Midweek Beats + Pieces vol.12

Test Pressing, New Music, Reading Material, Bonuses.

Good evening, or perhaps good morning! Another week, another newsletter, and this week’s newsletter comes packaged up with a selection of photographs I shot around Te Whanganui a Tara the other night on my Olympus MJU II point and shoot camera with Ilford Delta 3200 Professional Black and White Negative Film. Anyway, enough dallying. Let’s get into it.

WHAT I’VE BEEN DOING:

I reviewed the deliciously relaxational Aloha Got Soul reissue of Hawaiian exotica pioneer Arthur Lyman’s Island Vibes album for Test Pressing. You can read it here.

I also wrote about the UK songwriter and producer Reuben Vaun Smith’s new Balearic album on Soundway Records, Sounds From The Workshop. The review is up on Test Pressing here.

For the very first time in my life, I sold a few photograph prints to a collector in Tāmaki Makaurau. So, if you’d ever like to buy any prints of any of my shots, just let me know. I’m sure we can work out a reasonable deal.

WHAT I’BE BEEN LISTENING TO:

Amazondotcom, War Bride (SUBREAL)

SUBREAL label co-founder Amazondotcom turns out five pieces of perfectly formed techno, dubstep, glitch and ambient adjacent body music for lovers of sub-bass pressure and syncopation. She describes War Bride as being born from the ““simple idea that small feelings and perceptions can scatter and morph across time, taking on their own narratives and life forces. This can happen melodically, rhythmically, in dance, and in personal and/or political experiences.” The dancefloor can be political, and when you pay attention, politics can be a dancefloor.

deepState, Deep Summer (Self-Released)

For Tāmaki Makaurau-based producer, DJ and live performer deepState, her new Deep Summer EP represents an opportunity to explore the rhythmic possibilities and bassline bounce of UK Garage, 2-step, late 90s drum and bass, and the skeletal sound of proto-dubstep. Across four skipping and moody tracks, she maps out her own takes on the above, all rendered in a misty, after-midnight greyscale palette that will be very familiar to some of you. This is almost rave-through-the-wall music, but in reality the warehouse door is open and you can come inside and enjoy the vibes.

A.C. Freazy, Love On Hold (Self-Released)

A new synth-pop/boogie single from Tāmaki Makaurau musician A.C. Freazy. Glossy synths, wistful vocals, a bit of hip-hugging drum machine funk and a cubed synth-bassline with some serious strut. And that’s not even getting into the keyboard swirls in the second half of the song. Freazy just has great taste.

The Council Of The Gods, Trilogy (Equiknoxx Music)

When you think about music from Jamaica, do you think about hip-hop, and more specifically, boombap? Probably not right? Which is a bit weird, because, at the very least in New York, Jamaican immigrants are so completely intertwined with the development and rise of the most popular youth music genre of the last forty something years. The Council Of The Gods is a collective of formalist MCs from Kingston and Trilogy sees them teamed up with jazz, dub and electronic-soul infused production provided by Time Cow, Sawandi and Son Raw.

If you’re talking about the music, the sample choices, breaks and structures present a timely updating of the classic 90s hip-hop sound. Over in the rapping department, Five Steez, Nomad Carlos and The Sickest Drama of The Council say what they mean, and mean what they say. This sort of confidence is intoxicating, and so are the rhyme schemes they deploy and the vocal tones they bring to the table. Trilogy has been a low-key release, but it’s very easy to spend time with.

Loveshadow, Self-Titled (Music From Memory)

San Francisco’s Loveshadow, the duo of Anya and Izaak, initially boned over hearing a track by the ’80s disco band Aurra on the radio. From there, they began the songwriting and production journey that eventually led to their debut album, released through the excellent Music From Memory label. Vocals, synthesisers, bass, percussion. Emotional dream-pop, D.I.Y bedroom funk, slomo disco, sultry house. Over nine, emotionally mature and well-baked songs, they let us know exactly what they’re about and why we should keep listening. The vibes are thick here.

WHAT I’VE BEEN READING:

Neon Screams: How Drill, Trap and Bashment Made Music New Again, by Kit Mackintosh (Repeater Books)

Neon Screams is a manifesto, a rallying cry for the new musical futurism. Taking street music’s embrace of Auto-Tune in the late 2000s as his starting point, Kit Mackintosh launches you through a whirlwind tour of the last decade of cutting-edge music, championing the modern genres still uncovering the sonic impossible, from mumble rap to drill to Afrobeats, bashment and beyond.

Beginning where most future music chronicles end, Mackintosh establishes a new pantheon of pioneers and innovators. Offering dizzying insights into the likes of Future, Young Thug, Migos and Vybz Kartel, Neon Screams is conceptual weaponry to use against all those who say music isn’t what it used to be. For more details, click here.

Stuff: The Hoarder’s Treasure, How a New Zealand literary gem was found, then lost, then found again, by Michael Wright and Chris Skelton

When Blackler pulled back the plywood walls of the clock museum, he couldn’t quite believe it. Behind the wall of a thousand clocks was another wall of a thousand clocks. Wright had so many clocks that when the shelves of the museum were full, he had erected false walls, built more shelves and filled those with clocks too. In some places, the walls and clocks went three layers deep.

Here was even more treasure. Wright’s tendency to bury it among junk meant many of his most valuable clocks were on the enclosed back shelves where, alas, they had succumbed to the damp. The back-most wall was a sea of sodden wood and corroded metal, all shrouded in a grey blanket of mould. Blackler recovered what he could, and left the rest to eternity.

For decades, a rundown house in Christchurch secretly harboured one of New Zealand’s greatest literary treasures. This is the story of the reclusive hoarder who hid it, the woman who wrote it, and the man who rediscovered it. Senior reporter Michael Wright and visual journalist Chris Skelton tell all. Read here.

GQ: The Painter on the Street, by Ottessa Moshfegh

“Excuse me, hon,” a woman interjected. She was short, with bushy orange hair and black sunglasses, I remember, and she wanted to buy the painting my mother was just talking about. The painter was quiet. The woman conferred with the older man over the price, then said, “Sold. That’s the deal of the century.” I wondered for a moment whether she was part of a con: make it look like these paintings are hot shit so my mother and I would pay top dollar for whatever we could get. In any case, the woman started stacking more paintings to buy. The man tallied what she’d owe. I watched and wondered if the painter was as shocked as I was. After all, the paintings weren’t that good. I had the sense that the painter was better than these paintings. They were sidewalk paintings. They weren’t his real art.

On September 10th, 2001, just as the novelist Ottessa Moshfegh was emerging from a long period of depression, she had a chance encounter with an artist she would never forget. Years later, he shared his memories of the next day. Read more here.

BONUS:

Wellington techno, electro, jazz and dub producer, DJ and band leader Borrowed CS recently recorded a two hour mix for Close Encounters on New York’s The Lot Radio. You can listen to it here.

New Zealanders who care about Aotearoa’s performing arts and events sector should probably have a look inside this google doc, here.

Pre-orders for FRKTL’s new album, Soundtrack to the immersive music film السَّمْت Azimuth, are live now on Bandcamp.

If you’ve ever worked at, or know someone who has worked at an arts organisation, this article might fuck you up a bit. You should still read it though. Click here.

A cassette player that works like a DJ quality turntable? Read more here.

On Friday the 10th of September, New York’s DJ Voices was awarded Mix of The Day on Resident Advisor. It might not be the 10/09 anymore, but her mix is still very much worth listening to. Check it here.

FIN.