Thanks to our Quick-fire reviews of all 68 albums nominated for the 2024 Taite Music Prize, loyal HUP readers will already know that Demons of Noon’s Death Machine is “a bloody good album that might even win some new converts to the metallic side”, and that on Infinity Ritual’s EPII “the riffs are properly catchy, the vocals are mostly decipherable, and there’s the right amount of bounce for headbanging”. Now both bands are teaming up to tour the country on the back of those same new(ish) releases.
Max Johns spoke with Adam Colless (guitar, Infinity Ritual) and Jonathan Burgess (bass, Demons of Noon). Jono’s bandmate Scott Satherley (guitar) turned up a little late but still got a few words in as well. BE A WINNER WITH HUP! WIN A DOUBLE PASS to the Succession Tour’s Hamilton stop, at Nivara Lounge on Friday August 23. Message us on Facebook and tell us why you deserve it. We’ll let the most deserving punter know before the end of the month. HUP: Hi guys. How did your two bands end up touring together? Jonathan (Demons of Noon): We both mutually respect each other's music, and we both put albums out last year. Infinity Ritual snuck theirs through as an EP for some reason. I met Adam in person when he came to our show in Valhalla in Wellington. We got to talking that night, and we came up with this idea to tour our albums. It feels really good to join forces to go around the country. It's a lot more comforting than doing it by yourself. Adam (Infinity Ritual): Absolutely, yeah. Captain Planet. Jonathan (Demons of Noon): With our powers combined! Then we also noticed we both have a song called ‘Succession’ on our new albums. So we named it the Succession Tour. We might have a competition about who did ‘Succession’ best. It's also a great opportunity to come up with some Succession TV show memes to promote the tour. Adam (Infinity Ritual): Yeah, one of the greatest shows.
HUP: You play relatively different styles of metal, and there’s no headline band for the tour. Do you think you’ll draw a different crowd into each corner of the bar, or will your fans have more love than that?
Adam (Infinity Ritual): I think there'll be more love in the room. It’ll be a Doom gathering. Both bands share common elements in our influences, we come from the same sort of place, but with the metal that we play we're a bit different. It's an awesome pairing because when you see the Demons, Jonathan and the guys, get together it's such an experience. One thing we're quite excited about is playing at least one or two new songs in each show. Jonathan (Demons of Noon): I’m feeling the love, too. This is a more complementary thing, rather than pushing the boundaries of varied lineups. We’ve picked up a whole lot of cool local support bands, too. Adam (Infinity Ritual): Jono’s managed to sort out some awesome opening acts. In Hamilton it's Wolf Wizard, which has got me very excited. We’ve been talking to those guys for a couple years now and now we get to actually meet up and play with them. I'm really looking forward to Hamilton; it's gonna be a lot of fun.
Jonathan (Demons of Noon): We’ve got to give a shout out to all the bands that are going to be joining us on the tour. Obviously Wolf Wizard, but all the others as well. From Moose Mountain have switched into the Christchurch lineup. Soulseller in Dunedin have been extremely supportive and helpful, and we’re got High Lords in Wellington - they're the guys from Beastwars going undercover and playing instrumentals.
And we're excited to be playing with The Death Spell in Auckland, because quite a cool thing has happened here. Like us, they put out an album last year as well. There's a thing called the Doom Charts, which is a collection of doom reviewers who vote on these charts each month. All three of us have spent some time in the Doom charts for our albums, which is an honour - a dream come true. Adam (Infinity Ritual): It is, yeah. Making New Zealand Doom alive again. Jonathan (Demons of Noon): And it’s a huge lineup in New Plymouth. We're playing Battle for the Mountain 2, which is a sort of big festival show with a whole pile of bands. That was a case of good timing. It’s been organised by a guy called Jesse, who's in Caldera. They recently got the New Zealand support slots for EYEHATEGOD. That’s a total coup for them, stoked about that. Adam (Infinity Ritual): It's a big deal. They're awesome kids, man. I call them kids, but just they’re only bit younger than us. They've got this amazing sludge tone. Unique's not the right word, but it's very them. It's heavy, and they're just awesome. A great bunch of guys. So we're over the moon that they've got those shows. HUP: New Plymouth is your home turf, right, Adam? Adam (Infinity Ritual): Yes where we're from good old Ngāmotu, under Taranaki, which is awesome. And in New Plymouth it's quite amazing, because we had a scene a few years ago which died an honourable death. Then since covid there has been a massive resurgence of really awesome underground music coming out now. We’re stoked because we got to come up at the same time as all these other bands now. For us it's a cool throwback to the ‘90s when there was Sticky Filth and all these other bands. Another chapter is happening for heavy music in Taranaki. [If you’re after an intro (or a throwback) to the original Taranaki Hardcore days, get started with 1994 compilation New Plymouth Rocks Hard on Bandcamp.]
