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viewing 1 To 25 of 32 items
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JANUS 7E7081CD
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Death and the Maiden's Uneven Ground draws back the velvet curtain on the trio's crepuscular dreamworld with nine songs of their distinctive shadowy slow-motion fusion of underground electronic dance music and post-punk guitars washed through with psychic unease. The trio's name is taken from that of a nineteenth century engraving by Edvard Munch: an artwork steeped in mythology, exploring the dark boundaries between love and death, strength and frailty, beauty and decay. Their three albums to date each reinforce the symbolism of the name, and Uneven Ground's title could apply as much to their own journey in the years since Wisteria, their previous album, as to the times in which listeners currently live. Bassist and vocalist Lucinda King is the bedrock, guide and storyteller. Guitarist Hope Robertson weaves swooping, soaring motifs and sometimes deconstructed layers of noise to build analogue atmosphere for these alternate worlds. Danny Brady's beats mix old-school drum machines with electronic tones and distortion, while his synth arrangements blend elements of psy-trance and acid house with more amniotic ambient and industrial textures. While Uneven Ground may be the most overtly pop-sounding album in their catalogue, it also ratchets up the ominous atmosphere, noise and experimentation. Once again King's evocative lyrics appear as cryptic stories, built from events, memories, dreams, moments, warnings, regrets; where questions raised are left unanswered, and possibilities remain open.
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JANUS 7E7081LP
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LP version. Death and the Maiden's Uneven Ground draws back the velvet curtain on the trio's crepuscular dreamworld with nine songs of their distinctive shadowy slow-motion fusion of underground electronic dance music and post-punk guitars washed through with psychic unease. The trio's name is taken from that of a nineteenth century engraving by Edvard Munch: an artwork steeped in mythology, exploring the dark boundaries between love and death, strength and frailty, beauty and decay. Their three albums to date each reinforce the symbolism of the name, and Uneven Ground's title could apply as much to their own journey in the years since Wisteria, their previous album, as to the times in which listeners currently live. Bassist and vocalist Lucinda King is the bedrock, guide and storyteller. Guitarist Hope Robertson weaves swooping, soaring motifs and sometimes deconstructed layers of noise to build analogue atmosphere for these alternate worlds. Danny Brady's beats mix old-school drum machines with electronic tones and distortion, while his synth arrangements blend elements of psy-trance and acid house with more amniotic ambient and industrial textures. While Uneven Ground may be the most overtly pop-sounding album in their catalogue, it also ratchets up the ominous atmosphere, noise and experimentation. Once again King's evocative lyrics appear as cryptic stories, built from events, memories, dreams, moments, warnings, regrets; where questions raised are left unanswered, and possibilities remain open.
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PROTEUS 4076CD
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Negative Nancies exist in their own universe, sounding unlike anything else in New Zealand past or present. The songs evolve organically through rehearsal room experimentation yet, amid the art punk chaos, an irrepressible undercurrent of pop melodicism and moments of eerie psychedelic calm shine through the Casio+guitar+drums+vocals noise. Negative Nancies don't play by anyone's rules. Songs unfold in unusual ways with somber glory, impish mischief, wired anxiety or manic glee. It makes sense until it doesn't any more, and vice versa -- less Dada than Dunedina -- filtering observations about everyday human behavior and existential absurdity through an organic wild-yeast approach to song creation and performance. They don't want to be banned; they just want to play in a band. The recording brings out all the band's rickety fizzing danger and punk energy. Heatwave sounds like it was recorded in a concrete basement with mains leads running through puddles of water, everything crackling with arcing live electricity and a sense of danger. Maybe it was... who knows? Negative Nancies are an intergenerational conglomeration of musical explorers. Mackay and Smith have emerged from the subterranean shadows of Dunedin's experimental music scene -- their Richard Maybe's Passion for Nature duo performing at Audio Foundation's Lines of Flight, and Nowhere experimental music festivals -- while Elborado was a member of '80s and '90s underground Flying Nun recording artists such as The Terminals, Scorched Earth Policy and The Shallows.
