"Precise playing is complemented by a terrific mix that gives every instrument space while somehow still sounding dense and powerful." - punkas.com
"Mirrors is a beautiful balance of heavy and ambient. The soundscapes created by so many different guitar layers and other textures, counterbalanced with metal/hardcore aggression sets this release apart..." - NZRock
"the five piece hailing from Auckland have incorporated the perfect blend of delicate harmonics and unrelenting heaviness..." - music.net.nz
So there's some pretty decent stuff in our warehouse this week. In Aisle 1* in particular. See, that's where we stash the records. And some DVDs and a bunch of stuff that belongs to those good sorts at Ode Records. But we'll save that business for another day. Whaddayareckon of this small selection:
Here we have some Tiny Ruins. A limited quantity of You Were Meant For Sea LPs going on sale next week.
And there are a few of the latest Om LP Advaitic Songs left right here.
Via our friends at Unwucht this lovingly restored and remastered 3rd 12" (Schwimmen in der See) in the Bilders/Bill Direen reissues series. Sold out elsewhere y'know.
These are shipping rather swiftly. The xx LP Coexist isavailable in both your standard or deluxe gatefold styles. Each comes with the CD included.
Don't panic, there are more than two copies of Cat Power's Sun left. Deluxe. Includes
limited edition 7" with bonus tracks. And a download coupon for your
digital needs.
*Here we must take a moment to acknowledge that this is the tidiest and most
organised Aisle 1 has been since...ever. Thanks to warehouseperson
Andy. You rule.
Thanks for all your love and support over the last
10 years. We couldn't have asked for more from you.
Take care of
yourselves and each other.
Love, The Checks
And we sadly say goodbye to The Checks. we've loved working with you crazy geniuses... Love the 3rd video too - glad we got to see that part of plan fulfilled!
Found in the Rhythmethod warehouse, but not for long (see them perched there, it's cos they're shipping too quickly for us to even bother filing them onto the A-Z shelf). Yep, it's the new Bailterspace LP Strobosphere. Release date's today, and it's on CD too, via our pals at Arch Hill.
It's about this time we find something in the Rhythmethod warehouse that's worth reporting, and today is no exception. You see, Crib'n'Andy are shipping Nightchoir's See The First Star, the band's second album for 1157 Records. It's all a bit exciting.
Nightchoir see out our last month of winter and first bit of spring touring:
Leigh: Friday 10 August Sawmill Cafe
Auckland: Saturday 11 August Dogs Bollix
Paikakariki: Friday 17 August St Peter's Village Hall
Wellington: Saturday 18 August Mighty, Mighty
Oamaru: Thursday 6 September The Penguin Club
Dunedin: Friday 7 September ReFuel
Lyttelton: Saturday 8 September Wunderbar
And Mike Hall talks about See the First Star and the band here on 95bFM's Morning Glory show with Charlotte Ryan.
Low and Behold, High and Beyond, the new Sola Rosa album is out on
10 August 2012.
And they're on the road through August and September celebrating:
Auckland - Friday 10 August @ The Studio
Raglan - Saturday 11 August @ Yot Club
Havelock North - Friday 17 August @ Underground Cellar / Black Barn
Ohakune - Saturday 18 August @ Hot Lava
New Plymouth - Friday 24 August @ Mayfair
Wellington - Saturday 25 August @ San Francisco Bath House
Christchurch - Thursday 6 September @ Dux de Lux
Dunedin - Friday 7 September @ Sammy's
Queenstown - Saturday 8 September @ World Bar
We're falling over ourselves about these. Opossom vinyl is coming this way: a triple 7" set, and your regular LP version. How about those colours? Heck. Totally exclusive and in limited quantities. Out early August. Go pester your local vinyl peddler immediately.
Finally Lawrence Arabia week is upon us, with the release of his third album The Sparrow this Friday. Download the first single for free. It's real good. So's the entire album. And take a look at www.lawrencearabia.com for forthcoming local and international tour dates, blog, more music and news.
We all know a good pie is the sustenance of any band on the road and there's no denying The Nudge have put in the hard yards since their album Big Nudge Pie was released. From the Black Barn with Fat Freddy's Drop to the premiere summer festivals: Coromandel Gold, Kaikoura Roots, Summer Sunday at Matakana, Sounds Aotearoa, The Great Kiwi Beer Festival in Christchurch and Splore, The Nudge has delivered blistering performances from the Catlins to Auckland and, on writing, can be found enjoying a cocktail or three as they play out a one month residency at super club Potato Head in Bali. It's a long way from Newtown!
