Opossum

I had a couple of reviews that ran last week while I was away, so I might as well start catching up with this one, Opossum's Electric Hawaii, a lo-fi pop kind of project from New Zealand.

Opossom
Electric Hawaii
(Fire)

There's a ramshackle trippiness to Opossom's home-recorded, noise-blurred, psychedelia. Borrowing from the Black Moth Super Rainbow playbook, singer/songwriter Kody Nielson pulls bright surges of primary-colored melody out of trebly, rackety, percussion-pocked production.


Opossom is the second indie pop phenomenon to emerge from New Zealand's troublegum noise rockers the Mint Chicks. Nielson, the main instigator, also plays drums in his brother's new outfit, Unknown Mortal Orchestra. This mostly solo endeavor is far dreamier, less aggressively propulsive than Mint Chicks, filtering Beach Boys harmonies and sidewinding Brian Jonestown guitar lines through a gritty, messy lens.

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In other news, I'm going down to the Flywheel tonight to see Magic Trick (Tim Cohen from Fresh & Onlys) and Sonny and the Sunsets, and also to interview Cohen about the new Fresh & Onlys. I'm not sure I'm covering the show, per se, since I'll miss some of it while talking to Tim, but I might have more to say about that tomorrow.

We went to Brattleboro yesterday to see New England Youth Theater's version of Titus Andronicus, which was quite good, especially Tamora and Aaron the Moore. You might remember that my son Sean did this play earlier in the summer (he was Titus) at St. Pauls. Weirdly his usual theater was also doing it, so it was interesting to get another take on it. I liked Sean's Titus a little better -- he was quite a bit rawer and madder and, also though this may seem paradoxical, more varied and modulated in his performance. The play, though, was much better, and of course, I'm biased about Sean, so might be wrong. We also saw some friends from NYC who were up for a music festival at Bennington, VT, so that was a really fun day.

Kind of sad about the summer being over, aren't you?