1992... I’m at The Powerstation in Auckland and none of us can see a thing. About five minutes ago all the lights had been turned out in anticipation of the Beastie Boys hitting the stage. It’s been dark for a while and I can hear people asking if in fact there hasn’t been a power cut. No lights and no music playing but the cash registers at the bar are still working. Not that, being 18, me or any of my friends had any money to buy drinks.

So, we’re all standing around wondering when all the lights burst bright white. The Beastie Boys aren’t so much on stage as they’re in mid-air (an image that is forever burned into my mind) flying into action. All three of them seemingly suspended, hanging for an eternity. Then gravity finally reasserts itself bringing them to the stage. As their immaculately sneaker-clad feet hit the boards the beat drops. And the whole place exploded, I have never before or since felt a building shudder that way. Our carefully cultivated art rock leanings evaporated for two hours, leaving us the sneering belligerent children of the Beastie Boys that at heart we had always been. For weeks afterwards all we wanted to do was drink brews and chase girlies.

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2010 was a tough year for fans of beautiful noise. Jay Reatard overdosed, Alex Chilton passed away days before his big comeback gig at SXSW. Then if all that wasn’t bad enough, a week before Christmas the news came through – Don Van Vliet, the man they called Captain Beefheart, had died. He had been away from the music scene for many years but his influence on generations of artists who wanted to make art, not money, will always be felt.

There is a time in a life where important decisions are made. We may not know at the time how momentous these decisions are but in retrospect they are pivotal moments that forever alter the people we are. My father gave me two books for my 23rd birthday, huge long beasts – "Underworld" by Don Delillo and "The Proud Highway", a collection of letters by Hunter S. Thompson. I decided that during my 1997 Christmas vacation I should not only read both books in two weeks. But that I should also totally throw myself into listening to a record people had been talking to me about for years. "Trout Mask Replica" by Captain Beefheart and his Magic Band. Such a seemingly inconsequential decision that rang a bell which has resonated through the rest of my life.

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We are excited to be partnering with DunedinMusic.com to bring you a collection of Dunedin music, simply titled – "Dunedin: Volume 1".

The 9-track CD sampler showcases some of Dunedin's finest musical talent, including tracks from well established artists such as The Chills and The Verlaines; as well relative new-comers like Hana Fahy and Delgirl.

We’re certain this compilation will give you an appreciation of the quality of music that has emanated from Dunedin for nearly three decades, ever since the “Dunedin Sound” was born in the very early ‘80s.

Track Listing

1. Ties - Hana Fahy
2. Submarine Bells - The Chills (Live to Air 1990)
3. Subject2Change#2 - Subject2Change
4. Bonny Girl - Delgirl
5. And Death Shall Have No Dominion - Chris Matthews
6. In Limbo - The Verlaines
7. Song of Envelopes - Sunley
8. Tudor Gates - Robert Scott
9. Black Black Eyes - Idiot Prayer

For a limited time, we will be giving away a free copy of Dunedin: Volume 1 with every Audiant 80i integrated amplifier.

2010, who would have thought that Hip-Hop would deliver some of the strongest albums of the years? Who could have predicted the resurgence of the eminence grise of New York post No Wave, Swans? Let alone Superchunk blowing the winter away? As for a 29 year old harpist making a TRIPLE album that is all killer no filler. What kind of odds would you have got on that in 2009?

So here is another end of year list. Try and hear these records, buy them if you can. And if you are lucky enough to live close to anywhere they are playing, go.

1. Joanna Newsom – Have One On Me

I have been obsessing over this record for almost the whole year now and it still staggers me. More than two hours of music not a single hair out of place. A triple album in 2010 with no down patches. Perfectly paced, beautifully recorded and completely immaculate. Joanna Newsom now stands on the same timeline that Captain Beefheart and Tim Buckley stand on. The sound of American music exploding into something unfathomable and great. How could anybody follow this?

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Nick Cave, renaissance man. Nick Cave, poet. Nick Cave, author, screenwriter, raconteur. Nick Cave, debonair, sophisticated statesman of rock. Grinderman, a Nick Cave helmed posse of hairy men, being totally belligerent, showing the kids how to do it, making the most fantastic, invigorating and utterly unholy noise you could ever have the pleasure of hearing. If thats what you call pleasure.

