STACK NZ Apr #61

MUSIC

FEATURE

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The winner of the 2015 Taite Music Prize for the year’s best New Zealand album will be announced on April 15. As the countdown to the ceremony begins, STACK asked the short-listed finalists when they last listened to their nominated album and whether they had discovered anything new about it. Tami Neilson Dynamite! ((Neilson Records/ Southbound) TAITE À-TÊTE

Kimbra

Delaney Davidson

@Peace

Grayson Gilmour

“Much to my embarrassment, I have to listen to it every morning in the car when my 3 year old requests his favourite songs (which are Honey Girl, Walk and the song I wrote for him, Texas ). I make sure to shut it off before I open the door so I’m never busted listening to my own album!” Aldous Harding Aldous Harding (Lyttleton Records/ Southbound/Flying In) “I listened to it for the first time since it’s release last April just two weeks ago. It was pleasant because I could recall the people who were around me at the time. I allowed myself to be proud for a song or two but that’s it.” Jakob Sines (ShootThe Freak/Border) Guitarist Jeff Boyle: “I listened to it for the first time in a couple months just yesterday actually. Didn’t really discover anything new about it, but I did really enjoy listening to it, which is great after hearing it several hundred times “After about a year’s break from the record, I listened to it on a car stereo a month or so ago, alone. I found it really difficult! Maybe it’s too fresh, or it was a bad stereo...I don’t know, it’s like a time capsule and it can be uncomfortable to hear your own voice.You are always growing out of the last thing and towards the next thing.We played the songs live so many times on tour last year, I guess you push them into wilder places, and to come back to the recording is a like revisiting a past self. It doesn’t really mean I’d change a whole lot about it; we captured those songs at that time and I’m happy for that.” in the making of it..” Tiny Ruins Brightly Painted One (Arch Hill Recordings/Spunk/Universal)

Delaney Davidson Swim Down Low (Outside Inside/ Southbound) “I went back to listen to some tracks and was amazed by having people playing on an album how little you actually have to say in the final process. You are at the mercy of your players a lot of the time.... I guess I never realised that so clearly before”. Mulholland Stop & Start Again (Mulholland/Rhythm) “I had a birthday recently, up north with all the family Mum chucked it on while we were having a beer and sausages. I discovered that I still really like it!” KImbra The Golden Echo (Warner Music) “I make it a bit of a rule to not listen to my work once it’s released – part of the moving on process – but I did listen to it on vinyl for the first time last month and I found that experience to be really illuminating!There is so much more dimension to the sound, I heard a lot more detail in ways I hadn’t before which was really cool.”

Tami Neilson

Jakob

Mulholland

Aldous Harding

Sowhat were the finalists’ favourite Kiwi album of the past year? Tami Neilson: Delaney Davidson and Marlon William, Sad But True: Vol 3 Mulholland: Connan Mockasin, Caramel Aldous Harding: Tiny Ruins, Brightly Painted One Jakob’s Jeff Boyle: Shihad, FVEY NOMINEES’ FAVES Tiny Ruins: Robert Scott, Green House Grayson Gilmour: Orchestra of Spheres, Vibration Animal Sex Brain Music @peace’s Tom Scott: Christoph El’ Truento, And The Wind Said Fly But The Web Just Let Me Dance Delaney Davidson: Terror of the Deep, Death of The Gideon KImbra: Connan Mockasin, Caramel

@peace @peace and the Plutonian Noise Symphony (Young, Gifted and Broke/ Rhythm) Tom Scott: “I revisited it when we got the test press back for the vinyl release.That’s when I was reminded of what it was we’d set out to do. I got disheartened after the release of this album to be honest, because it didn’t resonate with some of our friends. But when I heard it again that day I remembered we didn’t make it for them. I remembered we didn’t make it to have radio success. We just wanted to make a weirdo sci-fi album about finality, because that’s what interested us at the time.“

Grayson Gilmour Infinite Life! (Flying Nun)

“Probably not since I checked the LP test press! But there’s a lot of detail in the album… different sounds and textures pop out all the time.”

APRIL 2015 JB Hi-Fi www.jbhifi.co.nz

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