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It’s exciting to hear new music from a close musical collaborator and friend – Richie Setford was the éminence grise and main creative force behind one million dollars, a band to which my life was tied for a big chunk part of the last decade.

Now Richie has released his first full album as a solo artist: The Dusty Dream Hole is released under his nom de scène Bannerman. Sonically, the departure from our one million dollars adventure couldn’t be more dramatic:

The offspring of several years gestation, The Dusty Dream Hole could be described as broadly cinematic… the album encompasses lilting ballads and sharp-edged, distorted dreamscapes that you wouldn’t wish on your worst enemy: from the headlong jangle of My Quarantine to the glistening lounge-pop that adorns Caverns.

Richie’s musical interests and songwriting have always stretched a long way beyond the funk and soul of the one million dollars project. I was lucky enough to work with him in some smaller settings – both gigs and in various bedroom and lounge jam sessions – where Richie’s gift for melody and gently twisted song-stories could be taken outside what could be interpreted by an 11-piece groove band. In some important ways, The Dusty Dream Hole sounds to me like the logical outflow of those explorations.

The textures that fill Dream Hole reflect for me the years Richie has spent in the studio with various bands . Like a population of goblins poking their impudent heads out of hollow logs, the album is replete with chunky guitars, strings, folk harmonies, horns and stripped-back drums.

Most pleasingly, and perhaps for the first time, we get to hear Richie’s full range as a vocalist – his Tom Waits growl on Deep in the Forest is quite arresting.

Of course, my thoughts on Bannerman can never be objective. I know the musicians involved too well and -  to some limited extent – I heard the origins of this music as it took shape in flats in Western Springs and Kingsland in mid-noughties Auckland. I hope however that this album gets out to a wider audience – not just because I count Richie as a friend, but because his musical vision deserves to be shared.

The Dusty Dream Hole can be purchased online (digital and CD) at amplifier.co.nz, and free download samples are available on bandcamp.

It must be time to check in with Stornoway again. At the end of May they released their first full-length album, Beachcomber’s Windowsill on 4AD. Which is nice.

For those who already own Stornoway’s independently released EPs, many of the songs will already be familiar, but new standout tracks like Fuel Up and I Saw You Blink make this album well worth picking up. Alexis Petridis at The Grauniad liked it, in any case.

Here’s the band playing “unplugged” in the fernery in Oxford’s Botanic Gardens. They may not be the most innovative group out there, but they’re still probably my favourite British band right now. And I think I want one of those squeezy portable harmoniums…

I’ve only heard Stornoway play live once: it was midnight in a rain-soaked field last year just off the M40 near Aylesbury or Thame or somewhere. In any case, it was dark and wet. There were 15 people in the crowd and the band was almost drowned out by the rave tent next door. It was hardly an auspicious evening.

But something about their music must have stuck: possibly the strong melodies and their ability to look and sound like a folk-rock band without being a folk-rock band. I came home, bought all their mp3s (all eight of them), wrote a blog post, and now their song Here Comes the Blackout is one of my top-played tunes on last.fm.

So having followed the band for over a year now, it’s gratifying to see they’re building some solid buzz: they played Glastonbury this year, became the first rock band ever to play a concert in the Christopher Wren’s Sheldonian Theatre (oh to have seen that gig!), and most recently appeared on Later with Jools Holland:

Although they’re not signed and have no album out yet, their song Zorbing is already an anthem on the Oxford scene. It’s a piece of music which typifies Stornoway’s approach: apparently ramshackle, amiably round-vowelled, but cleverly structured and very catchy. It’ll be interesting to see what 2010 brings for these chaps.

Image: Marcus Wright

Cy Winstanley and Vanessa McGowan are two New Zealand-born musicians based in London. Their songwriting/band project is called Her Make Believe Band. They’ve been recording their first album, and the first tracks are up on MySpace.

Years ago, back in Auckland, I played in a big band with Cy and Vanessa. Part of a web of musical contacts that now forms a network that these days spans the globe. When I knew them, they were playing a lot of jazz, and wasn’t aware of their mutual love of country music.

Image: janasfotos

You hear a lot of that country sound on these few tracks, but theres are lot more too: rich string arrangements and Fender Rhodes on Lonely Soul Blues, and assured song structures that recall Paul Simon. Cy’s voice on Last Hour is quite stunning – does this remind anyone else of Mark Hollis’ classic solo album ?  If these few tracks are a guide, then the full album could be very, very good indeed.

If you’re reading this in New Zealand, Her Make Believe Band is playing some shows in Auckland in May and June. Don’t miss them.

Zorbing – Stornoway
From Letters From Lewis EP: Hatpop/Independent [iTunes]

Last weekend’s Arcane Festival at Tetsworth was a lucky opportunity to hear a live performance by Stornoway, surely one of the most interesting bands currently working in Oxford. Their deceptively simple, pentatonic-based melodies are filtered through folk-rock and various bits of electronics with trumpets, violins and banjos.

Smart lyrics hide a few coy winks to their home town – the title of the song posted above refers to “zorbing through the streets of Cowley” – and one suspects that the river that runs through the centre of their song On the Rocks might just be the Cherwell or Isis as they wend their slow way towards the English Channel.

You can hear a lot more on their myspace page, and see more photos in their Flickr group.

Photo by Platform3

“Dude they played ****ing naked!”

It must have been about 1994. A mate of mine was telling me about an all-ages gig he’d been to at the Powerstation in Mount Eden in Auckland. The headline act was Head Like a Hole (HLAH). The gig was awesome, apparently, and the HLAH turned up onstage wearing nothing except their instruments. This seemed pretty hardcore to us.

Formed in Wellington in 1990, HLAH were an unvoidable feature of NZ music in the 1990s. It seemed they played every darn venue and festival, and drew larger and larger crowds each time. They started out as a straightforward Sabbath-style metal band, but by the mid-90s were scoring local hits with catchy anthems like Hootenanny and Spanish Goat Dancer:

Their fourth and last album HLAH IV demonstrated what an interesting band they could have become had they stayed together – exemplified by tracks like Maharajah and Comfortably Shagged.

They even out-Springsteened the Boss with their cover of I’m On Fire and shot a rooftop music video in central Wellington: probably the biggest event to happen in that town until Lord of the Rings started filming:

HLAH disbanded in 2000, but they left behind some happy and sweaty fans, and memories of riotously fun live shows that some think were the best ever by a NZ-based band.