[Weekend] Beats + Pieces Vol. 66
Tei, Lucian Rice, Aotearoa Street Soul, GC Cameron, Mazes, etc.
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.
WHAT I’VE BEEN DOING:
Last night, I returned from a trip to Tāmaki Makaurau (Auckland) to attend the annual Arts Foundation of New Zealand Te Tumu Toi laureate ball. There, they unveiled six new artist laureates of New Zealand, Alison Wong (Literature), Carin Wilson Kahui Whetu Ngā Aho (Design/Sculpture), Claire Cowan (Music), Horomona Horo (Composer), and Miriama McDowell, Victor Rodger ONZM (Theatre), Saskia Leek (Painting) and Lonnie Hutchinson (Multidisciplinary). You can learn more about all of them here.
Earlier in the week, I managed to snatch some time to check out the APRA Award-winning composer and saxophonist Louisa Williamson’s 2024 commission for the Wellington Jazz Festival, The Chasm Where We Fall Into Each Other. I’m hoping Louisa is able to make a recording of the music she presented because there were some really special moments, including a krautrock-slanted number that featured duet vocals from the Wellington rapper/singer MĀ and the Samoan tenor LJ Crichton.
Recently, I found time to edit the transcript of an interview I conducted with the cult 1970s soul singer from McCall Creek, Mississippi, G.C Cameron. Cameron first found fame singing with Motown group The Spinners on their smash hit ‘It’s A Shame’ before going solo. He’s got a fascinating story. You can read more of it here.
Last week, the Tāmaki Makaurau, Aotearoa-based Māori-Cantonese hip-hop/R&B solo artist, singer-songwriter, rapper and producer Tei released her new EP Lilith through her Teisty Worldwide label. Beforehand, she asked me to write some text about the text. Check it out below.
Named after the original scorned woman of Mesopotamian, Jewish and Medieval mythology, Lilith is the latest EP from Tei, a central Tāmaki Makaurau-based singer-songwriter, rapper and producer of Māori and Hong Kong Cantonese heritage.
Written, recorded and produced with her longtime friend and collaborator, Auto Angel (bka bb gurl), Tei conceptualised Lilith in response to a series of realisations about duality, sexuality and the multifaceted realities of life. Song by song, she interweaved her vivid, lived experiences as a young woman growing up in a world of hypocrisy and double standards with ancient religious folklore that depicts Lilith as Adam’s original wife: cast out of the Garden of Eden and transformed into a she-demon after she stood her ground and refused to bend to patriarchal will.
Over six hip-hop-meets-alternative R&B tracks that recall the trunk-rattling thud of Cash Money Records, the space-aged minimalism of The Neptunes’ Star Trak Entertainment, and the polished strip-club bounce of early 2010s ratchet music, Tei effortlessly switches between rapping and singing about her sexual exploits, personal demons, the intricacies of intimacy, and making sense of it all under harsh, morning light. Expressed in a vernacular informed by her mixed heritage, countless nights out in the inner city music that congregates around Karangahape Road and her favourite pockets of the internet, her music balances socially progressive attitudes with throwback Y2K sonics.
Following on from lead singles ‘primal’ and ‘sabre’, which were praised respectively by music.net and Sniffers for their “mesmerising, velvety vocals coupled with polished production,” and fierce, razor-sharp flows over clanging electronic production, thumping bass, and woozy synths, Lilith finds Tei fully-realised and ready to go. She’s a sweetheart with a steel backbone, making party music underscored by an important message: We can transform ourselves, and we should never be shamed for living as we truly are.
On Tuesday afternoon, I went on RNZ Afternoons with Jesse Mulligan to play and talk about a few R&B, New Jack Swing and Street Soul songs recorded in Aotearoa (New Zealand) during the 1990s. Over half an hour, we worked through some material from Teremoana Rapley, Jules Issa, Igelese, Semi MCs and Sisters Underground. You can check out the full segment here.
