Einstein Music Journal has a couple of Laneway passes to give away – one double pass to the Auckland Laneway Festival on January 31 and one double pass to the Wellington Laneway event on February 1. Here’s how you can enter the draw:

We’d like to find out what you like most about EMJ, so to go into the draw all you need to do is email us the name of your favourite artist we’ve featured on EMJ. Please put either Laneway Auckland or Laneway Wellington in the subject line and email your name and answer to music@einsteinmusicjournal.co.nz

Entries close at midnight on Monday, January 24.

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Ariel Pink Interview

Originally published in Real Groove magazine, July 2010

Ariel Pink’s Haunted Graffiti has evolved from using armpit and mouth percussion to a high fidelity sound, despite only spending three hours in a studio for their latest album Before Today. By Sarah Gooding

The modern embodiment of David Bowie, Marc Bolan and Syd Barrett, Ariel Marcus Rosenberg exudes the free spirit of the ‘70s. “You’ll just have to take whatever I can give you, because I can’t be held responsible for the accuracy…” he trails off, his smile audible on the phone. The Los Angeleno has been recording under the name of Ariel Pink for 14 years, during which time he’s produced seven genre-defying albums of cult significance. Pink has gained notoriety for his distinctly DIY approach to recording that harks back to another era in its use of 8-tracks and cassettes. His music blends everything from new wave to stadium rock all with a psychedelic nostalgia.

His latest album Before Today leaked on the internet a month before its mid June release. “I thought that it was something to be concerned about, but apparently it actually could be good. The record label doesn’t mind it! I think it’s good. I mean there’s obviously some algorithm that just is bigger than them somehow, but they know what they’re doing. And if the record is good and it’s received well, then it can only help sales, and if it’s not received well, it reflects on… you know.”

It’s clear from listening to his songs that Pink devours music, having once taken a record store clerk position so that he could surround himself with it physically and figuratively. “That’s why I probably got into music, so I wouldn’t have to pay for it eventually. People of our calibre shouldn’t have to pay for music they listen to!”

Pink has said he would ideally like to cut down on his live performances to record comfortably and unrushed, but believes the future of music lies in live shows, and sees the Haunted Graffiti continuing as “an increasingly live show”. “I only play as much as I do ‘cause I have to. It’d be nice to have a holiday, but it’s still what pays the bills. Recordings don’t do anything. They get played and stuff but they don’t pay me anything.”

“I think recorded music is going to go extinct pretty soon. People are not going to have the brain or the energy, they just delve into all the different variations and faceless playlists. Kids that are born nowadays are never going to really ever experience records… I think eventually it’s just going to be live performance… Music is going to be experienced socially from now. There’ll be creative ways of making that happen.”

The band is becoming more “solid”, he says, but they’re only just starting: “We’re just getting our feet wet.” A healthy approach, considering the success of past tour mates Animal Collective, who initially signed Pink to their Paw Tracks label, their first act who wasn’t a member of Animal Collective. Wellington electronic artist Signer was also on the tour, and remains similarly underexposed. But Pink holds no resentment.

“Oh man, are you kidding me? Lucky me, man! If they hadn’t have become so huge who knows if there would be a climate for this kind of music, or for any kind of music that’s different for that matter? They’re part of the social fabric, they’re so embedded that people are influenced by them and they don’t even know it. They don’t have to like them, they just come out of high school playing like Animal Collective.” He shouts an abrupt “NO!” when asked if he’d like to replicate their conscious dwelling. “That’s a frightening thing to think about. But you know, oddly enough it happens, the longer I stick around.”

