Flying free and learning to let go
Wellington’s The Phoenix Foundation are marking 15 years together with a new album that has brought them down to Earth and working with the likes of Neil Finn. Samuel Scott and Lukasz Buda talk to Vicki Anderson. Thirty in one is excellent gaming value I
THE Phoenix Foundation have set free their new album, Give Up Your Dreams, but behind the rather bleak title are six Wellington musicians who are defiantly celebrating the art of making innovative music.
‘‘The album is a mantra about letting go, worrying less and enjoying your reality instead of always wanting more,’’ Samuel Scott says from somewhere in the back of a brewery where he is helping fellow Wellingtonians Garage Project whip up a heady brew called The Phoenix Foundation.
Neil Finn has never remixed a song until now. A fan of the band, he has chosen to remix their song Give Up Your Dreams.
‘‘I have never done one before and enjoyed being able to take apart and reassemble someone else’s music, it’s like landscaping your neighbour’s garden while they’re away on holiday,’’ Finn wrote on Soundcloud.
The title track was, Scott says, inspired by a conversation with fellow Kiwi musician, friend and collaborator James Milne, who performs as Lawrence Arabia.
‘‘We got to the point after we released Fandango that we became almost obsessed with the fact that it hadn’t really broken us into Europe as we thought it might do,’’ Scott reveals.
‘‘The reviews were positive but it didn’t do what we hoped it would. James made the comment one day that we should give up our dreams and just do it without thinking of that.’’
During the recording process, band member Lukasz Buda told me they were making an effort to do something different.
‘‘That’s the motto at the moment – follow the fun and keep pushing to new territories. USS Enterprise it.’’ Now the record is completed,
Rare Replay (Rare) (R16)
BBuda describes it as a ‘‘total rebirth’’ for the band who have been making music together for 15 years.
‘‘Its uplifting feel comes as an act of defiance against all our fears RITISH video game developer Rare is marking its 30th year with one of the best value-for-money releases for a console video game in 2015. Rare Replay repackages 30 games, from the simple arcade racing game RC Pro-Am to the sophisticated shooter Perfect Zero, originally released for the Xbox 360.
The other selling point of Rare Replay is that for the first time these can be played on the Xbox One. This prefigures next month’s change, where a large number of Xbox 360 games will be able to be played on the newer console. (Like many Xbox owners, I have two consoles, but would be far happier with everything on one machine.)
Playing the games was something of a nostalgia-fest, even for those who hadn’t played Rare’s pre-Xbox arcade releases.
Viva Pinata, released in 2006, and sequel Viva Pinata Trouble in Paradise remain beautifully designed non-violent games aimed at young children, without a whiff in life,’’ Buda says.
With five studio albums and two movie soundtracks under their belts, for the first time the band self-produced in Give Up Your Dreams and it is a masterful journey into their gloriously absurd world of technicolour pop.
‘‘We recorded it at Car Club HQ in Wellington,’’ Scott says. ‘‘Luke really wanted to focus on the rhythm section this time and we had new drummer Chris Connor and the idea was to let the rhythm section lead the way so there is next to no acoustic guitar. It was a new way of working for us.’’
The ghost rituals of the Ona people of Tierra Del Fuego in southern Chile informed the track Playing Dead, while album closer Myth was inspired by the writings of St Isidore of Seville who in the 19th century attempted to compile all human knowledge.
Elsewhere the dreamy psychedelica of lead single of being patronising. The game centres on an island paradise, dotted with wrecks and artefacts. The living pinatas are animals based on the Mexican figures children smash to get at gifts inside. On a patch of dried-up land you remove rocks and rubbish, break the soil and grow plants.
I couldn’t believe that horror comedy Grabbed by the Ghoulies is now 12 years old. Unlike Viva Pinata, it feels dated, and I never found it challenging enough to begin with. However, it still has Give Up Your Dreams is out now. The Phoenix Foundation perform at Wellington’s San Francisco Bath House on September 18; Cabana, Napier, September 19 and The Mayfair, New Plymouth, October 1 as part of a national tour. Mountain bathes in layers of Television-inspired guitars and notions of the money men who control the world. The accompanying video has a cult-like vibe. The curiously titled Jason sees Buda sing about the back problems of both the mother of his children and his ‘‘band wife’’ Sam Scott.
‘‘Ah, sciatica and painkillers,’’ Scott says and I hear a smile in his voice.
‘‘Luke had people with back pain in his life everywhere he looked which led to that song.’’
Foo Fighters’ frontman Dave Grohl made headlines recently by continuing to perform after he broke a leg at a gig. But in 2010 Scott played an entire gig in Christchurch with a ruptured appendix. He left the stage only to go to hospital at the end of the evening for an emergency appendectomy.
It’s a gig which went down in New Zealand musical history.
‘‘We’re touring with the album next month,’’ Scott says.
‘‘Hopefully nothing as dramatic as that will happen again.’’
Despite appearing to be a title filled with defeat, with the release of this album The Phoenix Foundation are still making fans’ dreams come true. some charm for younger players.
Fantasy game Kameo Elements of Power from 2006 looks great, but at times feels like a weak copy of Fable. Much better is BanjoKazooie: Nuts & Bolts, which makes a direct joke about Grabbed by the Ghoulies failing to be a big seller. Like a cross between Sonic the Hedgehog and Mario, we have a mumbling bear (Banjo) and a squawking bird running around in the arcade tradition collecting tokens and solving puzzles. Replay Rare also features other games in the series Banjo-Kazooie and Banjo-Tooie and, aside from appreciating the evolution of the game, the self-referencing humour makes it hard not to like.
Perfect Dark Zero, released in 2006, is still fun, even if it pales in comparison to its descendants.
You play super-agent Joanna Dark – or the option of other characters – and carry a variety of old-fashioned and new weapons, along with several spy gadgets, to break into secret laboratories, Hong Kong gangsters’ HQ, Peruvian ruins and mountain hideouts around the globe, switching between first- and thirdperson shooter modes.
Rare Replay also includes Perfect Dark, the first in the series, but Zero excels it in every way. With so many games, at times you can feel spoilt for choice, but Rare Replay also has a neat interface – based on the idea of an oldfashioned circus – that makes it easy to quickly browse through each game and get a short trailer of each to make the decision of whether to spend an hour or two on Rare’s early arcade games or to spend many hours on its later sophisticated incarnations.