2024 Wrapped

Selected Works is a weekly (usually) newsletter by the Te Whanganui-a-Tara, Aotearoa (Wellington, New Zealand) based freelance music journalist, broadcaster, copywriter and sometimes DJ Martyn Pepperell, aka Yours Truly. Most weeks, Selected Works consists of a recap of what I’ve been doing lately and some of what I’ve been listening to and reading, paired with film photographs I’ve taken + some bonuses. All of that said, sometimes it takes completely different forms.

Man, 2024. What a year. I’m not sure how I thought the last twelve months would play out, but they didn’t play out anywhere near how I expected. Things were tough. Really tough. Nevertheless, however, we got it done. I know the year isn’t quite done yet, but I’m pretty tapped out at this point. Here’s a general overview of most of the feature stories, interviews, radio shows, DJ sets, playlists, liner notes, and the like that I’ve put together since January. I’m pretty sure I’ve forgotten some stuff. Apologies in advance. So it goes.

FEATURES:

Audio Culture: Denver McCarthy, aka Micronism, Mechanism, Chaos Reader, DJ Vraj, Pedestrian, Liquid Water

Denver McCarthy spent the 1990s creating electronic music in Aotearoa under the Mechanism, Chaos Reader and Micronism aliases. In 2017 he told RNZ’s Tony Stamp, “For those 10 years, my whole life was just writing, producing electronic music, playing electronic music out, and listening to electronic music with friends. It was full immersion into electronic music.” Read here.

Variety: The Australian Child Actor Who Became a Star in Sri Lanka

In 2021, Australian singer-songwriter Georgie Fisher started noticing comments from Sri Lankan social media users on her Facebook and Instagram pages that sent her spinning down memory lane. Read here.

Audio Culture: The Upbeats, aka Downie Wolf and Terror Snake, Crushington

As the 2000s began, Dylan Jones (aka Downie Wolf) and Jeremy Glenn (aka Terror Snake), the New Zealand electronic music producer/DJ duo better known as The Upbeats, were finding their way into Wellington’s underground drum & bass scene. From the moment they arrived through their storied residency at Valve (now Valhalla), they brought a new energy that audiences almost instantly responded to. Read here.

Test Pressing: Seasons Change: Fuemana & New Urban Polynesian

In 1989, Soul II Soul’s breakout singles ‘Keep on Movin’ and ‘Back to Life (However Do You Want Me)’ weren’t just running up the charts in the UK, Europe, and North America; they were also having a significant impact in Australia and New Zealand. At the time, the late great Polynesian Renaissance man Phil Fuemana heard something special in the combination of hard drums and soulful vocals. Read here.

Audio Culture: Look Blue Go Purple: Looking Back

In the late 1980s, Look Blue Go Purple (LBGP) was one of the most important acts to emerge in the second wave of the seminal New Zealand indie rock label Flying Nun. “They were one of the best bands of their time and the most undeservingly underappreciated,” says musician Penelope Esplin (French for Rabbits). “They’ve inspired a generation of female musicians, most of whom stumbled across them and wondered why they weren’t more famous.” Read here.

Rolling Stone: Inside Australia and New Zealand’s Reissue Record Label Scene

In 1977, Leong Lau had Sydney’s cosmopolitan nightlife grooving to a singular fusion of Malay folk music, jazz and psychedelic funk sung with a cheeky Aussie accent. That year, the Malaysia-born Chinese Australian musician released his second album, That Rongeng Sound, before continuing a circuitous life journey that has seen him spend stints playing flute with the Sydney Symphony Orchestra, working in theatre in the UK and conducting stem cell research in Switzerland. Read here.

Audio Culture: Christoph El Truento, aka Christopher James Martin, aka DJ Truent, SSELLF, Foraging

Over the last 13 years Christopher Martin James, better known by his musical moniker Christoph El Truento, has crafted one of the most interesting and diverse discographies of any 21st-Century musician from Aotearoa. Read here.

Rolling Stone: ‘Master of Jangly Pop Songs’: Remembering The Chills’ Martin Phillipps

The late, great New Zealand singer-songwriter leaves behind an extraordinary discography in which beauty, loss, innocence, and melancholia came together. Read here.

Audio Culture: Ten future hip-hop soul jazz tracks from the 2000s

In the 2000s, underground nightclub dancefloors around New Zealand were moving to a loose conglomeration of sounds that combined jazz, soul, funk, hip-hop, R&B and electronica. Depending on who was performing or DJing, you’d sometimes see this stylistic mélange advertised on flyers and posters with terms like Hi-Tek Pacific Soul or Future Soul, which the music more than lived up to. Read here.

