I suspect that Auckland City Limits' promoters didn't know when they booked Kendrick Lamar that he'd be playing their show with a new album in hand, plus seven Grammy wins for the last one and what people are calling one of the the best Grammy performances ever. But he is, and it's a rare chance to see the hottest rap artist in the world right now.
This video posted this week of Lamar rap battling some British kids at a Reebok event in Britain also makes the point that it's kind of pleasant having a huge rap star who's not also a prat:
I'm looking forward to tomorrow night's headine set, to hearing Fat Freddy's Drop on the big stereo and to generally seeing how what is in many ways a new kind of festival for New Zealand works out. I expect to be spending quite a bit of afternoon time lakeside in the Golden Dawn area, but apart from that, I think I'll just take it as it comes. We have a house full of friends staying over and I think some serious mum-and-dad-rocking will be done.
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In the past few years vinyl records have established a solid niche in overall music sales: we all know that. But while everything else has changed, the vinyl manufacture process is still the same mechanical twentieth century process. And yeah, a lot of people probably like that – but it's slow, inefficient and dirty.
That could be about to change. Patents have been filed for a new "high definition" vinyl process whose inventors promise better sound quality, higher capacity and much lower environment impact:
The ‘HD Vinyl’ name is a working title, though the basic idea is this: instead of the manual and time-consuming process currently used for creating vinyl LPs, the ‘HD Vinyl’ process involves 3D-based topographical mapping combined with laser inscription technology to more quickly generate a far superior product. Not only will the end product be vastly improved, but the time required to produce the LPs will also be radically reduced.
Most importantly, the records will play on existing turntables. It'll be interesting to see how this goes.
Meanwhile, a company in Britain will, for a fee, turn you into a record. Or, rather, press up your ashes after you're cremated. It certainly puts a whole new slant on the idea of crate-digging.
Back in the digital world, one of the problems with the fully-accounted streaming music model is that it hasn't been able to harness the vitality of mix culture. But Apple Music has just announced a partnership with a company called Dubset that will act as a kind of distributor for remixes and edits. Dubset's audio analysis technology will, it's claimed, detect elements of original works within tracks and allocate rights income to both the original creator and the remixer. There's a more detailed explanation in this Billboard story.
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I mentioned the theremin last week: well, it turns out that wasn't the only musical instrument to be created by Leon Theremin. There was also the Rhythmicon, devised in 1931 and, as this intriguing backgrounder at Open Culture says, the first drum machine.
Also on the history tip, Dr Ian Chapman of Otago University has put out the call for images for a forthcoming book on Dunedin music.
And this day in 1984, 'Poi E' became a very notable number one record. NZ On Screen has the video.
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The Guardian has an exclusive stream of the forthcoming new Underworld album – and it sounds pretty good to me. It's interesting that the stream is being served up by Soundcloud rival HearThis.
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Tunes!
There are so many new local releases it's hard to know where to start this week. But I'm finding it hard to go past the new Average Rap Band album, El Sol, which is available on Bandcamp at a price of your choosing. Tom Scott has said a few things lately about no longer being the enfant terrible and just wanting to work at making music. Well, long may he do so, because this is sumptuous stuff:
Anna Coddington's new song 'Release me' was pitched to me as "a great yacht-rock-y tune" for the last of the summer – and it totally is. Nice to see mi amigo Esther Macintyre in the clip too:
You can get that on Bandcamp or iTunes.
More cinematic R&B pop from Thomston, this time in duet with the Australian singer Wafia. He's like your ultimate sensitive boyfriend:
One final teaser before the long-awaited second Street Chant album Hauora comes out in April. Noisy as fuck:
Album tour details and vinyl pre-orders here, along with a link to a Brooklyn Vegan post hailing 'Insides' as a good example of Street Chant’s sneery, snotty style, dropping Sylvia Plath references while jamming out power chords." It's actually better than that: the actual line is "Like Sylvia Plath/From Sylvia Park," which is some top-notch Auckland mall humour.
Raiza Biza has a new tune inspired by a Vice documentary about parallel universes and the multiverse theory. Some smooth spacetime rap (free download):
The local producer rein has some intriguing electronic soundscapes on his Souncloud. This moody thing features on a new compilation from the British label Bokhari Records.
The Swedish DJ Disco Tech churns out of a lot of edits but doesn't often make them available for download. He's made an excetion for this cool, clever take on 'Nipple to the Bottle'. Click the "buy" button to download for free:
And, hey look, because it's you guys and I'm in a good mood, here's a edit of 'Higher Ground" that's also a free download. Don't say I never doing anything for you.
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