May marks the beginning of New Zealands month long celebration of our local music music culture known, imaginatively enough, as New Zealand Music Month - or NZMM, for brevitys sake.
NZMM has long been a source of controversy amongst Producers I know for the rather uniquely one eyed view it tends to present on New Zealands musical climate, particularly in regards to electronic music. While New Zealand is lucky in the sense we have a Govt funded body to assist aspiring talent via funding for videos, recording etc, said body's increasing focus on commercial viability means that for some time talent that didn't fit an easily marketable mould has been left languishing. Uncompromising? Unfunded. Likewise, bNet, the network of student radio stations that serves as the safety net for those less commercially oriented, has had accusations levelled at it that it too, fails to support Talent that isn't seen to meet its criteria.
In an attempt to redress the balance, I figured NZMM to be an optimal time to showcase a few of the local producers whose work is often overlooked by more mainstream media, in the hopes that perhaps they might receive a little more well deserved attention. And possibly some money.
First up is Jet Jaguar. Known as Michael Upton to his friends, has been producing electronica from the breezy climes of New Zealands capital city Wellington, since the mid Nineties, making him one of our electronic music veterans. He's produced a stream of albums on local electronic labels many of which are now, sadly, out of print. He runs an excellent site called NonWrestler, which I highly recommend for your perusal, and deejays on a semi regular basis on Wellingtons RadioActive 88.6, co hosting a show with local music scribe Martyn Pepperall called Everything Time, which maintains a pleasantly eclectic playlist.
Michael is also one of the few electronic musicians in New Zealand I know to regularly play out live. Like, pretty much since he started making stuff. That's nearly twenty years. Pre Ableton, people. He's also one of the few people I know to make music with the delightfully quirky AudioMulch system, which is worth a post in itself, but I'm not going to do that now. His live sets constantly reinvent old and new material in a dynamic and engaging fashion and are always a joy to listen to. I have fond memories of Michael playing support to Monolake when they played Auckland back in 2003 or something, where he sat quietly away from the sound desk, tinkering with his laptop and producing a steady stream of music both cerebral and physical with a almost playful psychedelic and somehow folky (er!) edge to it, while the crowd drifted past him, oblivious that the quiet bespectacled guy on the couch was the musics source (although this could have been his soundcheck, my memory isn't 100% reliable).
Thank all that's good in the world for his Bandcamp, then, as here you will be able to purchase pretty much all of the Jet Jaguar material released to date, including some of the out of print stuff. He's also embarked on another round of releases this year, beginning with the Single Digit High EP. He's recently followed this up with a release called Shreds. His plan is to release a further four EPs this year, so might pay to keep tabs if you like what you hear.
Michael is also part of a couple of Collaborations as well. One of them, Montano, has just published an EP of remixes for their Subtitled album. Somewhat more ambient than the Jet Jaguar gear, but just as rewarding. Remixes come from Isan s Mugwood, Aquaboogie and Jet Jaguar, amongst others.
There you have it. Next post I'll talk about Totems/Gotenks.
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