Houdini
by Eminem
This fast, funny, wilfully challenging and self-referential rap, his ear for a melodic hook (the steal from the Steve Miller Band’s Abracadabra) and the in-joke, “guess who’s back?” proves why Eminem is still one of the best. He’s signalling a new album The Death of Slim Shady, which seems to wrap up his alter-ego. But not before getting away with some provocative jokes, asides and slurs. Gotta love him, he’s an equal-opportunity offender. – Graham Reid
We Still Got It
By Ny Oh and Finn Johansson
Singer-songwriter Ny Oh (Naomi Ludlow) was born in the UK, raised in Tauranga and is now based in Los Angeles. But in a homecoming of sorts, she brings fellow Auckland musician Johansson along for the ride in We Still Got It. It laments the complicated feelings that come with being in the prime of your life but not capitalising on it with each passing second. “Thirty minutes late to my zoomy zoom zoom,” is a lyrical highlight. Ny Oh is also the bassist for none other than Harry Styles and most recently travelled the world on his naturally very successful Love On Tour. – Alana Rae
Cold Treatment
By Lime Cordiale
If the sudden smack of the opening drum doesn’t alert you to Lime Cordiale’s return, their softer, surfy pop-rock chorus is certainly a clear marker of the Aussie band’s presence. Cold Treatment has the catchy, happy sound of an early 2010s radio hit, including a fun, mystical bridge towards the end embellished with a sprinkling of synth. Lime Cordiale are touring New Zealand in October with fellow indie pop-rock Aussies Ball Park Music - their consecutive performances are sure to make for a cheerful night. – Alana Rae
The only conscious being in the universe
By bar italia
Much-feted UK indie trio bar italia were in NZ last week and they left a very nice calling card – EP, The Tw*ts which shares just one track with last November’s album The Twits. The only conscious being in the universe kicks off the EP, sounding somewhere UK post-punk and those bands that emerged out of Boston in the late 80s and got signed to 4AD. It all goes a bit goth at the end after Nina Cristante passes the vocal baton to one of the blokes. Possibly the one who looks a lot like Adam Driver and sounds a lot like Robert Smith. – Russell Baillie
Que Sera Sera
By The Pixies
And talking of late-80s Boston, the Pixies tackle Doris Day’s curiously chipper ditty of fatalism which first arrived in a Hitchcock film and turn it into a slow scorch down a very deep well. It’s a double A-side with new song You’re So Impatient, which takes its own advice and goes for just over two minutes. – Russell Baillie
Broke My Heart
By Caribou
Catchy, crafted electronica dancefloor pop by Canada’s Caribou, which aims to please but not a lot more. Hard to shake off for its repetition, but that has rarely been a criticism in a genre that values same-same then a sudden shift before getting back to same-same. In that regard, these two-and-three-quarter minutes must be counted a success. Coming to a gym near you. – Graham Reid
Duparc – Phidylé
By Kateřina Kněžíková soprano, Janáček Philharmonic Orchestra, Robert Jindra conductor.
There are rules about these things. Henri Duparc’s exquisite Phidylé is not a chanson – song – it is a mélodie – also a song, but different. Duparc wrote 13 of the latter, which doesn’t seem like many for a composer who lived to 85, unless you know that he stopped composing in his mid-30s, and that, possibly as the result of a mental illness, he destroyed most of what he had written. We are left, then, with just 40 completed works. This one – heard here in its less common orchestrated guise – is dedicated to Duparc’s friend and fellow composer Ernest Chausson, who died in a bicycle accident 125 years ago this week. – Richard Betts
