.
Raiden Freeman, Stay Sharp (Bankrupt Records)
A lot of people like to evoke the idea that they’re making eclectic music, but very few of them are making eclectic music like the Te Whanganui-a-Tara songwriter and producer Raiden Freeman. Actually, eclectic is the wrong word, sub that out and sub in freeform, because over the course of Stay Sharp’s twelve songs, Freeman follows the details and magic of the moment where ever it goes. Lovelorn lo-fi indie folk, industrial blast beats, screwed down beat loops, hyper-speed breakbeats and beyond. There’s a lot to unpack here, but you also don’t have to unpack it at all if you just want to vibe.
WHAT I’VE BEEN DOING:
Cooking, lots of cooking. Working on projects that feel like they might never see the light of day. Fighting through apathy to meet deadlines. All the good stuff. I’m sure many of you have been experiencing this in different or similar iterations.
BONUS:
Metro and Deadly Ponies are looking for a new writing talent and an idea for a long feature of at least 2000 words. More details here.
Anna Rankin went on RNZ and talked to Jesse Mulligan about On Violence and On Violence Against Women by Jacqueline Rose. More details here.
Brownsville rapper KA’s recent album A Martyr’s Reward is very good. You can purchase it here. Lil Simz new album is also very good. Check it here.
FIN.