He was awesome. I’ll save more on that for the show review though. He’s a hard one to track down recorded material of. But that may change,

This year being the start of a new decade I thought I would greet it in with a new process. I will be producing a new album for each show I perform this year. No composition will be repeated at any two performances. Therefore, the amount of albums I produce is not up to me, but relies on the shows I am invited to play. Once 2010 is over I will never play any of the material I have made this year.

The track I’ve picked today though is actually just some field recordings, “…of handrails around campus. All rails. A few door slams from people walking by” (from his Soundcloud) – but as a single ambient piece they work for me.

Yes.

isis live in wellington

No week with two school-night shows can possibly be a bad week. Even if only one hits the spot you’re still well ahead of debauchery before the weekend even hits. I’m combining a review of California’s appropriate_prefix-metal band Isis and the Wu Tang’s RZA because my high school English teacher taught me contrast was a good thing. And I’m lazy and haven’t gotten around to either of them yet and just need to get it done.

There have been a few shows with really bad turn-outs lately in Wellington. Isis was not one of them – I have never seen the Bath House that packed of a Monday night. Or smelt it so rank. Sorry but all the metal cliches were out and very few of them had washed. Which did deter me from getting too close to the stage. Not really a problem as a possible appropriate_prefix is ambient – this was smooth-listening-metal not the pit variety. Except the arm-pits. Oh the arm pits…

The band had a presence, but physically it was an almost disturbingly quiet one – which bought forth an instrumental and vocal drone as if Easter Island statues were uprooted and sent on tour. Standing there I felt the anger swell around me like a warm eddy in the ocean then dissipate, rather than crash over me in waves as the music’s more violent strains can. A bar tender commented that the crowd were one of her most polite in a long time.

At one point I noticed a punter holding his cellphone aloft. I assumed he was simply recording the show until I saw a female figure on the screen. Then it seemed as if the camera was being taken on a walk around a house until a cat appeared on the screen. Yes, I do believe he was video-calling his girlfriend. I wonder what the cat thought of the show…

At this point I should probably cut the Isis review short before it gets entirely surreal (honest! a cat was watching!) with a simple, nice show fellas.

The RZA being sold out was no surprise. He could have packed it on a Monday too but it was Wednesday by the time he rolled into the Bath House. The crowd were slightly more brightly coloured than those at Isis, relatively less smelly and had a smattering more women in it. Still well biased though. But well behaved. Overly so when it came to the bar. I am not one for queuing and being stuck behind people who are too polite to get served effectively is not starting the night right for me.

But by time RZA came on it was all good. And he was all good. He dropped a range of tracks – from his latest solo album, some Wu classics and even a Grave Diggaz number. Nothing from the Ghost Dog soundtrack, nor did Jim Jarmusch make a cameo on his bicycle. Pity that. But he led the crowd, every member of which clearly knew 36 Chambers line-by-line, masterfully.

And I was well proud of WLG when what could have been an embarrassing end to the show – as he invited “ladies” up on the stage for a dance – turned into an impromptu break dance battle. This week the town rolled well. Twice.

To give you an idea – at one point a crowd surge even managed to send the stage table along with turntables and laptops on to the floor. After replacing a couple split needles from the impact everything was blasting again within a minute. A miracle perhaps.

His shows sound the right sort of mental, someone needs to bring this kid down here.

An album due this year on Warp could be all sorts of awesome.

There’s an interview with him here on Pitchfork.

They transported me back to feeling like the Smiths/Ash/Smashing Pumpkins-loving sixteen year-old that I was. That’s all I expected and I had my perma-grin on throughout the gig. They were good, but not particularly engaging. As another local reviewer (he’s sexist and a chronic hater, so he gets no link!) pointed out, the live setting also made some of the samey-ness of their songs more obvious. To be honest, I didn’t care and I can’t wait to hear more. It’s not wrong to love a band for making you grin. So there.

In fact I’m about to play it again now before I go out to see Dirty Projectors play. Wicked on two counts.

Dear Mapei,
I think I love you. Please force someone to get your Cocoa Butter Diaries EP onto the NZ iTunes store!
Love from Jo.

I defy you to listen to this and not end up with an earworm:

Raekwon in Wellington 2010

To celebrate let’s make this new Raekwon cut, “Pioneers” song of the day. Sampling (or interpolating?) Billy Joel’s “The Stranger” this is why you must eat what the Chef makes for you.

Raekwon - Pioneers

Related show

• Artist: Raekwon
• Date: Sunday, March 21st 2010
• Time: 9:00pm
• City: Raekwon in Wellington
• Venue: San Francisco Bathhouse
• Venue phone: 04 801-6797
• Country: New Zealand
• Admission: $60
• Buy tickets
• Add to Google Calendar | Download iCal

When I followed Nika Roza Danilova of Zola Jesus on Twitter, I saw this Tweet to Pictureplane:

…so of course I quickly clicked through to find that he was offering her a track to sing on. Cue lots of exclamation marks floating around my excited little brain:

Given that he has a song called “Goth Star” and she is, as my buddy MoeRex put it, “queen of the “lo-fi goth” movement”, this is going to be a collaboration made in dark, rave-tastic heaven.

Goth Star by Pictureplane:

Clay Bodies by Zola Jesus: