Mai Tawhiti
by Arahi, Anna Coddington
A dreamy bilingual pop-rock duet sung by its writer Arahi Whaanga (Rongomaiwahine, Ngāti Kahungunu) and Anna Coddington (Ngāti Tūwharetoa, Te Arawa, Ngāti Whakaue) which evokes its inspiration – the legendary love tale of Ngāti Kahungunu and Te Aitanga-a-Māhaki chief Kahungunu and chieftainess Rongomaiwahine. It gets chiming eighties guitars care of producer Jol Mulholland and Brett Adams, and a lyric that possibly has some subtle fun with the story. Legend has it that as he tried to woo Kahungunu away from her husband, Kahungunu’s hearty meal of pāua caused him to fart so much while sleeping in their whare at Māhia, it caused an argument between the couple about who was to blame. That might explain the line: “And the wind blows heavy on the coast ….” Otherwise, a pleasant song that after Arahi’s earlier Kupe, makes for another possible instalment in what could be quite the ancestral rock opera. – Russell Baillie
Dream Night
by Jamie xx
Subtle, clever, and mathematically calibrated for the dancefloor, this entry by Jamie of The xx seems to have already remixed himself, because the second half here certainly sounds like a revision of the first. No bad thing perhaps when those first two minutes bear repeating for their “between time and space” quality and – just when you think he’s hit the groove – it gears down while you grab some water before he pushes the accelerator again. If anything, it’s disappointingly short. – Graham Reid
Need
by Deva Mahal
Following her revealing, sultry, shuffling and Silver Scroll-nominated South Coast with Estere, the R’n’B/jazz chanteuse Deva Mahal – daughter of legendary blues musician Taj Mahal – comes back with an even more slow, steamy, and soulful ballad which addresses desire, need for intimacy and to feel a human touch. Like a relaxing session with a lover in a half-lit sauna after midnight and a couple of glasses of whatever pleases you. – Graham Reid
Cross My Heart and Hope to Die
by Yumi Zouma
Now to the first of three releases from NZ bands who are barely at home …
Possibly the best of Yumi Zouma’s recent crop of tracks, which are slowly trundling the globally-spread NZ band to another album, is this vocally aloof but angry-at-the-state-of-the-world dreampop number. One on which it sounds as if New Order-Joy Division bassist Peter Hook has turned up with one of his trademark high-fretboard melodies every so often. – Russell Baillie
What Do We Ever Really Know?
by Balu Brigada
“What do we ever really know?” ask Balu Brigada, the jet-setting duo of Kiwi brothers Henry and Pierre Beasley as they head to a debut album at the end of next month. The answer to that might well be: “How to retrofit Strokes riffs to a very shiny pop chassis for stadium consumption.” That template worked better on their earlier track So Cold but it’s not bad here. – Russell Baillie
My Light
by Mild Orange
Otago University-formed now UK-based band Mild Orange has just cancelled a five-week North American tour for fourth album Glow due to visa uncertainties in the US, where they’ve played extensively before. Like many MO tracks before it, My Light is another impressive mid-tempo mood-piece of jangling guitars and cascading synths where you might not remember the song as much as the colours it gives off. – Russell Baillie
Witchi Tai To
by Pavement
The first of two from a couple of musical films at the forthcoming NZ International Film Festival …
The soundtrack to Pavements is as confusing as the movie itself, a rockumentary about 1990s American indie heroes Pavement. But it’s one which attempts to undermine the idea of a rockumentary by also being framed alongside two backstage dramas – one about an attempt to make a rock biopic of the band (with Stranger Things star and musician Joe Keery playing Pavement frontman Steve Malkmus), the second the development of Broadway musical out of the Pavement songbook (entitled Slanted! Enchanted!). No, Spinal Tap II: The End Continues, it isn’t. Still, the soundtrack has some gems for Pavement fans, like this, their cover of Native American jazz saxophonist Jim Pepper’s Witchi Tai To vocal hit from 1969. Warning: Major earworm alert. – Russell Baillie
Morning Evening
by Tom Basden, Carey Mulligan
This is the opening song on the soundtrack from The Ballad of Wallis Island, a comedy about a split folk-singing and romantic duo named McGwyer Mortimer – played by Carey Mulligan and co-writer Tom Basden – being booked by a reclusive lottery winner superfan for a reunion show. Basden, possibly best known outside of the UK as the boss and brother-in-law of Ricky Gervais’ character in After Life, penned more than a dozen joke-free songs for the film’s soundtrack, and recorded them with Mulligan with Morning Evening being the lead of an impressive collection. It’s a songbook you could imagine, like Once did, might have an afterlife as a stage musical. – Russell Baillie
Bad Like Me
by Christone “Kingfish” Ingram
As the great hope of the blues reaching a new and younger audience, the 26-year old “Kingfish” has been acclaimed in the lineage from Robert Johnson, Muddy Waters and Jimi Hendrix, an authentic voice and guitarist from Clarksdale, Mississippi, the spiritual home of American blues.
With two excellent studio albums, and the Live in London, behind him, he flags a new album Hard Road (due September 26). After his seriously dark, Jimi-like Voodoo Charm single, this gritty blues-rock again channels Jimi Hendrix 1967 but shoves it into a funk-rock blender. Still one to discover, especially if you subscribed to the late Guitar Player magazine. – Graham Reid
Falter
by Acopia
Melbourne’s melancholy trio locate this new single – in advance of their Blush Response album due September 12 – somewhere between atmospheric slo-mo Goth-pop and electro-shoegaze. Kind of dream pop too, although the slumber is slightly disturbing. Rewards repeat plays for sure. Graham Reid
So Far Gone
by Black Lips
Seasoned garage-punk rowdies Black Lips out of Atlanta here force a shotgun marriage of blistering Joan Jett pop and thrashing country-rock as they threaten with their forthcoming album Season of the Peach (September 19) which will include their superior Ronettes-meets-New Wave on Tippy Tongue and retro gloom-pop ballad Wild One. – Graham Reid
Iron Man
by Orchestral Academy of Los Angeles
From the 2010 tribute album A Salute to Ozzy Osbourne and Black Sabbath. RIP Ozzy. – Richard Betts
