Concord Dawn

Concord Dawn are a formidable drum and bass band from New Zealand. At its core is New Zealander Matt Harvey (aka Matty C) who is now based in Vienna. When the band first formed in1999, it consisted of another member Evan Short (aka Kiljoy).

Around that time they were massively influenced by a relatively new genre of music called jungle, which led them to experiment with it and churn out some of their own tunes. They later went to an audio engineering school together where they worked on newer, more sophisticated tunes.

The duo played the underground music scene for awhile, featuring heavily on student radio stations all across New Zealand.

However it was not until 2000 that they were signed to local electronic music label Kog Transmission. In July that year they came out with their first album titled Concord Dawn. The album, which was followed by a New Zealand-wide tour, was a huge success, with drum and bass lovers embracing it wholeheartedly.

Concord Dawn haven’t looked back since then. Soon after the tour they released their second album named Disturbance which lived up to the quintessential high octane electronic sound that Concord Dawn had come to being associated with.

Disturbance won the Best Electronic Album and Best Independent Release at the 2001 bNet Music Awards.
After a brief sabbatical, the duo returned with their third album Uprising in September 2003, which raked in accolades from not just the local fan base but also international audience. This saw them get signed to UK-based electronica labels and booked for their first overseas gig.

Their fourth album Chaos by Design was released in 2005 and keeping up with its predecessors, it kept the heavy praise coming in. Concord Dawn won several nominations, including Best International Act at the 2009 UK Drum and Bass Awards.

Concord Dawn are also known for their energetic live performances. In New Zealand, they have played every major gig including Big Day Out. They have also played extensively in Asia, America US, Europe and Canada and Australia.

Megha Kehar talks to Matt Harvey.

How old are you guys and how did you meet?
Matt: I’m 31. Me and Evan met at intermediate school. But he’s retired now as he is an old fart.

What are you doing in Vienna?
Today I have been working on a tune with a friend from Prague who came over on the train and will stay for a few days. Will do that the next few days, then finish up a tune I made with Trei from Wellington when he was here. Then I’m off to Porto, then another week in the studio before I do a tour of America on the way to New Zealand. So busy, busy. And it’s stinking hot at the moment.

Any plans of returning to New Zealand for good?
Sure, maybe in five years or so.

Bands or other kinds of music that inspire Concord Dawn?
Cave In, Openhand, Ken Andrews. Stuff like that I guess.

Your favourite gig venue (as in a country or a city)?
Pirate Station gigs in Russia are always rather mental – lots of pyrotechnics and naked dancing girls (true).

How did you come up with the name Concord Dawn?
It’s an anagram of “can crowd nod”.

Umm interesting. So what influences your music the most?
Advances in technology.

Your 2006 album Chaos by Design was an epic success. What plans do you have for the next one?
The same again, only with more analogue. Synths seems to be the way its heading.

Do you feel the pressure to live up to the expectation?
Not so much. New Zealand expects something different from Europe, I guess, in terms of the sound. I’m sure I’ll make some of the people happy some of the time.

What is the latest music on your iPod?
Nothing for a long time. Probably the last thing would be Telefon Tel Aviv.

A band you can’t wait to collaborate with?
Mmm I dunno really. Billy Corgan on the vocals would be great, as long as Tila Tequila waited outside.

The world would have been a better place without these three bands….
Any band with “the” in the title, whose shtick revolves around a particular style of trousers.

You will be playing Unitec’s orientation gig in July. Do you have any special plans or a special line-up of tunes?
I never really plan sets out to be honest. My match fitness will be up after the pre-season in the states though.

This interview first appeared here 20 July, 2009.

Catch up

What’s the haps, kids? Oh no, that so doesn’t sound like me. Perhaps if I said it enough times?

Soo I’ve been away from my blog for ages but if I tell you what I’ve been up to, you might possibly die of envy. I’ve been in New Zealand for about seven months, studying to be a proper “hack” and doing all sorts of odd jobs — from waitressing at a feral diner in north Auckland to acting as a blood-thirsty Roman for a Gladiator-style US television drama.

With such a luxe life, blogging obviously had to take a backseat. So right now I’m going to resist the urge to indulge in some defensive, self-deprecating humour, and get straight on to what’s been happening on the music end.

One of my fave jobs here so far has been writing for a student mag (no, not at the university I attend).  What a defector!

Every fortnight, I profiled a Kiwi music band, wrote a feature and a wee coloumn called newsbot — a news roundup from the perspective of a self-obsessed, obnoxious robot .

I wrote a few music reviews as well, some alright and some worse than doped-out Sonic Youth at a concentration camp in Somalia.

Even though it was hard to balance all that with my intense journo course, I really enjoyed it as it gave me a chance to meet some very cool people.

I will soon be posting some of my work here, so I have something to show for my AWOLness.

In other news, I’m currently interning at Yahoo! Xtra. I’ve never interned before so this is awesome and slightly nerve wrecking.

In fact I was so nervous the night before it started, I could hardly get any sleep. Weird, cos I managed to sleep perfectly okay before I flew out to NZ in Feb. But I soon realised I had no reason to be so anxious. Companies love interns!

Everyone at Yahoo has been so nice to me, that as a sign of appreciation I even did what every intern worth her salt would do — I offered to make coffee! But everyone was way too nice to accept that.