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PROTEUS 4076LP
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LP version. Negative Nancies exist in their own universe, sounding unlike anything else in New Zealand past or present. The songs evolve organically through rehearsal room experimentation yet, amid the art punk chaos, an irrepressible undercurrent of pop melodicism and moments of eerie psychedelic calm shine through the Casio+guitar+drums+vocals noise. Negative Nancies don't play by anyone's rules. Songs unfold in unusual ways with somber glory, impish mischief, wired anxiety or manic glee. It makes sense until it doesn't any more, and vice versa -- less Dada than Dunedina -- filtering observations about everyday human behavior and existential absurdity through an organic wild-yeast approach to song creation and performance. They don't want to be banned; they just want to play in a band. The recording brings out all the band's rickety fizzing danger and punk energy. Heatwave sounds like it was recorded in a concrete basement with mains leads running through puddles of water, everything crackling with arcing live electricity and a sense of danger. Maybe it was... who knows? Negative Nancies are an intergenerational conglomeration of musical explorers. Mackay and Smith have emerged from the subterranean shadows of Dunedin's experimental music scene -- their Richard Maybe's Passion for Nature duo performing at Audio Foundation's Lines of Flight, and Nowhere experimental music festivals -- while Elborado was a member of '80s and '90s underground Flying Nun recording artists such as The Terminals, Scorched Earth Policy and The Shallows.
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PROTEUS 3064CD
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Emily Fairlight has a proper folk singer's background: a teenage runaway adventurer in Australia and India, a circus school student who once sang naked at a burlesque night on a whim, a female-friendly pornography-free sex toy shop assistant, a barista, and a runner/jack-of-all-trades at a digital visual effects company. With its New Zealand rural Gothic/Texas borderlands feel, Mother of Gloom is an elusive creature. Ultimately, the prevalence of acoustic guitar and intimate sharing of lived experience through song suggest it is folk music or, as Fairlight self-deprecatingly calls it, "doom-folk". Her vocal style -- a powerful quivering vibrato and a stark, haunting tone, teak-hard yet soft as crushed velvet -- elicits comparisons to PJ Harvey, Bridget St John, Emmylou Harris, and Cat Power, musicians with distinctive voices and a lyrical ability to conjure a kind of experiential realism, although Mother of Gloom can also hold its own alongside the storytelling of Will Oldham and soundscapes of Calexico. Each song is a timelessly elegant, at times distressed, vignette, capturing the essence of a place, memory or feeling, framed by a diverse musical palette with space for the imagination left between the sounds. Fairlight lives in Dunedin and has been composing and performing for over a decade. She recorded Mother of Gloom with Doug Walseth at The Cat's Eye Studio in Austin, Texas on her third trip to the USA, aided by local musicians including Cully Symington (Bright Eyes, Okkervil River) and multi-instrumentalist Kullen Fuchs.
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PROTEUS 3064LP
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LP version. Emily Fairlight has a proper folk singer's background: a teenage runaway adventurer in Australia and India, a circus school student who once sang naked at a burlesque night on a whim, a female-friendly pornography-free sex toy shop assistant, a barista, and a runner/jack-of-all-trades at a digital visual effects company. With its New Zealand rural Gothic/Texas borderlands feel, Mother of Gloom is an elusive creature. Ultimately, the prevalence of acoustic guitar and intimate sharing of lived experience through song suggest it is folk music or, as Fairlight self-deprecatingly calls it, "doom-folk". Her vocal style -- a powerful quivering vibrato and a stark, haunting tone, teak-hard yet soft as crushed velvet -- elicits comparisons to PJ Harvey, Bridget St John, Emmylou Harris, and Cat Power, musicians with distinctive voices and a lyrical ability to conjure a kind of experiential realism, although Mother of Gloom can also hold its own alongside the storytelling of Will Oldham and soundscapes of Calexico. Each song is a timelessly elegant, at times distressed, vignette, capturing the essence of a place, memory or feeling, framed by a diverse musical palette with space for the imagination left between the sounds. Fairlight lives in Dunedin and has been composing and performing for over a decade. She recorded Mother of Gloom with Doug Walseth at The Cat's Eye Studio in Austin, Texas on her third trip to the USA, aided by local musicians including Cully Symington (Bright Eyes, Okkervil River) and multi-instrumentalist Kullen Fuchs.
