New & Recent Releases March 08

Another month and another batch of great new releases. Over the last few weeks I have been returning again and again to a stunningly good EP, The Wolves, from Wellington band Secret Knives. The band mix chiming guitars with electronic textures and angsty, but not overwrought, vocals. Without sounding like any of the current crop of American indie bands like Vampire Weekend, Yeasayer, Beach House etc. they would sit comfortably in a playlist alongside those bands and match them for quality. For a New Zealand comparison think of maybe a happier Shocking Pinks. There is very little info to be had about the band but the seven track EP has been getting rave reviews on NZ and international blogs. This is one of my favourite NZ releases of the year and is available for FREE download from A Low Hum. Highly recommended.

Also out this month is an eclectic EP, You Have Been Warned from the New Telepathics, the musical vehicle for Darryn Harkness - producer, song writer and multi instrumentalist. Harkness has just recently returned from London and has played a bunch of live shows for the first time in nearly a decade. Both live and on the EP this is not standard fare. Harkness mixes sound improvisation, indie rock, afro-beat and jazz and out of it creates challenging and engaging music. Well worth watching is a live-in-the-studio performance recorded at the Red Bull studios. (I only just discovered this site but there is a whole treasure trove of material here for NZ music fans. I've posted one New Telepathics track on the video page).

Lawence Arabia is James Milne who also heads the Reduction Agents, whose album Dance the Reduction Agents was one of my favourite albums of 2006 and is highly recommended. Although very good I wasn't quite so keen on the self titled Lawrence Arabia album that came out around the same time, maybe it's just that I'm more of a band man, but this new song, 'Beautiful Young Crew', available on his myspace page, has really grabbed me.

Up next are Thousand Suns, who have released an album of easy-going guitar and percussion world-music influenced pop called Fascination. I have to say the bongo drum (I'm sure there must be a more correct musical term) got a bit much over a whole album but taken song by song there are some great laid-back summer tunes here as demonstrated on the song included in this episode - Something Beautiful Exists. You can buy the album and sample more tracks at Amplifier.

Steve Abel has long been a Counting The Beat favourite. His album Little Death won a well deserved Album of The Year in the inaugural Alternatuis. A new album, Flax Happy is due soon and the songs that have surfaced to date are certainly whetting the appetite for another classic. You can download 'Sad Girls' from Steve's website and hear 'Sally' on his myspace.

And a plea, English band House of Love recorded a cover of The Chills 'Pink Frost' which I have not been able to track down anywhere - does anyone have a copy I can get an MP3 of? Contact me at the email link at the top of the page.

Download the Counting The Beat - New Releases March 08

NZ @ SXSW

Liam Finn live at SXSW

Every year the New Zealand Music Commission makes a big fuss about the kiwi bands making an appearance at the auspicious South by Southwest (SXSW) music conference in Austin, Texas. I've always been a little cynical about this. The way it's been spun makes it sound like even getting on the bill is a sign of making it when in fact thousands of bands appear and I've yet to hear about an NZ act that made it big as result of making the trip. However, this year I've been following the conference on-line and it does sound like one hell of a good party. My plan now is to find some way of getting someone to pay for me to go to the next one.

There are a host of Counting The Beat favourites in this year's line up and this podcast episode will feature some of them including The Ruby Suns and former Alternatui winners The Mint Chicks. Also included are Rodney Fisher of Goodshirt and, the highlight, a couple of spectacular tracks from Liam Finn recorded live by America's National Public Radio at his show at this year's SXSW (you can hear his whole show here). Not featured is Wing, making an appearance this year as part of the NZ contingent.

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Image: Joel Didriksen of kingpinphoto.com

Covering the Beat 2

If you spend a bit of time wandering around the internet reading music blogs (and since you're reading this, I presume you do) you'll find that there are a number of bloggers obsessed with covers. I'm pretty fond of them myself so a while back I decided that I would run an occassional series called Covering The Beat - NZ bands covering NZ bands. The first Covering The Beat featured three bands covering The Chills and is still available to download. This episode casts a wider net although Flying Nun originals still feature.

In 1997 Flying Nun released a tribute album entitled God Save The Clean featuring a diverse range of local and overseas acts covering songs by The Clean. There are a number of stand out tracks but one that received quite a bit of airplay at the time was Head Like A Hole's version of 'Beatnik'.