Check their tans (and new single Leif)on their return at these shows:
WELLINGTON - Friday 27 July - Meow
AUCKLAND - Friday 28 July - Powerstation with KORA
July 6th 2012 sees Die! Die! Die! release their fourth studio album.
Harmony brings together the raw energy and emotion from their live shows, fusing those savant pop elements with their DIY punk philosophy.
Die! Die! Die! are also touring their face-melting shows this July.
Hamilton
Thursday 12th July - Static
Auckland
Friday 13th July - Winchester (95bFM Private Function)
Tauranga
Saturday 14th July “Die Die Die Booze Cruise on the Luvboat” – SOLD OUT!!!
Dunedin
Wednesday 25th July - Crown Hotel
Port Chalmers
Friday 27th July - Chicks Hotel
Christchurch
Saturday 28th July - Dux Live
Wellington
Friday 3rd August – Bodega
Fireworks. Watermelon. Convertibles. Beaches. Babes. Wavves. Girls just like to have fun and so do Best Coast - whose recently released The Only Place is ranking up there in our top albums of twentytwelve.
The video accompaniment to the first single from the album is an unashamed love letter to summer. This Ace Norton directed clip has Bethany and Bobb getting up to all sorts of no good:
So there's a bit of a competition happening on our Facebook. Post a postcard to our wall of your Only Place for a chance to win stuff. Only half a year till summer's back here again...
As soon as the boxes arrived, the immensity of what they'd done became obvious to the Eastern. Making a double album suddenly seemed heavy. Like half a tonne heavy. Ordering and shipping a chunk of records from the Americas seemed like a great idea until they realised a double album meant double the shipping. If only the EMI NZ vinyl pressing equipment hadn't been pushed into the sea a couple of decades back. It's why we love The Eastern: their bold schemes and grand ideas make for results such as this glorious record.
The Eastern's Hope & Wire is out and about now on double vinyl.
Beyond exciting! A new Bailterspace album, Strobosphere, their first in thirteen years, is to be released in NZ on Arch Hill. Standby for further information, and get 'No Sense' for now.
By virtue of the gang upstairs who organise these things, an extension has been granted till Monday 4 June for entries to our sleeveface competition. So now you've got all weekend to get your face on and submit to our Facebook page. (For rules and stuff check preceeding posts).
A fine selection of entries from the NZ Sleeve Face competition happening over on our Facebook page. Wanna enter? You've got till 5 pm Friday 1 June...
To celebrate the last week of NZ Music Month and the release of Fabulous Arabia's Unlimited Buffet on LP, we're having a good old-fashioned 'face-sleeving'* competition.
The rules are simple. Take a photo with you and a New Zealand album or albums - following the face-sleeving guidelines below - and post it on Rhythmethod's Facebook: www.facebook.com/rhythmethod
The winner will be judged on creativity, subject matter and seamlessness of the finished result.
The winner will be drawn of Friday 1st June and will be notified via Facebook.
The prize will contain a stack of NZ musical goodies including records, CDs and t shirts...you gotta be in it to win it!
*Face-sleeving - one or more persons obscuring or augmenting any part of their body or bodies with record sleeve(s) causing an illusion - check out this website for inspiration: http://www.sleeveface.com/
Music for your hot chip Friday (and beyond). This record is getting love all around the office. Out on Kieran (Four Tet) Hebden's Text Records, Into the Trees is a wee folk beauty by Chicago based musician Kathryn Bint. Hebden produced the album and Colin Greenwood of Radiohead guests on bass.
Release date: 1 June 2012
We love our warehouse, and here comes the inevitable but, but about this time of year we start moaning that it's so much warmer outside than it is in, how the place is a fridge disguised as a distribution outfit and are continually bitching about the front door being left open. The awful arm socks and scarves go on, hoods go up, the building reeks gloriously of microwaved wheat bag, and still we complain of the cold, and how much we hate winter.
Easing the pain a little this year though are the New Zealand Music Month hoodies which have fast become de rigueur Rhythmethod warehouse attire. You can get 'em for men, for women, in all sizes, in a suitable shade of black with the target logo front and back, from all decent music retailers or at online at amplifier.co.nz or Mighty Ape. Yup.
“Shitripper like things fast, loud and heavy…The Auckland-based punk act only know one way forward - full throttle, and that's exactly what they deliver on this blistering nine-track EP… sure sound exhilarating in a heckle-raising, fist-pumping kind of way, and achieve the band's ambition of honouring their underground heroes Circle Jerks and Minor Threat.” – Chris Schulz, NZ Herald
Coming soon on our favourite format, yes, that's vinyl, is the Fabulous Arabia album 'Unlimited Buffet'. Best hop to it when the time comes though, cos this record is far from unlimited, it's been pressed in a (numbered) edition of only 200 copies.