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PROTEUS 2063CD
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The latest blast of analog Dunedin comes from the band that refused to be left behind. Although featuring guitarist/vocalist Hope Robertson and bassist/vocalist Lucinda King of Death And The Maiden, along with Shifting Sands guitarist Mike McLeod (on drums here), Bad Sav is the primary strain, predating both of those bands. When asked to describe her band's sound in a 2010 interview, Hope suggested "... a missed punch and a grazed fist. Sad, heavy, unpredictable loud pop." Indeed, Bad Sav offer a far more guitar-oriented hard attack than DATM; their distinctive filtering and reassembly of influences from shoegaze, psychedelic noise-rock -- and goodness knows what else -- are combined using a uniquely electrified Dunedin sonic alchemy, bursting with colossal, majestic, melodic noise.
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PROTEUS 2063LP
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LP version. The latest blast of analog Dunedin comes from the band that refused to be left behind. Although featuring guitarist/vocalist Hope Robertson and bassist/vocalist Lucinda King of Death And The Maiden, along with Shifting Sands guitarist Mike McLeod (on drums here), Bad Sav is the primary strain, predating both of those bands. When asked to describe her band's sound in a 2010 interview, Hope suggested "... a missed punch and a grazed fist. Sad, heavy, unpredictable loud pop." Indeed, Bad Sav offer a far more guitar-oriented hard attack than DATM; their distinctive filtering and reassembly of influences from shoegaze, psychedelic noise-rock -- and goodness knows what else -- are combined using a uniquely electrified Dunedin sonic alchemy, bursting with colossal, majestic, melodic noise.
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JANUS7E 2054CD
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Dunedin trio Death And The Maiden return with a second album of hypnotic post-punk dream-pop. Wisteria continues the exploration of the dark bounds between love and death, beauty and decay unveiled on the band's debut (2015). Although the BPM of their shadowy sound world may have increased, the new album seems even more somber than its predecessor, with a deeper undertow of anxiety beneath the slow-motion trance pop. The songs on Wisteria are still anchored by Lucinda King's hypnotic basslines, as her vocals deliver lyrics exploring human experience within natural and unnatural worlds, but this time Hope Robertson's delay and reverb-drenched guitars break free, soaring above the decelerated, minimalist techno sounds of Danny Brady's electronic instrumentation and programmed beats, at times hinting at psychedelic surf music exotica. This unusual combination of techno, post-punk, psychedelia and dream-pop makes the new album from Death And The Maiden another beguiling proposition to explore.
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JANUS7E 2054LP
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LP version. Dunedin trio Death And The Maiden return with a second album of hypnotic post-punk dream-pop. Wisteria continues the exploration of the dark bounds between love and death, beauty and decay unveiled on the band's debut (2015). Although the BPM of their shadowy sound world may have increased, the new album seems even more somber than its predecessor, with a deeper undertow of anxiety beneath the slow-motion trance pop. The songs on Wisteria are still anchored by Lucinda King's hypnotic basslines, as her vocals deliver lyrics exploring human experience within natural and unnatural worlds, but this time Hope Robertson's delay and reverb-drenched guitars break free, soaring above the decelerated, minimalist techno sounds of Danny Brady's electronic instrumentation and programmed beats, at times hinting at psychedelic surf music exotica. This unusual combination of techno, post-punk, psychedelia and dream-pop makes the new album from Death And The Maiden another beguiling proposition to explore.
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PROTEUS 1061CD
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Stef Animal (The Golden Awesome) presents her debut solo release, Top Gear. Each track was made using a different piece of obsolete or unfashionable music equipment, and the result is a collection of lo-fi epic miniatures. Even if you didn't grow up with Atari video games and have no idea either what Acorn and Commodore computers are or what acronyms like PCM and MIDI stand for, you'll still appreciate Top Gear's intricate universe of sound, full of adventure, wonder, human emotion, and melancholic heft. Yet there's a playfulness here too, and not just in the title. An electronic duck caller is hacked to produce one track and elsewhere children's Casio keyboards and entry-level MIDI synth modules deliver darkly sophisticated, progressively experimental dream-pop mini-symphonies.
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TITAN7E 1053EP
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After touring the US west coast supporting David Kilgour and the Heavy Eights, Mike McLeod booked time at Manny Nieto's Estudio International. Joining the sessions was guest guitarist Steven Schayer, an LA-based musician who'd played in The Chills in the early '90s. Whereas previous albums featured fuzzy guitars and synthesizers, this session involved fewer layers, but greater harmonic breadth. Tom added eight-string bass and Mike used a guitar tuned down an octave. While there are fewer layers of harmonic distortion -- a characteristic component of the Shifting Sands sound -- there's still plenty of harmonic complexity, only done differently.
