Tag: Wellington

Full Moon Fiasco – Cosmic Palms and National Tour.

Posted on by Dr Hitchcock
Full Moon Fiasco

MUZAI Records are proud to announce that Wellington band Full Moon Fiasco are releasing their debut album Cosmic Palms (release date: August 9th) with a national tour; kicking off on August 6th at Wellington’s hallowed venue Happy.

Featuring members of Thought Creature, Kittentank, Red Country and The Pickups, you could almost call Full Moon Fiasco a Wellington super group of sorts. In fact you really should. Almost unbelievably awesome and absolutely mind blowing live, Full Moon Fiasco are the band that has been missing from your lives, mortals!

Full Moon Fiasco stems from a solo recording project by Thought Creature’s Will Rattray which encompassed a desire to explore new sonic territory outside of Thought Creature (with their honed and tight, dance friendly/post punk sound), drawing on a larger palette of multi-tracked full, lush approach to song craft reminiscent of anything by Brian Wilson or the 13th Floor Elevators. The resulting album Cosmic Palms encompasses a layered, textured sound that draws on the psychedelic elements of bands like Piper at the Gates of Dawn era Pink Floyd, and more recently Brian Jonestown Massacre. At times the album almost feels garage such as in tracks like Neighbourhood Clowns, or dream-like in Eyes and Ears and Full Moon Fiasco. An album so good, in fact, that Worlds above and Worlds Below was chosen to be in the Awesome Feeling 4 compilation put out by Real Groove.

Cosmic Palms, recorded using both four track and digital formats, is a dense wander through psychedelic territory that makes good use of old and new technology. Featuring organs, acoustic guitar dispersed with the odd killer electrified riff, a solid rhythm section and the floating, shamanistic vocals of Rattray, Cosmic Palms is, simply put, the business. Showing a solid and well thought out grasp of song structure and wicked hooks, make no mistake – it’s a catchy beast, so consider yourself warned.
After playing live as a band for the past year or more, Will Rattray, Isaac Mawson, Alice Macklow and Aidan Craig have “killed it” at numerous parties and venues around New Zealand. As such and quite rightly so, Full Moon Fiasco have developed into a force to be reckoned with – an all out aural cacophony of blistering psychedelic tones and sounds.

To support the album release of Cosmic Palms Full Moon Fiasco are undertaking a national tour from the 6th to the 21st of August.

Full Moon Fiasco Tour Dates

August 6th Happy, Wellington
August 14th The Basement, Auckland (Golden Axe, Pikachunes, Cat Venom – all ages)
August 18th The Blue Ice Cafe, Franz Josef
August 20th Chicks Hotel, Port Chalmers (Bad Sav + more tbc)
August 21st Media Club, Christchruch (early show – all ages)
August 21st Goodbye Blue Monday, Christchurch

MP3s: Full Moon Fiasco – Worlds above and Worlds Below – Awesome Feeling 4 (log-in/sign-up required)

[Article originally posted at: http://muzairecords.com/main/full-moon-fiasco-cosmic-palms-and-national-tou/#more-310]

Artist: Tiddabadés – Title: Tiddabadés EP

Posted on by Dr Hitchcock
myspace.com/tiddabades
myspace.com/tiddabades

You and I may have first heard of this Wellington outfit, Tiddabadés, a few months back when Mr Tom Darlow reviewed their radical performance in the Capital alongside CHCH indie-whatever darlings Bang! Bang! Eche!. Mr Tom described them as “truly a force to party with” and from a thorough trashing of their latest (and debut?) EP I can whole heartedly dig that jive.

I was skating my custom Starlifter.TV longboard around Riccarton on a faux-Summer afternoon listening to this EP and ‘Romance  Dance’ was the most enjoyable song to skate too, in fact this song would suit a cruisy longboading video fo sho. At times, as on the song ‘Texture’ they’re on the beat-up, channelling the punkness from beyond, and doing the RAWK thing. ‘Colours’ has a beautiful driving beat with sparkly guitar melodies. ‘Right Here’ is a rad little dancefloor party number that will keep your dancing shoes honest. And ‘SevenOneFive’ has a nice sense of space to it, like I was totally drifting around in a space. All-in-all HOT!

So that’s my 2 cents worth. What do you reckon?

