Triple deluxe 7” pack on 3 different coloured vinyl.
After eight years fronting New Zealand's acclaimed “trouble gum art punks” The Mint Chicks, Kody Nielson unveils a new project Opossom with the captivating album Electric Hawaii. Following a June release in Australia and New Zealand on Create/Control, the album will be released in the rest of the world via Fire Records in August.
The Mint Chicks chapter in Kody's career closed with the band splitting time between their American base in Portland OR and hometown Auckland. Brother Ruban formed a new band, Unknown Mortal Orchestra, and Kody began producing diverse projects including Bic Runga's recent album and Auckland punk up-and-comers, The DHDFD's.
Electric Hawaii presented a new challenge, an album written and performed with just a little help from others – Bic Runga lending a vocal while Kody's father Chris Nielson (a regular Mint Chicks collaborator) plays trumpet. The rest comes directly from the brain, hands and heart of Kody. Home-written, recorded and mixed by himself with just the final mastering courtesy of Howie Weinberg, Electric Hawaii is a unique beast – it is not the singer-songwriter solo album of a former punk rock band singer. It's a further exploration of Kody's musical journey into a lively, engaging world of carefully layered sonic layers of light and dark. It's an album about love, DIY, drugs and freedom. And why end up Opossom? The mental escape from daily life during the creation of “Electric Hawaii” produced Kody's nocturnal instinctive animal… feisty, vicious and enigmatically cute.
The new direction and new sounds incorporate what Kody terms as an overt attempt to add some of his personal Polynesian background to his blend of beatnik psychedelica made from out of context genres, surf rock to the Velvet Underground, modern and ancient electronica and jazz.
Review:
When New Zealand group the Mint Chicks split, the world of weirdo
psych-pop was granted the addition of two excellent new groups. Ruban Nielson
formed the Unknown Mortal Orchestra and released a very strong first album in
2011. His brother Kody formed Opossom, whose debut album, Electric Hawaii, is
easily a match for UMO's debut. Unsurprisingly, the two brothers' groups share
the same oddball pop DNA, but where UMO lean toward a trippier, funkier
approach, Opossom play it relatively straight, adding weird sonic touches to
their sound but sticking pretty close to a classic '60s-inspired pop format.
Nielson crafted the record himself – with a little bit of vocal assistance
from New Zealand superstar Bic Runga and trumpet from his father – and it
feels like something conjured up in a lab, both inventive and a little warped
around the edges. The songs have Motown-tight rhythmic underpinnings, guitars
that are never predictable, lots of odd keyboard sounds poking in and out, and,
most importantly, an impressive amount of stickiness. The warm and inviting
sound of the album might hook you first, but the melodies will keep you hooked.
Songs like “Fly” and “Blue Meanies” have a sneaky way of getting stuck
in your head, “Getaway Tonight” is a nice rocker with a soaring chorus, a
few tracks (“Watchful Eye” and “Outer Space”) drift along like slowly
fading dreams, and the rest is top-notch weird pop made even weirder by
Nielson's way of bathing his vocals in all sorts of distorting effects. This
disguising of his vocals may lessen some of the emotional impact of the album,
but really, when a record sounds this imaginative and the songs are so bubblegum
poppy, who really needs the baring of emotions? If the brothers Nielson have any
kind of sibling rivalry, you'd have to say their respective first albums leave
them tied, and they've both made lovers of off-kilter, sticky-sweet psych-pop
very happy.
All Music Guide – Tim Sendra