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RHEA7E 1056CD
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The second The Granite Shore album, Suspended Second, is a pop record, albeit an angry one. When writing began in spring of 2016, it dealt largely with anxiety. "Suddenly," says Nick Halliwell, "we were overtaken by what felt like a national self-harming anxiety episode, which then went global." Enlisting cult singer John Howard's voice of a (recording) angel was another step outside the "Indie Ghetto". The album employs a number of metaphors. "I considered picking up where the [2015 debut] Once More From The Top narrative left off, but resisted the temptation," Halliwell adds, "I wanted to focus on hooks, trimming off any fat..." The best pop is all about economy, hence unambiguous songs, like "Where Does The Sadness Come From?", "Outside, Looking In", and "Buyer Beware", sit alongside more expansive material like "The Performance Of A Lifetime", which conflates Brexit with the deaths of two Princes.
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RHEA7E 1056LP
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LP version. The second The Granite Shore album, Suspended Second, is a pop record, albeit an angry one. When writing began in spring of 2016, it dealt largely with anxiety. "Suddenly," says Nick Halliwell, "we were overtaken by what felt like a national self-harming anxiety episode, which then went global." Enlisting cult singer John Howard's voice of a (recording) angel was another step outside the "Indie Ghetto". The album employs a number of metaphors. "I considered picking up where the [2015 debut] Once More From The Top narrative left off, but resisted the temptation," Halliwell adds, "I wanted to focus on hooks, trimming off any fat..." The best pop is all about economy, hence unambiguous songs, like "Where Does The Sadness Come From?", "Outside, Looking In", and "Buyer Beware", sit alongside more expansive material like "The Performance Of A Lifetime", which conflates Brexit with the deaths of two Princes.
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POSEID7E 049CD
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Élan Vital -- comprising Renee Barrance (keyboards, vocals), Danny Brady (synths, drum machines, live mixing) and Nikolai Sim (bass) -- formed in 2015 in Dunedin's None Gallery, an undefined artist-run creative community which is also the home of Death And The Maiden. The expression Élan Vital describes the vital force. The music on Shadow Self seems to symbolize that life impulse in an ambiguous zone between machine and human worlds. Their sound blends keyboards, evoking psychedelic organ sounds of 1960s garage rock, together with contemporary European synth-pop dance music, layered on analog drum machines. Distorted, overdriven bass guitar adds a further element of chaos into the mix. Feedback-strafed soundtrack instrumentals for imaginary dystopian sci-fi films bloom into uplifting and gloomy melodic dream-pop catharsis about memory, longing, and obsession.
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POSEID7E 049LP
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LP version. Élan Vital -- comprising Renee Barrance (keyboards, vocals), Danny Brady (synths, drum machines, live mixing) and Nikolai Sim (bass) -- formed in 2015 in Dunedin's None Gallery, an undefined artist-run creative community which is also the home of Death And The Maiden. The expression Élan Vital describes the vital force. The music on Shadow Self seems to symbolize that life impulse in an ambiguous zone between machine and human worlds. Their sound blends keyboards, evoking psychedelic organ sounds of 1960s garage rock, together with contemporary European synth-pop dance music, layered on analog drum machines. Distorted, overdriven bass guitar adds a further element of chaos into the mix. Feedback-strafed soundtrack instrumentals for imaginary dystopian sci-fi films bloom into uplifting and gloomy melodic dream-pop catharsis about memory, longing, and obsession.
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LOGOS7E1 052CD
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Occultation present a reissue of Revolutionary Army Of The Infant Jesus's second album Mirror, originally released in 1991. Mirror was originally a CD-only release on Probe Plus. Mirror is possibly RAIJ's most diverse and eclectic collection. In addition to their signature blend of ethereal beauty and stark brutalism, the album burrows deep into the European psyche with multiple musical, literary, and spiritual allusions. The samples and field recordings on the album include dialogue from classic experimental cinema, medieval Spanish poets, and the dying strains of Albanian and East German propaganda broadcasts. Occultation's decision to re-release Mirror comes after the commercial and critical success of Beauty Will Save the World (LOGOS7DF 042CD/LP, 2015) and a resurgence of interest in the work of the Liverpool-based collective who continue to defy musical categorization. New artwork featuring a painting by Liverpool-based artist, filmmaker, and photographer Paul Mellor. It depicts the opening frame of the film Mirror, by RAIJ's longstanding muse Andrei Tarkovsky. Leslie Hampson on the reissue: "To come back to Mirror after so long, it almost feels like a new release. We are also delighted that through our collaboration with Occultation we are in dialogue with a different and more diverse audience." CD version includes two bonus tracks from their 1992 EP Liturgie Pour La Fin Du Temps.
