Source: Radio New Zealand
If there was ever a traditional career path for musicians, it’s long since ceased to exist. Nowadays anything goes, from TikTok to touring, or in the case of Avalon Emerson, making a name as an international DJ before pivoting to indie pop.
It’s a process that involved learning to sing, and perform live with a band, skills not entirely separate from helming 10-hour sets of dance bangers at clubs like Germany’s famous Berghain , but pretty far removed.
Her first release under the new moniker Avalon Emerson & the Charm was slightly woolly around the edges, with moments that hinted at the artist’s inexperience but just added to its charm. The follow-up, Written Into Changes, is more considered and confident, an electro-pop album that prioritises her laidback voice and well-deployed chord changes.
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. Emerson has named Magnetic Fields as inspiration, and music from ‘87 to ‘94 more specifically.
That‘s evident on tracks like ‘Country Mouse’, which evokes the jangly angst of The Cure and The Smiths, or ‘Eden’s echo of The Stone Roses. But both are delivered in very modern, bass-heavy packages, and feature vocals with sugar-sweet polish.
As on Emerson’s debut, production was handled by British musician Bullion, who’s worked with pop musos like heavyweight Carly Rae Jepsen, and indie Nilüfer Yanya, as well as his own experimental concoctions. He’s developed a distinctive, pleasantly airy sound in a relatively short time, which feels bolstered here by the collaboration with Emerson.
Avalon Emerson made a name as an international DJ before pivoting to pop music.
Dead Oceans
She was evidently “fixated on her music’s low end”, as per press materials, and in general Written Into Changes sounds bigger, with production stretched outward to meet the scope of her writing. The album’s first stretch in particular features some arena-sized pop gambits, the stickiest of which is ‘Jupiter and Mars’. It’s notably one of two songs not produced by Bullion, instead helmed by Rostam Batmanglij, another Jepsen collaborator who’s also worked with Charli XCX and Clairo.
Elsewhere, the title track is a slow burn where Emerson finds a harder edge to her voice, ‘God Damn (Finito)’ incorporates the techno pulse found in her DJ sets, and ‘I Don’t Want to Fight’ adds a few leftfield sonic touches to its power-pop balladry.
The album’s title is a reference to embracing change, which certainly tracks with its creator embarking into new musical territory. Worth noting she has plenty of upcoming DJ dates without her new band though, so think of it more as an expansion than a reinvention.
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Moving Rooms by Moving Rooms
An extremely pleasant and welcome surprise from a cluster of local musicians, including Cello Forrester from Womb and solo performers Ryan Fisherman and Hannah Everingham, this 10-track collection boasts an “entirely improvised convergence of minds and spirits” recorded in just four days.
Given the short time-frame, input from eight musicians (all doubling as producers), and improvisational process, Moving Rooms is shockingly well-realised, with touches of everything from pastoral folk to spiritual jazz in its musical makeup.
News From Planet Zombie by The Notwist
Terrible title, but let’s chalk that up to English being a second language for this longstanding German band who started in 1989 as a hardcore punk outfit then veered toward electronic pop in the late ‘90s. Their latest collection finds them ditching the approach of previous computer-led albums in favour of playing live in the same room at the same time. It seems to have successfully shaken things up, producing some of their loveliest tracks in years.
Listen to Tony Stamp discuss these albums and other new music with host Kara Rickard on Music 101 from 1pm Saturdays.
– Published by EveningReport.nz and AsiaPacificReport.nz, see: MIL OSI in partnership with Radio New Zealand
