Local Talent - Minuit

Here at Eclectik Electrik it's not all trippy, mind-melting jams and tooth-chipping heavy metal. The professor doesn't like to be pigeonholed. With that in mind he recently had the opportunity to talk to shit-hot New Zealand electro freaks Minuit. Singer Ruth Carr and keyboard/DJ extraordinaires Paul Dodge and Ryan Beehre for a quick chat about there goings on and, of course, their new album Last Night You Saw This Band.

Professor Ricardo: It has been three years since Find Me Before I Die A Lonely Death.Com. What have you been up to?

Ryan Beehre: Music

Paul Dodge: Cooking

Ruth Carr: What?

PR: It seems you are in high demand these days. Where in the world have you been performing?

RC: We have been hiatusing it up for the last wee while to get the new album finished. But really we'd been using the band as an excuse to visit some kickass places...St Petersburg and Viet Nam were no exceptions.

PR: How would you compare Last Night You Saw This Band to your previous records?

RC: I like it the best.

PD : For an "electronic" act, it has an awful lot of non-electronic sounds on it. Previous albums have been about bass and beats, this one is much more about rhythm and songs. I like it.

PR: Tell us about the writing and recording of the album

RC: I wrote a lot of the songs while I was working in Rarotonga, so I think there may be an unashamedly 'chilled out' feel to a few of the numbers!

PD: A few of them, sure. But equally there's this underlying menace that ripples through most Minuit stuff. That classic Ruth-way of matching the heaviest of lyrics with charming sentiment.  

RC: Good times, bad times - kinda like real life, right??

PD: There seems to be a lot of about adventure, and the album has a gypsy brass band, pacific rhythms, kids from a Haitian orphanage - there's even a harmonica in there... 

PR: Is there a meaning behind the album title?

RC: It's simply about experiences - seeing a band, feeling the joy of that moment, letting it inspire you and maybe it's kinda a tribute to people who go to live gigs.

PD: It's punters who make the live scene what it is, even more than bands themselves. Go to lastnight.co.nz and post a pic of the band you saw last night!

PR: Find Me Before I Die A Lonely Death.Com toyed with a few new ideas such as the acoustic track 'Vampires'. Are there any new musical avenues you would like to pursue in the future?

Ruth: I can't see us making a rap album anytime soon. If you haven't got those skills - you haven't got them.

PR: You are known for your energetic live performances. When/where are you touring the new album?

RC: Why, thank you very much.

PD: The album release party will be at Dux Live in Christchurch (NZ) on Saturday December 22nd. It's a special place and city for us, back in the day, Dux was the first place out of our hometown to give us a gig, and the return gig is gonna be massive. Can not wait! Minuit also headline the electronic stage at HomeGrown (also NZ) in March and will be touring round that time.

PR: You performed at this year's WOMAD (World Of Music And Dance) festival with Wellington's Gamelan Taniwha Jaya. How did all of that come about?

PD: It's a fiery percussive style of music with it's own tunings and timings, so it was a surprise to everyone when the Minuit tunes they chose converted seamlessly. We had a ball. Wrangling 22 people on stage when we're used to only three was a hilarious mish. 

RC: We have a friend who is a member of the gamelan and had often talked about a collaboration, and we finally got around to doing it!  We played WOMAD and Homegrown and it was truly so much fun, that we are planning some overseas excursions with them. The gamelan peeps are all brilliant people, but we can't play with them too often however, because, man, they can REALLY party, and I gotta protect my head a bit!

PR: Is it an indicator of some strange future collaborations to come?

RC: Lets bloody well hope so!

PR: As an electronic act what is the best part about performing live in front of a crowd?

RC: Just the same as for any band I reckon - we aren't the kinda electronic act that just pushes play then stands back to watch it all happen. It's full immersion.  

PR: How do the audiences in NZ differ from those on your European excursions?

RC: Other countries have fun accents when they sing the words of our songs back at us, but other than that, people who love music, love music.  Oh, excepts Germans, they're quite different, they stand there looking very intently at what is happening and you can't tell if they wanna pash you or slash you and then you finish the set and they come up to you and rave about how good you were and how much they loved it!

PR: As a respected act with four albums under your belts, how do you feel about the state of New Zealand music?

RB: In the 'dance/electronic/dj/club' scene...wow, so much going on. And people should push it harder, seriously. Get crazy, don't just copy. We've got mad talent doing it overseas, taking their stuff and serato in a bag and blowing some minds. 

RC: NZ is a very little country so it is very hard to make a living from music unless you are a more mainstream sound, and even then, I suspect it's not all peaches n cream. But diversity of genre's and sounds and mish-mashes gives us strength, so long may it scatter and grow.

PR: Thanks guys (and gal) for your time

Album review: Graveyard - Lights Out

Sweden's Graveyard are a band who seem to know exactly who they are and what they want to achieve. On Lights Out, album number three for those who are counting, there is certainly no crisis of identity. Gut-busting hard rock in the vein of Led Zeppelin, Black Sabbath, and Kyuss is the name of the game and it is a game that the Gothenburg quartet excel at. Their previous album Hisingen Blues was a highlight of the crop of rock albums in 2011 and primed Graveyard for worldwide exposure. So how do they fare?

