New Zealand Music Month seems to have been generating more content than ever this year and perhaps the most notable project has been Beck's beer commissioning songs from 10 local artists. The songs were commssioned in the first instance for use in "playable posters" on walls around the town, but, happily they can be freely downloaded here.
The track listing is as follows:
'Sand Purgatory', Two Wolves
'Who’s Doin’ The Talkin’', Ghost Wave
'Love That I Need', Doprah
'Indigo', Third3ye
'His Parent’s Jeep', Lawrence Arabia
'Walk Away', Janine & The Mixtape
'Dalston Junction', The Phoenix Foundation
'Calling', Ash Graham
'Apreggiator', Little Bark
'My God', Supervillians Rmc Ft Bailey Wiley
And staying with music month, some more from Kiwi FM's Short Sets, in which artists have been playing two of their own tunes and one by someone else at The Lab studio.
Tom Lark does Blerta's 'Dance All Around the World':
Pikachunes does Fur Patrol's 'Lydia':
And Arthur Ahbez again, just because:
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Hey, here's a thing. At 6pm on Tuesday the 27th at AUT, the The Film Archive Auckland is presenting a collection of films and videos by and about Chris Knox, called Pull Down the Shades: Why Chris Knox is Fucking Brilliant! It's free. Details here.
And here's another thing: Maori Television is not only screening the first series of Nick Dwyer's 'Making Tracks' on Mondays at 10.30pm, it's making the episodes available on-demand.
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It's a busy week for The Phoenix Foundation. They're playing the KIng's Arms tomorrow night and their five-track Tom's Lunch EP is available for purchase on Bandcamp.
They say "what better way to follow up a double album of mystical pop than with an EP of short snappy tracks?"
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As if EDM's aesthetic crimes weren't enough, there's a growing recognition that the celebrity DJ culture is not what it seems. The online dance music store Beatport has posted this furious open letter about the increasing prevelance of "chart-boosting" -- DJs and producers paying a company to buy their tracks so they can use ""Beatport number one!" for bragging rights.
There's an even more interesting example in the comments. Someone looked at djmag.com's "Top DJs" chart, which is based on (weirdly) Facebook likes. Here's a real-time list of the Top 15 DJs based on Facebook likes, which includes Avicii, David Guetta, Hardwell and various other shithouse EDM stars, all of them with millions of Facebook followers. In every single case, the "most popular city" from which their Facebook followers hail is the same: Mexico City, Distrito Federal, Mexico.
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@Peace missed out again on a Making Tracks grant from NZ On Air so they've been soliciting votes in the hope of winning this month's Wildcard grant via TheAudience. I do kinda think they deserve it. You can listen to their track, click through to vote for them and become a fan to get a free download for this track:
More solo electronic mysteriousness from Weillington, via a singer called :WON, aka Zoë Ott
There's a Pepperell profile of her here.
Meanwhile, this must be the happiest version of 'Happy' yet. A ray of reggae sunshine from Cousin Cole:
A really nice house remix of Moby's Natural Blues (that's a free download if you click the shopping-cart icon):
And if you like a little disco in your house, I can recommend a Soundcloud follow of Dimitri from Paris. He really does look after his fans. Case in point - the free download on his pre-release dub of a new tune from jazz singer Malia and Yello's Boris Blank. It's delicious.
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