Ariel Pink’s Haunted Graffiti- Round And Round: MP3

Read EMJ’s 2011 Laneway Preview

Posted by Nick Fulton under Auckland, New Zealand, Wellington
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You’re freaking me out

Chipstorm

When Chris McCullough isn’t studying Communications at Massey in Wellington, reading comics, or generally being the nicest guy you will ever meet, he’s Old Grey Wolf. And when you put Old Grey Wolf on a stage, it all comes out in a storm of chiptune – a chipstorm, if you will. As far as inspiration goes, he draws from FuturNari, Never (Zach from Bang! Bang! Eche!), Fauxhound… the list of local chiptune influences go on long enough to deserve their own CPU. And if you’re not familiar with chiptune music, it might be worth hiring out an old video game – it’s basically the kind of music you’d expect to hear when you play all the old ’80s favourites. His Facebook page has it down: “Members: Chris McCullough + Gameboy.” Some will be tempted to brush it all off as gimmicks and cheap nostalgic laughs – but thankfully, Old Grey Wolf doesn’t give a shit.

The pigeonhole is only 8 bits wide, but Chris engineers his way (mod chips and all) onto a dancefloor which itches even the most firmly planted of feet in Wellington. It’s a wonder how his reserved demeanour and his outrageous stage presence manage to co-exist while contradicting each other to the fullest. You’ll realise this by the way Old Grey Wolf unashamedly dances to his own music and pounces into the crowd without any second thought. Nothing like mild-mannered Chris McCullough. It’s just one guy on a stage, thriving on audience connection – getting up there and ripping apart every social defense mechanism in the room… and usually, no matter how empty the show is, people will move. One of his best memories is when, “I was doing a cover of Eagle Eye Cherry’s ‘Save Tonight‘ and there was a guy in front of me who looked like he was singing along, so I handed him the mic and he just busted out some mad screamo screams, it was the best thing I’ve ever seen/heard!” His songs call on a sentimental cry that fittingly compliment his on-stage fearlessness: “I hate/ How all we do is die”.

Old Grey Wolf- OK!: MP3

Old Grey Wolf- Starfriend: MP3

Old Grey Wolf- Myspace

Posted by Nick Fulton under New Zealand, Wellington
[6] Comments

Throw Some Sludge

Zach Penney and Ben Knight’s crude, rough and raw sludge punk rock has been causing a scene in New Zealand in the past year. The Wellington by-way-of Auckland duo’s sound is huge and aggressive, taking their hardcore punk roots and slowing it down, with Zach’s psychotic, garbled howling rekindling the spirit of Nirvana’s grimiest punk. Self-described as a “frantic mix of lyrically disturbing noisy garage, high-energy, chaotic jazz-influenced hardcore punk”, their songs’ guitar lines manage to ramble like leering drunks while retaining a sense of structure. Live they’re like two wild beasts set on fire, out to seek revenge. Zach’s wonderfully macabre illustrations provide the artwork for their releases, featuring beast-like creatures in twisted scenes. His drawing project Infinity Bag is Zach’s other passion, and he regularly exhibits in Auckland and Wellington, with a new show opening at Auckland’s The High Seas tonight at 6pm. Despite only being together for a year, Teen Hygiene has become a familiar name with their prolific live shows and DIY output. They have released their first 7″, Show U My Delite, and a sequel record, Levels of Desire, with a part II to each song on Delite plus a bonus song, is recorded and due to come out in the next month. Download a song from each below, and buy the Show U My Delite 7″ from their bandcamp.

Teen Hygiene- Show U My Delite: MP3

Teen Hygiene- Dream Girl Generator: MP3

Teen Hygiene- Blog

Posted by Sarah Gooding under Auckland, New Zealand, Wellington
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Delicate Symmetry

Ash Smith keeps a low profile. Aside from playing bass in Over The Atlantic he rarely performs in public; even his recent solo experiments have been a well guarded secret.  It’s been several years since his Secret Knives debut, which since it’s release has remained the most consistently downloaded title from the A Low Hum catalog, but finally, after many rearrangements, touch-ups and different mixes, Secret Knives’ debut album is now available for download. It was made public yesterday, just hours after Ash added the finishing touches; at 8am on the morning of the release he was still playing around with it. You can download the album, titled Affection, free from the A Low Hum website.

