After decades of crap, mass produced and formulaic music made by the industry for young teen girls and tweenies we are now seeing singer/songwriters coming out with seriously good stuff. With the way that the recording industry has gone these people are very unlikely to make much money out of this quality art - maybe that's the point. If an industry isn't throttling musical output, and allowing at long last artists to do their own stuff then art is the winner.
I was listening to Reb Fountain on the radio yesterday with her WOMAD performances. Great.
Fountain joins my list of newish New Zealand performers who are putting out some seriously good music - Aldous Harding, Marlon Williams, Lawrence Arabia, Nadia Reid - along with the tried and true Gin Wigmore, Neil Finn, Emma Paki, Hollie Smith and others including members of the talented Prowse clan.
I get a buzz out of hearing a new (to me) artist on National Radio and thinking 'Wow" and then discovering that it is a local.
I like songs that have a bit of an edge to them - that are not schmaltzy, saccharine and computer generated.
