This weeks “inspiration” post is gonna focus on one of NZ’s best kept secrets and one of my favorite vocalists and music lovers, miss Lisa Preston aka LP. LP has been working with a long list of amazing up and coming producers over the last few years and I really wanted to put together a little “best of” so you can all check out her style. I first checked out Lisa on a track from the K15 & LP EP “A New Path” which I posted about in late 2007 and had the pleasure of working with Lisa on the “High times” track on my EP. Lisa has a unique & enchanting sound with a strong passion and ability to really push each track to something new and exciting. I’m a big fan of “futuristic” style beats and I think it takes a strong sense of self in a vocalist to really shine over these heavier styles, Lisa seems to pull it off and is always a big part of the arrangement and feel of the tracks too, which for me made it a real collaborative and inspiring process.

Check out the tracks below, some of them are on the “free download” if you want to grab them, really looking forward to the new Benny Tones album which features a colab with Lisa called “Odyssey” plus the imminent vinyl release of the “A New Path EP” 12” with remixes coming out through Rationale Music.

UPDATE – Benny just added the new single “Odyssey” with LP on his soundcloud so head over and check it out.

Onur Engin & Lisa Preston – Love Gift by Onur Engin
Paddy Fred & LP – One by kowtow music
Lord Jackson & LP. by LordJackson
stevo & lisa preston – sigh by stevo
Know U feat. LP by Cy Tru™
Vaiper Of Cafeteria – Pomare (Feat Lisa Preston) by Vaiper Despotin
MoOnjoy – Indigo Pyramid ft.LP by Infinite Potentials
Koru Licks – Riosynth by Koru Licks
High Times by Bluevibestudio
TheJunk by Bluevibestudio
D.Construction & LP – Hit Me Up by D.Construction

Lisa Preston aka LP

Vocalist, alchemist, dreamer, believer….playing with the harmonies and layers, waxing lyrical about moments & things that matter to me…

The cherished collective – beautiful friends who enter my world and share my dreams of beats and harmony…LOVE in collaborative form….shout outs to all the beautiful brothers from near and far I have been blessed to meet and jam with….

Live Jams with Sons of Puha, future soul beats & production With Adi Dick and Pet Johnson….

Rivers & LP, two turntables and a microphone….

Releases to date:

Jellphonic and LP 7” vinyl through wonderful noise Japan 2009

‘Know u’ single, Cy Tru Feat LP , Sub Soul 2 digital release 4Lux 2009

K15 & LP – A New Path EP (digital release 2009) 12” release with remixes being released 2010 through Rationale Music

“Odyssey” single, Benny Tones Chrysalis 12” vinyl through wonderful noise Japan 2010

New jams & releases brewing with Sir Froderick & Lord Jackson and Josip Klobucar & LP “sunlight” , more goodness to come….

www.myspace.com/thecherishedcollective

www.soundcloud.com/lisa-preston-aka-lp

www,twitter.com/lpcalling

So it’s just hit May and that means it’s NZ Music month, now for most of my readers who come from outside of NZ you probably don’t get what that means. If you want to check out the official background on the month you can check out the NZ Music month website but in short it’s a time when the media tend to focus a little more on a broader range of music than usual and a chance for everybody to have a good old celebration of some of the amazing music which comes from this fair country. It’s been going for 10 years now and in general has been really successful in bringing NZ music to a wider audience locally. This is the first of 4 posts during music month where I’m gonna highlight some of the music I’ve been listening to and give you all a little taste of some of the more underground artists you should be checking out. I’m also gonna have a look at some of the background on music month and throw up a few idea’s on where it might go from here, but not in this first post, lets just stick to the music.

The first guy we’re gonna check out is Scratch22 who’s been producing for time now and has had his fingers in many pies around town. Check out his bio over at the mighty BaseFM website, definitely one to watch on some of his new projects, really lovin this EWH remix, just my kinda deep re-rub of a great tune.

Electric Wire Hustle – Again (Scratch 22 Remix) by Scratch22

Adi Dick is next on the list of guys who are getting their shit together on the beat front for me, Adi’s solo stuff is well worth checking out alongside his Sons of Puha project alongside the fabulous LP and LordJackson, but more from those guys next time. Adi’s back from some time in London and you can check him out at the producers showcase in Auckland at the end of May.

Sons of Puha – The Beat by Adi Dick

And last but by no means least is DJ Truent or Christoph El’ Truento, I grabbed a beat tape of “Homemade Shit” back in Feb and it’s been on rotate ever since, some wicked little beats in there and alongside his work with Koru Licks I think his style is well worth keeping an eye on. I was gonna link through to his beat tape so you can grab it but couldn’t find it, so I re-upped it again for ya, go get it.

You may have noticed but I’m leaning heavily on the “future beats” tip at the moment, there’s some wicked producers bubbling under and the moment in NZ and I think a little more recognition is well in order.

Intergalactic Love Song by Christoph El’ Truento

I dragged my sorry ass along to the premier of NSU‘s new video on thursday night and was blown away by just how good this clip is. It’s really exciting and inspiring to see what can be done with no budget and a determination by all concerned to be creative and deliver something which stands against any other NZ if not international video around. I was gonna turn this into a little rant about “funding” and  “just get out and do it yourself” but that’s for another time and post.

Check it out and read Ivan’s rundown on how it all came together below. And if your looking to get a new video done for your track, just get your shit together and do it, cos nobody’s gonna do it for ya kids.

