Header Banner Made with MyBannerMaker.com! Click here to make your own! The circle is nearly closed as we have arrived back in New Zealand with the new album recorded in France.
It’s been a pretty long and tortuous voyage, starting in the suburban vacuum of Lower Hutt, New Zealand in the late ‘80’s. The good thing about a vacuum is that if you don’t do something, it stays empty. So it’s a good idea to develop your imagination, and have friends. The Magic Roundabout started here, moved to the more cosmopolitan Wellington (they had coffee…) and wrote loads of quality tunes. We could have been contenders until our Fat Manager stole the money from the Arts Council. I hit the road (literally as well – in a forklift nearly tearing off my foot) and limped off to North America etc. before stopping in Edinburgh, Scotland.
June Frost was pretty unique at the time (‘90’s) with our didgeridoo, classical violin, five different nationalities and a collection of epic songs. We produced three albums and toured permanently until frayed nerves put an end to our adventures -an unoriginal conclusion to an atypical band. As we got better and better we got sicker and sicker – funny, that. But the first to go was the Australian.
I stayed on in France, for deeply personal reasons that don’t concern you. Being offered a house in the countryside radically changed my approach to making music. There was no pressure to sweat publicly, no glaring lights and tedious mindless sex with strangers – only the joy of Windows 98 and composing with a melodica. After aborting the idea of an album of organic anti-hunting songs, I concentrated on Microclimate – released in 2002.
More gigs, trips home, stuff like that.
The latest album 2+2=22 was financed by a redundant French label and producer wanting to be in New Zealand. He didn’t make it, but I did. I tried to take all of those different atmospheres, mix and match them and like the good anthropology student I was, show the differences and similarities between them. And all that with a mandolin and a fuzz-box. Music has an amazing capacity to transport you to a specific time or place, real or imagined. I think on this last album there are some really 3-dimensional songs.
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