Scattered with the spirits of late twentieth century pop music, Affection is in essence a direct contrast of Over The Atlantic’s Dimensions. Where Nik Brinkman’s (OTA) music is direct, free of literary jargon and at times very personal, Ash’s is more metaphorical, drawing images from lyrics that shape and structure themselves around perfectly interlocking movements of sound. The album drifts slowly using stark shoegazy guitars and princely pop rhythms to create a chimerical atmosphere, leaving behind most skeletal artifacts from his first release, The Wolves EP. Only ‘The Northwest States’ recalls the earlier sound – everything else has the tender quality of a new beginning, partially explained by the lengthy delay between releases. To those uninitiated there may be some uncouth pop references that are hard to digest, but if you can overcome the fact that Affection is apologetically demure you’ll realise that this is a masterpiece, written and composed by one of the country’s best young songwriters.

To support the label and the artist, for $10 you can purchase a limited edition Secret Knives poster and get download codes to hear rare Secret Knives demos and remixes.

Secret Knives- Wicker Park: MP3

 Download Affection

Secret Knives- Myspace

Posted by Nick Fulton under New Zealand, Wellington
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Super Stellar

Ultimate good time party maestro Disasteradio (aka Luke Rowell) has made a brand new song from his upcoming new album Charisma available for free download on Einstein Music Journal. The follow up album to 2007′s hugely popular Visions will be released by A Low Hum on October 15 in a ‘pay what you like’ download format. ‘No Pulse’, the seventh track from the album, has Luke’s super vocoder vocals interspersed with his wife Christina’s awesomely obnoxious, screechy vocals in the chorus. It’s an immediately catchy and fun song, with low, pulsing synth octaves playing around a wonky keyboard line and what sounds like a distant distorted guitar. Luke’s been fine-tuning his already gleaming pop songwriting skills, studying music at Victoria University in Wellington while writing Charisma. Download ‘No Pulse’ below and check out another new track, ‘Drop The Bomb’, from the A Low Hum website.

Disasteradio- No Pulse: MP3

Disasteradio- Website

Disasteradio- Myspace

Photo by Carmen Gaffney

Posted by Sarah Gooding under New Zealand, Wellington
[2] Comments

New Space: New Discovery

Some releases can take a while to fully digest, others hit you instantly. Glass Vaults’ debut EP has done both; immediately what jumped out was its trance-like electronics and tribal percussion, but over time it has revealed much more, with vocal shout-outs, spacey drone and whistling theremin-esque sirens all becoming more recognisable. If you haven’t downloaded the Wellington duo’s debut EP, Glass, I suggest you head over to bandcamp and do so. Since its release on June 16 it has had numerous international blogs praising its beauty and as I write this post their song ‘Forget Me Not’ is currently sitting at #80 on Hype Machine’s ‘Most Favorited Music Chart’. Glass Vaults could be the first NZ band to be widely embraced by the international blog community.

A couple of weeks ago the band released its first music video, for the song ‘New Space’. Much like the Glass EP cover art, it’s coloured with hazy pastels and fails to reveal the identities of band members Rowan Pierce and Richard Larsen. It’s shot high in the mountains above the snow line and follows a young hooded individual as he climbs towards the summit. It perfectly captures the song’s iciness and fits with the shadowy drone-heavy synths that drive the song’s melodic structure.

 Glass Vaults- New Space: MP3

 Glass Vaults- Myspace

Posted by Nick Fulton under New Zealand, Wellington
[8] Comments

Carnival Of Sign Language

The divide between the Wellington and Auckland indie music scenes seems to be getting bigger as another EP is released from the vault. The cities couldn’t be more divided; Wellington’s currently delivering a chain of carefully crafted pop records, built on hours of hard work and fine tuning, while Auckland’s purse is full of scuzzy punk bands, whose attitudes are to biff songs out and see what sticks. Both have flair and both approaches have produced some great music, but one has been more consistent. So again we’re hearing from a Wellington band whose life revolves around music – Glass Vaults.

