What Kind of Human Have I Become is one of 3 projects from Oamaru, New Zealand musician Matt Plunkett. We've posted about Cuticles a couple of times. Apparently there's another project called The Trendees.
"Avoiding The Diggy Diggy Dogs" is a 2024 7" released on Minneapolis label Soft Abuse. What Kind of Human Have I Become have recently released a full length - "Memory Gut".
What sets this band apart from other Plunkett projects is the presence of Stefan Neville of Pumice.
So, not only does this post celebrate some great modern New Zealand noise rock, it is yet another reminder of an outstanding, unsung label - Soft Abuse. This label has brought us Donovan Quinn, The Bibs, Human Television, Matthew De Gennaro, and Fortunato Durutti Marinetti. What an astounding run.
If you follow Steven R. Smith’s music, it’s always tempting to draw inferences from the name on the record’s sleeve. He’s recorded under a series of guises (Ulaan Kohl, Hala Strana, Ulaan Markhor), and the name often suggests a particular angle on his long-standing practice of making music at home that makes your mind take a trip. But the divisions are starting to blur. While Olive was made under his own name, its toolkit corresponds closely to the one he used on Ulaan Passerine’s Dawn. On both, his organ contests with his electric guitar for dominance, and the drums tend to be well down in the mix. And on both, he uses horn section sourced from sympathetic corners scattered around the world. In fact, it’s mostly the same players on both records.
But if the tools are the same, the question presents, how is he using them? The paradox of Olive is that while Smith is an auteur whose sound is pretty identifiable from project to project, and that does not change on this recording, it admits an unusual degree of outside input. Not only does it feature a couple of keyboards and six reed and brass instruments contributed by players scattered across Europe and the USA; they’re often at the center of the action. “Across The Boulevard” gets its payoff from the way João Sousa’s bold trumpet yields to Yvonne Sone’s diffusing organ. Likewise, on “Passing Winter,” it’s the transition from Filippo Tramontana’s laconic French horn to Kate Wright’s (yes, of Movietone) piano and field recordings that’ll activate private cinematic visions. While Smith gets some cool licks in, such as the organ line that stretches across brassy harmonies on “Trees At North Branch,” the focus is on arrangements that he might have devised, but could not play on his own. His ability to make you imagine a world is undimmed, but now he’s letting representatives from around the world add finishing touches.
Richard Youngs & Raül Refree - four long tracks by Glasgow/Barcelona chamber folk duo
For their first meeting, Richard Youngs (Glasgow) and Raül Refree (Barcelona) have created a suite of stately, circular longform songs that manage to connect Tim Buckley's Happy Sad to Federico García Lorca to plainsong liturgy. The largely acoustic and quietly urgent All Hands Around the Moment finds Youngs in an impassioned and emotional space he’s rarely inhabited since Sapphie, elevated by lush chamber folk/jazz compositions that incorporate piano, guitar and more, performed by both Youngs and Refree.
The four pieces that build the whole of All Hands Around the Moment harness transcendence in repetition, and feature gorgeous progressive minimalism in full spectrum. Dark existential themes flow into mystic uplifting expressions of humanity., without missing a beat. In its timelessness and prescience, the realities present in All Hands Around the Moment make for a powerfully engrossing listen from top to bottom.
Raül Refree: instruments
Richard Youngs: instruments, vocals, lyrics
In these diminished times, a lot of records get one small shot at physical existence before moving into the ephemeral realm of digital perpetuity. Is a record less loved if its makers decided to make it a cassette instead of an LP? Or maybe said makers are just not flush enough to show all their sonic children the same amount of love? Helm, Steven R. Smith’s latest effort under the Ulaan Markhor moniker, is a cassette. He and Soft Abuse already have an LP of another title planned for release before year’s end. But don’t go calling Helm a runt, or you just might get some sharp teeth sunk in your ankle. However large or small this record looms in the format sweepstakes, it packs a bite that you’ll ignore at your peril.
Smith’s modus operandi has been pretty steady for a couple decades now. He records at home and plays all the instruments himself. He almost never sings, but his instrumentals exude such imagery that words seem superfluous. He’s recorded under a variety of guises, and the name usually indicates a vibe or a musical approach. The wedge end of Ulaan Markhor is rhythm. Smith plays drums on every track, and the grooves have been the taskmasters telling other instruments what to do. At least up until now; while Helm’s sound is still defined in part by the drums, it’s resistant to reduction. The inspiration behind Helm’s beats is post-punk, but with a bit of what-if thrown in. “In the Long Hand” and “Holy Hitch” seem to ask, what if Hanley and Burns had snuck some John Bonham licks past Mark E. Smith on Hex Enduction Hour? And “Flowering” builds to a drum and guitar boil that’s close kin to road-dog era Eleventh Dream Day.
As often as not, other sounds do the defining. It’s the swelling organ and homemade spike fiddle playing a sped-up spaghetti western theme that distinguishes “The Valley in Shadow.” A quavering, brazenly punched-in synth infuses the stolid cadence of “Below the Outfall” like lightning flashing through a dust cloud. And it’s the hand-off from violin to sullenly strummed guitar and something like shuffling pages at the end of “Stems Mantled in Deep” that infuse the town with tragedy. Whatever Smith’s steering us through has likely stopped others dead in their tracks. And that sense that the music is telling a story spiked with life and death is what makes his music so magnetic over time, no matter what format he uses to release it.
Pumice (Auckland, New Zealand) are back with a new album, and I've got to hand it to this band - they don't really repeat themselves. I first heard them on their 2020 release "Table" (Soft Abuse, Minneapolis). I then really enjoyed the four songs they contributed to a split release with Swedish band/label noemienours.
The Bandcamp page states: "This time out the long-running Aotearoa band, currently a duo consisting of Stefan Neville and Jade Farley, fracture sore thumbed folk songs into crumpled bricks with riffs written on the toilet. Wonky South Pacific skiffle careens into heady organ dirges followed by galloping blurts of afterlife feedback. As ever texture and accidents rub up against melodies, rhythms are not strict and words are grubby."
It's as if C Strøm joined Pumice for a songwriting session.I can't wait to hear the entire release and see what direction the other 9 songs go. There is apparently an LP version set for release in October.