Test Pressing: Desire, Fantasy & Hopefulness: An Interview with Private Joy

“Desire brings forth fantasy and hopefulness,” explained the Manchester-based vocalist, producer and DJ Pops Roberts, aka Private Joy. Speaking with me via Zoom from her home studio on a weeknight in early July, Roberts was filling me in on the feelings behind her forthcoming debut solo EP “Desire!” “I think it is a precursor to yearning,” she continued. I think it’s an important moment when you start earning for something because your mind is opening up.” Read here.

Audio Culture: Anita Clark, aka Motte

Born and raised in Northern Canterbury, Anita Clark is a longstanding violinist, cellist, composer, and vocalist. Over the last two decades, she has played strings with Irish bands, folk ensembles, indie rock bands, and some of New Zealand’s most legendary singer-songwriters. Read here.

Selected Works: A Lifetime Later, Christoph El Truento Finds His Way Back To Dub

An interview with the longstanding New Zealand DJ, beatmaker, and producer about dub music, his two dub reggae albums and working with Haymaker Records. Read here.

Audio Culture: Ben Lemi, aka Dawn Diver, Courtesy Caller, Lorax

A skilled multi-instrumentalist, vocalist, band leader, producer and recording engineer, Ben Lemi has spent the last two decades adding musical colour and vibrant detail to countless acts from New Zealand’s avant-garde jazz, folk, country, soul, reggae, indie rock, RnB and hip-hop communities. Read here.

DJ Mag: Fresh Kicks 212: 404 Eros

London duo 404 Eros mix street soul, boogie, broken beat, house and more for the Fresh Kicks series, and speak to Martyn Pepperell about their storyteller’s approach to music, starting out on Peckham’s Balamii Radio, and their 5enses’ cassette mixtape series. Read here.

Audio Culture: Isaac Aesili

From the first time he performed with Solaa in Christchurch in 1997, Isaac Aesili has been a key member of New Zealand’s burgeoning jazz, funk, soul, Latin, RnB and broken beat musical communities. Read here.

Rolling Stone: A Renowned Japanese-New Zealand Composer Charts His Journey to 50: ‘I’ve Always Had This Feeling That I Have to Leave and See What’s Next’

If you look through the liner notes of late 20th/early 21st century musical history, you’ll find Mark de Clive-Lowe everywhere. On the edge of turning 50, the pianist, composer, beatmaker, producer and DJ reflected on a lifetime in music. Read here.

Audio Culture: Moizna

Back in 1997, teenagers across Auckland couldn’t believe their eyes and ears when ‘Just Another Day’ by West Auckland hip-hop/R&B group Moizna (mow-is-na) became a regular feature on Max TV’s after-school programme The Beat. Seeing these young Polynesian women wearing puffer jackets and vests while singing and rapping over world-class production was a watershed moment for a generation. Three years later, Moizna disbanded, leaving behind a legacy of classic singles and music videos that continue to resonate today. Read here.

Audio Culture: Ten 90s Classics & Deep Cuts: R&B, street soul and new jack swing

As the 1990s dawned, the influence of British and American fashion and music, particularly hip-hop, R&B, and house music, rang out across Aotearoa. Up and down the country, a wave of musicians, dancers, party kids, and promoters began to find ways to intertwine these fast-rising forces with our local cultural backdrop. Within this milieu, a collection of emerging record labels of the era, like Southside Records and Deepgrooves Entertainment, and a few hipped ears at the major labels, began to release music from a generation of predominantly – but by no means exclusively – Māori and Pacific talents such as Houseparty, Ngaire, Semi MCs, Jules Issa, and Moana and The Moahunters. Here’s a list of 10 local R&B, street soul and new jack swing classics and deep cuts that fired up imaginations and dancefloors in the 1990s and still have the power to do so decades later. Read here.

Selected Works: The James Alexander Bright Interview

Over the last four years, the Hampshire, UK-based singer-songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, and producer James Alexander Bright has released three solo albums, an EP and an album as Bright & Findlay (his collaboration with Groove Armada’s Tom Findlay) and a remix record with the Flying Mojito Bros. Along the way, the big man with a big voice has carved out a playful niche where classic pop sensibilities, the spirit of vintage soul music, psychedelia and shuffling beats dovetail into a joyfully kaleidoscopic soundworld. Read here.

