We thought that we’d cel­eb­rate NZ Music month by high­light­ing some of our favour­ite Wel­ling­ton music. Here’s my top 5, veer­ing between the obscure and the down­right main­stream.

Aspen, Are you that retail snob?. This was the album that got me back into mak­ing music. It’s some­where between ambi­ent, glitch and early 90s IDM, but all you need to know is that it’s drip­ping with gor­geous tex­tures and melod­ies.

Rhi­an Shee­han, Tiny Blue Bio­sphere. I know, I know: it’s over-pro­duced cof­fee table music for yup­pies, but hell, maybe that’s what I am (even though I don’t own a cof­fee table). And any album that samples Carl Sagan not once but twice has to get bonus geek points.

Dis­astera­dio, Syn­thtease. Damn, this guy’s ran­sacked my child­hood! Yazoo with a VIC 20, Kraft­werk play­ing Aster­oids, 8‑bit beats and vir­al melod­ies.

Rhom­bus, Future Ref­er­ence. Yep, it’s a Welly list, so there had to be some dub some­where. But Rhom­bus’ influ­ences range far wider than most, and touches of funk, hip-hop, elec­tron­ica and jazz give their sound an infec­tious enthu­si­asm. “Scorch­ing Bay” has to be an instant Wel­ling­ton clas­sic.

Twin­set and friends, Christ­mas Pud­din’. The only Christ­mas album that does­n’t make me want to stick Rudolph’s antlers where the sun don’t shine. They know that you can­’t take car­ols too ser­i­ously, but while Benj Ber­ry­man injects some swingin’ cheese into ‘God Rest Ye Merry Gen­tle­men’, there are some sur­pris­ingly straight jazz treat­ments and del­ic­ate moments. As you can prob­ably tell, I’m still hanging out for the lounge reviv­al reviv­al.