Living here in New Zealand it's hard to believe that US and UK critics are taking this whole Grinderman enterprise so seriously. Don't people recognise a bunch of Aussies grab-arseing around when they see it? Not to say that Grinderman are a joke band. They hit like a logging truck actually. It's just that they are having fun, lots and lots of fun. All be it in a very antipodean manner. By fooling about, wearing hilarious shorts, howling like a horny Lycan and donning sunglasses for the express purpose of looking at women undetected. In short Grinderman are awesome and you wish you were one of them.

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Titus Andronicus

The best thing about hold and release was always the release and Titus Andronicus know this is fact. With them it doesn't sound like a calculated move, their crescendos stem from a natural welling up. A build of pressure, inflation and tension, then the tipping point. Cresting the rise, bathed in sunlight, the pause, then the rocking.

...We know that feeling right? Huge, dynamic rock that doesn't care about cool or un-cool, it just wants to solo and shout choruses. It's determined to speak out, to drink, to stand on tables and have more awesome fun than thought possible, all the while pouring it's heart out. Thats the kind of rocking Titus Andronicus have in store for you on their new album 'The Monitor'. Like a lot of great young bands made up of 23 year olds Titus have got on old sneakers, Husker Du t-shirts and ripped jeans. On 'The Monitor' they sound ready to grab you by the hand and run off down an alley with a stolen keg of beer. To climb over a chain link fence and sit by Springsteen's river and mourn the loss of a bad woman.

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Four albums in and Mercury Rev remain as surprising and daring as ever – exchanging the volcanic noise and twisted sensibilities of earlier releases for ornate arrangements and ethereal strings, Deserter's Songs unlocks the beauty always hidden just below the band's surface, its lush harmonics and soothing textures bathing in an almost unearthly light.

Standouts including the exquisitely waltz-like "Tonite It Shows" and the celestial "Endlessly" are like lullabies, their music-box melodies gentle and narcotic; even the most pop-oriented moments like "Opus 40" and "Hudson Line" share a symphonic, candy-coloured majesty far removed from conventional rock idioms.

Complete with its fractured instrumental interludes and odd effects, Deserter's Songs sounds like no other album – for that matter, it doesn't even sound like Mercury Rev, yet there's no mistaking the record's brilliance for anyone else.

Visit Mercury Rev's Website, listen on Grooveshark or buy the album.

I Robot is a blood banquet for automatons that is infused with the airy, romantic sentimentalism of pop music. The contradiction works well up to a point: it takes the cold-bloodedness out of the synthesizer's greasy moan and adds a bit of humanism to it. But the final result is a tantara for the ultimate sensuality of the technocratic brat and his hardware.

In this enthusiastic combination of Cageian threnody, Ligeti-like choral megillahs and the futuristic insanities of Magma's "Ork Alarm," we roam from the shapeless chaos of "The Voice" and "Nucleus" to the pop glissades of "Some Other Time" and "Don't Let It Show." The most infectious track is "Day after Day (The Show Must Go On)," a spontaneous excursion into optimism and urban boredom.

What all this boils down to is that I Robot is a rose amid the concrete gray of the Metropolis.

Visit The Alan Parsons Project's Website, listen on Grooveshark or buy the album.

It's rumoured that legendary New Zealand music label Flying Nun could be on the move – back into the hands of label founder Roger Shepard. Is there new life for old Nun?

Responsible for bringing us "The Dunedin Sound" in the early 1980s, Flying Nun Records championed iconic artists and groups such as Chris Knox, The Clean, The Chills, David Kilgour, Tall Dwarfs, Straightjacket Fits and The Verlaines.

People have often commented on the scarcity of Flying Nun records of past, perhaps this move will see these titles available once again – here's hoping...

An intensely personal collection of songs, inspired by Fraser's travels – especially the relief work she's been doing in Africa ('Albertine' is named after a Rwandan orphan she's formed special bond with), Albertine hints at a maturity well beyond her 25 years. Lead single 'Deciphering Me' illustrates this perfectly and, along with her fantasic cover of Simon & Garfunkel's 'The Sound of Silence', is a must listen.

Visit Brooke Fraser's Website or buy the album.