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NZMM: Critics on Wellington Music – Mark Williams

We’ve been checking in with some local artists, writers & critics to get their thoughts on what makes the Wellington Music scene unique, and to get their take on some of their favourite Wellington sounds. You can check out some older posts from critics Nick Bollinger, & Grant Smithies, Blue Smoke writer Chris Bourke, and musicians Samuel Flynn Scott & Alistair Fraser, but since it is New Zealand Music Month we thought we would check in with some more people over the course of May.

Whether offering an opinion on the uniqueness or elusive qualities that make up Wellington music, or just some of their favourite albums, the most important thing is the music itself, and we hope these posts lead you back to some favourite albums, or help you to discover something new.

Up today is Mark Williams who is a local guitarist and Curator/Director of CIRCUIT Artist Film and Video Aotearoa, an arts agency that supports New Zealand artists working in the moving image through distribution, critical review and research. His current bands include Cookie Brooklyn & The Crumbs & Tapioca Dragon, and he often pops up in different combos at the Pyramid Club

There is a ton of exciting musical production in Wellington that is yet to be discovered by almost anyone, even sometimes the musicians peers, but it happens nonetheless, in live gigs, local releases that are solely distributed from the desk where you pay $5 to get in, international releases that aren’t distributed in NZ. So maybe what’s unique is the sheer bloody-mindedness of musicians whose relative value to the governing infrastructures of kiwi music (breweries, government-funded audience development schemes) – is nil.
Top 3 albums by Wellington artists:

Paintings of Windows – Pororari River Mouth
A Bad Suburb – A Walk into Town
Jeff Henderson – Fuck You You Bureaucratic Fucks

Improvised performance by Jeff Henderson (sax), Kieran Monaghan (drums) and Simon O’Rorke (malletKAT) @ FRED’S, October 2010.

The Crypt Sessions: Final Night – Tapioca Dragon
Live at The Crypt, Wellington, NZ. March 23, 2013

You can but some Cookie Brooklyn (an archival project revisiting mid-90s home recording experiments and editing, revising, adding arrangements) here & some Cookie Brooklyn & The Crumbs here.


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