HUP: What do you think led to separate bands emerging at the same time?
Adam (Infinity Ritual): I would say all of us being locked up. Personally, I loved lockdown. I indulged in good beers, and we had phone parties and good times like that, but everybody got a bit of an itch. There's not too many venues in town but a couple were starting to come up. The great thing was that people just wanted to come out to see live music again, which had kind of died off. It's been awesome. That’s given people the drive to actually give this a crack in our hometown. It gives us that confidence, and now we’re heading out to see the country with the Demons. People will see and hear this emerging scene coming from New Plymouth again. Then to bring the Demons of Noon to end the Succession tour here, that's very cool. HUP: Jonathan, last time we spoke to you in 2021 I asked what your local scene is like in Auckland but you didn’t know yet! Jonathan (Demons of Noon): No, we’d just unveiled ourselves in Wellington and we were leading up to our first Auckland show. HUP: So, let’s try again. What’s the metal scene like in Auckland? Jonathan (Demons of Noon): The scene in Auckland is wonderful, but it has its challenges. It ebbs and flows. The big news at the moment is that The Wine Cellar has closed down after 20 years. Rohan (Evans) is taking a well-deserved rest. That's emotional for us because it's the venue that we grew up in. It’s where we first started playing in our early days. Rohan looked after us the whole way through. But it's extremely positive because they're knocking out the wall between Whammy Backroom and the Wine Cellar, and turning it into a 500 person venue called Double Whammy. Next door, Whammy Bar will remain as normal. It's a great evolution for that place. Lucy Macrae and Tom Anderson from Whammy will run the new venue too. They really hold up the music scene - they're both involved in promotion and Tom's a big production guy in town. Whammy’s a good place for them to store all of their gear, so consequently it has a really good backline available.
HUP: Are there enough local metalheads for 500 people to fill Double Whammy?
Jonathan (Demons of Noon): There's a small and very engaged metal scene here. A cool thing that's happening is that the kids are really getting into metal again. Adam (Infinity Ritual): Yes! Jonathan (Demons of Noon): Early 20-year-olds are starting death metal bands and black metal bands, really hardcore bands. HUP: Have either of you played Hamilton before? Adam (Infinity Ritual): We played Nivara Lounge about two years ago with the Venom Dolls from Auckland. There were two other bands from New Plymouth in town, so we just decided to all meet up and meet Ivan there. A few people came out, which was awesome. I love the place. HUP: Will the Nivara Lounge stage be big enough for all the Demons of Noon? You’ve expanded between your first EP and last year’s album. Jonathan (Demons of Noon): We’re technically a six piece but one of our singers, Aria, recently had a child. So on this particular tour she has been replaced by...umm...a Juno synth... HUP: Infinity Ritual’s a bit different - just the three of you, right? Adam (Infinity Ritual): That's correct. The line-up has been the same since we started, straight after the first Level Four lockdown. Mark, our drummer, owns Vinyl Countdown, which is a record store in New Plymouth. He used to run Real Groovy in Wellington so he's got a big reputation. I’d seen him playing in a covers band for a few years, so I knew he liked heavy music and asked if he’d ever be keen on a jam. Jase, our bass player, was another customer that bought records off Mark. Se he asked, ”hey, on the off chance, would you want to be in some stony, fuzzy, doomy band thing?” We were originally gonna be a four piece. We intended to get a bass player so Jason and I could both play guitar. Then one day Jase just decided to bring a bass to practise, just so we get some ideas, and he just hasn't given it up. Suddenly he’s coming to practise with 8 by 10 Ampeg and he's fully committed to bass. He loves it! He keeps buying heaps of bass gear, so that's a good sign. Jonathan (Demons of Noon): It's the gear that counts, right? Adam (Infinity Ritual): 100%, yeah, haha, there's a whole aesthetic.
