The Very Good Agency

How open is your soul?

It’s not always easy to be a funk/soul band in New Zealand, if you can’t get your songs onto the filthy commercial stations, you are likely be ignored by the mainstream. Then you either have to slum it playing as a backing band on a kids TV show, or alternatively do the hard yards touring to build up a fan base the old fashioned way. Many artists have to go overseas to be taken seriously at home. Some of the true pioneers and innovators make it through either by sheer luck or through dogged determination, but many others are never fully recognised for their musical talents. Hopefully NZ collective Opensouls is a band that can reach their full musical potential and get the recognition they deserve both domestically and internationally. As the band bio on their website states: “Opensouls have been steadily rising through the ranks of the New Zealand music scene since beginning their musical journey in 2001. Comprised of 2 vocalists, M.C. Bjorn and singer Tyra Hammond, and a live band including Jeremey Toy a.k.a Ota (guitar/MPC), Julien Dyne (drums), Chip Mathews (bass), Stephine Brown (keys), Scott Towers (saxophone), Issac Aesili (trumpet/vocals) and Harlin Davey a.k.a Buttafingers (turntables/mpc), the collective possesses an abundance of musical flair and experience which they have used to great effect on their critically acclaimed debut album.”

Opensouls
Rise Up

With that many members in the crew OpenSouls should once again be in the running for “New Zealand’s Most Populated Band ” award with the only real competition coming from Solaa , but as some of the artists are in both outfits (e.g the mulit-talented Isaac Aesili), special judicial deliberation may be necessary. All jokes aside though these guys are straight up musical bliss, and should appeal to fans of funk, soul and basically groovy as shit! Their song “Turn It Up” has been doing the rounds on NZ student radio for some time now, helping to spread the love and build a following for this original kiwi group. Also well worth checking out, their track “Rise Up”… If you haven’t heard them yet, you best check them out. Then go buy their album “Kaleidoscope”, sweet sounds with lyrics you can relate to.

You can check out more from Opensouls at:

www.opensouls.co.nz

www.myspace.com/opensoulsspace

…Yossarian

Tags: Funk, hip hop, Jazz, New Zealand Artists

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