“In late 2008, Alek Janev heard a demo version of “Panic Bells” online and almost instantly developed a concept in his head, and approached Ivan (nsu) about the idea of creating a video for the song. In January ’09, on his return from UK, Alek met up with Ivan to discuss the concept and plan of attack, together with Iain Hamilton-Gates. We twice failed to obtain the funding for the project, but in all fairness to NZ On Air, “Panic Bells” isn’t a song with strong commercial potential, so we weren’t feeling hard done-by. Regardless of the financial situation, the team was determined to make the video happen, no matter how long it took. The process taught us how to be resourceful, and made us appreciate the sacrifices we were all putting in for each other.

It wasn’t until June that filming started, and our 5 shoots were finally completed in September, with Tara O’Brien finally making an acting appearance on that last day. It took over 5 hours for Saul Barnes to apply the special effects make-up to Tara, compared with about 3 hours of filming the actual scenes.

Undoubtedly, most time was spent in editing and post-production, with Alek taking on the mammoth task of creating virtual sets to apply to the green-screen shots, learning many of the techniques along the way. His approach ensured that the scenes he envisioned before the shooting began, made it onto the final video.

After almost 40 hours of shooting in front of a green screen, as well as in the darkness of central Auckland alleyways and carparks, and over 6 months of late nights in post-production, not to mention the time it took to plan and organise the people, the equipment and the resources involved, it’s finally here… and we are very proud, to say the least – it is incredibly satisfying and rewarding to see it all come together.”

First release from The Morning Steppa on his new Baby Steps Music imprint and it’s a deep bubbler of an EP from Silent Local. This local NZ label has been in development for time now and it’s great to see the first release get out there, Arama’s got big plans for the Baby Steps Music Network and more fine releases on the go for 2010. Go get it.

I’ve been checking out the Juslikemusic podcast for time now and it’s always been a great source of inspiration with it’s eclectic blend of all things “beat” orientated, Gavin’s even played some Bluevibe projects from time to time and has always been generous with his support of the underground artists trying to push through. So, now that i’m getting the blog back on the go with fresh selections I had to throw up the Oscillations projects which have been put together by Jus Like Music records and Apple Juice Break.

Both compilations are free and you can grab them over at their bandcamp page, I’m amazed at the quality of the tracks which have been put together for the project and I think this really gives an amazing snapshot of a very healthy and innovative “beat culture” from all over the world.

It’s exciting to see this “next step” in the development of record labels being born from passionate and knowledgeable folks who have built up an audience through their mixes and blogs and can deliver this level of music direct to an audience who want to support these new artists, nice work kids.

Once you go grab the comps make sure you check out the .pdf booklets which come with some amazing artwork and a full rundown on all the artists involved in the projects. Congrats on putting these together and I’m spending the next few weeks checking the tracks out and browsing the web to find out more about the artists involved.

Getting this blog back on again and starting to focus on some new NZ freshness, gonna start with a little Koru Licks.

“Fresh new band from the jazzy underground of the Auckland music scene. This bunch of musical time travellers fall back to the swinging, sample-based era of golden hip hop, funk, latin and jazz – but all live and direct. Koru Licks is an ensemble that regenerate the feeling of dope, organic soul music with a team of talent ridden players.”

Had their tracks on high rotate over the weekend and been really enjoying the little taster of the “new direction” for the next EP with tracks like “Got That” and “Fever”. Make sure you grab their first EP from their BandCamp page, all the tracks are super fresh and they’ve even got the unstoppable LP on “Riosynth”.

Oh yeh didn’t wanna miss the “Jayams” out either, especially “Chicked love”, butter!

Here’s the next in a series of blog posts I’ve been doing over at Laidback radio this time with local jazz/beat wizard Lewis McCallum.

Since moving to NZ in 2000 I’ve discovered a certain detachment from the direct and sometimes overpowering influences of “scenes” which can really give NZ artists the ability and freedom to create new styles and sounds, to make bold decisions on song arrangement and production styles, to push the boundaries of expression, you only have to listen to EWH, Lisa Preston or Lewis McCallum to see that there is little commercial conformity to “a sound” and I think this leads to a fresh approach to the creative process and the production music.

read the rest of the interview

“Dub Asylum is one of those undercover New Zealand artists who keeps dropping great music and doesn’t seem to shout too loud about it, it bubbles away and gets the respect it deserves from the beat community. After the release of his Ba Ba Boom! Digi-EP in August 2008 Peter McLennan got the nudge from some of his DJ friends to put out some vinyl which I’m glad to say he’s just done with a tasty little 7″ of the title track with a special dustep/afrobeat remix on the flip from Oogun.”

Read the rest of the interview over at the Laid Back Blog.

I’ve been checking out Laid Back radio for quite a while and got asked to write a few little articles for their blog, this is the first of a series of posts about beat culture in NZ and some of the underground beat makers and producers makin a few waves here at the moment. I’m trying to get in to a little more writing so really appreciate the support from the whole Laid Back crew.

For the first one I had to do a little interview with my man St Liquor-ish as we just finished the  mix on his new tracks and, well, I think his tracks are steppin outside of the norm in NZ. I’ve already got a few interviews setup for this series of posts but if you think your tracks are kickin and you’d like some international exposure then just drop me a message and we’ll hook it up. Go check out the Laid Back site, they have a real vibe about the music and art they love and are always trying to support upcoming artists who sit a little left of centre.

St Liquor-ish’s New Zealand boogie

The New EP from St Liquor-ish and mixed at the Bluevibe studio is now finally available to download for free over at the St Liquor-ish Bandcamp page.

I’m really proud of the EP and it’s been a real learning curve for me to try and get the mix right for all the tracks on the EP. I’ll be posting about some of the production techniques involved on the EP and the work we’ve done to promote it. The next St Liquor-ish EP is already being mixed and let’s just say it’s a killer, but for now enjoy this tasty bit of filth from the man Jellphonic’s alter ego and stay tuned for a full pack of instrumentals and remixes from the EP.