IMNZ Independent Album Chart & News

Independent Music New Zealand
Email: info@indies.co.nz
Web: www.indies.co.nz

IMNZ Independent Album Chart

February 2004

Rank Artist Title Label Distributor
1 Katchafire Revival Mai Music Shock Records
2 Pacific Heights Frozen Fears Fabel Reserve Rhythmethod
3 8 Foot Sativa Season For Assault Intergalactic Records Global Routes
4 Minuit The 88 Tardus Music Universal
5 Mareko White Sunday Dawnraid Universal
6 Various LOOP Select 005 LOOP Recordings Border Music
7 Rhombus Bass Player MOKO FMR
8 8 Foot Sativa Hate Made Me Intergalactic Global Routes
9 Phoenix Foundation Horsepower Capital Recordings BMG
10 Concord Dawn Disturbance Kog Transmissions Universal
11 The Black Seeds Keep On Pushing LOOP Recordings Border Music
12 Various Grey Lynn Festival Sane Music King Music
13 P-Money Big Things Kog Transmissions Universal
14 The Bleeders Bleeding Heart EP 1157 Records In Music
15 Confucius newsoundlandscapes LOOP Recordings Border Music
16 One Million Dollars Energy State Sugarlicks BMG
17 Pacific Heights Pacific Heights EP Fabel Reserve Rhythmethod
18 Jamoa Jam Samoana Soul Pacific Dream King Music
19 Te Vaka Nukuneke Te Vaka King Music
20 Stylus Painkillers Wildside Wildside

Shows sales from 1 – 31 January 2004.
Compiled from outbound sales registered at selected music retailers by Media Sauce Ltd for IMNZ.
Eligibility requires IMNZ membership or by registration fee.
For further information on IMNZ releases and labels contact IMNZ Operations Manager Renee Jones.

February News

Happy New Year! The IMNZ crew have been well occupied over the summer so far and we’re pleased to present you with some really exciting stories. If it’s true that you should start a new year as you mean to continue, I’d say there’s plenty to look forward to. Here are some of the highlights so far:

- Moana becomes the first non-US songwriter to win a major international prize

- NZ labels do the business at MIDEM

- Round Trip Mars, Kog Transmissions and Powertool Records make audible dents on international radio

- The Managers are on the loose and Fabel present an Elektric lineup

- Monkey Magic secures funding

- Heads up for an album by local Legends

- A D’Lucious offering is in the pipeline as is a bit of Tonganchic

- Flow On Show Resonate with international producer

Moana has won the overall Grand Prize in the International Songwriting Competition (ISC), for her song Moko (available on the album Rua, via Tangata). Called "the songwriting competition to take note of" by the New York Times, this is the first time any major songwriting competition based in the USA has awarded its top honors to any songwriter from outside the USA. The ISC panel of judges included many of the music industry's top executives, songwriters, and producers such as B.B. King; Pat Metheny; Guru (Gang Starr); Paul Oakenfold; Nile Rodgers and a host of senior record label folk.

Andrew Featherstone of Intergalactic Records (home of 8-Foot Sativa) was one of New Zealand’s delegates to the MIDEM convention, and he reports that it’s been a great experience. Intergalactic are currently in discussions with some of the biggest rock and metal independent labels in the world so stay tuned and we’ll let you know as soon as we hear anything more!

Beating out the good, the bad and the ugly to be the first NZ alt chart topper of the year, the new SJD tune from a to b or not to be started 2004 on top of the Median Strip RadioScope Alternative Charts. The tune features the twangtastic guitar skills of David Kilgour (the Clean).

And the next SJD album is on the home straight so expect gigs with the band and a new set around the same time which should be in the next couple of months. Also on the SJD tip the lowdown pt 2 and guiding light from the lost soul music album were to be heard on the latest transmission of Coldcuts' Solid Steel show put together by recent visitor Strictly Kev aka DJ Food. Amongst other Antipodean delights featured was a foursome from the Sideways compilations.

