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In the lengthy podcast on Spotify interviewing Eddie Rayner, there is a mention of a new Space Waltz album 'in the can'. I googled, but couldn't find any information on this. 

Has anybody heard anything? 

If anyone wants to hear the podcast, which I think well worth while, you can search on Eddie Rayner 172 on Spotify and you'll find it. 

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NZ Music Month: Spotlight on Space Waltz

New song from the upcoming album has been aired on RNZ National:

This week, for New Zealand Music Month, Ian Chapman celebrates one of New Zealand's most loved but shortest-lived bands from the mid-1970s: Alastair Riddell's Space Waltz. From a #1 smash hit, 'Out On The Street', to break up, they lasted less than two years. Now, almost 50 years later, they have reformed and are re-releasing their iconic 1975 album. Ian has written a new book about them: Alastair Riddell's Space Waltz, and there's a brand new album ready to go - plus a nationwide tour. Ian Chapman is a Senior Lecturer in Contemporary Music at Otago University.

I wonder which incarnation of Bowie Alastair Riddell will channel in 2023?

But seriously, Out on the Street is one of my favourite songs ever.  It wears its Bowie influence heavily, down to the Mick Ronson-style guitar, but it’s entirely its own beast too.  So much glam swagger.  

I remember seeing the band on New Faces in ‘74; my 11 year-old self was both totally shocked and seduced by Riddell’s androgynous charisma. Long black hair, eyeshadow, Isadora Duncan scarf, hip-hugging flared pants, platform heels, camp English accent and fey pouts, he was a transfixing vision in a New Zealand whose one-size fits-all version of masculinity was still short-back-and-sides and rugged farmer inarticulacy.  My parents couldn’t stand them, and neither could Nick Karavias, one of the judges.  But another judge — I think it was Phil Warren — said “this is what the young people love,” and I thought, “I’m young people and I’m in love with Alastair Riddell.”  

I followed Space Waltz ardently after that — I was broken-hearted when they lost the New Faces final, but cheered when they released Fraulein Love.  It sounds a lot like a certain other NZ band from that era — think Jamboree meets Parrot Fashion Love, sung by Suffragette City-era Bowie.  Similarly, Love The Way He Smiles, from Space Waltz’s album, initially sounds like something from Mental Notes, until it starts channelling Moonage Daydream and John I’m Only Dancing.  (Eddie’s piano work on this is something else — jazz-prog acid trip brilliant.)

Too bad they broke up so early.  They would have been a great companion/foil to Split Enz as the latter went supernova.  But the battle over which band would get to keep Rayner would have been fierce.

Last edited by Watney Sideburns

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