Bryan Ferry and his Orchestra
Bitter-Sweet
BMG Rights Management (UK) Limited
If there was ever an artist that would know perfectly how to, er, “remake / remodel” oneself, it was always going to Bryan Ferry, right? First obvious proof – beyond his dapper, debonair, noir-meets-ageless charms and music and approach – it was the late-90s set of jazz-era evoking covers, As Time Goes By. Read More
Avantdale Bowling Club
Avantdale Bowling Club
Years Gone By
Avantdale Bowling Club is the name of the new project by rapper Tom Scott. He was the voice of Home Brew and @ Peace, the Average Rap Band too. A prolific rhyme-artist, Scott delighted in parading juvenilia; displaying awkward truths, social conscience and biting political commentary in and around dumb jokes, dick jokes and slick grooves. Read More
Beastie Boys Book
Michael Diamond/Adam Horovitz
Spiegel & Grau
It finally arrived – after so much talk and plenty of hype, the memoir of The Beastie Boys written by its two surviving members. When Adam Yauch (MCA) died from cancer in 2012 that was the end of the group. Respectfully and realistically Michael Diamond (Mike D) and Adam Horovitz (AdRock) closed the door on the band. They were a trio, a three-piece, they schemed and dreamed together; made music and a huge friendship. There would not be a Beastie Boys without MCA. And so the years since have been a time of grieving and coping and the major project has been this book. Read More
Orchestra Wellington NEW WORLD
MFC
Saturday, December 1
The closing event in Orchestra Wellington’s 2018 program was a suitably epic closer to the “Great and Noble” season, featuring a guest conductor for one piece, a guest soloist in regular concert master Amalia Hall, a world premiere and some stately performances of the classical music world’s equivalent of “Greatest Hits” staples. It was, as Orchestra Wellington does so well, something for everyone – for the purists and the all-comers; any and all stages of knowledge and experience catered to. Read More
The Breaker Upperers
Directors: Madeleine Sami/Jackie van Beek
Madman
The much-hyped The Breaker Upperers is a giant dud; a turkey. You get the feeling it was made in real-time almost, plotted out scene by scene as it’s happening. Shoot something. Wait. Print. Write a new scene. That’s the diminishing-returns aspect. The trailer-worthy highlights appear thick, fast, then it’s a wasteland lacking wit and charm, truly, deeply unfunny. Read More
Natalie Prass
The Future And The Past
ATO Records
I so loved Natalie Prass’ 2015 self-titled debut. Strong songs, a great voice, clever – quirky – arrangements, but this sense of tradition and adhering to it, conventional song structures; a tremendous collaboration between her and friend, producer and multi-instrumentalist, Matthew E. White.
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Alejandro Escovedo
The Crossing
Yep Roc Records
Alejandro Escovedo simply does not make bad records. He’s made a dozen or so good – and very good – albums. He’s got the John Doe-punk-thing, the Steve Earle-descendent-of-outlaw-country-thing and to those he brings – entirely – his own thing. We all know the family backstory. His brothers played in classic Santana line-ups, his niece is Sheila E. But Alejandro Escovedo is the singer/songwriter of that musical dynasty. He’s walked his own path, been one of alt-country’s antecedents – probably by accident – and has retained his punk-rock spirit, channelling it through filmic short-story telling…
So, with The Crossing, his latest and possibly most personal album, Escovedo weaves stories of paths crossing (friendship-wise) and crossing paths (geographically). Read More
Patrick Melrose
Director: Edward Berger
Madman
This five-episode mini-series takes Edward St. Aubyn’s semi-autobiographical novels and devotes a single episode to each; the result, in truly mesmeric fashion, is one of the great catch-all TV shows in recent years. A present-day instant-classic.
It’ simply a perfect, heart-breaking, hilarious, grizzly-grim depiction of addiction and the trauma that informs it. But in an around that it’s arresting for the little details, the incredible performances – yes, Benedict Cumberbatch is the scene-stealer every-time, but Hugo Weaving is an embodiment of anger and evil and Jennifer Jason-Leigh does the most ‘work’ here as vapid-turns-senile, a checked-out, spaced-out negligent mother. Bad people abound. Read More
Mary Lattimore
Hundreds of Days
Ghostly International
It’s hard to write about the harp without using the word ‘celestial’ – or maybe heavenly; we heard it and see it as being part and parcel of spiritual or church music, of classical music too – heck even Mary Lattimore’s label, on which she has released this album (of largely harp music) has the word ‘ghostly’ in it. That would be another word often used in a description…
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Roger Kellaway Trio
New Jazz Standards, Vol. 3
Summit Records
Trumpeter Carl Saunders has worked with big names in music – really big names! -Sinatra…Ella…Paul Anka, Budy Rich, Stan Kenton…he’s been a bandleader, arranger and composer. And a great guy to have on the bench. But he’ll be known to the next generation for his tunes – a big bag of “New Standards”. We’re talking samba and balladry, fast-cookin’, big-swingin’ toe-tappers. This guy writes a tune! Stately, graceful, gorgeous. They waft and drift. They stay written. That’s for sure. Read More
Once a month or so I have a chat on RNZ on their Afternoons show with Jesse Mulligan. These things start – randomly and stop in much the same way. I hope to keep doing this. For a while at least. I think I started in December of 2015, so now nearly three years into it. Last year I collected up all the RNZ reviews at the end of the year and shared them all as links in one post. This year I thought I’d do them month-by-month for anyone that missed them at the time and wants to hear them while still current. Read More
TUi MAMAKi
Fly
www.tuimamaki.com
TUi MAMAKi – though I think I’ll revert, straight, to Tui Mamaki from now on – has, here, released a solo record informed by her time in Bulgaria. Formerly of The Mamaki Project, she has always created otherworldly, wordy music that ripples and flows through variations of many musical styles; a cosmopolitan approach that comes from her ‘permanent tourist’ state of being a French-born, often-Kiwi-based global wanderer. Read More