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.