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LOGOS7E1 052LP
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LP version. 180 gram vinyl. Occultation present a reissue of Revolutionary Army Of The Infant Jesus's second album Mirror, originally released in 1991. Mirror was originally a CD-only release on Probe Plus. Mirror is possibly RAIJ's most diverse and eclectic collection. In addition to their signature blend of ethereal beauty and stark brutalism, the album burrows deep into the European psyche with multiple musical, literary, and spiritual allusions. The samples and field recordings on the album include dialogue from classic experimental cinema, medieval Spanish poets, and the dying strains of Albanian and East German propaganda broadcasts. Occultation's decision to re-release Mirror comes after the commercial and critical success of Beauty Will Save the World (LOGOS7DF 042CD/LP, 2015) and a resurgence of interest in the work of the Liverpool-based collective who continue to defy musical categorization. New artwork featuring a painting by Liverpool-based artist, filmmaker, and photographer Paul Mellor. It depicts the opening frame of the film Mirror, by RAIJ's longstanding muse Andrei Tarkovsky. Leslie Hampson on the reissue: "To come back to Mirror after so long, it almost feels like a new release. We are also delighted that through our collaboration with Occultation we are in dialogue with a different and more diverse audience." CD version includes two bonus tracks from their 1992 EP Liturgie Pour La Fin Du Temps.
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YMIR7E1 050CD
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After achieving some sort of world record by leaving a 32-year gap between the release of their first and second albums -- 1980's Nobody's Perfect and 2012's The End Of The Pier -- The Distractions have sped things up, and now after a gap of less than five years, they present their third (and final) album, Kindly Leave The Stage. The story of The Distractions -- from Manchester punk era legends to critically-rated pop geniuses to a quarter century of silence, and then a more-than-slight return with a 21st century album of grown-up, wise, elegiac guitar music -- is also the story of Mike Finney, one of the great blue-eyed soul voices, and Steve Perrin, a guitarist whose sense of melody and lightness is the perfect counterfoil to Finney's emotional grit. Mike and Steve have been the core of The Distractions for 40 years -- it's been a long, strange trip.
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YMIR7E1 050LP
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LP version. 180 gram vinyl. After achieving some sort of world record by leaving a 32-year gap between the release of their first and second albums -- 1980's Nobody's Perfect and 2012's The End Of The Pier -- The Distractions have sped things up, and now after a gap of less than five years, they present their third (and final) album, Kindly Leave The Stage. The story of The Distractions -- from Manchester punk era legends to critically-rated pop geniuses to a quarter century of silence, and then a more-than-slight return with a 21st century album of grown-up, wise, elegiac guitar music -- is also the story of Mike Finney, one of the great blue-eyed soul voices, and Steve Perrin, a guitarist whose sense of melody and lightness is the perfect counterfoil to Finney's emotional grit. Mike and Steve have been the core of The Distractions for 40 years -- it's been a long, strange trip.
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LEDA7E 047CD
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When John Howard's 1975 album Kid In A Big World was reissued to wide acclaim in 2003, it marked his return to writing and recording after twenty years of silence. Recorded over a twelve-month period, Across The Door Sill features many layered pianos and vocals. Whereas John Howard & The Night Mail (TR 317CD/LP, 2015) was a "band album", Door Sill is very much a solo work. With five brand new songs investigating the process of dreams and how one can imagine crossing previously unseen thresholds; embarking on new adventures and challenges, through differing timelines, the album was inspired by 13th century poet Rumi's quatrains. One can hear the influence of John's own songwriter heroes - Laura Nyro and Roy Harper in particular - with its long-form, languidly organic compositions and eschewal of the usual verse/chorus/middle-eight song structure. "An album that will take a few listens, I think," says John.
