Cat Power, Coterie and Fazerdaze. Photos / Supplied
Cat Power, Coterie and Fazerdaze. Photos / Supplied
Bigger
by Fazerdaze
Amelia Murray’s very welcome if long overdue return after Fazerdaze’s brilliant 2017 debut album Morningsideand 2022 EP Break!continues with Bigger, a song that can sound like a Beths 45 on 33 with the reverb set to “Mazzy Star” and the dreamy, partly-spoken chorusalso bringing a deeply pleasant sense of Pixies deja vu.
– Russell Baillie
Coping on Unemployment
by Del Water Gap
Del Water Gap nails the indie pop formula with an addictive melody and a hint of 80s synth. The chorus has the quiet epic quality of a U2 wail, but also a danceability that masks the otherwise down buzz title. The track falls under the American musician and record producer’s new set of singles, which will surmount to his second album I Miss You Already + Haven’t Left Yet, releasing on September 29.
– Alana Rae
Grapefruit
by Cloudy
Bedroom pop ukelele girls were in abundance a few years ago, but they seem to have dropped off in recent times. Auckland-based Cloudy keeps the dream alive, though, in her new single Grapefruit with sweet vocals and echoey uke stums. The Austrian-Kiwi singer is relatively new to the scene but has clear, folky intentions for her work as it steadily releases.
The trans-Tasman number 1 earworm of 1986 has had many incarnations since. It’s gone through an alarming number of bootleg remixes and remakes. It’s been a Tokyo-themed beer ad and it’s among the Dobbyn tracks which got quite the brass rubbing on last year’s Reimagined! the Rodger Fox Big Band play Sir Dave Dobbyn album. Now West Australian-NZ band pop reggae brothers Coterie have returned it to its Herbs-backed roots while giving it a stadium-sized arrangement tailor-made for summer festival singalongs. True, it’s lost the shakuhachi-flute keyboard figure that was the original’s non-vocal trademark, but Coterie has certainly thrown the kitchen sink at it otherwise – even getting Sir David himself to falsetto merrily through the second verse, sounding like a very happy man who’s wandered into his own surprise party at a karaoke bar.
– Russell Baillie
She Belongs to Me/Ballad of a Thin Man
By Cat Power
That American indie veteran Cat Power/ Chan Marshall is covering a couple of Dylan songs is to be expected after releasing three cover albums heavy on Bob numbers over the years. But she’s also doing something with a very Dylan sense of humour. The songs are from a live set of her show late last year at the famous London venue in which she covered the famous live Dylan bootleg credited to the same place. Except that show actually recorded in Manchester and it was the one where a folk fan famously shouted “Judas” at the voice of his generation for going electric. Back then, Bob reacted by telling his band to “play it f...ing loud”. When someone – surprise – heckles Marshall with the same line right before Ballad of a Thin Man, she just sighs “Jesus”.
