New NZ Music Spotlight: Home Brew

I've been holding back on introducing Home Brew to the Couchsessions massive, mostly because I was scared that nothing I'd write about them could actually do them enough justice. However, I will bite the bullet and plough ahead with this introduction of my favourite New Zealand group, Home Brew.

I first got introduced to Home Brew through one of my good friends who had introduced me to Haz, Home Brew's beatmaker/producer back in 2008. After being roped into being the sober driver to Haz's house on many occasions, Haz and I found ourselves having many late night conversations about new music, and discovering our shared love and obsession of the Japanese Jazz-Hop scene. I was soon being played a bunch of Home Brew tracks, of which I instantly fell in love with. It's safe to say my subsequent love affair with all things Home Brew started from that point forward.

The first full piece of work from Home Brew I heard, was their 2008 Last Week EP, which sees the 7 track EP giving their take on their daily lives during one week from Monday- Friday. Their refreshingly honest and brutal take on boozing, smoking and living on welfare, the EP is bound to provide you with a few laughs yet still providing the balance of insightful rhymes. One of my favourite tracks off this EP is Saturday, produced by Truent from Koru Licks which I posted last week.

You can dowload the full Last Week EP from their bandcamp here

They soon after released another free download, Summer Ale of which their track Under The Shade comes off, of which a pretty epic story lies behind. Home Brew applied and got rejected for government music video funding. Instead of wallowing in self pity, they pulled off one of the most inventive marketing campaigns ever and released a series of v logs chronicling their hilarious efforts to fundraise money to make a video, all leading up to a fundraiser gig that happened on April 17th. Their campaign made it on to national news, got widespread support from prominent NZ industry goers and their fundraiser gig (of which another NZ Couchsessions favourite, David Dallas made an appearance on the mic) brought out almost every Auckland residing NZ artist, DJ and their manager.

In my opinion, Home Brew have been able to garner such a big following here because one, they're hilarious, as seen by the video above, and two, they are simply so brutally honest and authentic in their music and who they portray themselves to be, they manage to woo you in effortlessly whilst giving you dope rhymes and beats to match with an authentic NZ twist. The Kiwi references may be rife but their tales of being broke and drunk, yet young and still full of aspirations, yet not quite clear on the path to take, are all too universal.

Below are a few of my favourite Home Brew tracks but I highly recommend heading over to their bandcamp and downloading all their releases for free.

[audio:http://www.thecouchsessions.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/05/06-Chicken-Chowmein.mp3|titles=Home Brew- Chicken Chowmein]
Home Brew- Chicken Chowmein off Summer Ale

[audio:http://www.thecouchsessions.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/05/05-05-Tell-The-Children-The-Truth.mp3|titles=Home Brew - Tell The Children ]
Home Brew- Tell The Children off their Vintage EP

[audio:http://www.thecouchsessions.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/05/06-Same-Shit-Different-Day.mp3|titles=Home Brew- Same Sh*t Different Day]
Home Brew- Same Sh*t, Different Day off Taste Test