Also covering a Flying Nun classic are pop-punk outfit Elemeno-P. On their 2005 album Trouble in Paradise they unexpectedly included a pumped up version of The Verlaines' 'Death and The Maiden'. (original classic "rabbit" video on video page)

Now for something completely different. In 2007 Michel Rowland put together a real labour of love. She's Lost is an internet only compilation of dark-alt/industrial/electro/experimental acts covering favourite NZ songs. The whole album is worth a listen but there really is something special about industrial cyberpunk outfit N.U.T.E's take on John Rowles' song about his sister 'Cheryl Moana Marie'. (see John sing it on the video page)

To finish up, from the classic AK79 punk compilation I have The Terrorways' (pictured above) version of 'She's A Mod', originally by Ray Columbus and The Invaders.

Keep posted for more Covering the Beat specials in the future including a very special special, probably in two or three months time.

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Download the Counting The Beat - Covering The Beat: Chills Covers podcast

What The Folk!

Last year saw an interesting development in the local music scene - the revival of folk music. Well, not so much folk as folk influenced indie pop. And while it would be fair to say that this isn't an overwhelming trend (I'm not arguing this is the new Dunedin Sound or anything) there were a notable number of, mainly pretty young, groups picking up acoustic guitars and counting in with a "one, two, folk you".

Ragamuffin Children are Christchurch duo Anita Clark and Brooke Singer. Last year they picked up the Best Female Artist(s) Alternatui for Werecat Lullabies, an album of quiet, melodic songs featuring cello clarinet and glockenspiel along with the guitar, fiddle and keyboards they play when performing live (see the live video on the video page). Songs like album standouts 'More of Me' (featured in the podcast) and Lullaby are simply quite beautiful.

Urban Tramper (pictured above) describe themselves as Tree Ninjas so you might expect their albums to be full of hippy dippy nonsense. And while they do have songs extolling sitting around the campfire, hugging and watching the sunset, they write captivating music that has harmony and melody, great playing, and some suprises - check out the trumpet that comes in part way through the featured track 'Eucharist'. It was hard to pick a track from their third album Tokon and the Colours - it's a real grower - there's also a video for 'How Do You have Your Tea?' on the video page. Also worth checking out is a live session recorded for National Radio (stream).

Lots of the bands that make up the indie folk revival have a pretty low profile. Needles and Bees are only just starting to make any significant inroads onto the live scene but they've been beavering away recording tracks on a "two dollar mic" and posting them on the internet. The fidelity of their equipment isn't that good but the songs are - you can check them out here.

Teacups emerged on the scene with a gig in a big tent in downtown Auckland during the last arts festival. While they could be accused on being more enthusiastic than proficient they do have great voices and they're a lot of fun. Hopefully an EP is coming soon, I'm hoping the featured song 'Lily's Eyes' makes an appearance with a decent recording. The trio are about to get a huge publicity boost as they've scored the opening slot for Catpower.

Like Teacups, Delgirl, a self confessed alt-country act are influenced by some of the big names on the Americana scene like Jolie Holland, Jenny Lewis and Gillian Welch. 'Little Sparrow' is one of their older songs but they recently released their debut album Two, Maybe Three Days Ride.

Finally in this episode is one of my favourite acts of 2007 - Bear Cat. The song I'm featuring is 'Panda, I Love You', but almost all of their songs are about Pandas! The songs are really silly, but infectious. The other day I realised the songs I'd been singing to myself all day started,"Panda, your fur is so soft, in summer it must get so hot, I want to give you a hug, extinction, it sucks". I'm not sure how these guys didn't end up getting an Alternatui last year, but hopefully they'll release something this year and be in the running.

Download the Counting The Beat - What the Folk! podcast

New & Recent Releases - Feb 08

This episode features a bunch of new and recent releases. I think I'll try and do one of these at least once a month from here-on-in. First up are Minisnap, a band that started off as an offshoot of The Bats. They essentially are The Bats, but without Robert Scott. Featuring the songwriting and vocals of Kaye Woodward, Minisnap have previously released two EPs but now they have put out their debut album Bounce Around. The opening track New Broom features on the podcast and you can check out a video for the song on the video page.

White Swan Black Swan is based around the songs of Ben Howe (Black Swan) and Sonya Waters (White Swan). Their second EP Castle of Useless Junk was mixed in Nashville and is intended to be coupled with their first, self titled, EP to make up a overseas taster for an album release. Until recently it has only been available at WSBS gigs and on the band's Myspace page but it has now had a digital release and is available through Amplifier or Emusic. Orange and Brown is from Castle of Useless Junk, the song title describing the colour scheme of the Counting the Beat blog, the EP title describing the room where I record the podcast.