Audio Culture: Orchestra of Spheres

Described by the Canadian electronic musician Caribou as “Part Sun Ra otherworldliness, part Sublime Frequencies and part ESG,” Wellington’s Orchestra of Spheres embodies a longstanding local avant-garde music tradition that stretches back through the decades into the 1970s/1980s scenes that emerged around The Wellington Artist’s Co-op, Braille Collective, and The Primitive Art Group. Read here.

Test Pressing: Obscure Desire: An Interview with Andrew Waldegrave

When you talk about the storied tales of global dance music, club culture and nightclubbing in the late 1970s and early 1980s, one of the recurring themes is the importance of open-minded and open-eared spaces where dancers, DJs and performers found the freedom to be themselves. In New York, the club kids danced to the infectious selections of the late great DJ Larry Levan at the Paradise Garage. Over the Atlantic in Manchester, acid house, rave, and dance rock kept the dancefloor moving at The Haçienda. At the bottom of the globe in Auckland, the largest city in New Zealand, the place to be was A Certain Bar. Read here.

DJ Mag: Sublime Records and the dawn of Japanese techno

Born on the basement dancefloor of Tokyo’s Maniac Love club in 1994, Sublime Records quickly became a definitive label for Japan’s nascent techno scene, furthering the international profiles of emerging visionaries like Ken Ishii and Susumu Yokota and building connections with artists in North America and the UK. In celebration of its 30th anniversary and the recent reissue of two of its iconic albums, Martyn Pepperell speaks to its founders, affiliates and devoted fans to learn its story, and understand its enduring influence at home and abroad. Read here.

The Ransom Note: Ken Ishii ‘Reference To Difference’ Sleevenotes

To celebrate its 30th anniversary, Japanese label Musicmine / Sublime Records, just reissued Ken Ishii’s cult classic ‘Reference To Difference’ on vinyl with the original track list for the first time…

Originally released back in 1994, ‘Reference To Difference’ has now been remastered and accompanied by new liner notes from Martyn Pepperell published here, Ishii’s masterpiece showcased a fusion of ambient atmospheres, space age techno, IDM, and minimalism. This reissue not only revives a pivotal moment in the 1990s Japanese techno scene but also reaffirms Ishii’s status as a pioneer who helped bring Japan’s sound to the global stage. Read here.

Selected Works: Pink Warm Belly Of A Dying Sun

Lukasz Polowczyk, the Polish sound artist, poet and educator also known as AINT ABOUT ME, has heard that when a thermobaric bomb explodes, the vacuum draws the breath out from your lungs, your flesh turns cold black on the inside, and the rains down, raw diamonds the size of coarse hail. Read here.

DAZED DIGITAL:

The Q1, Q2, and Q3 editions of my new music column for Dazed Digital are all live on the site at the links above.

Q&A:

Selected Works: Katya Yonder

Four years later, Katya is back with her latest opus, Cure, released again through Métron. Across thirteen richly textured and immersive songs that run the full stylistic gamut from cinematic ambient music, synthesised folk songs, and ornate high-concept pop to polished dream girl trap music, lullaby ballads and floaty electronic bangers, Katya digs deep. Cure is an introspective and confessional album about love coming unstuck, the struggles we battle beneath the surface, and the understanding, acceptance and personal growth that sometimes follows loss and failure. It’s honest and upfront music recorded during an era that often feels like it’s anything but. Read here.

Selected Works: G.C Cameron

Hailing from McCall Creek, Mississippi, G.C. Cameron rose to fame at age 22, when he joined Motown Records to become the lead singer of their legendary group The Spinners. After a string of well-received releases, including the hit record ‘It’s A Shame’, co-written and produced by Stevie Wonder, Cameron left The Spinners to pursue a solo career. Read here.

Selected Works: Circus Underwater

In 2023, Soundway Records reissued Circus Underwater’s 1984 self-titled masterpiece. Remastered and extended to a double LP, the deluxe version they released includes six unreleased tracks unearthed from the original 1/4” tapes and presented with an insert, including never-before-seen photos and the fascinating story behind the music. Read here.

RADIO NEW ZEALAND:

Music feature: City Pop, Japan pop of the 70s and 80s.

Broadcaster and DJ Martyn Pepperell walks Jesse through a music genre that’s been around for more than 40 years, but possibly new to some of us. City-pop is a mix of American/UK influenced pop music that emerged in Japan in the late 1970s eventually giving way to J-Pop and the idol groups of the 90s going forward. Listen here.

