Friday, December 23, 2011

Picassos in NZ Musician



Harold and I had a good old yarn with Mark Bell for NZ Musician recently, the print edition is out now (click to enlarge to a more readable size). Will add text when they chuck it online.

Thanks to everyone who supported our reissue collection, we really appreciate it. It's been really satisfying for us seeing people reconnect with our music, and seeing young folk discover it for the first time. The 20-odd years of music that has happened since we made these recordings gives what we were doing more context. In short, a lot more people get what we were doing, now that crossover of genres is widespread.

And it's been great hearing from our old fans, catching up with them and talking over old times. Trying to describe the music scene back then has been kinda hard, but its all still there, in my head.

Cheers.

Thursday, December 15, 2011

NZ Musician review

HALLELUJAH PICASSOS: Rewind The Hateman. By Simon Sweetman.

"This is an important document. For all the talk of New Zealand music – as a genre, or ideal – there really are not that many unique, innovative bands. Hallelujah Picassos created their music from an international brief – sure – taking hints from hardcore and punk, from dub and reggae, casting the net far and wide – but it was certainly a shot of energy to the local music scene. 

The group’s live performances were exciting, unpredictable – and the music has, for the last decade and a half, all but disappeared. Unfortunately the punk/hardcore material does sound a bit dated, but the reggae-tinged songs still sound fresh, rewarding. There’s a lot to take in here and though, stylistically, it can feel like it’s all over the place, it’s nice to have it all in one place. 

I’ve been enjoying cherry-picking from it; reminding myself that, at their best, this was one hell of a band."