6 Music New Zealand special: Bachelorette and The Brunettes

By / February 15, 2010
Every week TOW is lucky enough to pick two songs for Tom Robinson’s brilliant BBC 6 Music show, the spot goes out every Monday morning at around 2:30am.

Pick 1 – Bachelorette – Donkey

Often when writing this blog, TOW stops and has a meltdown about not having enough time to listen to all the great new music out there in the world. Sometimes, we just type a random country into Myspace Music and see where it leads us – away from the UK and US can more often than not be a very refreshing experience.

Hence, a New Zealand special for Tom’s show this week. Bachelorette was recommended by our buddy Sean who works for Radio New Zealand and Annabel Alpers – a one-woman beats making machine – has blown us away.

Hailing from Christchurch, she’s been described (by Sean) as a ‘shy, bedroom electronica girl’ whose first album, featuring a band, My Electric Family, is out now on cool Chicago-based indie Drag City. Bachelorette has toured recently with label mates Will Oldham and Bill Callahan, and will soon hit the road with ‘her idols’ Norwegian melancholy popsters and TOW faves Beach House.

The track TOW played for Tom this week is Donkey, a whirling indie-disco of a track that is bound to get stuck in your head – but the video above is for Her Rotating Head, which has some of the best feminist lyrics we’ve heard in a while.


Pick 2 – The Brunettes – Thank You

photo by Brad Fafejta

The Brunettes are Heather Mansfield and Jonathan Bree and TOW feels a bit silly for only coming across them now. When Tom Ravenscroft came on the show at the end of last year he played a track for us from their new album Paper Dolls which is out now on NZ-based indie Lil’ Chief Records. We had to hear more!

The album is sheer ‘twee-pop’ bliss. And this track Thank You is an homage to all those who have helped the band out over their career which now spans over a decade. Thanks if you put them up on your sofa, gave them a lift, came to a gig… similar in intention to Neil Young’s One Of These Days, lest we forget to give thanks, we’ll put them in a song now.

The band have been going for ages – their first album released in 2002 and their US records have been released on uber-trendy Sub Pop. That’s led to tours supporting The Shins and other truly awesome indie-pop bands, right where they belong!