Over this year, I’ve also been doing some bits and pieces of work with the Tāmaki Makaurau, Aotearoa-based modern alternative rock solo artist Lucian Rice. Last week, he released his new EP right now, forever. Here’s some text I helped Lucian put together ahead of the release.
Working alongside talents such as Nick Ward, carwash, and Molly Payton, Lucian demonstrates his versatility and prowess as an artist, producer, and songwriter. Emerging onto the music scene with a fresh perspective, Lucian is just getting started.
“Only today is forever,” explains the New Zealand singer-songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, and producer Lucian Rice. “You can look back with rose-tinted lenses or look forward with hope, but you should appreciate what is in front of you right here.” In those twenty-eight words, he aptly sums up the central themes of his debut EP, right now, forever.
Equally informed by the melodic sensibilities of 1960s top 40 songwriting, the grit of 1990s college, and the brightly-rendered joy of 2010s pop, right now, forever is a sonic diary of the memories and daydreams that have rattled around in Rice’s head as he battles to ground himself in the now and cherish the day. “Each of these songs was a life lesson,” Rice continues. “They all represent how I felt about something at a certain moment. In a sense, it’s all the same theme, but there was time between when I wrote them, so my feelings changed.”
Coming off the back of several singles, the six songs on right now, forever render Rice’s pursuit of the present as a series of invigorating alternative rock anthems that aspire towards those golden moments in pop culture where the biggest act in the world is also the best. It’s also - if not quite a coming-of-age record, the first musical full-circle moment Rice has been through so far. “This isn’t the beginning of the end,” he says. “This is the end of the beginning.”
Opening with the slow-building guitar pop of ‘brand new day’ and a Midwest emo-slanted singalong on ‘can’t you see’, as ‘FFS’ explodes into ‘Ninezero’, the EP feels like a journey down an an open road, set against clear skies and an endless horizon. From there, he closes things out with the driving, fuzzy guitar figures throughout ‘Right Now, Forever’ and the breakbeat dream-pop of ‘spineback’ as he grapples with the paradox of the present moment being both fleeting and eternal.
Recorded over the last few years with a cast of friends, including his long-standing collaborator, the songwriter, guitarist and producer Tom Verberne, right now, forever was mixed in London by Jonathan Gilmore, best known for his engineering work for Nothing But Thieves, The 1975, and Carly Rae Jepsen. Alongside the music, Rice also worked closely with American multidisciplinary artist Garrett Winston to craft the videos for the singles accompanying this EP.
7 MAZES:
The maze word continues to expand. Where next?
WHAT I’VE BEEN READING:
Remembering Jackmaster: The mercurial DJ and Numbers cofounder left a substantial mark on dance music. Reflecting on the complexities of his life and career requires honesty. For Resident Advisor, Gabriel Szatan.
Jeff Mills: astral traveller: Four decades into a career that’s taken him from hard-nosed techno to soaring improvisation, and from Detroit radio to philharmonic halls, Jeff Mills remains one of electronic music’s singular visionaries. With a flow of cosmically rarified ideas that seems boundless, he’s busier than ever — and his output, always innovative, seems to be reaching ever higher toward a kind of boundary-stretching transcendence. Sitting in his Miami home, he fills DJ Mag’s Bruce Tantrum in on his work, methods and visions for the future of techno.
Rave New World: How Michelle Lhooq carved a niche writing about raves and drugs through a countercultural lens. For The Politics of Dancing, Annabel Ross.
It's time for Jeremy Sylvester's UK dance music coronation: Working almost in secret across countless aliases, Jeremy Sylvester is responsible for some of dance music's greatest tracks — particularly in UK garage. Now with the release of a debut solo album under his own name, the 'Underground Hero' is ready to step into the limelight and collect his flowers as a legendary artist. For Mixmag, Nathan Evans.
The Politics of Dancing: Deconstructing toxic techno culture with investigative journalist Annabel Ross. For Rave New World, Michelle Lhooq.
FIN.