They lead him half way to paradise / They lead you half way to bliss

Do yourself something of a favour and head over to Peter Mac’s MySpace for a taster of his forthcoming Dub Asylum EP due out digitally very soon. I love the joyous ska / rocksteady-ness of Ba Ba Boom and, what I described to him as the very post rare-groove feel of the wonderfully named My Sneaker Collection Weighs A Ton. I always find the playlists from Peter’s radio show on BaseFM both inspiring, and frustrating (the latter because outside of NZ it’s just about impossible to find good radio of the sort that NZ is so privileged to have). I miss this sort of thing.

I’ve also been privy to a bunch of new tracks from Timmy Schumacher, from his forthcoming album, due later this year. I don’t buy breaks as such, but I’ve always had a huge soft spot for the joyous, utterly irreverent-ness of breaks which captures the spirit of the sampling / cut’n’paste era of the mid 1980s. Not only that, but What’s Down Low was a killer, no? What I've heard has the same kicking verve as that and should, if there is any justice, go through the roof. And add to Tim's strong reputation both inside and outside New Zealand's shores.

Timmy’s had a bunch of NZ on Air grants a few years back but is hitting his head against the wall this time on his new single, despite the vocal presence of Opshop singer Jason Kerrigan on his track, and his past successes...What’s Down Low was a massive record, not only on NZ radio, but all around the planet, and this new one has radio written all over it. Even on mainstream radio, even on mainstream radio in the extraordinarily conservative NZ mainstream radio market….which is the great funding conundrum: Do we pander to this conservatism or lead it?

And it’s ongoing frustration many artists producing New Zealand flavoured electronica have found. Greg Churchill, something akin to a superstar in the inner cities, has had a string of successful and critically acclaimed European and UK club chart hits, and a bite at the UK pop charts, but has too hit a solid brick wall with local funding. He’s made his own videos.

Steve Hill, from Wellington, is one of New Zealand’s most successful artists internationally over the past decade…god knows how many records he’s sold...without any help that I know of.

I guess I sound a little like Gray Bartlett moaning on about the lack of country support and that’s perhaps a fair call, but these acts, more or less, represent a huge part of the soundtrack of urban New Zealand and they produce music that sounds like it comes from nowhere else….and it gets extensive airplay both in NZ and abroad…just rarely mainstream airplay. And the hole in Gray's argument was that creative country does get funded in NZ, although I guess to him that is subjective, whereas creative NZ electronic music rarely gets a look in beyond a token act or two, usually from a source with some tie to the funding inside track.

In the middle years of this decade, a young girl, Nik Barrett produced a series of some sixty one hour features on New Zealanders producing electronic music..across all genres. It was played across several radio stations, and repeated nationwide in primetime on the likes of George FM. It was her idea and she did it herself with her time and money over two years. It was a phenomenal piece of work and should be archived somehow, if only for the hours of interviews she did and I guess has kept. An approach I made on her behalf for funding went nowhere...it’s not the sort of thing we do, I was told. But many shows documenting and profiling non-electronic musicians get funding all the time. The nos I got were less than convincing:

You need to apply before the show begins...

okay I'll apply for the next series..

but we don't support people who just play records...

these people compose, record and produce...

sorry we don't have the budget..and so on, at a variety of levels.

Eventually she gave up and moved on…

I scratch my head and wonder why…

Technorati Tags: New Zealand electronica