How to have fun in NZ without sheep….

Batucuda Sound Machine – Rhythm and Rhyme

Rhythm and Rhyme is the essence of summer bottled onto a compact disc – a wild and rampant musical flavour explosion thrown together by some of NZ’s most talented world-musicians. Well ‘some’ is a bit of an understatement, BSM is a monumental 12-piece and on their debut they let loose with horns, drums, guitar, bass, Latin percussion, rap and liquid smooth keys. BSM’s musical melting pot bursts with energy, spanning across afro-beat, samba, reggae, soul, dub, funk and hip-hop.

M.I.A – freakin rad

M.I.A is a girl with attitude. Instead of making girly music about love and boys, she presents real messages – incorporating her own background to educate people.

Melanie Horsnell: carried delicately on wings from somewhere unearthly.

My eyes scan my CD collection seeking something I haven’t played in a while, preferably something I can’t remember the track list of.  I come to rest on Melanie Horsnell’s ‘Complicated Sweetheart’.  The cover design is cute and childishly alluring with colourful sketches of the angelic artist – just what I’m in the mood for.

A boy and his guitar.

Here’s a ditty about an undiscovered band. At the launch of digital radio in Queen Street last week, Austereo showcased one of their new digital stations. Radar was designed to exclusively play ‘undiscovered’ artists. So, during the outside broadcast of all the commercial stations, the Radar stage featured just that – local Brisbane bands jamming out their own songs. One of the bands was Rockeby Venus.

The XX, How Music Should Be…

The first time you hear this CD you’ll probably think, ‘sounds like a bunch of kids made this on a laptop’, then you’ll think, ‘wow, this is cool, I could probably make something like this myself on the old garageband’, and then you’ll realise, ‘holy shit I could never make something this good in a million years and these kids are only 19, fuck this, I’m giving up on music’.

Well at least that’s what I thought anyway.

Discovery – LP

What could be more ridiculous than a member of 2008′s super preppy indie IT boys Vampire Weekend releasing a hip hop CD?