Music feature: Aotearoa Street Soul

A wave of predominantly Polynesian artists began to blend the emerging sounds from the UK with Pasifika culture … creating their own unique sound. These artists laid the groundwork for New Zealand’s hip-hop golden era with the likes of Che Fu, King Kapisi, Nesian Mystik, Scribe emerging in the early 2000s. Music journalist and DJ Martyn Pepperell takes Jesse on a soulful journey. Listen here.

DJ MIXES:

Mixcloud: On The Beach

Summertime: It’s a sunny afternoon, and we’re dancing on the beach. Just over an hour of new and old tunes by Summer Vee, Cantoma, Double, Peech Boys, TC Curtis, Beats Workin, Genji Sawai, Chris Rea, Warp Nine, Liquid Liquid, Manu DiBango, Sueno Latino, The Residents, The Woodentops, TC Curtis, Steve Monite & more. Listen here.

Mixcloud: A UK Thing: Dubstep, Grime, Purple & Bassline

The year is 2009. You just read an article about Joker in The Wire magazine. Tonight, you’re going to Plastic People in Shoreditch to hear Benga DJ. Lately, you’ve been listening to the 5: Five Years of Hyperdub compilation album, the tracks by Ikonika are amazing. Tomorrow, you might leave some comments on Blackdown’s Blogspot and upload a gallery of photos on Facebook. Life is good. Listen here.

Mixcloud: Blue

Here’s the topline: Blue is a one-hour DJ mix of songs with blue in the title, artists with blue in their name, and albums with blue on the cover. Listen here.

PLAYLISTS:

HI-FI SCI-FI:

This year, I’ve been happy to work with HI-FI SCI-FI to present a fresh audio-sensory experience from some of our favourite visual artists, designers, DJs and multi-disciplinary creatives. Every few months, they’ve hosted a new guest DJ mix that bridges the borders and boundaries of creativity through sound. Here’s the first four.

Seattle-born, Philadelphia-based DJ and producer ESTOC is representative of a generation of artists who see popular music club edits, techno, hardstyle, gabber, industrial, ambient and drone as different frequencies in the same waveform. Citing sci-fi and horror movies, video games and global culture as crucial influences, she’s a voracious, musically omnivorous listener who can dial up a stylistic allusion or reference at a moment’s notice while delivering her messages and values with a refreshing combination of humour and sincerity.

WEAR POUNAMU is an experimental musician, DJ and producer from Aotearoa (New Zealand). Over the last two years, they’ve built a cult following on SoundCloud by uploading a series of impressionistic, wry and tender DJ mixes and collaborative tracks that connect the dots between ambient, club music, sonic improvisation and found audio clips that speak to the unvarnished realities of the day.

Frank Dorrey, aka DORIS, is a Haitian-American multimedia artist, rapper, producer, and DJ from Linden, New Jersey. Whether crafting eye-popping, hyper-colourful pop art illustrations and digital collages on a smartphone app or eclectic sample-based dance rap records, his angular creative output offers a prismatic window into the small tender moments that make up the fabric of everyday life. Influenced by Dean Blunt, DJ Taj, Sugar Hill Gang, reality TV, Disney movies, kompa, disco, Southern rap, sadboy rock, viral Tiktoks and classic soul music, he’s an artist who draws from everywhere and could make anything.

Diana Tousi Pour, aka CUPID, is an Iranian-Kiwi DJ based in Tāmaki Makaurau, Aotearoa. Taking her stage name from the Greek god of desire, erotic love, attraction and affection, CUPID started uploading DJ mixes on Soundcloud in 2023, in the process catching our attention at HI-FI SCI-FI with her hyper-contemporary sound. Since then, she’s recorded guest DJ mixes for Mouthful Radio and RE:TYPE COMMUNITY RADIO and opened up for DJ G2G (DK) and Bae Bae (US) at events organised by HI-FI SCI-FI and FILTH.

LINER/SALES NOTES:

One of my big work joys this year was the number of people who asked me to help them create liner notes, sales notes and press materials for their releases or events. It was an absolute privilege to help you all out here. I’d love to do a lot more of this next year!

Fuemana, New Urban Polynesian

Thirty years after it was released on CD and cassette, Fuemana’s cult classic New Urban Polynesian album is finally available on vinyl. Born from the blood, sweat and tears of the late great Polynesian renaissance man Phil Fuemana and his family and friends, Fuemana’s music transports the listener back to the autumn and winter days of 1994 in the antipodes, where they turned love, loss, grief and acceptance into the finest R&B/street soul album ever recorded in Aotearoa New Zealand.