HUP: How would you describe what the good readers of HUP will hear from your bands when they come to Nivara Lounge on August 23?
Adam (Infinity Ritual): We usually call it a heavy wall of noise. There are elements of doom, stoner, and in some ways groove metal is a big influence for us as well. We've got the guilty pleasure of loving Pantera and that sort of stuff, so elements of that come out. But mainly the stonery, fuzzy, doomy stuff. Jonathan (Demons of Noon): We describe ourselves as a big, warm, air massage. A lot of volume, a lot of very slow riffs, a lot of low tuning. Quite a few people on stage, and and ethereal witchy tones from the girls. They’ve really kicked us up a notch and made us the band that we are. Adam (Infinity Ritual): It's beautifully haunting seeing Demons play live.
HUP: If this tour leads on to bigger things, where do you guys hope you'll be playing next year?
Jonathan (Demons of Noon): Australia. Adam (Infinity Ritual): Yeah, let’s go to Ozzy. Even if this tour is unsuccessful! Jonathan (Demons of Noon): I was in Brisbane a couple of weeks ago, and there’s a specialty heavy metal record shop. So I made a point to get over there to say hi and start building a connection. The guy there told me about a few festivals and things, so we've got something to start with. Adam (Infinity Ritual): Awesome, that's the way. HUP: Those connections are crucial, eh? Jonathan (Demons of Noon): We have no budget on this tour. So it's been a case of, “hey, would you like to play with us in New Plymouth? And, furthermore, can we stay at your house?” Adam and Jesse said yes straight away. So that's a mark of a great man. We're doing pretty well with couches to crash on. One of the High Lords is putting us up in Wellington, our drummer Joe's parents are putting us up in Dunedin. My friend Tony is putting us up in Christchurch. Adam (Infinity Ritual): Coins are quite tight. [Scott Satherley, Demons of Noon guitarist, joins the call.] HUP: Hi Scott, you’ve turned up just in time for me to say that I’m all out of questions. Jonathan (Demons of Noon): Scott, tell Max about the new songs that we're planning to play. Scott (Demons of Noon): Geez, where to begin. ‘Coward’ started as quite a funny idea of coming up with a song that's all hate, like a diss track. Just unleashing, but it's not actually about anyone. We’re just dissing someone who’s a real piece of shit. It was real fun doing that, just making shit up and pretending that it's a person we hate. So that's coming. HUP: Who do you think about when you're playing it? Scott (Demons of Noon): No one really. Well, maybe myself. Jonathan (Demons of Noon): That's probably a significant portion of the Doom genre. Diss tracks to yourself. Adam (Infinity Ritual): Yeah, yeah, self-loathing. Jonathan (Demons of Noon): We're very lucky to have Scott on board, because he's an extremely talented artist. He’s put together the posters and all the artwork for the tour. Adam (Infinty Ritual): Awesome posters.
Scott (Demons of Noon): Through my work I found a lot of open source content that the Met Museum has let out into the world. You can kind of just use any of these good old images freely, without getting in trouble. If you go to the Met Museum and search ‘hell’ you get this slew of beautiful, beautiful imagery. Not having a lot of time to draw up my own, I just trawled their archives.
HUP: They're genuine works of art. Hopefully they’ll attract heaps of people through the doors up and down the motu.
The Succession Tour reaches Hamilton's Nivara Lounge on Friday August 23. Get tickets from Under the Radar, and/or message us on Facebook before the end of July to be in to win a double pass.
