This week’s self-isolation tunes are brought to you by 95bFM’s Charlie Winn! You can listen to more of Charlie’s selections on ‘The two to Four with Adel & Charlie’ every Friday. Bundle up warm in your no-insulation shitty student flats, use the oven as a heater after frying up some mini mince pies, and wear 3 socks. It’s better for the environment anyways. These songs will keep your heart warm (or at least give it a workout).
Don’t you know who I am by Reb Fountain
Every year around this time, as we descend into winter I always go through an intense alt-folk/singer-songwriter phase. I think it’s because the sounds are just comforting. Reb Fountain’s one of Aotearoa’s most loved songwriters and this is the new single from her self titled album that’s coming out soon. I just really like the rolling instrumental of this track. It sets a pace and doesn’t deviate from it, the looping chord profession is simple and hypnotic. It provides a stable foundation for a lyric like ‘don’t you know who I am’ that could, in another context, be quite confronting.
Luv by Lord Dixon
Another comforting one! Lion Dixon’s one of the original members of the growroom collective from Auckland. He got four other people to help produce the record this track is from, ‘TodayIsMine2020,’ which he says is “not a radio album by any means but some songs that helped me through the last year or so.’ But I think it’s a great radio album. It’s lo-fi with blissed out gentle guitar and synths, and his bars are just really playful to listen to. This is his fourth and final album as Lion Dixon, and was released in collaboration with the growroom.
Dying to believe by the Beths
I can’t really say much more about this other than it’s just everything I love about NZ indie rock. Lol. I won’t try and analyse it because when I listen to it I kind of just feel good. Their new album ‘jump rope gazers,’ is out in July and this was the first single from it.
Najaf by Meer
I find this song incredibly moving. MEER is one of NZ”s best MCs in my opinion. In this song she reflects on her early experiences as a child migrating from the Middle East to New Zealand and the pain and confusion that has caused her. It feels like she’s almost ‘re-remembering’ various things about her past in the song, digging up stuff she may have buried long ago in order to not have to confront relentless burning in her mind. I suppose that’s what trauma does, we have to protect ourselves in some way. And then in true hip hop fashion she tells her mum that she’s got her back, she can provide for her. The different layers of percussion in this track are also very intricate.
Cops and Robbers by Miss Chastity Ranch
Miss Chastity Ranch is the moniker of an unknown/ mystery Auckland project. Cops and Robbers is like a 70s jangly pop tune which humorously calls out the police for being violent shits. With amazing lyrics like, “All the boys at school who wanted to hurt me/ they’re all policemen now they’re working for her majesty,’ and “if you are queer then he’ll hurt you just for being alive/ if you are brown he’ll haunt you till the day you die.”