Samuel Forbes, Here/Walk

Dubby breakbeat science and bass abstractions from a low-profile New Zealand producer. Based in Wellington, the capital city of New Zealand, Samuel Forbes grew up in the port town of Lyttelton, just outside of Christchurch. Raised on dub reggae, D.I.Y sound system culture, and freshly cut acetate dubplates, he was fascinated by UK-born hardcore continuum sounds of jungle/drum & bass, grime, and dubstep from a young age.

Ken Ishii, Reference To Difference

This is a piece of Japanese musical history. Thirty years after it was originally released on CD in 1994, Musicmine and Sublime Records are pleased to present the first-ever vinyl reissue of the original six-song version of Ken Ishii’s Reference To Difference. A futuristic confluence of ambient, techno, IDM and minimalist composition, the album teleports the listener through space and time to a golden moment in the mid-1990s when a dedicated generation rose out of Tokyo’s storied underground nightclubs to create a movement that took the innovation, energy, and creativity of Japan’s unique techno culture to the world.

Crystal Chen & Kenny Sterling, Love Letter

Even when they’re brief and fleeting, real love affairs often endure through rose-tinted memories and artefacts of fading ephemera: candid polaroid photos, elegantly penned handwritten letters, a scent lingering on an item of clothing. On ‘Love Letter,’ the Tamaki Mākaurau-based Chinese-New Zealand singer, musician, and visual artist Crystal Chen passionately implores a lover to write to her. In the process, she evokes a silky smooth atmosphere as vivid and warmly coloured as her analog 35mm and medium format film photography.

Crystal Chen, Kiss It Better

An emerging musical powerhouse, Crystal’s songcraft draws from the storied influence of mid-20th-century American jazz, swing, and gospel singers like Nina Simone, Billie Holiday, and Aretha Franklin while bringing their sensibilities into harmony with the ornate sounds of 1970s soul music (in the mode of Minnie Riperton and Al Green) and the modern Latin jazz lilt of Esperanza Spalding. Vividly imagined, her songs reach out to the listener like a warm hug or a late-night video call between besties.

Julian Lubin, Patience & Love / Clarity

Featuring guest vocals from Samara Alofa and a saxophone solo by Francesca Parussini, Patience & Love is a sunkissed slice of freeform hip-hop soul. Written and produced on the spot by Julian and Mānuka Recordings co-founder Kenny Sterling at his former Morningside studio space, the song was inspired by the possibilities of applying a modern soul recording process to a rap track. “I was thinking about things like when El Michels Affair worked with Black Thought,” Kenny said.

Romi Wrights, Capsized

After captivating ears and hearts with her yearning 2023 double-single “Bring It Back / Without You”, the powerhouse Tokelauan singer-songwriter Romi Wrights returns to the Mānuka Recordings fold with another remarkable slice of retro ‘60s/’70s slanted piping hot soul music, ‘Capsized’.

Now Always Fades, Into The Doldrums

Northern Underground Records presents the first single from Xavier Bacash’s Now Always Fades project, ‘Into The Doldrums’. Inspired by the Intertropical Convergence Zone – a windless band encircling the equator that sailors call “the doldrums”, the song explores failing relationships and stagnation. Underscored by misty atmospherics and an undeniable street soul breakbeat, it’s a perfect narrative vehicle for vocalist Lili Hall’s dreamy tones and the pair’s yearning songcraft. Come for the vibes. Stay for the afterglow.

Revulva, Self-Titled

Over the last five years, Wellington octet Revulva has won over audiences around New Zealand with their frenzied, high-energy stage shows. Taking their cues from Talking Heads, Tom Tom Club, Jamiroquai, Steely Dan, Herbie Hancock, Minnie Ripperton, and Prince, their self-titled debut album reimagines the anything-goes energy of New York City’s 1970s downtown scene and London’s 1990s funk and soul renaissance through an antipodean perspective where awkward, deadpan humour goes hand in hand with the band’s social concerns and inherent feminist politics.

Anne-Tina, Self-Titled

Denmark’s Anne-Tina was already a performing pianist and singer of repute when she released her self-titled debut LP in 1984. Over ten magical synth-pop tracks that bubbled with the optimistic spirit of the mid-1980s, the nineteen-year-old musician sang in a dreamy, aspirational style. Forty years after Anne-Tina was originally issued on vinyl, Frederiksberg Records is pleased to present this slow-smouldering cult classic’s first official digital reissue.