EP II by Infinity Ritual and Death Machine by Demons of Noon are streaming and selling on Bandcamp right now.
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I went to my first listening party a few weeks ago, but I arrived fashionably late. As such, I only caught the tail end of the first airing of Beat Rhythm Fashion’s ‘Critical Mass’. What I did manage to hear at the time sounded great, however. And after slipping out of the party unnoticed, without the need for any awkward goodbyes, I explored the rest of the album as soon as I could.
Like my tardiness at the listening party, this review is also overdue. A lot has happened in the intervening there weeks; The album made a brief appearance at number five in the charts of albums by New Zealand artists, and cracked the top 40 in the overall album charts! Is that enough for you to go and check it out already? It has been five years since the release of Beat Rhythm Fashion’s comeback Tenterhook album, and a lot has happened in the world between those times. While the pandemic affected us all, it affected us all differently, and we all looked at the happenings though our own lenses that have been crafted by our past experiences and cultural upbringings. Through a lot of this album, BRF main-man Nino Birch pours his experiences and thoughts into this album. This is an album full of crafted and thoughtful lyrics. The press release came with a detailed explanation of every song: there is a lot of rumination on the personal effects of the pandemic on Nino’s life, on relationships ranging from the personal to international political, and on conflicting worldviews. Not wanting to sound like a school report here, but Nino is clearly a deep, contemplative and reflective thinker, who is capable of looking both inward and outward. Some songs to give you a taster of the album? If you were a fan of the ‘80s BRF singles, especially, start with ‘No Wonder’ – the guitars here are as close to classic BRF as you can get – and the magnificent ‘Fall & Rise Again’. Ian Duggan
with Ian Duggan
Repairs' new album ‘Disappointing Sequel’ was released yesterday, and they are playing Hamilton in support of this tomorrow! That's the 19th of April 2024, at Last Place, supported by Empress and Halcyon Birds. I was having a first listen as I thought about these questions, and I can tell you it sounds fantastic! I spoke with guitarist Martin Phillips about the album, self-deprecation, mechanical pocket calculators, and more!
‘Disappointing Sequel’ is your follow up to 2020s ‘Repeat, Repeat’. In that album, the themes running through it included anxiety, feeling isolated, disillusionment, searching for meaning and hope. Listening to lyrics on the new album, the band haven’t quite managed to leave these concerns behind?
If anything, I think we’ve become more anxious! We finished 'Repeat, Repeat' in early 2020, just as the pandemic was kicking off (most of it was recorded in 2019), but the majority of songs were written back in 2018. At the time we were still finding our voice and still learning who we were as a band and as songwriters. I think this album is an evolution of a lot of the ideas on the first record. Obviously the pandemic has had (and continues to have) a major impact on us (as with everyone else in the world). While a lot of the things we feel are the same, we’re a bit more confident now in the way we write songs about those feelings. There’s a different type of anger. It feels like we’re on the other side of a monumental era (despite the pandemic not actually being over). Unfamiliar, less stable and with no anchor point. Frustratingly, a lot of the issues in the wider world (as well as our own sense of dread) have continued to get worse. Some sort of Sisyphean nightmare at the ‘end of history’. I know I have different worries from what I had two years ago. Are there new themes on this album that are different from those from 'Repeat, Repeat'? We’re quite different as people than we were in 2020. While a lot of our underlying anxieties remain (and the effects of late-stage capitalism and the oversized influence of dangerous and disingenuous bigots in the political arena get worse), our personal situations have changed a lot. We play a lot less shows now than we used to, meaning that especially for Nic (bass) and I we focussed more on the studio side than the live arena (having access to the Vault and the help of Ciara and Will helped with that!). James (drums) and Fe bought a house and moved out of Auckland (as well as adding Peaches to the family), Nic changed career, and I finally found the impetus to dye my hair, paint my nails and quit my corporate job to go study audio engineering. That change in where we are on our journeys has likely influenced some of the writing, or at least some of the change of perspective from the last record. When I think of disappointing sequels, I think of movies like ‘Jaws: The Revenge’ and ‘Grease 2’. What do you think are the most disappointing sequels? On the subject of disappointing (and unnecessary) sequels, Andrew Falkous has some eloquent thoughts on the matter that are perhaps worth