Rudy Adrian has been at the forefront of New Age music since the early 2000s, and shamefully, I lost contact with his releases. It’s quite nice to catch up with him on his latest release, a collection of relaxing ambient music to soothe your mind a bit, but also to enjoy as proper electronic music. Rudy remains a craftsman.
Our dear friend Hubert Heathertoes collaborated with Roger Smith (he of some rather amazing experimental music projects like CHEFKIRK) as Lumber for a drony, well-sculpted collection of noise compositions. It’s such a pleasure to hear noise that is well-done, well-composed, rather than the boring vacuum-cleaner-like garbage that pollutes most of the so-called harsh noise scene.
We have two releases today to share with you. Both come from New Zealand’s greatest indie rock band, The Chills, and at least to my ears, should be seen as one cohesive session. The first, Scatterbrain, came out in September of 2021 is a rather lush affair, quite different from the early, stripped-down lo-fi albums. Great production, choruses, an almost proggy feel to some tracks dot the album, yet the songs still have that hallmark Kiwi indie sound. Scatterbrain-Storms: Outtakes is quite different, however. Three tracks, more stripped down and raw (well, they’re outtakes for a reason, right?), and I have to say this sounds like the Chills of the early 1980s and 1990s. Still, both releases have their charms, and are worth exploring.
Hear me out on this one. Gang Violins, a duo out of New Zealand, released a single to their upcoming album Inner Realms, and it’s a well-crafted mix of cinematic ambient music and post-rock, but it triggered a memory of the subtle buildup to the song Where The Streets Have No Name by U2. No surprise, as Daniel Lanois and Brian Eno had a lot of input, and made a rather decent pop song start lushly.
I’m looking forward to hearing more from these lads.
I think it’s impossible to overestimate the important place Roy Montgomery has in the annals of New Zealand’s experimental rock scene. Thanks to his work on labels such as Kranky Records and Drunken Fish, he has quite a high international profile, and it helps that the music he’s produced for so many decades is nearly impossible to pigeonhole.
This latest project will be four CDs or LPs released in stages throughout 2021 and 2022:
February 5, 2021 – Island of Lost Souls
July 30, 2021 – That Best Forgotten Work
October 22, 2021 – Rhymes of Chance
January 14 2022- Audiotherapy
The tracks currently available are some of his best instrumental work in some time, and some of these tunes border on spacious prog-rock or psych. Everything sounds full and rich, rather than stripped down and lo-fi. It’s Roy all by himself, at his best. This project is ambitious, but judging by the quality of the first series of tracks, this set will be a worth addition to his incredible audio output.
learningtodive hail from New Zealand and made a lot of waves with this, their debut EP. This is a nice blend of post-punk, post-rock and synth-based music. For those who prefer to stream this, I point you to their Spotify page. I’d much prefer to see them on a platform where I could download their music, but as it stands, I’m pretty happy having the chance to hear this on any format. Quite good stuff.
We will be featuring 5 tracks of the day every week. Our first foray includes the following tracks: