Album Stream: Go With The Movers (Music Month Special)

We are changing things up a little bit for our third instalment of this year's Music Month special album streams and introducing a compilation into the mix. Still sticking with the theme of albums released in 2005, this week's offering is Go With The Movers from boutique label Mole Music formed in Hamilton that same year.

Featuring a fiery blend of alternative acts from around the North Island, the 12-track compilation has been aptly described by All Music Blog as a kind of snapshot of the live music scene happening at Auckland's Eden Bar, Wellington's Bodega, or Hamilton's Ward Lane in the mid-2000s. Despite being cast in a distinct period of New Zealand music history the album is sonically diverse, encompassing a motley crew of acts like noise-rock trio The Vacants alongside the psych-pop outfit formerly known as Connan And The Mockasins alongside post-hardcore group This Night Creeps.

Sam Walsh from Mole Music says the compilation was based around the concept of "degrees of separation", aiming to showcase the connections that existed (and arguably still exists) within the local music scene. "It was made over a time when the bands I was playing in and the bands my friends were playing in were touring and putting on crazy amounts of shows," he explains. "From that I/we started meeting all these super rad people who were just as hyper as us about what they were trying to do and so there was this really lovely connectedness and kinship".

For people who frequented the dive bars during the mid-2000s, playing Go With The Movers is like an audio time capsule - loaded with nostalgia and opportunities to reflect on bands that are perhaps now defunct or evolved into different beasts. If you weren't around then, it's a excellent slice of the live music scene of the time. Either way, here it is for you to enjoy....