I’ve got another week there and I’m so not looking forward to it ending. So far they’ve given me two new albums to review — Dimmer’s Degree of Existence and Tahuna Breaks’ Black, Brown and White. Appararently Tahuna Breaks are currently topping iTunes New Zealand chart. AND I’m interviewing them tomorrow. So excited!

Aaah I’m so going to have another sleepless night!

No Subject

Apologies for no recent ramblings.

As it goes, Laidbackness currently lacks inspiration but hopes she’ll be back as soon as she finishes chasing the rabbit through the burrow.

Oh and she’s yet to get over Cape Cod Kwassa Kwassa.

Iain Petrie – I’ll Stay By You

Thanks to Mikey Serpico, we have a great review of Iain Petrie’s album I’ll Stay by You. Petrie’s music is as laid back as it can get. It’s a perfect listen after a hard day at work, when all you want to do is relax while having a quiet drink.

It’s like retro but the problem is… it shouldn’t be

Containing much ranting, moaning and complaining

Loaded with expectation-plus, I went to see DJ Suketu play at one of the ‘best’ clubs of NCR last Saturday*.

My friend Ashish, who was here in Delhi on a flying visit from Mumbai, is a big fan of Suketu, and therefore, he thought it utmost important to make another friend’s and my attendance mandatory at the said event.

However after the first couple of minutes and intensive stare-downs from blinged-up and unattractively hirsute men, I knew it wasn’t going to be anything special.

My fears were confirmed when I realised the stuff being played by the opening DJ wasn’t doing anything to uplift my slowly waning (and massively-diluted) spirits.

REEVE CARNEY live at The Roxy 2/6/08

When it’s all sci-fi, red pill, blue pill, things fail to amuse as frequently as they used to back in the days, unless we’re talking Nicolas Sarkozy and the “man-eater” OR music.

A case in point: the prolific and may I say extremely handsome Reeve Carney. The first time I heard Carney, the visual disconnect in terms of what I expected and what I received was just amazing. I mean, at the risk of stereotyping let me say this, I generally don’t expect quality, deep stuff from good-looking people. In a way that’s a bit unfair too. They have the best of both the worlds. Think male of the species of Norah Jones. I’ll reword it better when I’m slightly more awake, but you get the idea.

And he’ll be playing at The Roxy, CA this coming Wednesday, February 6. Don’t miss him, if you’re in or around that area. I really do hope he plays Forget about You.

———–

Steven Harlow Productions and the Roxy Theatre Present

CARNEY with Blackcowboy, Lukas Haas, and Biirdie

    The Roxy

    9009 West Sunset Blvd

    West Hollywood, CA

    8:00pm – $10 – all ages!!

    Tickets

Team Stevie Wonder made it to Kathmandu in 15 days! Alive!

Andy and I (Stevie Wonder Driving School) made it to Kathmandu in 15 days time and we are so damn pleased with ourselves!

There’s loads to tell but the highlight of the entire run was this amazingly bad crash we had on the 11th day — I drove into the back of a parked lorry at 45 kmph! Our rick was absolutely twisted and mangled. I thought GAME OVER!

Currently roughin’ it…

I’m currently away from home…roughing it in some random place somewhere in India with roid raged Andy. At the time of writing this blog, our team, Stevie Wonder’s Driving School, has travelled about 1500 kms, covering three states in 5 days in a ridiculously breakdown-prone mode of transport known as auto-rickshaw. Had loads of fun getting a little more than slightly drunk on the New Year’s eve, crashing into the team parked right in front of us on the start date, ramming our auto-rickshaw into a pole, overtaking gigantic trucks on national highway, going on two-wheels downhill, handling breakdowns, giving random village people free rides in our auto-rickshaw…

Current location: Tuni, Andhra Pradesh

5000 km-15 days-145cc vehicle: We could die

The least you can do is give us a tenner in aid of Mercy Corps.

In January 2008, a friend of mine and I are going to be taking the risk of our lives.

We’ll be driving across the length of India, right to the mountains in Nepal, in the lamest, most fragile and most breakdown-prone piece of engineering ever made here — the great Indian auto-rickshaw. And this is all for a noble cause — charity.

We need to raise at least a £1000 or more for the world famous charity org Mercy Corps before or during this 15-day-long odyssey. We’ll be trying to avoid cutting ourselves open, breaking our heads or crashing into an oncoming truck or a tree or a dog because dogs are nice. We might even have to slay pythons, manoeuver our way around a mud slide, hang from a cliff until help comes by and all that jazz — all while driving on not so particularly nice Indian roads.

Radiohead – In Rainbows

Radiohead’s decision to axe the middleman (the-soon-to-be-helpless record companies) has resulted in a truck-load of money for them. The marketing decision that was being expected to be the biggest debacle of the year has proved to be otherwise and that too in the extreme. By selling their music online at whatever price their fans think to be fair, Radiohead might have created a ground-breaking business model for the other bands. The average music lover it turns out is honest and doesn’t mind paying the right price for what he deems worthy. As for me, I haven’t been able to get my copy yet because the website just won’t load! I’ll keep trying though.

But the good thing is that an old friend of mine has been able to get past the server overload issue. Here’s a big thank you to Vishnu Erramilli for sending in a really awesome track-by-track review of the last album of Radiohead — In Rainbows.