Vera Ellen – Ideal Home Noise

After bouncing around between Aotearoa and Los Angeles, Vera Ellen returned home for reals in 2021 to deliver It’s Your Birthday, an instant stunner of a record that got plenty of buzz on this very website. Now we’ve got Ideal Home Noise. IHN is a fascinating follow-up to that breakthrough because it ramps up the darkness, particularly in the lyrics. These are songs about Going Through It. There are elements of Elliot Smith lo-fi on display within the production with Ellen’s vocals never more raw than on those bare bones tracks (Carpenter, A Grip, Broadway Junction), although most of the songs fit smoothly into the indie rock realms. Themes of internal struggles mean this can be a pretty emotionally brutal listen but that’s all part of a courageous set from an artist who has quickly elevated into one of this country’s premier songwriters.

William Tyler & The Impossible Truth – Secret Stratosphere

William Tyler makes guitar-driven instrumental music that sounds so vast that it’s a wonder they were ever able to contain it in recordings. Turns out that vastness is even greater in a live context. Secret Stratosphere is an hour-long collection from a 2021 show, hence that not only do we get the extended grooves with that in-person energy but we also get them with a red hot band too – including pedal steel player Luke Schneider who lends some glorious tones to proceedings (he and Tyler made a dual EP two years ago). That band sizzles and glides through a bunch of selections from Tyler’s last decade of work, including the stomping closer Area Code 601 which is a regular in WT’s live efforts but had never gotten an album release before this. He bills it as Hawkwind meets Charlie Daniels Band. Chuck in a Kraftwerk cover earlier on and add some of that good jam band mentality to the prodigious nature of the band itself (especially silky fingered Will Tyler) and voila! This set’ll have you envisioning desert landscapes in the middle of a sloppy winter because good music is magic.

Richter City Rebels - Big Fresh

Wellington's Richter City Rebels may be the sneaky heroes of kiwi music. Their third album 'Big Fresh' is funky and the immense sound will take you away from whatever mundane activity you're doing, or amplify the fun vibe. Troy Kingi makes an appearance on 'Through My Venetians' while the regular dose of Chris CK throughout RCR offers a common thread to enjoy as well. The 10-track project features a wide variety of funky sounds with individual flashes of razzle dazzle. This a mandatory listen for musical kiwi folks.

Soft Plastics – Saturn Return

Debut album from the Wellington/Te Whanganui-a-Tara trio, who’ve been gathering plenty of buzz. Their press describes them as ‘What if The Ronettes were from Twin Peaks?’ and, frankly, yeah. Huge production with the reverb and the Badalamenti-style synths and the booming bass tone and the old school pop melodies but slowed down to three-quarters speed because it’s been through the David Lynch warp. But Soft Plastics don’t necessarily stick to that one party trick. That resonating electric bass stays high up in the mix throughout and the bigness always remains but they often stray into the kind of post-punk territory that’ll keep the goth kids hanging on. What’s most impressive about Soft Plastics is that no matter how hard they wanna riff, they’re always in full looming control as a band.

Boygenius - the record

The biggest worry about supergroups where all the members are supreme songwriters in their creative prime is that they’ll save their best stuff for their own individual records and leave the filler for the combos. Far too many examples of that happening over the years yet Boygenius, the collective project of Phoebe Bridgers, Lucy Dacus, and Julien Baker, manage to avoid that issue by elevating each other’s work via the collective. Particularly with some magical harmonising, as evidenced by the gorgeous a capella of the opening track Without You Without Them. The thing about these three is that their sensibilities all overlap so The Record still flows even as we bounce from voice to voice. Baker’s best is $20, while Bridgers is in top form on Emily I’m Sorry. The triple-threat of Not Strong Enough is an album highlight. Dacus peaks with Anti-Curse as her more grounded tunes help keep things shifting along. Yeah, this is a good one. Fans of any of the boygenius trio are going to dig the hell out of this.