sharing: Future of the Left -- Robocop 4 - Fuck off Robocop More than a decade ago I was playing in a band called ‘god bows to math’ (yes, I know, it’s the American spelling - blame the Minutemen) and the drummer’s flatmate somehow came into possession of a box containing about 50 copies of the greatest disappointing sequel of all time – ‘Highlander II: The Quickening’. So everyone in our friends circle was treated to a DVD copy of this masterpiece. It gets terrible reviews but there’s something beautiful about how much it leans into ruining the original movie. Although the soundtrack is nowhere near as epic as the first film. Honourable mention has to go to the palpable disappointment generated by any sequel that fails to retain Keanu (looking at you Speed 2!). The name ‘Disappointing Sequel’, taken from a lyric in your song ‘Time Travel’, hints at a sophomore slump. Listening through the album, this definitely isn’t the case. Arising from our egalitarian roots, our New Zealand humour has tended to be fairly self-deprecating. Is this how you see the album title? As a bit of self-deprecation, but you realise this thing you’ve created is actually pretty amazing? I started calling the album that as a working title very much in the self-deprecating joke vein, but after a while it felt right. We all deal with imposter syndrome to varying degrees and I know that I definitely felt a lot of pressure to make a second album. Looking at the cliched trajectory of sophomore offerings there’s a tendency to view them as more mature, and less invigorating than debut records. I prefer the idea that a second album should double the righteous anger and energy levels. The line in the song ‘Time Travel’ is a reference to one of the overarching themes of the album - this weird feeling that a lot of the same mistakes keep being made. In the case of that song I was referring mostly to watching the same neo-conservative, disproven, and ultimately cruel ideas about trickle down economics, privatisation, and deregulation continue to echo through the corridors of the Beehive (just to note the song is mainly about how I love my wife, no matter what happens). We’re all pretty stoked with the record. I think any time we manage to finish a piece of work it generates a sense of pride. There was definitely a lot of work put in over the last two years! Track 4 is called “Math Grenades”. I had to look up what a ‘math grenade’ was; it’s an early mechanical pocket calculator, which resembled a hand grenade. What led you to naming one of your songs this, and being in New Zealand, should we in fact be calling them “Maths Grenades”? It’s another reference to one of my favourite authors - William Gibson. I actually discovered Gibson’s work through a Sonic Youth song (Pattern Recognition on Sonic Nurse), and I’ve always loved that idea of discovery when combing through liner notes and parsing lyrics. The Curta [a.k.a., the mechanical calculator] features prominently in the novel Pattern Recognition (probably my favourite book of all time), and it fascinated me in the same way that Ada Lovelace’s ideas for the analytical engine did. There’s something really fantastical about seeing computation in a physical, analogue form, especially after growing up watching the computing world shift into big tech monopolies and shady behind the scenes algorithms dressed up in a flashy digital UI. The other reference on the album is the track Map, Territory which comes from Zero History (a follow up work to Pattern Recognition). I really, REALLY, wanted to get these reviews out before the official Taite Music Prize shortlist was announced, but this morning I was scooped. To offer a slight spoiler, let me just say we are three-quarters of the way through an epic journey and have yet to encounter half the finalists.
The first three parts (alayna - Erny Belle, Eyeliner - Mice on Stilts, and Miriam Clancy - Serebii) all opened with a bit about the Taite Music Prize. Not this one though. Enough facts. Instead, we’ll end with some pretty tasty opinions, including my own personal Taite Music Prize shortlist. If I’d been listening to all 68 of these albums just for fun, there would have been quite a few skipped tracks by now. But every single one of these reviews is based on a complete playback, no cheating. I don’t think I’ve ever listened to so much unfamiliar music for so many days in a row before. It’s been tiring, and fun, and eye-opening, and I am already thinking that I might do it again another year. But let’s get through the last quarter of 2024’s nominations first. We start in the Ss, and soon learn that the official list of nominations has filed The Fuzzies and The Veils under T, for "The". To all the librarians reading this: I'm sorry, I didn't realise until it was too late. Anyway, let’s knock these 17 bastards off and then force me to play judge and jury. 52. Ala Mai, by Shepherds Reign This is the 15th year of the Taite Music Prize, and the ceremony is going to happen in Auckland on April 23, just ahead of NZ Music Month. The winner will take home $12,500, unless they blow it all on celebrations that night.