Release date forthcoming, so check back ok.
Here, as further explanation to the content, it is appropriate to reprint the letter from the President of Economy Records found in the sleeve notes:
"UNLIMITED BUFFET is a twin-hulled power-yacht of a record. It is a craft built with only one concern in mind: unbridled speed.
On UNLIMITED BUFFET, the words of LAWRENCE ARABIA are yoked to the musical arangements of MIKE FABULOUS in a fashion that is - dare I say it - quite provocative indeed.
In the past, ARABIA has wrestled the wraiths of weary nostalgia - not to mention the juxtapositions and moods of contemporary banality. UNLIMITED BUFFET rests amid that all pervading energy-field that the thinkers term "le life-style".
FABULOUS has once again trimmed his musical moustache and turned out as charming a series of anecdotes as my speakers have had the very good fortune to chuckle over in quite some time!"
Quickly following posts on Wavves and Best Coast, today finds Beach House and Beach Pigs lined up next on the big ol' to-do-list white board. Thematic, yes, but truly not on purpose. But if this was one of those marketing meeting bingo boards you'd be putting a big X over the 'synergies' square. Why not break it up with a new 'found around the warehouse', a hot chip report or a big dose of label love you say. Because we're an impatient bunch when it comes to putting stuff on here that we like, so today you get a twofer. No cheap merchandise here mind you, top quality items only. It's what we do. Like a rising tide that lifts all boats. Or something.
So here you go with Arch Hill band Beach Pigs. A free download of their new single 'Catch Up In the Sun', plus (crazy 21st party at the beach action) accompanying video:
And if that isn't enough, it sure as hell isn't for us, Rackets and Beach Pigs are taking their CHAOTIC FULLY SICK RAUCOUS PARTY
to the road on a two isle tour all the way to Invercargill and
(hopefully) back.
Beginning 17 May for four weeks they aim to play
anywhere and everywhere. Every day at least two shows a day, and not all slots are
filled yet. So if your house, hall or high school needs a shindig they can
bring it - get over to Arch Hill and enquire, they'll sort you out.
Dates confirmed so
far:
MAY
17th Thurs: Palmerston North - Bad Cave
18th Fri: Wanganui
- Space Monster
19th Sat: Wellington - House Party (deets tbc)
20th Sun:
Mapua - The Tap
23rd Wed: Christchurch - Dux Live
24th Thurs: Dunedin -
Refuel
25th Fri: Queenstown - Dux De Lux
26th Sat: Invercargill - Louies
Bar
27th Sun: Riverton - The Long Room
29th Tues: Fox Glacier - Cook
Saddle
30th Wed: Franz Josef - Blue Ice
31st Thurs: Barrytown - Barrytown
Hall
Office favourite alert, and constant on the upstairs big-boy stereo (read: can be heard all over the building) is 'Bloom', the new Beach House album. Following on from 2010's gorgeous 'Teen Dream' this album is ten songs of lo-fi airy synths, swoony electric guitar and alluring, romantic but dark reverb soaked vocals. Listen:
17 years after their last album, Mad Scene (Hamish Kilgour (The Clean), Lisa Siegel (Vegetarian), Steve Thornton
(Go-To Guy), Georgia Hubley (Yo La Tengo), Gary Olsen (Straight
Shooter), Josh Feldman (Professional Athlete), Cassie Tunick, Danny
Tunick (Same Last Names!) and Brian Turner (WFMU Music Director) release a new album 'Blip' on Siltbreeze. Go hassle your record shop now, and read more about it here at Siltblog.
Well, we're making space in the warehouse for the new Best Coast album 'The Only Place' which is set for release on 18 May. Not too long to wait. Meantime, download the title track here:
Rhythmethod is an independent music distribution company based in Auckland, New Zealand.
This blog isn't an outlet for everything we release - check our facebook, twitter and tumblr too - but rather a way for us to share the special bits n' pieces (exclusives, videos, MP3s, pictures,competitions, etc) which are currently floating our boats.
With a strong focus on building good, lasting relationships when doing business, we have grown into the serious option for individuals, bands, labels and distributors looking to get the best representation for their music in NZ.
The company began just over a decade ago, and has morphed into quite the beast, now distributing some of NZ's biggest independent artists & an array of outstanding international labels - which, not at all coincidentally, just happen to be some of OUR favourite international labels. As my old Granny used to say: "Be careful what you wish for..."
Who I'd like to meet:
Musicians. Producers. DJs. Creative types. People who really care about music. Word!