shayne carter - dimmerMoody rock­er and increas­ingly funk-ori­ent­ated Dim­mer and Sam­oan hip-hop­per extraordin­aire Tha Feel­style (it’s not a typo, it is Tha) will be enter­tain­ing the stu­dents and any­one else who cares to turn up at the Vic­tor­ia Uni­ver­sity Uni­on Hall tonight (Fri 25 Feb). Should be an inter­est­ing combo of sounds.

The latest Dim­mer album – You’ve Got to Hear the Music – which we ini­tially wrote off as a bit of a bor­ing funk work-out, has actu­ally grown on us hugely over the last few months – and now makes our essen­tial-buy-it-if-you-don’t-have-it list of NZ albums. Funny how things like that hap­pen. Tha Feel­style album – Break it to Pieces – isn’t bad either.

Tomor­row night (Sat 26 Feb), if you can drag your­self away from the Cuba Street Car­ni­val [pre­vi­ous post], we recom­mend head­ing along to Sand­wiches, where the The Kaikoura Roots Fest­iv­al CD Com­pil­a­tion Launch is tak­ing place. The show will fea­ture the Sal­mon­ella Sound­sys­tem – Rude­boy, Jag­way and Skit­ter (Sal­mon­ella Dub), Kora, The Might Asterix, Rikki Gooch (Trin­i­ty­Roots), Alion and MC Kyla.

There’s all sorts of tasty pre-sale sweeten­ers on offer – take note: if you pick up your CD from Real Groovy, Sounds or the CD Store on Feb­ru­ary 26th you’ll receive an invite to the Dub Con­spir­acy Kaikoura Roots Fest­iv­al CD Launch party. Present your pre-order CD receipt at Cos­mic Corner and receive a dis­coun­ted tick­et to the party, oth­er­wise it’s $15 on the door.