I've long been a fan of country outfit The Broken Heartbreakers. Their recent self titled album is an early contender for my best of the year list. Hot on the heels of that release comes a series of limited edition CD singles (sedingles?) available for sale only at Broken Heartbreaker gigs. The first of the singles is Wake Up Monday. Sign up to the Heartbreakers email list on their site to get advance warning of shows and be in quick to get one of the limited to 100 CDs.

Finally, a track from the second Ruby Suns album, Sea Lion. This is a great CD that is much less in debt to the sound of The Beach Boys than their self titled debut but retains complexity and whimsy in the songwriting and instrumentation. The main songwriter, Ryan McPhun is a very clever chap who seems destined for considerable success. A good taster of what the album offers is the song Tane Mahuta which is included in the podcast. I highly recommend you also watch the clip for this and two other Ruby Suns songs on the video page. They are recorded live on the streets of Paris by a great French video podcast site La Blogotheque.

Download the Counting The Beat - New & Recent Releases Feb 08 podcast

International Songwriting Competition

With judges including Tom Waits, Robert Smith (The Cure), Loretta Lynne and Frank Black (Pixies)and a US$25,000 first prize the International Songwriting Competition is a big deal. This year five NZ musicians have been selected as finalists.

Kiwi acts have a history of doing well in the contest. Moana Maniapoto won the 2003 competition with the song Moko, beating 11,170 other songs from 60 countries. You can find the song on her album Rua. The following year Auckland teenager Gin Wigmore (pictured) not only won the teen category with the song Angelfire (featured in the podcast) but also took out top prize with another song Hallelujah (mp3). Since then she's disappeared without trace which is a great shame given her talent.

Not content with having his 1969 song Nature selected as the best NZ song of all time, Wayne Mason entered the ISC in 2005 and reached the finals in the Americana section with the song Sense Got Out, the title track from his forthcoming third album.

This year's NZ finalists cover a range of genres. The podcast includes Mike Garner's Louisiana Hurricane (Americana), In the Gully (Pop) by Mahara Tocker and Daniel Maguire's song Bright White Teeth (Rock) performed by his band Mog. Although not normally my cup of tea the Mahara Tocker track was actually the stand out of the five to my ears. Also nominated are Radha Sahar in the Children's category and Hareruia Abraham in World Music.

You can do your bit to boost the profile of the NZ finalists by voting for them in the People's Choice category.

UPDATE: Mahara Tocker won the pop-rock category and Mike Garner took third place in the Americana section. Congratulations from Counting The Beat. Full results are available here.

Blog Only Exclusive: Radha Sahar - The Library Song


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Shopping Spree

Ever since I had kids my record shopping has slowed down. But every once in a while I go on a bit of a splurge. A recent trip to Wellington gave me the opportunity to check out the record stores and pick up a couple of new releases and some I had missed from the last year or two. I always like going to Slow Boat Records in Wellington. While they may not have the same amount of stock as the big shops like Real Groovy, what they do have is well selected and the staff know their stuff. Shops like that are getting harder to find.

So what did I buy? Well first up was a surf guitar instrumental release from The Mysterious Tape Man called Tape Man Goes To Outer Space. I'm a fan of surf guitar and I love the 50s science fiction theme that runs through this EP. I selected Kaikoura U.F.O. for the podcast because I have a thing for songs named after NZ towns and locations (check out a place name special I recorded a while back). There's a TV news interview with The Tape Man on the video page and a good print interview here.

Next up is a song from a new EP by Let's Planet. They have been around since the the mid 1980s and have been sporadically releasing material since 1990. The Bounce E.P. remains true to Let's Planet form - catchy, engaging indie-pop.

Autographed Picture of Jesus is a standout track from the the self titled debut by The Warren Love Band. Love writes great country tunes and this 2006 album was nominated for the country music Tui in 2007. Warren was robbed, with the award going to a less than stellar release from The Topp Twins.

Hailing from Wellington, Hot Swiss Mistress make indie pop with an alternative guitar edge. The track I feature is from their EP the Falling Stars. You can also check out a nice live performance recorded for National Radio (stream).

And to finish, probably my best find, a new release from Kerretta. This is the kind of epic guitar soundscape I love so much. A Death in The Future is released on 7" single by Midium records. They're touring around the country with Jakob at the moment in support of the single and on the strength of this will be well worth seeing.

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