Sweet sounds of success Shane Gilchrist reflects on another interesting and varied year in New Zealand music.
Six60, take a bow.
The band, formed in 2005 by a group of University of Otago students but which only played its first gig outside Dunedin in 2009, has ended 2011 as the most successful New Zealand chart act of the year.
Its self-titled debut album finished at No 6 in the Recording Industry Association of New Zealand's list of top albums in 2011 after heading the charts for two weeks. The album also spawned three top 10 singles: Don't Forget Your Roots (the top-selling single by a New Zealand artist this year, it reached No 10 in the year-end singles charts), Rise Up 2.0 and Only To Be.
Six60 was also nominated in three sections of the 2011 Vodafone New Zealand Music Awards: Single of the Year (for Rise Up 2.0), Breakthrough Artist of the Year and the People's Choice Award.
Former Dunedin, now Auckland-based band Die! Die! Die! (whose members include guitarist/singer Andrew Wilson and drummer Michael Prain, formerly of Logan Park High School Rockquest-winning band Carriage H) also featured in the nominations for Best Alternative Album.
However, neither Six60 nor Die! Die! Die! had any trophies for their mantelpieces, as Auckland indie band The Naked and Famous and songstress Brooke Fraser Awards each took home five Tuis, with The Naked and Famous winning the coveted Album of the Year Award (for Passive Me, Aggressive You) and Fraser the International Achievement Award. Other big winners on the night include Tiki Taane (three Tuis) and Ladi6 (two).
Passive Me, Aggressive You, released worldwide in March (though New Zealand audiences got to hear it the previous year) received glowing reviews in Uncut, Mojo, NME and other publications. The band made the BBC's "Sound of 2011" long list and in February it collected the Philip Hall Radar Award at the Shockwaves NME Awards in London.
Among those arguably left scratching their heads after the Tuis was rapper David Dallas, whose, second solo album, The Rose Tint, was nominated for Album Of The Year and Best Urban/Hip Hop Album. This despite the fact his album - significantly, released as a free download - was downloaded more than 8000 times within 24 hours of its release in May. Overall, it has been downloaded more than 50,000 times.
Last month, Dallas released a physical version, The Rose Tint: Deluxe Edition, which debuted on the RIANZ chart at No 3, making it the highest charting hip-hop album of the year in New Zealand.
It also wasn't a bad year for Avalanche City's Dave Baxter, whose track Love Love Love won the 2011 Silver Scroll Award, regarded as New Zealand's most prestigious songwriting prize.
Dunedin roots-reggae outfit Koile also claimed some silverware, winning the Tagata Pasifika Best Language category at the Pacific Music Awards at Manukau City's TelstraClear Pacific venue in Auckland in May. The veteran group's EP, Te Hua, was one of three nominations in the Best Language category and was the first time a Dunedin act had featured in the nominations.
Here are a few more highlights:
A few familiar faces . . .
Having found themselves home alone after sons Liam and Elroy headed off on their own career tangents, Neil and Sharon Finn embarked on some late-night musical musings, inviting Sean James Donnelly, known to many by the initials SJD, to join them, along with former Grates drummer Alana Skyring.
The result: Pajama Club's self-titled debut, which benefits from SJD's production flourishes (loops, fuzzed-out basslines and gritty, stripped-back grooves set to Finn's impeccable sense of melody).
Another songwriter with a penchant for radio-friendly tunes, Bic Runga, resurfaced with her fourth album, Belle, late in the year, following life in a "housewife vortex" for the previous five years.
Having burst through in 1997 with debut album Drive, aptly named given major label Sony allowed her the freedom to produce it, Runga then took five years to follow up with 2002 effort Beautiful Collision and another three years to release 2005's Birds.
Somewhat ironically for an artist who has won the Apra Silver Scroll Songwriting Award, Belle works so well primarily because of Runga's decision to open the doors to inspiration from others; in particular, Kody Neilson, former frontman for The Mint Chicks, whose fusion of punk and jazz spirit extends beyond writing credits.
Neilson's brother, Ruban, also had a hand in Runga's effort, though more significant was his own work with new project Unknown Mortal Orchestra, whose self-titled debut album arrived in winter brimful of quirky, highly original twists on the art of electric guitar.
