Amplifier Newsletter

Kia ora

This week we're welcoming in two (quite frankly) monolithic releases in New Zealand music for 2013 - Time Stays, We Go by The Veils, and Fandango by The Phoenix Foundation. Seriously, we've been listening to these in the office a lot in the lead-up to today, and we just love them. I myself am willing to make the call that one of them will be Amplifier's Album of the Year when we enter discussions in December. But you should make your own mind up - pick up one or both of these records and you'll know what I'm talking about.

Best

Mr Editor

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Album of the Week

The Veils – Time Stays, We Go

Recorded at Seedy Underbelly Studios in Laurel Canyon, Los Angeles and produced by lead singer/songwriter Finn Andrews and Adam Greenspan,Time Stays, We Go marks the beginning of a captivating new era for a band already hailed as "The best and most unsettling thing I've seen in music this year" by The LA Times and "Quite possibly the most underrated band on the planet" by NME.

The band tempted seminal English producer Bill Price (The Clash, Jesus & Mary Chain) out of retirement to mix the record to tape at Metropolis Studios in London, lending the album a richly analogue sound, rarely heard in popular music today.

Time Stays, We Go shows The Veils at the very height of their creative powers so far, deftly combining two distinct sides of their personality, or as Andrews calls it, "The Pop & The Snarl".

Single of the Week

K.One - All Over Again

It's been over a year since K.One's last release, but that's not to say he hasn't been busy. The step back from releasing music has allowed him to reinvent himself, to hone other aspects of hi

craft, as well as discover a more organic, natural and mature sound.

Combining elements of HipHop, Pop & Big Band, All Over Again is the first taste of his new project, an upbeat song about love's imperfections. A title which seems fitting with his return as he progresses from freshman to sophomore status and does it...all over again.

Album

The Phoenix Foundation – Fandango

Fandango is an expansive, ambitious and gloriously rich 78 minute, 2-Disc album recorded over a 15-month period at four studios.

From opener Black Mould (perhaps the first motorik inspired song about a mouldy bathroom) to the 18 minute closing behemoth Friendly Society (almost certainly the only psychedelic epic named after the Quaker movement) Fandango is un-coy about its lofty ambitions in an age of digital disposability.

The album draws from the bands' collective love of the rock music cannon but also from some of its forgotten by-waters.

Check the soulful yacht rock of Sideways Glance, the end-of-the-party psych-folk of Modern Rock, and first single The Captain, a 3 minute ballad of melancholic melodic joy featuring the vocal talents of co-frontman Lukas Buda.

EP

Wilberforces – Paradise Beach

Somewhat of a shift away from the ominous undertones of Vipassana,Paradise Beach employs what some may view is a "full-bodied" sound.

The use of layered guitar parts and harmonies, ethereal moments such asBlack Ice and When The Dolls Woke blend together on the release with pop-skewed cacophonies including single Paradise Beach and the trackMagdalene Brothers.

Album

Jessie Hillel – With Love

Jessie Hillel's debut album, With Love, features the three outstanding songs she performed on 'New Zealand's Got Talent' along with some of her most loved songs including Castle on a Cloud from the academy award winning Les Miserables, Enya's Orinoco Flow performed with a children's choir, and Pi's Lullaby from the critically claimed motion picture Life of Pi.

EP

Joseph & Maia – Roll Up Your Sleeves

The debut release from Joseph & Maia is the EP Roll Up Your Sleeves.

The sentimental Place All Your Love speaks of commitment and honest affection, while the more upbeat Nothing I Can Do confronts the awkwardness around growing up and making promises in a way that's so upbeat it makes adolescence almost sound like fun.

Single

Awa – Home (Aotearoa)

A sweet tune about the country that Awa calls home, Aotearoa, New Zealand. From road tripping to Tauranga, to jamming Bob Marley tunes on the guitar with his uncles, Home is a snapshot of true kiwiana.

Home (Aotearoa) is the new single leading into Awa's next EP Heartbeat - set for release on May 17.

To Gallery

Tiki at Juice Bar, Auckland

Tiki Taane played a sold out show at Auckland's Juice Bar on Thursday 18 April, with support from Jayson Norris and Jess Harlem. Steve Bone was there and captured these great photos for us.

All images (c) 2013 Steve Bone - stevebonephotography.com

To view the full gallery - click >HERE<

LP

Sam Hamilton – Integrifolia

Integrifolia is the second full length LP by New Zealand's Sam Hamilton.

The richly unstable union of a background in deep experimentation in sound & art, an interest in music wider than 'E=mc2' and love affair with the sub-conscious gravitational magnetism of pop music.

Album

Suzanne Prentice – The Very Best Of

Suzanne Prentice: The Very Best Of 1973 - 2013 is her first complete career retrospective with all 22 songs personally selected by Suzanne and handpicked from the many Gold and Platinum albums she's released over the past four decades.

The track listing includes five brand new recordings of her most famous hits One Day At a Time, How Great Thou Art, The Old Rugged Cross, Dust On Mothers Bible as well as the song that launched Suzanne's career, catapulting her to national stardom...Funny Face.

Single

Arihia & Tahu – Moonlight

It's not often two South Auckland high school students and World War II find common ground.

But when young singer songwriter Arihia Cassidy (Nqäti Porou, Ngati Whatua) began researching the 28th Maori Battalion as part of a Reo Maori class assignment, she found the letters between battalion fighters and their wives carried themes she could relate to.

Words of devastation in battle and heart resonated with the young Maori woman, moving her to pen a song in their honour. With the help of cousin and musical partner Tahu Henare (Nqätl Porou, Ngati Whatua, Ngäpuhi), the two wrote Moonlight.

Album

The Hamma - Panzer Tank

The Hamma was orignally formed in 1984(!) by school mates Pete McConnochie (Vocals/ guitar) and Hugh Bradbury (Bass) with Kev Bartlett added on drums shortly after.

In 2012 they were selected to play at the Napier City Showcase, and shortly after headed in to the studio to re-record their originals. Snake's Eyes was released as a single in December 2012, followed by the albumPanzer Tank in January 2013

ENDS

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