'An Industry Of Murder' paints a vivid picture to the listener of how this album is likely to differ from Hisingen Blues. It is still masterfully played, wooly backwoods rock music but this time around there is a sense of patience and grace to compliment the powerhouse performances. When dealing in this type of music a degree of subtlety can go a long way, lest it should devolve into chest-beating pap. Graveyard have managed to achieve this without blunting their sheer impact when they feel like turning it all the way up – which fortunately is often.

Mature sounds like a dirty word when you are trying to construct amp-busting, bong-rattling heavy metal, but it is actually what makes Lights Out such a treat to listen to. Without the cloying machismo, you are left with a nice variety of tones and tempos to prevent repetition setting in without ever completely taking over. If you feel as though the pace is dipping there is always a ripper of a track just around the corner. The danger with this sort of bask-to-basics approach is that it can easily descend into a game of “spot the influence”. The guitars on 'Fool In The End' might sting of prime Crazy Horse and 'Hard Times Lovin' is surely haunted by the spirit of Jim Morrison. It is a testament to Graveyard that even if you are stuck pointing all of this out that you can still have a good time with the record.

Rating: A-

Recommended tracks: 20/20 (Tunnel Vision), An Industry Of Murder, Slow Motion Countdown

Album Review: Neil Young & Crazy Horse - Psychedelic Pill

Neil Young is a man who is clearly enjoying the renaissance of his golden years. More than 40 years after he left Buffalo Springfield he is still practically a household name and has earned his position as rock and rolls favourite curmudgeon. When he's not promoting eco fuels, raising money for charity, or mocking other musicians (cough, Bono, cough) he is – gasp – actually making albums. Even more shocking is that the music he is making in the 21^st century is actually good. How many of his contemporaries from the late 60s can say the same thing? His latest album, along with the legendary Crazy Horse, is Psychedelic Pill and it is an album that is destined to test the patience of his fan base while simultaneously luring them back for more punishment.

Opening your album with a rambling 27 minute long muddle of a song is more than just a big ask for the listener; it's a leap of faith. Yet that is exactly what we have here with 'Driftin' Back' – an absolute marathon of a song that unfortunately does not justify the enormous play time. Add to that the fact that later in the album there are two more pieces that cross the 16 minute mark and you can start to see why Psychedelic Pill is a frustrating listening experience. This protracted bout of egotism and/or madness is followed up with the short but suitably trippy title track. The guitars are heavily treated but they still retain that caustic power of old. A few moments here and there are starting to sound a little too familiar. Is the riff of 'Walk Like A Giant' swiped directly from 'Like a Hurricane' or is my mind playing tricks on me?

That familiar but deadly saw-toothed guitar sound reigns supreme as do the long meandering jams that recall the gob-smacking might of Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere. This is Crazy Horse we are talking about here, not some over the hill cash-grab from washed out has-beens. Also don't forget that this is Young & co's second album of the year, following on from the mangled standards presented on Americana. If Crazy Horse can stir up two pretty good albums in the course of a single year why do bands like The Rolling Stones take eight years to make just one of questionable quality? In fact Psychedelic Pill is Young's ninth in a decade proving once and for all that rust, indeed, never sleeps.

Rating: B

Recommended tracks: Walk Like A Giant, Psychedelic Pill

Album review: Paul Banks - Banks

Are solo projects from musicians in established musical acts doomed to be mirror images of their day jobs, or is it an opportunity to do something completely out of the blue that never have worked in their other bands? Banks, from Interpol front man Paul Banks, answers that question with another question: can't it be both? Banks (the album) is a statement in which Banks (the man) embraces his own musical identity as a detached entity from Interpol and it yields some interesting results. The clue is in the album's title and the fact that he is no longer using the Julian Plenti pseudonym, having previously released an album and an EP under that name over the past few years. This change has allowed him to finally take center stage with no fake name to protect him from the slings and arrows of notoriety. For now at least Banks is running his ambitions up the flag pole to see who salutes.

There are certainly some Interpol-flavoured songs here (such as 'Over My Shoulder and 'Paid For That') but the more familiar concepts are presented in a new light which only Banks by himself could muster. Guitar driven tunes carry a new cinematic edge that elevates them above the New York industrial chic of Turn On The Bright Lights. Banks is perhaps giving us a glimpse into his own CD collection with every song that passes. U2, Joy Division, and Kraftwerk, make for strange bedfellows but manage to co-exist on lead single 'The Base'. Electric, electronic, and organic instruments mesh together to make a dizzying tapestry of soul-baring tales. The instrumental 'Lisbon' is a breath of fresh air amidst the gloom – a meandering piece that evokes the technicolour landscapes of classic cinema and gives the audience a small break from Banks' claustrophobic drone.

Ultimately, Banks is an excursion into one man's mind, heart, and soul. The strongest moments come when he is less fussed about densely layered arrangements and let us slip right to the core of the songs. 'Summertime Is Gone' closes the album in a gorgeous, heart warming fashion. While it might be an uneven album there is plenty in there for Interpol fans to love and for everyone else to wonder at and, perhaps, even love too.

Rating: B+

Recommended tracks: The Base, Summertime Is Gone