Wednesday – Rat Saw God

North Carolina indie rockers Wednesday put out a covers album a couple years ago which featured songs by the lines of Drive-By Truckers, Gary Stewart, and Smashing Pumpkins. The latter influence is clear to see, that droning grunge-adjacent sound with the idiosyncratic vocals is clear in their original stuff, the southern rock/country efforts less so (hence why that covers album was so much fun) but it’s there if you listen closely. Their fifth full length, Rat Saw God, really serves up a great snapshot of their eclecticism. Their battle weary churners are much more suburban than the barrooms and outlaws subject matter of classic Truckers tunes but the emotions are the same. Hard not to think of early Bright Eyes at times as well, as well as that shoegaze propulsion thing going on. It’s a great album. An un-self-conscious epic about everyday experiences.

Rose City Band – Garden Party

Aye, Ripley’s back. The main man from killer psych rock group Wooden Schjips always keeps himself busy with side projects and RCB is where the country-tinged American Beauty influenced stuff finds its merry home… and there’s always plenty to draw from that well, this is a fourth album in five years under this banner. Garden Party is just as blissfully trippy as all the rest of them. Chasing Rainbows lays that out as the opening track, beginning with a sweet country strum and then breaking it down into some Jerry-lite elecky guitar blooming in its last couple minutes. But you know what? As the record progresses it becomes less American Beauty and much more Blues For Allah/Mars Hotel. Porch Boogie is the gateway tune, while Mariposa, Moonlight Highway, and El Rio follow through on that proggier, jammier flow. It’s groovy stuff, man. Get amongst.

Nym Lo & Statik Selektah - From The Horse's Mouth

Joining veteran producer Statik Selektah for a vibrant collaboration is Nym Lo. 'From The Horse's Mouth' has Lo offering crisp insights from New York hustling with Curren$y, Dave East, Rome Streetz and Bun B popping up for guest appearances. FTHM is lighter than most projects in this zone as Selektah offers mellow loops, keys and strings to maintain an uplifting sound. Having not heard much of Nym Lo before, FTHM offers an easy listening experience for those who want a head-noddin' dose of inspiration.

Tiny Ruins – Ceremony

More kiwi tunes from the ever-reliable Hollie Fullbrook and company. Melodies and instrumentals reminiscent of 60s/70s folk rock – plucked guitar, occasional warm-encompassing organ, sturdy bass, that kinda thing - with sweet soft vocals kinda like Joni Mitchell covering Nick Drake. There’s also the distinct influence of the natural wonders of the world. The track list features words such as: dogs, daylight, seafoam, earthly, crabs, water… and that’s just the titles. Diving & Soaring references seabirds in flight. Dorothy Bay gets its own ode. Like the waves upon the sand, Ceremony is an album that allows itself to ebb and flow in its own time. Absolutely here for the gentle vibes. Swaying like the toetoe in a breeze. And that bass really slaps too, by the way.

Angel Olsen – Forever Means

Slippery little four-track EP coming off the heels of Olsen’s outstanding 2022 record Big Time. This quartet were all written and recorded around the making of Big Time but you can easily see why they weren’t included. The opening track Nothing’s Free has late-night soul organ and a saxophone solo… not exactly in keeping with the country-tinged efforts of the full album. But that also means that this selection is more than just a bunch of outtakes or bonus tracks. Already mentioned Nothing’s Free, which is the pick of the bunch. Forever Means has a sparse guitar thing going on that’s reminiscent of Olsen’s early work. Love that throwback with the emotional tension barely contained by the minimal instrumentation. Time Bandits has a slow romantic wooziness that kinda sounds like Daniel Lanois should’ve had a hand in it. Then Holding On is more of an experimental rock tune with a full band laying it down around electric guitar lines. All four are great in unique ways, AO’s one-of-a-kind voice tying everything together. Another fine addition to a brilliant modern discography.

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