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.
The theme for this week: We’ve probably all forgotten how to talk to people outside of our bubble, developing our own strange hyperspeed dialect. Who needs to talk anyways! Blast these tracks and let your groovy dance moves do all the talking.
Manuel Darquart – It’s a Dub
Groove out to this one in the safety of your living room! Manuel Darquart is a DJ and producer duo consisting of Louis Anderson-Rich and Sean Whittaker, originally from Aotearoa and currently based in London. This track is part of a larger compilation album, ‘Isolation Therapy’ released under Stamp The Wax label, who reached out to a heap of artists and gave them three days to make a track from scratch in isolation. All of the proceeds go towards keeping Stamp The Wax afloat during this difficult time, and providing artists with financial support as quickly as possible.
Virtual Shadow Ensemble – Kanohi ki te Kanohi, in a Virtual World (feat. Julian Lubin)
This track is from one of my favourite NZ albums of the year so far. It was released under the currently unstoppable Tāmaki Makaurau label Noa Records. I feel it is best for the Virtual Shadow Ensemble to describe themselves, rather than me do a crappy job of it, so here’s the bio from their Bandcamp: “Virtual Shadow Ensemble; a virtual collective of sonic voyagers, a vessel for channeling Papatuanuku’s messages during a time of global human separation… This virtual recording project reflects a widespread upheaval taking place in our collective consciousness, being forced away from each other physically into social isolation… Cyber-architecture via social media has provided space for creativity to flourish during a time when our presence is felt stronger online in the absence of face-to-face interaction with our peers. Despite physical distance we are still connected, still creating together.”
Church & AP – War Outside
Church & AP are back with a scolding hot new single, and if you’ve been lacking energy and motivation recently, then this will seriously rev you up. Featured vocalist Neko Newman (who has starred on a number of their previous songs) teams up with the Auckland hip-hop heavyweights once again, and together the trio give a word of warning to their peers that they’re not to be messed with, likening the rap game to a war. In their own words, “War Outside is a song to ride out to. We’ve been steadily carving out our lane in this industry and setting the tone in our scene. This song is a proclamation that we’re war ready. Nothing can get in the way of what we’re about to do.”
b-lush – right
This track was released a month ago, but to be honest, I just couldn’t resist adding it to this week’s selection. I mean, right off the bat it samples that cute as moment in Love Actually where Thomas Sangster’s character (the wee lil thing) tells his dad (Liam Neeson) that he’s in love, and then ends with a segment from Superbad where Michael Cera and Jonah Hill say how much they love each other! What’s not to love? With guitar riffs that float among the clouds and endearing lyricism, this song is wholesome af and reminds me of drinking tasty orange juice in the sun with the people I love – an image we could all do with a bit more during iso times.