Collaborations can work. Sometimes they do most of the time they don't. What seems like a good idea can pretty quickly turn out to be a shit show.
The best collaborations are often those where it doesn't seem to be a good idea. A place where opposites collide instead of attract. A place where friction creates sparks and the sparks create something magical.
On paper, a multi-instrumentalist who is used to playing bars in Wellington with her Avant Garde Metal band shouldn't fit with a UK/German DJ/producer with a passion for dance and electronica.
BUT
When you add a combined passion for all things musical to that mix and a shared desire for experimentation and pushing boundaries then sparks will fly and something truly magical will be created
No Time To Explain is a collection of music built up over a period of time. It pushes boundaries and is full of surprises. Leah's passionate vocal which ranges from edgy to dark to uplifting is the main focus and all that hard work gigging with a live band shines through. You can feel it at the core.
Then there are the beats and the production. It's spot on with Lars Moston using his talent for a tune that can get people moving to full beautiful bass-thumping effect.
Every listen of this album throws up something new. On first listen the surprise of where each track goes just makes you want to hear and discover more.
Poison (yes Alice Cooper's Poison) is the best version of that song I have heard. I would argue even better than the original. Whereas Weirdo would sit well on a Billie Eilish album.
Each track stands out on its own and there really is No Time To Explain (excuse the pun) all of them.
The best thing you can do is take a listen. Get this album into your collection.
I have it on constant repeat at the moment blasting out of my Marshall speakers, rattling my bottle of JD as I dance around the room like a lunatic.
Music as it should be
Murmur Tooth (Leah Hinton) is a multi-instrumentalist, singer, songwriter and producer from New Zealand, now based in Berlin. Leah played classical piano as a child before teaching herself guitar. She toured her way around Europe with avant-metal band El Schlong and later quirk-rock band Kobosh, then built a studio in Berlin and started her solo project Murmur Tooth, writing, recording, producing and mixing two EPs and a full-length album.
After a few years in Berlin the electronic bug eventually sunk its teeth in, and she now finds herself focussed on an ongoing collab with House producer, Lars Moston. Intent on exploring how their polar opposite musical backgrounds can clash and combine, they produce music that ranges from club tracks to left-field pop songs. 2022 saw their first releases together, starting with an official remix of Claptone’s single, Beautiful on Different Recordings. Then came their full length album No Time to Explain, a genre-wandering ensemble of catchy songs full of hooks and bursting with the weird and wonderful sounds of salvaged childhood toys and repurposed household appliances. A number of club tracks followed, then in 2024 they began releasing on their own label Outergalactic Music, further cementing their sound: left-field, poppy, but still highly danceable songs that don’t fit into any sub-genre, but fit snuggly on every dance floor.