But who will that winner be? There are 68 albums in the running, and Max is listening to all of them. In this alphabetical journey through the Taite Prize longlist, part one got us from alayna to Ernby Belle. A few days later, part two covered Eyeliner to Mice on Stilts. 34 down, 34 to go. Now to finish off the Ms and get as far as the first few Ss. 35. Black Heart, by Miriam Clancy The Taite Music Prize is named in honour of Dylan Taite, a music reviewer and journalist who was, to put it lightly, like no other. He had an ear for artists who give a shit, and he never thought twice about whether something fit the formula. All of which helps explain why the 68 albums that I’m reviewing here are so incredibly varied. (Because we love a local connection, let me quickly add that Taite’s career got started with the Waikato Times and then local TV news show Top Half. He was meant to file stories about Hamilton, but he never really stuck to that particular beat.)
Anyway, back to the reviews. The enormity, and perhaps stupidity, of this project is starting to dawn on me. In part two we take in blues, hip hop, metal, jazz, and a few things that aren’t so easy to pigeonhole. If you missed it, here’s part one. 18. Brb, by Eyeliner The 2024 Taite Music Prize will honour a New Zealand album released in 2023. It’s run by Independent Music NZ, whose criteria say that “this is a critically judged award for originality, and considering the artistic merit, creativity, innovation and excellence of each NZ album in its entirety”. Sales be damned, this is all about quality.
The list of previous winners includes Former Hamiltonian Princess Chelsea (2023), and artists as different as Troy Kingi, Avantdale Bowling Club, Jakob, Lorde, and Unknown Mortal Orchestra. Whatever sort of music it is, it’s in with a chance if it’s good enough. A massive 68 albums (and EPs, so long as they're longer than 25 minutes) are nominated for the first round this year, which 1200 judges will cut down to a shortlist for 10 judges to tackle in April. Rather than wait for the experts to weigh in, Max decided to listen to every album exactly once and fire off a quick review. It’s a big job, and 68 happens to divide by four, so that’s how many parts this ridiculous exercise will run over. Let’s go with part one! 1. Self Portrait Of A Woman Unravelling, by alayna A debut album that promises to dig into questions of self-perception and identity but serves up consecutive tracks with the lyrics, “I don’t know”. Soaked in lush production that makes alayna’s soft R&B/soul sound like any number of artists around the world, this album is all very well assembled without breaking any new ground.
Exploring the hashtags on Bandcamp, I happened upon the experimental synth-pop of Hamilton based ‘The Steak Place’. How have I not stumbled across ‘The Steak Place’ before? They have roughly yearly releases going all the way back to 2001?! But that timeline also gets confusing. Their barely touched Facebook page tells me that they began recording and performing in Athens, Georgia – that’s the hometown of the B52s and R.E.M. – only in 2007, being presently based in Hamilton. Were the earlier releases under a different name? And at what point did they arrive in Hamilton? There is barely a mention of them on the internet… but that needs to change, because there is some fantastic music on this release.
The latest album, released on the most awkward date of December 27th, is titled “Recording is a Dead Art Form and I Don't Care”. Track 1, ‘Pathogens’, is a, infectious little song, and is an excellent start to the album. Musically, it reminds me a lot of Depeche Mode’s sophomore single ‘New Life’. Lyrically, it has a speculative theme, which runs through a proportion of the album, with this one declaring that “We are the pathogens”, “Filthy pathogens, Viral pathogens”. While musically this song reminds me of that Depeche Mode track, others on the album remind me somewhat of Soft Cell songs such as ‘Frustration’ and ‘Bedsitter’.