MP3: Tiddabadés – Romance Dance (right-click and save as)

Peace,
Dr H
xoxox

Bang! Bang! Eche! and Batman Tiddabades @ Mighty Mighty, Wellington (14-03-09)

Posted on by Dr Hitchcock

Finding myself as a new appendage in a newer city, it struck me like a tour bus yesterday that it was high time I absorbed a little Wellington culture. So I did, by heading blinkingly off into the night to see one of my favourite bands… from Christchurch. It had been a while since I’d seen the young scenesters, Bang Bang Eche, in person. Despite splitting a plane with them to Auckland in January, November was the last, where, sharing a stage with Wellington band New Friend, BBE embarked on a whisky fuelled debaucherous, yet comical, set, punctuated by missed timings and mid-song fistfights (Charlie and Zach spent Nike throwing shoes at each other). However, if BBE were a cow, last night’s set with Batman Tiddabades was the cream.

Sidestepping pre-teens with eyes glazed from indulgence at the Homegrown festival, I made my way to Mighty Mighty, and was lucky to get in. The smallish venue was packed to its offbeat and creaking rafters with opshop hipsters, all jiving to the brutish beats of Batman Tiddabades. Despite only forming this year, the boys have built quite an empire. Once they’ve ironed out a few geling issues and manage to drive their grooves from the pocket, they’re truly a force to party with.

BBE appeared around an hour later in a roar of synths and hi hats, and within seconds had toes twitching, heads nodding, pours dripping and floorboards creaking the room over. The kids have definitely permeated the Wellington market with on mass rap alongs and yelps of joy from kids who recognised the opening bars from each of their myspace classics. Four To the Floor evoked waves of fist pumps, and a choral sing along that could have been heard from Masterton. They did, however, grind out as many new tunes as old and their sound showed a new maturity and development. Their new songs are both dancier and punkier, and will sound incredible on record. Here’s hoping that SXSW is going to be the starting gun for future success, and the next time I see them is in an arena somewhere.

:: Tom Darlow

Did you go to the gig? What did you think? Have you say and comment down below or if you want you own review posted on Starlifter.TV, email it to: starliftertv (at) gmail.com

Module Releases Free Album, Encourages Deconstruction [Article By Matt Maguire]

Posted on by Dr Hitchcock

 

 

Wellington-based musician Jeremiah Ross (aka Module) has just released a 13-track live album of electro music, Pattern Dot Life, with not one, but two twists.

Firstly, the album (recorded live at Sandwiches in Wellington) costs absolutely nothing to own, as it is available as a free download from Ross’ various websites. Secondly, listeners are encouraged to also download the raw song data from his website for the purpose of creating their own remixes of the songs, which can then be sent back to Ross for consideration for inclusion on a subsequent Module release.

It is not a case of getting others to put in the hard yards for him, however. While the general populace cut up, mangle and tweak his original live recordings, Ross will be busy creating studio versions of the live tracks (“Radio-type versions, as some of the live tracks are eight or nine minutes long” he says), to be released as Pattern Dot Life 2.0. The best remixes of the live tracks from Pattern Dot Life will also be included on this release.

And as Pattern Dot Life 2.0 will be available on iTunes as a paid download, those whose remixes are included also stand to profit from the venture, claiming 50% of the royalties their remix generates.

“The future is awesome” said Ross.

Pattern Dot Life lends itself well to remixing, as it is rooted in the digital realm. “It’s cross-genre,” says Ross “music I like making. It’s influenced a lot by music from the eighties, things like Vangelis… I grew up listening to ‘Synthesizer Greatest’ – it’s a homage to that”.

Ross stated he decided to do this open source project as Pattern Dot Life is “fun music that I’ve written for live stuff that I might not necessarily want to release on a proper album. I really wanted to see what people would do when they got hold of them [the tracks].”

“It’s fun and outside the normal way you have to do things [when you release a regular album]” said Ross.

“I really love writing that style of music… people can make of it what they want to” he added. “I’m just gonna have some fun and who gives a sh*t.”

Ross’ future plans include a third Pattern Dot Life release, which he envisions will be a recording of another live show a couple of years down the road. “I’d love to do that in France or Germany… the NZ electronic scene isn’t overly large” he said.

Ross is also currently busy setting up his own production studio, putting out an unrelated five-part EP through iTunes, working on Playstation game, and is planning on touring Australia and Japan throughout 2009.

The Pattern Dot Life project is a nice distraction from all that: “Working on the Playstation game is hardcore, and is pretty much taking over my entire life. To alleviate that I’m working on some fun Module stuff” said Ross.

“It’s really cool to get an idea out there, and people seem to be embracing and enjoying it, so that’s good”.

For more details, see www.patterndotlife.co.nz or surf to www.module.co.nz