THE GROOVE IN THE MIDDLE OF THE ROAD: It's where we are at

New Zealand music has some interesting side roads and tracks off the main highway. But running right down the highway, securely in the middle of the road, is a wide path which many artists prefer.

It's smooth driving and a popular route, it can also be mundane and the sights repetitive and dulled through familiarity.

The vehicle is riding on an uplifting rail of reggae, soulful sincerity, lyrics which are often banal and – to avoid alienating the audience – uncontroversial.

It is populist music which is undeniably popular because it doesn't provoke or offend. It pleases because it is pleasing. And it dominates our local music charts.

Yet in a country plagued with problems – child poverty, failing schools, rotting infrastructure, racial assaults (notably against Asians recently), a government intent on disempowering Māori and more – we hear little, if any, of that addressed by musicians who have been given a mandate by their loyal audience.

You get the sense that this music is happy if it can come with video of a guy pulling out an acoustic guitar at a driftwood campfire on a beach at sunset.

At times when the peace, love and whānau messages overwhelm with blandishments, you yearn for voices like those of Herbs, Upper Hutt Posse, Dam Native and many others in the past who didn't hold back but laid the blame where they thought it belonged.

You don't hear much of that from young rock bands either which yearn with faux-soul about “oh girl” and for whom PR people default to the two most common cliches and descriptions: a “banger” or a “summertime vibe”.

As PreFab Sprouts once sang, “some things hurt much more than cars and girls”.

And other acts – notably out of Wellington, that home of bureaucrats and those controlling the fate of this country – find that comfortable ground of reggae-cum-soul with smooth horns.

Some of this music I like, I genuinely do.

But the arrival of new albums by Toi and Fat Freddy's Drop – paired in their manner, scrupulously apolitical – might get you thinking too.

Fat Freddy's album is Slo Mo – a title which hardly stirs the pulses – and the advance single Next Stop with MC Slave seriously undersells enthusiasm.

Next Stop

 

It is bland, comfortable and another polished example of “it ain't broke . . . .” The place where a jazz group of horns and a busy rhythm section meets the soul groove.

I've heard the album (due next month) and it is – musically at least – a fine serving of the band's signature sound getting psychedelicized (Oldemos) and dubbed up (Out to Sea).

Put it on and don't expect to get much done. Or be asked to think about much serious.

It's not for reviewers to tell artists what they should do, but they can certainly point out what they don't.

Toi – also out of the capital – deliver their new album Waves and are paddling a similarly popular reggae-soul waka as Fat Freddy's Drop and others.

First impressions may be that the sophisticated sound of Toi is crafted for the summer vibe with sultry soul (Wired), affirmative messages (“never give up on yourself” on the lyrically vague We Got This) and not much more.

It's hard to shake the feeling they are comfortable in that place in the middle of the road.

Again there's nothing provocative – Sober is about a relationship, not surviving the booze – but as this album rolls out there's certainly more going on.

In places there's a very classy, mellow LA cool jazz vibe. Essence is a pleasing local version of yacht rock which assimilates those musical elements we like, and the final song Slow Down is an interesting sliver of psychedelic soul.

Toi are excellent musicians and here boxes are ticked for sure, but to their credit some new ones added.

Fly On, by Toi

 

Waves has got that summertime vibe we like and nothing which would alienate its audience.

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You can hear the Top album at Spotify here

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FOOTNOTE: Two days after this article was posted the publicity arrived for the new LAB single. This is how it started.

"L.A.B. have dropped their latest single and video, ‘Follow’, a track that evokes a summertime feeling and the trademark L.A.B sound. Led by frontman Joel Shadbolt's unmistakable vocals, the track combines playful acoustic guitars and bass to create sun-soaked vibes".

This is the video