NEWS

Trillion’s new album FIRE WORKS mixes authentic blues from the ‘40s-‘70s with instrumental hip-hop and electronica. Featuring dancefloor-friendly beats, lyrical melodies, clever sampling and a broad sonic palette, Fire Works dazzles with its inventiveness and showcases the considerable skills the artist has acquired during his long career as a producer. Although following in the well-trodden footsteps of other acts such as Moby, DJ Shadow, Bonobo and RJD2, Trillion nevertheless manages to blaze his own trail with this accomplished and assured release.

FIRE WORKS is available as a very limited edition vinyl on black and clear heavyweight. Preorder here.

It is hard to summarise the career of a musician that has produced a continual stream of interesting and unique projects over a 25 year period. Trillion (Jody Lloyd) has an expansive musical history, starting in 1993 as founding member of Christchurch rap duo Dark Tower, well known for being one of the first hop-hop acts that rhymed in their own native New Zealand accents. In 1996 Trillion was born, with a collaboration with his musical sister Demarnia (Cloudboy). Since his debut Zealman, with Dark Tower, Trillion has produced/released over 30 albums spanning multiple genres including rap, spoken word, hip hop, ambient, downbeat, electronica, blues, soundtrack, meditation and sound healing. He has performed all over New Zealand and the rest of the world and was the first act licensed/signed to Universal Music NZ. In 2012, he composed the score for the award winning documentary Propaganda and his lyrics have been studied as part of the NZ High School English curriculum on ‘colloquialisms in popular culture’.

Although currently focused on his new sound healing meets electronica project Perfect Freq, Trillion takes a walk down memory lane with FIRE WORKS, an idea which has been gestating for twenty years.

“At the end of 1997 I was approached by Universal NZ to create a hip hop mixtape selecting music from their catalogue for the mix (50 Cent, Eminem, Snoop Dogg, Dr Dre etc). At the time it wasn’t really my thing, so I declined the offer and they asked DJ Sirvere. The mixtape became the highly successful Major Flavours series. I put forward what I thought was a better offer (at least for me), as I’d always wanted to do a blues remix album and my offer was accepted! I listened through most of Universal’s blues catalogue and selected 12 remix-able tracks, from thousands of tunes – and spent the next 6 months working on the project. It would work like this: Universal would retain copyright of the tracks – and I include one track of my own, which I would generate royalties from.

In May 1998 Universal and Polygram merged and Universal NZ was ordered to tighten their belts resulting in many small projects getting rejected. Universal NZ were still interested in the blues remixes, but had no money to spend on it. The album really needed professional mixing and mastering, but the boss said that wasn’t possible through them, but if I wanted to cover it, then I could recoup it from royalties with my original track. It would take selling 6000 CDs for me to make that money back, and at the time seemed impossible. So I bowed my head and left the meeting. My relationship with Universal continued as my band Dark Tower was also signed for a licensing deal. In June 1999 at a Universal ‘Friday drinks’, I was called into the boss’s office, “Have you heard Moby’s new album? It’s amazing! It sounds a bit like what you were making – that could have been you!” That moment was a deep stab in the heart – and Moby went on to sell over 10 million copies of Play. This album doesn’t contain any of the original tracks I remixed in 1998, but it satisfies my desire and hunger to finish a project with a similar feel to the album that only a few people ever heard way back when.”

We have a very limited amount of copies of John White’s new dream pop album available on 180gm heavy weight vinyl. Go here to preorder.

“Henry Green and the Island of Tuliarts” is the fourth solo departure since 2000 for the Dunedin-based dream pop singer from his heavy popgaze bands Mëstar and the Blueness.

To listen to a John White album is to succumb to a dream world, both in terms of the fantastical themes and the ethereal textures he uses, and “Henry Green and the Island of Tuliarts” is no exception. Under a soundbed of lush string arrangements and gently strummed guitars, John’s softly delivered and ever so sweet vocal harmonies beguile and at times thrill. Alternating with the exquisite chamber folk arrangements of the title track and others such as Batholemule Brixton and Noneoir, are more trad. influenced songs such as Whisky and Beer and Sally, the latter about the heartbreak and isolation of those sailing to New Zealand from the UK in the late 1800s. “Farewell Song” is written for a musician friend who passed away suddenly during the making of the album.

Several of the songs have a nautical theme, with characters overlapping in the stories. The story of Henry Green is about an imaginary island sinking into the rising ocean. The Tuliarts who have lived there peacefully for thousands of years are colonized by greedy pirates but ultimately saved by Henry. Another sailor who Henry Green later joined forces with, is Captain Sabotka, named after a young family member of John’s. The stories of Captain Sabotka came about as made up bed-time stories involving a magic wizard crab whose magic only works when Sabotka’s eyes are closed (a trick for getting him to sleep). Before each story, John would sing the theme song to introduce the story in the same notion as Postman Pat or Thomas the Tank Engine, resulting in the album version.

Many other magical creatures appear on the album: banshees, lady elves and lexaloffles to name a few. It should come as no surprise that John also designs retro style video games and has a knack for inventing fantastical worlds and creatures. The brightly coloued eyecatching cover of the album is also drawn by John.

“Henry Green and the Island of Tuliarts” was recorded and produced in Berlin by Monkey label boss Nigel Braddock in the summer of 2014 with a few overdubs added in August 2016 in Dunedin and Berlin. On the album, John plays viola, guitar, piano, percussion and a whisky bottle with special guest David Sills (Charity Children) featuring on cello.

“Growing up in the 90’s, a few years before the internet, we remember the crazy little things called ‘chain letters’. These letters would travel all over the world, from person to person, post box to post box – promising willing participants a future of love and fortune and threatening non-participants with heartbreak and poverty. They were horrible things really- but these childhood memories gave us an idea. If letters based on fear and superstition could travel the world, could our music of joy and melancholy do the same?” Charity Children.

We have a limited number of copies of the chain letter version of Charity Children’s new album, Fabel (2015) to give away when you buy the CD of their first album The Autumn Came. The Fabel package includes CD in hard cover book form and download code. The band would like you to first download/copy the music, write something in the book and then mail it on to somebody. But of course that’s not compulsory