Tony is joined by Lydia Jenkin, Communications and Events Manager at APRA, and Nick Atkinson from the bands Love Square and Hopetoun Brown, who are currently touring the country (details here), to bring you six new tunes.
Moana & The Tribe feat Inka Mbing: Tōku Reo
Lydia: “I can totally imagine it going down late at night at WOMAD, like at one of those upper fields when they do the midnight DJ sets and everyone’s having a great time dancing”
Church & AP - Yeah Nah
Lydia: “That bassline is so appealing, it’s so high energy and so upbeat, but they’re dealing with quite a serious social issue in some respects, that we don’t celebrate young Pacific Island men properly often enough, and then also managing to make it funny, taking a classic bit of kiwi slang and building a whole chorus around it”.
Fleet Foxes - Sunblind
Tony: “I think the intention was for the album Shore to be a bit of a respite from all the doom and gloom in the world, and I think Robin Pecknold succeeded. It’s just summery hook after summery hook, it’s so friendly.”
Chicken ID - Lockdown Sux Sometimes
Nick: “I’m woefully ignorant about Chicken ID beyond what we hear in the song - that he’s from Blockhouse Bay Primary School. I understand he’s ten years old.
I think some of us potentially have a naive view about creativity in lockdown, that it might be this wonderful kind of botanic garden of ideas. Myself and the musicians I hang out with have found it brutally demotivating actually. So it’s great to hear a really cool tune coming out of lockdown. And it must be really tough for the young ones, you know?”
Midnight Riders meets Naram Rhythm Section - Dread in America
Tony: “This is a project from Red Robin Records, who are set up in Te Mata, just South of Raglan in the Waikato. They’ve made it their business to recreate a particular style of reggae music from the 1980s - early digital rubadub. This particular album is a collaboration with the Jamaican artist Midnight Riders, who’s been putting out singles since the ‘80s, but never a full album until now.”
Actress - Walking Flames (feat. Sampha)
Nick: “I was having a little bit of a play around on my piano to this tune - my neighbour had left, and the moment the neighbour leaves it’s piano time. It’s quite a cool key structure, they really accentuate what’s known as the Phrygian mode, which is one of the weirder modes, which I think gives it that dreamy quality. I could jam along to this on piano all night.”