Chatuye, Ahmuti

Formed in Los Angeles in 1982, Chatuye was one of the world’s premiere ensembles of Belizean Garifuna music. Their debut album, Ahmuti (1986), gives the listener a window into over four hundred years of history stretching from West Africa to Saint Vincent, Honduras, Nicaragua, Guatemala, Belize, and the United States. Over a soaring set of songs, they share the spirit and strength of their story through a transcendent blend of traditional hand drums, syncopated turtle shell percussion, and group call-and-response vocals, all expressed in a Punta music style.

Kris And Jerry, A Sunny Day

A nostalgic, golden-hued transmission from the mid-twentieth-century American Midwest, husband-and-wife folk-rock duo Kris and Jerry’s first and only album, A Sunny Day, transports the listener back to Enfield, a village in White County, Illinois, circa 1966. Over twelve polaroid-toned songs blissfully drift between folk-rock, country and lounge music sensibilities, they sing with yearning, naivety and optimism over a slow-cooked spread of shuffling drums and tambourine, strings, guitars, woodwinds, piano, organs and accordion.

Ivy Barkakati, Desplazamiento

Her second album in a decade, Ivy Barkakati’s Desplazamiento sits at the cosmic intersection of minimalist composition, analog synthesizer music, drone, and rhythmic noise. Recorded at home over two sleepless weeks in June 2021 with a Dave Smith Mono Evolver Keyboard, a borrowed MFB-522 drum computer, and Ableton Live, Desplazamiento’s six instrumental pieces represent an unmediated expression of the raw, internal feelings that lurked below the surface of Ivy’s subconscious mind during the early years of the global pandemic

Tei, Lilith

Named after the original scorned woman of Mesopotamian, Jewish and Medieval mythology, Lilith is the latest EP from Tei, a central Tāmaki Makaurau-based singer-songwriter, rapper and producer of Māori and Hong Kong Cantonese heritage.

Greatsouth, Self-Titled

Payton Taplin, aka Greatsouth, is a Māori singer-songwriter, multi-instrumentalist and producer from Tāmaki Makaurau, Aotearoa (Auckland, New Zealand). A slow-cooked boil-up of indie rock, punk and lo-fi R&B, Taplin’s songs explore themes of economic hardship, aspiration, hometown pride, and the ongoing implications of colonisation through a distinctly urban Māori worldview.

MOKOMOKAI, WHAKAREHU

What you are holding in your hands is a piece of Aotearoa music history: the pounamu green vinyl edition of WHAKAREHU, the second album from MOKOMOKAI, the Māori hip-hop trio comprised of the rapper Manu and the producer duo Dusty & Ghos. Drawing from a mixture of gritty, conversational storytelling, stripped-back jazz and soul chops, and low-slung neo boom bap, they’ve spent the last three years making cinematic, black-and-white film noir vignettes reimagined as songs.

TALKS:

ADA: Algorithmic music, Sat 25 May 2024.

Panel: Selecting Music: Understanding Economies of Human Touch

Convener Jack Gittings: Jack Gittings is an artist, facilitator, and producer from Te Awanga, New Zealand. His work spans performance, independent online radio, and community arts, eliciting notions of play, collectivity, and archiving.

Panelists: Harri Robinson, Martyn Pepperell, Jack Gittings. Details here.

Verb: Making noise: Aotearoa music writers, Sat 9 November 2024.

Aotearoa music writers Kiran Dass, Martyn Pepperell and Chris Bourke share their pinch-me moments; unbelievable encounters with their music idols; and what it’s like reporting on music in 2024. More details here.

DJ GIGS:

This year, I was lucky enough to play fifteen great DJ gigs. I shared stages with Marcellus Pittman, Onra and Machinedrum, rocked community halls and street parties, and even played a stadium football game. Not bad for an old dog.

David Dallas @ Meow

Dubby Day @ Parrotdog Bar

Vogelmorn End of Year Party @ Vogelmorn

Meow Nui Opening @ Meow Nui

Brooklyn Twilight Festival @ Brooklyn

Mondo Bizarro @ Vogelmorn

LLB @ Parrotdog Bar

Bastille Day @ Vogelmorn

Midwinter Boogie Down @ Fortune Favours

Marcellus Pittman @ Flux

Mick Harvey & Amanda Acevedo @ Meow

Oddisee @ San Fran

Wellington Phoenix @ Wellington Stadium

Machinedrum @ Meow

Onra @ Meow

FIN.