Tony Stamp reviews the second album by neo-folk artist Jazmine Mary, a nationwide collection from the BFC, and Guardian Singles’ noisy return.
Dog by Jazmine Mary
Photo: Jim Tannock
The winner of the Best Independent Debut award at the 2022 Taite Prize was an Australian import with a background dabbling in improv, field recording and electronics, who settled on something close to folk music and released it under the name Jazmine Mary.
Their debut The Licking of a Tangerine was alternately haunted and joyous, and its follow-up continues in the same vein, refining its edges and drawing the listener in closer, before letting bursts of aural chaos erupt in the margins.
The record is called Dog and has Jazmine Mary posing on its cover with a fish. There's a song called ‘Seagull’. Whether this speaks to a love of animals or something more poetic is entirely up to you. The lyric “To hate the seagull is to hate what you create” suggests that it’s all art, and best not to worry about it too much.
The album's charmingly fractured series of moods is encapsulated by their voice, which lingers in the mid-range only to leap up an octave to beautiful effect, and sometimes push down, or somewhere more nasal - deliberately irreverent in a way that’s mirrored by the words.
The song ‘Wet Mouth’ features the line “So get your wet mouth and put it on me”, which, like the album as a whole, manages to be funny, erotic, off-putting and touching all at once.
Dog is a clear progression of the style Jazmine Mary laid out on the previous album. Stately piano or acoustic guitar frame the songs, allowing room for brass or strings to periodically interrupt. These additions are always admirably sparing, introducing new melodies and a pleasant sense of friction.
If anything, there’s a further sense of refinement and more disruption, these two impulses propelling the artist closer to neighbouring genres, as on ‘Getting Down’, with its unmistakable soul influence.
The other big difference is this album’s intimacy - the use of reverb on Tangerine added a sense of distance, but that’s largely gone here, and Jazmine Mary sounds physically closer, all the better to provoke or soothe.
There’s a wicked sense of humour throughout, laughing in the face of tragedy, or on ‘Getting Down’ taking a sort of anthropological view of their peers.
A notable standout is ‘You’re Never Alone If You’ve Got Music’, a title which almost dares you to not take it seriously, with the song delivered completely straight-faced, warm and celebratory.
With artists like Jazmine Mary, there’s a temptation to react as if they’re being wilfully cryptic, but I don’t think that’s the case here. They manage to act on impulse and bottle those bursts of creativity, balancing careful attention to detail in the songwriting and production while preserving that initial spontaneity.
On Dog, the results are frequently exquisite.
Footmahi 2023 by The Big Fresh Collective
Photo: Supplied
There’s a genre of dance music called Footwork, or Chicago Juke, that’s defined by its discombobulating rhythms, and I had long assumed that Footmahi - the periodic series of compilations released by the Canterbury-based Big Fresh Collective - was describing a local spin on that.
According to label boss Liam K Swiggs, in liner notes for their latest dispatch, the term came from watching the Auckland Warriors Shaun Jonnson and admiring the mahi he was doing below the legs.
Regardless, this 2023 edition of dance music from around the country certainly starts in similar territory as that genre, maintaining a dizzyingly high BPM throughout while moving into modes like jungle, all with an occasionally cheeky local flavour.
The Big Fresh Collective (or BFC) has existed for at least five years, running a radio show out of Christchurch and Wellington, and amassing a roster of local talent on their label. On Footmahi 2023 they specify anyone who was born or currently resides in Aotearoa was eligible for inclusion.
Tāmaki Makaurau is represented by DeepState, who contributes ‘So True’, the latest in a stellar run from a producer whose impeccable production and innovative vocal sampling is gaining her a reputation as one of the best in the country.
There’s a healthy sense of humour running through the collection - Caru, who’s one half of the duo Imugi, riffs on that ‘You wouldn’t steal a car’ campaign on his track ‘Outlaw’, and Actual provide a version of the much-covered ‘Apache’ on ‘Aranui Apache’.
There’s also a good degree of genre cross-pollination across the album, all falling within around 160 beats per minute. The Forbin Project offer the expansive, dreamy ‘Fifth Floor Carpark’, while at the other end of the spectrum, Barns features frantic syncopation and a ludicrous amount of bass on their track ‘underbelly’.
Footmahi 2023 provides a handy overview of underground dance music in Aotearoa for those curious about the cutting edge. It’s music made with no inhibitions and a constantly brimming youthful energy, the work of yet another resourceful independent label in this country who have harnessed their community to provide hours of enjoyment.
Feed Me to the Doves by Guardian Singles
Photo: Supplied
For a while there, a certain local band seemed to appear once a year, generate massive amounts of hype, and then disappear. If you looked a little deeper you’d see that Guardian Singles were the Aotearoa underground music equivalent of a supergroup, and that, periodically, they’d coalesce from around the country - or the world - and when they did, it was cause for celebration.
In the liner notes there’s a sense that their first self-titled album was secondary to the live shows, captured on tape out of necessity in early 2018. A follow-up has just come out, with all the nervous, bristling energy intact, and some added studio sizzle.
Guardian Singles features Thom Burton, who’s played in Wilberforces and SoccerPractise, and makes electronic music as Crash Teslas, which, back when I reviewed the album Everything Sort of Swung Round, was called Moppy. Those last two acts in particular show his range - the occasionally placid soundscapes of his electronic work are miles away from the guitar frenzy here.
The band was co-founded by Thom and drummer Fiona Campbell, who played in local greats The Coolies, and American outfit Vivian Girls, and possesses phenomenal technique and timing.
They’ve been joined since 2018 (just after the first album), by Yolanda Fagan, of Half Hexagon and Taite Prize Independent Debut winners Na Noise, and Durham Fenwick, who makes ambient music as Green Grove, and plays with Dimmer and Erny Belle.
There’s prestige all round, and together a palpable chemistry, making music that’s angry and brimming with anarchic energy.
‘Com Trans’ features one of the album’s hookiest choruses, and, like many of these songs, touches on Burton’s sense of social equity. He sings “Insincere white tears falling out of my eyes”, and the words lacerate as much as the screeching guitar riff.
Elsewhere he takes aim at climate change deniers, multi-level marketing scams, crypto influencers, and other modern grievances, saying in the liner notes the lyrics were “…scribbled while watching the dregs of a delirious culture war play out through broken smartphones and praline vape clouds.”
There’s nihilism and outrage at injustices perpetrated on others, but also reflection and nostalgia, and his voice is malleable enough to accommodate plenty of angst alongside the moodier delivery on tracks like ‘Shimmer’.
As you might expect with the talent involved, this is a record where every member leaves a distinct impression. It’s safely categorised as post-punk, drawing on a legacy of bands like Wire and Mission of Burma, and like those acts, there’s strong melodic nous at work on each track.
‘Metal Fingers’ soars over Fenwick’s shrieking guitar and Campbell’s relatively pared-back drumming, with Burton delivering lines about the light leaving someone’s eyes, on the album’s most psychedelic, exploratory track.
There’s a saying about leaving people wanting more, but I’m hoping this iteration of Guardian Singles sticks around for a while. An acclaimed set at Memphis punk festival Gonerfest and a multi-album deal with American label Trouble in Mind have resulted in attention stateside, including from the tastemaking website Stereogum, and if we’re lucky that’ll mean more from one of the country's tightest, most interesting politically-minded guitar bands.