Track 2, ‘Parthenogenesis’, is a song after my own heart. My first listen through the entire album was while undertaking my day job, counting rotifers, the parthenogenetic poster children. I’ll add this to my list of favourite songs mentioning this particular and peculiar asexual reproductive method, following on from Shriekback’s ‘Nemesis’:
“Replicants in the image of our mother We are not born with any innate respect for copyright law Duplicates, facsimiles of each other”
While some of the songs on the album may appear to some as lyrically frivolous, rooted in sci-fi, there are some deeper, more personal tracks here – I particularly like the wonderful love song ‘The Future’:
“I used to see nothing ahead But pitch black infinite darkness But now when I look forward When I imagine my future All I see is you”
Another early favourite is ‘Salt the Wounds’, featuring keyboard auto-accompaniment with arpeggiation, which reminds me a lot of John S Hall & Kramer’s ‘Hide the Knives’. While musically flippant, this is another deeper track, lyrically:
“Now you've made mistakes You've got an ugly past And all that shit you use to numb your brain, and chase those thoughts away But those thoughts are fuel And that pain is you You gotta hurt yourself to make it through another day So just salt the wounds”
Overall, this is a fantastic album, and I am so happy I stumbled upon it. If experimental synth-pop is your thing, be sure to spend some time exploring this.
Visit the Bandcamp HERE.
It’s a New Year, and my resolution is to look forward, not backwards, as I feel I have done since the pandemic began. So, it is perfect timing for a new album from Auckland’s synth-heavy Anecdata, as I can never resist stepping into the mind of Dan Satherley while attempting to disentangle his lyrics. His new album, “A Better Plan B”, had the ridiculous release date of December 23rd, so I am understandably only getting onto this now.
Anecdata lyrics commonly revolve around politics, conspiracy theories, the supernatural and sci-fi, and the new album doesn’t disappoint. Here, I’m mostly going to let the lyrics that resonated with me most speak for themselves.
The album title, “A Better Plan B”, is a lyric from the song 'Amelia Through the Looking Glass', which is on the speculative sci-fi end of the lyrical content. There are theories that famed aviatrix Amelia Earhart reached an uninhabited island, while recently there was some speculation based on a blurry photograph – rapidly debunked – that she was taken prisoner by the Japanese. But what if, Satherley ponders, Earhart didn't crash at all, but instead piloted her Lockheed Model 10 Electra into a rift in spacetime? “they said you died in the Pacific Ocean ran out of fuel to keep the plane in motion and couldn't come up with a good solution but I believe you had a better plan B than living with Moby they never found your body and never will you're on another planet, mission fulfilled in 1937, pushing air uphill and I believe you had a better plan B than living with Moby” This is exactly the kind of nerdery I’ve come to both expect and love from Anecdata. Satherley’s political observations also commonly come through clearly. “Staging a Coup” feels like an update to his 2017 (pre-pandemic) song “Anti-Faxxers”, and obviously refers to a specific event from recent times, perhaps written from the perspective of Trevor Mallard: “what are you doing on my lawn? better not be there in the morn what do I need to get this grime off the beehive” It also doesn’t take much to work out the events referred to in “Holidays in Hawaii”, harking back to a prominent politician giving the impression on social media that he was in kiwifruit country, while actually spending time with family in his international holiday home, as he said he tends to do in July. “I'm a rich man going on holiday But I gotta look like I give a shit Be a common man, not a con-man Eat a meat pie, not a stir-fry Ride a motorcycle, not an e-bike I'm going on holiday Have you ever been to Hawaii? It's a lot better than Te Puke” Overall, this album has given me exactly what I expected lyrically, and I still have plenty more to pore over. Find the new Anecdata album on Bandcamp, and on all the other usual streaming sites. Ian Duggan If absence makes the heart grow fonder, there's going to be a very loving crowd joining Cowboy Dan at Nivara Lounge on the 22nd. Five or six years since they last played here, and with their two sharp-as EPs freshly pressed as a new LP, there'll be a lot to celebrate. Leighton Edwards fielded a few pre-tour questions and told us about new songs, a new bassist (Steve), and old memories of Future