Various Artists: Loop Select 009; Kono 002 (Loop)

The Loop collections (stacked-full CDs of usually essential soulful electronica, sometimes a DVD with video clips and short films) are often as artistically presented as their classy contents (see the Fly My Pretties A Story CD/DVD package), and are an on-going archive of great New Zealand sounds and images.

In the decade since their first CD collection (Cloudboy, Rhian Sheehan, TrinityRoots, Black Seeds etc) they presented the elaborate Loop 5 (a book of graphic arts, music and a video/short film selection which included Taika Waititi's breakthrough Two Cars, One Night).

This new CD/DVD collection is a similar embarrassment of riches: among the short films are Waititi's Tama Tu (a tribute to the Maori Battalion, as moving as it is funny), Zoe McIntosh's Day Trip (a gang member takes an unplanned trip “overseas”, to Picton), James Blick's understated Roof Rattling which feels like a deftly written short story sensitively handled onto the screen, and the quirky Betty Banned Sweets by Michelle Savill, among others.

Tim McLachlan's hilarious Frosty Man and the BMX Kid is as insightful in its own, very different way, as Two Cars, One Night.

There are also video clips (for Rhian Sheehan, Sola Rosa, Tommy Ill and others) plus some live films (Eru Dangerspiel, Fly My Pretties and more)

The CD includes tracks by A Hori Buzz, Isaac Aesili, Lewis McCallum, JR Kong and others – and there are bonus downloads.

A Christmas-gift for those overseas, and one for yourself.

Frosty Man and the BMX Kid? A classic.