SubBass Snarl, hosts of the Paradigm Shift show on Sydney radio station 2SER have put Phelps and Munro’s Slowpoke into their top albums of the year in the Perilous column for 3D World and likewise on the always pioneering paradigm shift show on the ever supportive 2SER FM.

Baitercell and Timmy Schumacher's latest single What’s Down Low, which is licensed in the U.K. through Passenger, has just received a 5/5 rating in Knowledge magazine (the world’s biggest breakbeat/drum n bass magazine). It's also receiving airplay on the U.K.'s Kiss FM and Radio one plus rave reviews all over the show.

A big “kia ora” goes out to IMNZ’s newest member, Powertoool Records. They have been steadily gathering a loyal following from their regular and eclectic Kaleidoscope World gigs and the wonderful Here come the bulletholes compilation which has started getting airplay on some US College stations. The next Kaleidoscope World show should be on March 13 Auckland’s Kings’ Arms tavern. Attendees will receive a free CD sampler.

The lowdown from Dawn Raid is that Adeaze’s single A Life With You has just gone platinum. Also watch out for Mareko’s White Sunday bonus disc, due to hit the stores in the next couple of weeks. This will feature instrumental versions of tracks on White Sunday, plus 2 new songs showcasing Mareko’s production abilities.

The Managers (Global Routes) are doing a massive nationwide tour throughout February and early March. They will be playing 11 shows around the South Island as well as a special gig on the Interislander Ferry! They are also booked for the Orientation circuit as well as shows in Napier, Wellington, Tutukaka and on Great Barrier Island. And keep an eye out for their the video for My Mistake currently showing on C4 – the boys are not only great musos, their acting ability is pretty damn fine as well.

And light a fuse and stand well clear as in mid-February in music deliver the much-loved Soane’s debut artist album Tonganchic –in fact, it should be in shops this weekend.

If you’re in the mood for some live drum’n’bass this month, as part of Heineken music's first Smooth Grooves event, on a high-voltage bill featuring the Sugarlicks SoulSystem and Pacific Heights, fabelmusic are touring the London Elektricity Live band.

Creative New Zealand have funded Monkey Records to help cover the costs of producing a compilation featuring artists on the label and then to conduct a nationwide tour promoting it. The Monkey Magic tour will feature Onelung,
Ishta, Shinya, Asphalt, DJ Monkey and others and will take place in March/April this year. Stay tuned for dates and venues.

Flow On Show, a 3-piece hip hop act from Tauranga, are the newest act signed to Mai Music. Their debut single Innocent Love, originally recorded as one of the winning entries in the Rhythm Nation talent search last year, was one of two tracks selected by top UK producer Colin Emmanuel to be produced at Kog Studios in late February as part of the British Council-sponsored Resonate seminar, with production paid for by NZ On Air. The boys have already recorded a follow-up single and have clothing sponsorship sorted with Clutch streetwear.

Soon to come from Legend Music is an album by two of the most popular, outstanding and outrageous artists of the seventies and eighties: the new Space Waltz CD by Alastair Riddell and Eddie Rayner is in the final mix and master stage now so watch this space.

Forthcoming releases from King Music include a compilation from D1 Entertainment entitled D'Luscious, scheduled for March. The album will showcase the diverse sounds of Avondale's D1 Entertainment, spearheaded by up-and-coming producer Dominique Leauga a.k.a D1, previously best known for his production work on the currently huge Adeaze single A Life With You, and the Niu FM hits from Australian rapper 6 Pound, Angel and First Seed.

And finally there are a whole swag of IMNZ-related artists plus others we love on the Grey Lynn Park Festival CD – featuring One Million Dollars, the Managers, Baitercell & Timmy Schumacher, Greg Churchill, Unity Pacific and tons more. Cher to King Music and www.amplifier.co.nz for giving us access to this one.

ENDS

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