SELECTED WORKS #20

Hey there,

Full disclosure, this one is just a bit of a mid-week update + some photographs I took in the weekend using a new camera I purchased recently, the Canon Autoboy 3. Turns out that if you’re shooting at night, it pairs rather well with Cinestill 800T film.

WHAT I’VE GOT COMING UP:

On Thursday night, I’m DJing from 8pm till close at Laundry on Cuba Street in Wellington. As always, it’s a privilege to be able to get out and about and play music in these times. I’m thinking I’m going to go for a set that sits somewhere along a Brazilian boogie, Soca-disco, Balearic, AOR axis. Free entry.

On Saturday afternoon, I’m hosting The Late Late Breakfast Show (presented by Parrotdog Bar) on Wellington’s Radio Active 88.6 FM. We kick off at 1pm NZT and wrap up at 4pm. I’m going for a lazy weekend afternoon vibe and I’ve asked by friends Dam G and Miloux to record guest DJ mixes for me to air on the show. I imagine we’ll end up iterating through different ideas of soul and a whole bunch of different rhythmic grooves.

The weekend after, I’m heading up to Auckland for a few days for work and to attend Friendly Potential’s Beacon Festival. The night beforehand, I’m DJing from 10-close at Verona on Karangahape Road. I’m thinking that for that set, I’ll probably move between City-Pop, Bossa Nova, Samba and some similar but slanted styles. By the way, all of these flyers are adaptions of LP covers that I whipped up using Microsoft Paint and a website called Poster My Wall.

PHOTOS:

Like I mentioned earlier, these are all nighttime shots I took in Wellington over the weekend using a Canon Autoboy 3 camera and Cinestill 800T film. These might be the first, but they won’t be the last. I’d love to take photographs for projects, so if that’s something you’re interested in, don’t be shy.

WHAT I’VE BEEN LISTENING TO:

Various Artists, Heisei No Oto: Japanese Left​-​field Pop From The CD Age, 1989​-​1996 (Music From Memory)

This one really does what it says on the tin. Osaka record store owners Eiji Taniguchi and Norio Sato (of Revelation Time and Rare Groove, respectively), teamed up with Music From Memory to compile a collection of rare Japanese gems from the CD age. Most of this collection moves between lounge jazz/synth-pop and more ambient/environmental music style abstractions. Soft-focus, neon-lit dreamscapes from the days when those shiny 4.7 inch discs ruled the retail market.

Irena and Vojtěch Havlovi, Melodies In The Sand (Melody As Truth)

If you like the idea of elegant piano and voice composition pieces drenched in the folkloric and the fantastic, this one is well worth spending some time with. The work of Czech husband-and-wife duo Irena and Vojtěch Havlovi, Melody As Truth’s Melodies In The Sand compilation album is essentially a highlights reel of the material they’ve recorded since the mid ‘80s (both for themselves and for experimental ensembles such as Capella Antiqua e Moderna and Viola De Gamba). These pieces are soothing, but they definitely aren’t soft.

Mokotron, Tatau o Te Pō (Self-Released)

I’m so glad this exists. Tatau o Te Pō is the second EP release from Auckland-based electro producer Mokotron. Thing about Mokotron’s electro though, while he’s got a spot-on understanding of the sonic makeup of ‘80s/’90s singles recorded by US-based figures such as Cybotron, Egyptian Lover and Drexciya, his work lives within the local context of Aotearoa New Zealand, or as he puts it, “INDIGENOUS BASS FOR YOUR MUTHA@#$%&* FACE.” The EP’s title track’s fusion of Taonga pūoro (traditional Māori musical instruments) hot-wired vocoder machine funk practically knocked me off my feet the first time I heard it. Mokotron’s the real deal.

THAT’S ALL FOLKS!!!