I don’t think I’ve ever been to any album release parties before, but if I do in the future, I don’t see how they could top The Best Possible Album Party Anybody Has Ever Been To. 

Donna Rose (Frith Horan) and Carla (Kate McGill) have risen from the slums of Columbia to international pop super-stardom. There must have been a clash at the Vector, because here they are at The Basement Studio for one night only (make that till the end of the week) to launch their genre-blending pop-hip-hop-electronic-R&B album Krystopia. [More]

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For a good couple of decades now we’ve been exposed to the sensual shake and swagger of Latina hip-hop artistes in mainstream musical culture.  I hardly claim to be an aficionado on the art-form but the glamorously brazen imagery is unmistakable, as are the raunchy beats and soulful, forthright vocals. 

Childhood bffs-cum-hip-hop divas Donna Rose (Frith Horan in a close fitting short leopard-print dress and glam heels) and Karla (Kate McGill in a blue Adidas tracksuit and gold hi-top chucks) have just flown into Auckland on Jetstar First Class, to promote their debut album KRYSTOPIA. 

They are flanked by a handful of sassy young dancers: Alexandra Millar, Michelle Schneideman, Savannah Poynter, Gabrielle Wilson, Vanessa Vorpahl; every one a bombshell in their midriff-flaunting tanktops and come-hither eye make-up.  With swaggering moves choreographed by Horan they tirelessly strut and gyrate thru most of the album’s seven tracks. 

Along with the assertively performed musical compositions, produced by Adrian Hooke and Oswell Didsbury, the headline duo dial it back for some more intimate sharing, including their first meeting at the age of five and a suspiciously familiar sounding anecdote from the time Karla was employed as a hotel chambermaid. 

Rachel Marlow’s lighting design credibly supports the central ghetto-glam thematic style, particularly the opening shadowplay of the dancers silhouetted behind a backlit sail-curtain stretching the entire wide, shallow Basement Studio stage.  There’s a real sense that, given a budget to match J-Lo, this crew has all the potential makings of a world-class act to rival the best of them. 

But there’s actually even more to this package than just hilarious stereotype humour and virtuoso musical parody; there’s also food for thought in the form of a discussion about cultural exploitation and celebrity authenticity, encouraged by the artistes themselves in the programme notes.

I confess if there’s a reference to be got in the album’s title, it’s lost on me.  In any event, KRYSTOPIA CDs are available for sale at the box office, with half of all proceedings going to the Nepal relief fund.

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