Recorded at home by Ruban Neilson in Portland, Oregon, the album was last week named No 34 in the year's best list in NME and No 50 in Uncut. United Kingdom magazine The Fly also ranked the album No 21 in its year-end poll, while influential website Pitchfork listed it in July as one of the year's 20 best "overlooked records", saying UMO turned funk grooves upside down "in the name of singular pop songwriting that's deliciously quirky".
On the subject of funky and, occasionally, frivolous, Gin Wigmore got her groove on with sophomore album Gravel and Wine.
A teenager when her song Hallelujah won the 2005 International Songwriting Contest, Wigmore followed 2009 debut album Holy Smoke with a more cohesive - and infectious - effort.
More laidback was Hollie Smith, who got into collaborative mode on Band of Brothers, Vol 1.
Having arrived on the New Zealand music scene with her smoky, sultry rendition of 2006 single Bathe In the River, written by Don McGlashan (he won the Apra Silver Scroll for his effort), then earning four 2007 Vodafone New Zealand Music Awards for debut album Long Player, the Wellington soul diva was in an understated mood on her latest effort.
Featuring beat-maker and multi-instrumentalist Mara TK, of Electric Wire Hustle, Band of Brothers revealed a more experimental side to the songwriter, who mixed a modern London soul vibe with effect elements borrowed from dub and dancehall reggae.
And introducing . . .
Lesser known (but someone to look out for) Hollie Fullbrook, the Auckland-based singer-songwriter who performs under the moniker Tiny Ruins, released debut album Some Were Meant For Sea, an 11-song exercise in delicate, sometimes melancholic tunes.
Some Were Meant For Sea, on influential Australian label Spunk Records, was recorded in a little over a week in a disused school hall in a small town in South Gippsland, east of Melbourne. That back-to-basics approach was evident throughout, the album's honest production ethos allowing the 25-year-old's words to shine.
Wellington sonic juggernaut Beastwars had a good year, too.
Invited to support American stoner-rock veterans Kyuss and celebrated industrial act Helmet (the quartet has also performed with Seattle outfit the Melvins and Californian group High On Fire), it put out a self-funded, nine-track album to favourable reviews.
Having built a strong live reputation, Beastwars headed to Dunedin to record its debut album with Dale Cotton, a recording engineer and producer whose credits include HDU, Dimmer and Die!Die!Die!
Closer to home . . .
Two years after the release of Falling Debris, a collaboration with poet Sam Hunt that also employed the sympathetic approach of his Dunedin group, the Heavy Eights, David Kilgour continued his strong vein of musical form with Left By Soft.
Some might consider Kilgour's work with Hunt an artistic detour, yet that 2009 album had strong sonic connections to his 2007 effort with the Heavy Eights, The Far Now. Not surprisingly, Left By Soft maintained an approach that seems to get less frantic the more Kilgour's career progresses.
Kilgour was also to be found at the 30th anniversary celebrations of Flying Nun in November, as the New Zealand record label organised a raft of shows up and down the country (Dunedin gigs included The Clean, HDU, Ghost Club, Shayne P Carter and The Bats who, it should be noted, released the rather good Free All The Monsters this year).
Similarly unconcerned with trends, John Egenes, an American-born, Dunedin-based songwriter and multi-instrumentalist, mixed technological empowerment with old-time textures on his album, The Stone Soup Sessions.
Egenes emailed song sketches to friends around the globe, from Texas to Denmark, as well as closer to home, inviting them to contribute guitar licks, fiddle lines, backing vocals and other textures to an effort that is firmly rooted in the dusty strains of country music.
And in a nod to the culture of remixing, Egenes went so far as to provide downloadable tracks off the album (his fourth), which interested parties could deconstruct, augment and submit to his website, or else use in their own (strictly non-commercial) creations.
And, finally, longstanding Dunedin outfit The Chaps celebrated the release of their third album (in 21 years). The title track to Don't Worry 'Bout Your Age says a lot for the group's approach to music, a healthy hint to others that music need not be restricted to the air-brushed and/or youthful.
