As a part of my Radio 2 course elective, an assignment called Audio Arts arose at the beginning of the semester and had me pondering on the many things I could do creatively.

I settled for something reasonably close to home. New Zealand that is.

New Zealand’s sense of humour is a rare and unusual sort, captured perfectly in our original advertisements and films.

One of my favourite directors, Taika Waititi, known for Boy (2010) and more recently What We Do In The Shadows (2014)

Using audio from various drive responsibly advertisements and the film Boy I have created an audio piece inspired by the kiwi sense of humour and my native culture.

What you are hearing:

Classic audio snippets from Boy (2010), New Zealand’s ‘Legend’ stop a friend from drink driving advertisement and ‘Blazed’ anti-drug driving advertisement.

Tracks

I begin the piece off with a snippet of Shooting Stars by the Bag Raiders just to set the timing up of the piece. A classic maraca shaking in the background, simple and very effective.

The “sick beats” of OMC’s classic track ‘How Bizarre’ is the next song to grace your ears, one that has been classified as New Zealand’s unofficial National Anthem.

Now I couldn’t have passed up the chance to play some MJ, Rock With You was in my opinion the perfect song to demonstrate “some Michael Jackson dance moves” 

Next up is a reggae song, a classic style representing every New Zealand summer and bringing nostalgia on to the many, finally followed by Foux Du Fafa by the iconic Flight Of The Conchords.

What I tried to do with this collected audio, was to create something that sounded almost like it interacted with each other, for example the part when it says “hey Chardonnay wanna see some Michael Jackson dance moves?” <insert MJ song here> and then another vocal piece replies with “Nah bro like this” <Insert reggae tune here>

The idea was to portray some elements of NZ that I love, without having the help of visuals, a difficult task for sure but I very much enjoyed trying to piece it all together.

Here it is, the audio piece you have been waiting for: