Surviving the sophomore slump

Elec­tric Wire Hustle

Love Can Prevail 

(Okayplayer/Somethinksounds)

   With their self-titled 2009 debut, Wel­ling­ton trio Elec­tric Wire Hustle paid homage to the rich tra­di­tions of Afric­an-Amer­ic­an soul, jazz, hip-hop and mod­ern beats, while kal­eido­scop­ic­ally twist­ing motifs asso­ci­ated with these forms into some­thing they could call their own. Five years on, fol­low­ing the depar­ture of ori­gin­al drum­mer Myele Man­zanza from the band, and hav­ing cul­tiv­ated more of a per­son­al interest in psy­che­del­ic rock and folk in that time, they return with their second album, Love Can Prevail.

Cuts such as ‘Love­less’ and ‘To See You Again’ find front­man Mara TK slid­ing son­or­ous lyr­ic­al phrases over brist­ling gui­tar riffs and bouncy syn­thes­iser bass cour­tesy of key­board­ist Taay Ninh, in the pro­cess build­ing a lar­ger world for the band to live with­in. Inside this lar­ger uni­verse, cuts like ‘By & Bye’, ‘The Spir­it’ and ‘If These Are the Last Days’ see their neo-soul ven­tures aug­men­ted by the twirl­ing elec­tron­ics and syn­co­pated rhythms of smart mod­ern club music.

Suc­cess­fully sur­viv­ing the sopho­more album is a hard task for any band, but across Love Can Pre­vail Elec­tric Wire Hustle hold onto the core val­ues that attrac­ted their fans to them in the first place.

Eb & Sparrow

Eb & Sparrow

(Home Alone Music)

Born out of heart­break, the Eb & Spar­row alt-coun­try pro­ject has been expan­ded over the last four years by lead vocalist/guitarist Ebony Lamb into a richly ornate five-piece band exper­i­ence. Hedging trum­pet, har­mon­ica, lap-steel and multi-part vocal har­mon­ies against the tra­di­tion­al country/rock/folk con­fig­ur­a­tion of drums, bass and gui­tar, the ten songs on Eb & Sparrow’s debut album are rooted in yearn­ing for earli­er — sup­posedly more simplist­ic — times. Call it a cycle of love songs for the days before Face­book and smart­phones per­haps. With a whis­key-warm voice and the emo­tion­al heft of someone singing from exper­i­ence, Ebony sells it well.

French For Rabbits

Spir­its

(Lef­se Records/Home Alone Music)

Wel­ling­ton dream pop duo French For Rab­bits’ story is one of per­sist­ence: two determ­ined musi­cians who, song by song and show by show, have earned them­selves a small yet grow­ing glob­al audi­ence. With their debut album Spir­its, they present richly res­on­ant songs that place a premi­um on smoul­der­ing instru­ment­al melod­ies and trans­lu­cent but mem­or­able voice. Chan­nel­ling a sim­il­ar vocal qual­ity to Laura Marling or Daugh­ter, front-woman Brooke Sing­er lets her del­ic­ate but head­strong voice flut­ter against the nat­ur­al­ist­ic inter­weav­ing of gui­tar and key­boards she cre­ates with her foil John Fitzger­ald. Power­ful rhythms pound in the back­ground and, sud­denly, everything is right with the world.

Rory Noble

Low Fidel­ity Elec­tron­ic Music

(Epic Sweep Records)

Made up of six long pieces defined by heft, dis­tor­tion and hyp­not­ism, Low Fidel­ity Elec­tron­ic Music is the most recent album release from Plim­mer­ton-based elec­tron­ic music com­poser Rory Noble. Recor­ded earli­er in the year, while Rory was recov­er­ing from the flu and blocked ears, it’s an abras­ive listen, which while rough around the edges reveals more with every rotation.