news
16th September 2008:
The video for Smoke has been nominated in the Roots/Electronica category of the Juice TV awards. These are voted for by YOU! So get going to the Juice TV site and vote for us!
We're off to Aussie at the start of October – tell your mates on the other side!
18th June 2008:
The Smoke video is now online – have a look at the video page. Sorry for the delay!
We're excited about coming down to play at the Queenstown Winterfestival. Gotta get on and find those thermals...
15th May 2008:
We shot the video for 'Smoke' a couple of weekends ago, directed by The Church. The location and the warbrobe looked amazing, really looking forward to seeing the finished product… watch this space…
14th February 2008:
We've just got back from our first gigs in the South Island. Can't quite believe we'd been to Australia and the UK before we'd even set foot in Maui's waka, but it's all fixed now. It was an interesting tour (hijacked flights, bags not uplifted, diesel in a petrol van, Tim Shadbolt, the list goes on…). Back to Aussie again soon, with gigs in Sydney, Adelaide and Melbourne. Should be good…
10th January 2008:
Happy New Year! We've just finished performing at the AWESOME Jambalaya Festival and now we're looking forward to our very first gigs in the South Island in February and in the West Island in March. Keep an eye on the gigs page for updated details of those and other gigs.
13th December 2007:
Have a listen to the podcast James and Neil recorded at Avatar Studios when they were mixing the album. "Gotta love that funk…"
Click here for a listen! (mp3 file)
3rd December 2007:
We are Number One! Real Groovy's best selling album of the week – ahead of Robert Plant, no less. Take that, Robert!
27th November 2007:
The reviews have been rolling in and are, in the most part, excellent. Which is good, because we like it! Have a read/listen of the following:
This debut... with its related funk family of samba, hip-hop, salsa and dub – all the time laced with a Brazilian spice – should propel the Batucada Sound Machine to where they belong; in the spotlight.
Peter Thorton, Rip It Up…Take stand-out Cumbia del Cambio, a … track that starts with a skanking dub groove, gives way to a more frenetic Latin rhythm that's backed up by clattering percussion, then it warps into a sonic, banging dancefloor anthem until it ends with a scream and celebratory blasts of horns.
Scott Kara, New Zealand Herald (link to review)…as kinetic and unconfined as any dance record you'll hear anywhere in the world…
Nick Bollinger, Radio New Zealand National (mp3 sound file)It's a form of dance music that lets you get up and close to your partner, and that is hot! So not only will you get a fantastic album if you buy this, there's a good chance that played to the right partner you'll also get…
Jamie Larnach, Amplifier (link to review)…their energy is engaging this time out and while they have a kind of ADHD approach to melodies within the same piece -- oh now they are black funk, oh now they are Aotearoa reggae etc -- you cannot deny their accumulated fire-power.
Festival headliners sooner rather than later is my guess: and with barbecue season almost on us they will be getting their time in the sun at my place, that's for sure.
Graham Reid, elsewhere.co.nz (link to review)…An infectious mix of driving Brazilian rhythms, funk-style guitar licks and dub horns, this album is tailor-made for the upcoming summer, and will no doubt be embraced by the majority of kiwis looking for their fix of energetic, upbeat grooves.
Tom B, The Set (link to review)
15th November:
We've discovered that we are the backing track to a cool review of the AK 07 Festival: see it here via YouTube.
4th October 2007:
Buy our album from Amplifier!
Debut studio album 'Rhythm and Rhyme' out Oct 8. Produced by Neil Sparkes and mixed at the legendary Avatar Studios in New York.
13th July 2007:
We're half way through recording the album, and it's all going swimmingly so far. This morning we were on TV one's Breakfast, Paul Henry interviewed Neil and James (watch the video on TVNZ's website). They were surprisingly eloquent considering it was sparrow's fart.
25th June 2007:
Crikey this hasn't been updated for a while! We're pretty excited because this week Neil Sparkes is flying out to NZ from the UK to produce our studio album – recording in the next month.
Neil Sparkes, Renaissance dubster, poet and painter…does not stop moving. His restless journey started the moment he found himself onstage poeticising over the dub alongside Linton Kwesi Johnson, Jalal and Jean Binta Breeze. Since then there's been Real World Recording Weeks, Transglobal Underground, the Temple of Sound project with his co-conspirator Count Dubulah of the mighty bass, solo albums like the resplendent Cuban dub vision of 'Burning Mask'… and that's not even most of it.
Max Reinhardt, Straight No Chaser