You may have already seen the name Vaults pop up on EMJ, before being renamed Glass Vaults. Richard Larsen and Rowan Pierce met while studying at Massey University in Wellington after growing up almost side-by-side in rural Manawatu. Musical chemistry struck and from their different backgrounds (Rowan as a composer of music for film and dance and Richard’s experience as a solo musician) emerged a sound washed in beautiful sunny landscapes and bright psychedelic imagery. The pair combine thick walls of drums (both live and electronic), textured stargazing guitars and droney synths, topped with Larsen’s crisp, sighing vocals. They take the ambience of a motion picture and mold it into a specular monologue that bounces and somersaults before bursting into a brightly coloured rainbow.

Today they unravelled their first EP which was produced by their friend Bevan Smith (Signer, The Ruby Suns, Over The Atlantic). It was recorded in March on Rowan’s grandmother’s farm and if you listen closely you can hear the whisper of the open air. The EP, titled Glass, can be downloaded for free from Glass Vaults’ Bandcamp page or from the Sonorous Circle website.

 Glass Vaults- Forget Me Not: MP3

 Glass Vaults- Myspace

Posted by Nick Fulton under New Zealand, Wellington
1 Comment

Majestic Rainbow

One could be excused for thinking the A Low Hum label has become a little bit incestuous, but it’s Blink’s infectious ear for pop music that sees him releasing another EP by Wellington’s Red Steers. The label is now home to seven artists, all with very close ties. Members of Over The Atlantic, Signer, Secret Knives and Red Steers have all performed, co-written or played live with one another, some still do.

Red Steers’ second five-track EP titled The Fever Fold will be officially released on Monday, April 26, but in the mean time you can enjoy an exclusive preview of ‘Night Hawkes’, the EP’s third track. Fans of Johnston’s first EP Lugaluga Lagoon (free download here) will notice an instant change in tempo, style and intensity. The Fever Fold is a more mature record further advancing his already experimental sound, adding pre-recorded samples, layered vocals and tumbling drum beats. The result is a more melodic, repetitious sound, mixing high pitched squeals and long drawn out tribal sequences with inter looping drum beats and a muddy electronic forcefield. With plenty of pop hooks and tonnes of bouncy beats, The Fever Fold is one of the most perfectly formed releases of the year.

The first single from The Fever Fold, titled ‘Canoe’, can be download for free from the A Low Hum website.

 Red Steers- Night Hawkes: MP3

Red Steers- Myspace

Posted by Nick Fulton under New Zealand, Wellington
[6] Comments

Happy Festivus

It’s been a pretty quiet year for The Phoenix Foundation while the individual band members all focus on their own solo projects. Luke Buda and Samuel Flynn Scott both released their second solo albums last year and Will Ricketts (Wild Bill Ricketts) and Richie Singleton (Rebel Peasant) both released their debut albums in 2009. Sam Scott and Luke Buda also composed and compiled the soundtrack for the film Separation City and they’ve also helped out on a number of their friends’ albums, most notably Lawrence Arabia’s fantastic Chant Darling. Late in 2009 the band has again linked arms, recording an EP with Lee Prebble and Brett Stanton. They’ve named it Merry Kriskmass and EMJ has a free download of their new single.

Unlike the band’s previous single choices, which have always been outrageously obvious pop songs, ‘Everybody’s Money’ has a smoother groove, offering a kind blend of indie psychedelia and ambient electronica. It’s very somber and sleepy like a rocking lullaby staring up into the stars, drifting gently through the night and waking to an organic home cooked breakfast cooked by Nik Brinkman and Primal Scream. They sound more relaxed, content on sitting back and letting their music glide through a revolving door that refuses to allow them to hit the pop panic button. Perhaps they have been listening to the same records as James Milne because ‘Everybody’s Money’ is quite easily comparable to a lot of Chant Darling.

Merry Kriskmass has an official release date of December 7 and will be available on CD, as a digital download and on limited edition 12″ vinyl. It will be followed closely by a brand new Phoenix Foundation album in early 2010. You can see The Phoenix Foundation playing live, supporting Jarvis Cocker in Wellington on December 3 and in Auckland on December 4.