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LEDA7E 047LP
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LP version. When John Howard's 1975 album Kid In A Big World was reissued to wide acclaim in 2003, it marked his return to writing and recording after twenty years of silence. Recorded over a twelve-month period, Across The Door Sill features many layered pianos and vocals. Whereas John Howard & The Night Mail (TR 317CD/LP, 2015) was a "band album", Door Sill is very much a solo work. With five brand new songs investigating the process of dreams and how one can imagine crossing previously unseen thresholds; embarking on new adventures and challenges, through differing timelines, the album was inspired by 13th century poet Rumi's quatrains. One can hear the influence of John's own songwriter heroes - Laura Nyro and Roy Harper in particular - with its long-form, languidly organic compositions and eschewal of the usual verse/chorus/middle-eight song structure. "An album that will take a few listens, I think," says John.
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EUROPA7E 045LP
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A vinyl issue of The Prophet Hens debut album, Popular People Do Popular People, originally released on CD in 2013. Hatched from Dunedin's dreamy but dark 21st century pop underground, The Prophet Hens bring a ghostly reminder of the decaying southern city's musical past, when bands crafted melodic, chiming jangle-pop in seedy bars. The band, and the songs on the album, started when songwriter and guitarist Karl Bray was laid up at home recovering from major surgery to repair an ankle he'd smashed up while escaping a night-time mugging in downtown Dunedin. He jumped over a wall to get away, and, in the darkness, fell twelve feet. The album was recorded with Penelope Esplin (keyboards & vocals), John White (of Mestar, The Blueness, on bass) and Sefton Holmes (Black Yoghurt, on drums). The current line-up of the band sees Karl and Penelope joined by Robin Cederman on bass and Darren Stedman (The Verlaines) on drums. The Prophet Hens music is marinated in the melodic sounds of that mostly fictional "Dunedin Sound" - think The Chills, The Bats, Magick Heads plus a little bit of The Clean and The Orange. But the combination of Karl's and Penelope's voices adds extra magic. US music blog The Finest Kiss, after making it their #2 album of 2013, described their popular debut: "New Zealand's Prophet Hens sort of came out of nowhere and swept me off of my feet with their Chills meets Belle and Sebastian pop alchemy. Both of those bands are highly regarded and the Prophet Hens may be better than both. Granted they haven't written a Pink Frost yet, but many of the songs here are nearly as memorable and lead me to believe that they just might have something of the Pink Frost caliber in them." More praise from Did Not Chart (UK): "Perfectly encapsulates the big bold ambition of Dunedin music with the quiet drama of isolation on a South Pacific island: part Chills organ-drenched pop, part bedroom angst".
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EUROPA7E 044CD
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The Prophet Hens return for their second album, The Wonderful Shapes Of Back Door Keys. The Wonderful Shapes Of Back Door Keys delivers on the tuneful jangly promise of their debut album, Popular People Do Popular People (EUROPA7E 045LP, 2013). US music blog The Finest Kiss described their popular debut as "Chills meets Belle And Sebastian pop alchemy" before saying, "The Prophet Hens may be better than both" and making it their #2 album of 2013. Ringing the changes on this latest effort is the addition of bassist Robin Cederman's adventurous songwriting, on which keyboard player Penelope Esplin takes lead vocals. Her voice, the strong melodies, and richly detailed, dramatic story-lines are sometimes reminiscent of an Antipodean Neko Case. Robin's songs complement Karl Bray's minor-key pop numbers, which manage to be both melancholic and exuberant at the same time.
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EUROPA7E 044LP
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LP version. The Prophet Hens return for their second album, The Wonderful Shapes Of Back Door Keys. The Wonderful Shapes Of Back Door Keys delivers on the tuneful jangly promise of their debut album, Popular People Do Popular People (EUROPA7E 045LP, 2013). US music blog The Finest Kiss described their popular debut as "Chills meets Belle And Sebastian pop alchemy" before saying, "The Prophet Hens may be better than both" and making it their #2 album of 2013. Ringing the changes on this latest effort is the addition of bassist Robin Cederman's adventurous songwriting, on which keyboard player Penelope Esplin takes lead vocals. Her voice, the strong melodies, and richly detailed, dramatic story-lines are sometimes reminiscent of an Antipodean Neko Case. Robin's songs complement Karl Bray's minor-key pop numbers, which manage to be both melancholic and exuberant at the same time.
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