Throughout NZ Music Month we’ll be hearing stories from young musicians about the local songs they love the most. Today, Paperghost talks about songs from Seth Frightening, i.ryoko, Randa, Craig Elliott and Grayson Gilmour.
Zach Webber aka Paperghost. Photo: Thomas Lambert
Wellington-based Zach Webber, who works under the moniker Paperghost, has just released his latest album Signal Fingers, which is out through local label Sonorous Circle. He took a moment to run through five local songs that inspire his own music.
Seth Frightening- ‘Sending Stones’
Seth Frightening probably doesn't need much introduction, he's an insanely talented singer songwriter. I've been in awe of his songs since he was in high school and I love every album I've ever heard from him. This track is one of his more epic ones, it pivots between layers of ambience and a kind of extended pitch-black-folk-jam. Seth Frightening has written a bunch of tighter and catchier songs, but there is something about the mood this one captures that I just love and get caught up in, it always feels really short to me and I can never believe it's been almost nine minutes when it finishes.
i.ryoko – ‘The Act of Killing’
i.ryoko creates intimate, delicate and exquisite soundscapes and this track always totally transports me and melts me away from whatever I'm doing. i.ryoko has the ability to create music that sounds remarkably fresh and also sublimely comforting, like arriving in a totally alien space that somehow feels like home. The way that the sounds are treated so holistically in this track and actually in all of i.ryoko's music is something I really aspire to, the whole album, Opening, is a soundscape masterclass.
Randa - ‘Texas Lottery’
On a dreary kind of day I was drifting through albums on Bandcamp, listening to a bunch of New Zealand artists. When I came across this track by Randa, it was like a slap in the face. This song totally kills it. There is something about tracks that sound both catchy as hell and totally morose that I really dig. I'm in love with the refrain 'Play the lotto, spot a comet, red velvet, eat, cry, vomit' and it repeats in my head for days at a time.
Craig Elliott- ‘Helpful Hombre’
I don't know if I should list a track that I helped master, but it's so great that I'm just gonna do it anyway. Even though it's a really short song, it still evolves in a really clever, compelling and surprising way. It manages to sound simultaneously like a huge anthem and like a child throwing a hissy fit, which is such an awesome kind of energy to capture. Listening to it makes me want to stomp around in a paddling pool under a giant pyrotechnic show.
Grayson Gilmour- ‘Do You Feel Loathesome?’
This is one of Grayson's older tracks and since this album his compositions have evolved so much and his sound worlds have gotten so beautiful and rich. There is still something about this album, the way each song maniacally changes rhythm, harmony and instrumentation at every turn, never sitting still for a second. Something about it captures a kind of teen-angst-dissatisfaction, which I totally love. This track, in particular, I just get totally caught up in. The lilting rhythm, especially when it comes back at a faster tempo at the end, is so good. Whenever it comes on when I'm walking somewhere I end up in a kind of Michael Stipe-dancing style spasm-walk.