City Festival 2018. HUP: It’s official: Cowboy Dan’s on vinyl! Congratulations! What inspired you to press your two digital EPs into a real-life LP? Leighton Edwards: Thanks! We love the format. We are collectors and love the record buzz. It’s long been a dream to have something of our own spin on a turntable and the time felt right to take the step. We still love the songs and feels of both EPs - having them together on the same record feels right. The EPs are from 2017 and 2021. Has it been long enough for the LP to feel nostalgic? LE: Yeah it does feel a little nostalgic for sure. I love looking back. I often find the purest joy in something when looking back on it, this feels a little like that. At the same time, the songs still feel fresh. We still love playing them too. So whilst we are looking back, we are reaching forward with the release a little. Like we are blowing a little freshness back into them. We expect these songs to continue being a big part of our live sets. You’re bringing the release mini-tour to Hamilton on December 22. It’s been a few years for us here in Kirikiriroa, so what can we expect from the live show? LE: We have aged a touch, but I don’t think we have slowed down too much. We have a blast playing live, and we want the energy to reflect that. We play happy sad music, and the live show leans into the happy side. Last time we were in Kirikiriroa was for the Future City Festival - we look back on that show very fondly. We felt connected to the room in a real special way that night - something about being away from home, perhaps. I’m hoping we can create that sort of a feeling again. Cowboy Dan has been a bit on-again, off-again over the years. It’s great that you’re gigging again now. How has this latest get-back-together felt for you all? LE: I’d say we are feeling energised by it all for sure. We are sort of in this great balance where the old songs are feeling fresh, and the new songs are coming together in exciting different ways. Together, these two elements are motivating. We also have a new member on Bass, Steve - and having him around has energised us too. He constantly reminds us that we have a great thing going - little things that may have been taken for granted can come back into focus with a fresh set of eyes and ears - and it's a pleasure to respond to his playing and energy. Are you a goal-setting, plan-making kind of a band? What do you want 2024 to look like? LE: Loosely, yeah. There are little ambitions in amongst it all for sure. I think the main goal is to work towards a full album in 2024. We have half of one written and a few more ideas kicking about. As music-makers with a few years behind you now, do things feel as bleak as recent commentary suggests? RNZ says that music-focused media is near-dead, which means no reviews or critical analysis of deserving bands like yours. That cuts rungs out of the ladder to recognition and sales, which The Spinoff covered under the headline The sound is off for New Zealand music. What’s your take? Is the end nigh? LE: As a loyal listener to RNZ, I’d tend to agree with whatever they say. I'm inclined to think the Spinoff is usually right too. Having said that, I thought their latest rankings of canned coffee was trash. So who knows. No more gloomy questions. Who’s impressed your ears this year? What have you been listening to? LE: Best find this year has probably been ‘Rat Saw God’ by Wednesday. The perfect blend of raucous and refined. Most importantly, it’s full of stunning melodies. A bunch of favs released great albums this year too. Slowdive, Jenny Lewis, Yo La Tengo and Jason Isbell all released special little albums. Locally, I have really enjoyed ‘Feed Me to the Doves’ by Guardian Singles. I picked up a copy of Justin Townes Earle’s ‘Yuma’ which was reissued for Record Store Day too, which is currency on my turntable. I can’t get enough of JTE, and the feel and rawness of this debut EP still blows my mind. Is there anything else we should have asked? Anything you want the world to know? LE: We are super excited to have The Changing Same playing with us at both our upcoming Auckland and Hamilton shows. It’s pretty wild to think we will share the stage with the legendary Matthew Bannister - what an incredible songwriter. He wrote literally my favourite Kiwi song of all time in ‘Husband House’. The Changing Same are wonderful, and we are pretty chuffed. Catch the second and final stop of Cowboy Dan's "Two EPs" Vinyl Release Mini-tour at Nivara Lounge, Friday December 22. Tickets (including very reasonably-priced vinyl pre-sales) at Under the Radar.
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