Okay, well that was something different. Mia Kelly is the driving force behind Te Whanganui-a-Tara based Japes. This is a more avant-garde sound than a lot you’re going to hear around at the moment, and this is very much music for the introvert who walks among us – by which I mean someone who will walk, talk, interact, smile, joke, drink coffee, while inside screaming GMTFOH!

Doom is a deep, trance-like number. Slow and discordant, it questions norms around one’s perception of form and construct. This is good, in that it opens doors to imaginative writing for others not as far down the well-travelled composer track as Mia. What’s it about? From the EPK:

“Doom is really about the feeling that nothing matters,” says Kelly. “The realisation that we are just tiny cogs in a terrible machine, it’s a common feeling to come to in your early 20’s. You find out the world is a darker place than you could have ever imagined, having had the naivety of childhood stripped away and being faced with the pressure of having to have direction in your life.”

“The first demo (that would become Doom) came to be while Aotearoa was in the second lockdown in 2021, which was a really fair enough time to be having an existential crisis. It was particularly turbulent for me and found a lot of peace in writing music that was more dark and distorted. I’ve always been inspired by science fiction, the possibilities of the other and the wildly different ways our world could be structured, and I think a bit of this leaked into the song.”

It’s dark, brooding electronica with an organic heartbeat. Best way I could describe it would be to think of Depeche Mode meeting Portishead. Odd? Give it a listen and see what I mean. It’s sweetly balanced in the studio, most definitely. A subtle lower end, some scathing rhythm and a bit of white noise. Bevan Smith co-produced this one, and has given us a really neat, scowling mix to accompany the deceptively sweet vocal.

The vid on the You Tubes is great. Otis Rayner developed the vid with hand-drawn loop animations he created himself. It’s a trippy video that runs well, bringing the position of the infamous black dog on the shoulder that too many of us are aware of, into a somewhat humorous yet still challenging light. Very interesting and pretty darn cool. If you’re going to watch it under the influence of something (naughty, that stuff isn’t good for you) make sure you’re sitting down.

I don’t normally go looking for this family of genres. That’s taking nothing away from the imagination involved across the board. Mia is playing a launch gig at the end of March for the single (see our Home page for details), and there is most definitely a demand for this music in the live scene, especially in the highly appreciative and arty capital. Other than at a show, listen to this at an underground urban club, deep beneath the faux glamour of the city lights glare, dark, steamy and exceptionally late into the night.

It’ll get radio play on a lot of stations, I guarantee you. It’s out on Spotify and I’ve stuck it on the Flash-Trax playlist. If you feel like some deep introspection and consideration of all things, this would be the perfect soundtrack to let your mind wander to.