NZ-based Serebii has released two live videos for album singles ‘Goji’ and ‘Dime’ off new LP Dime out now, March 28 on Innovative Leisure
On Dime, Serebii (aka Callum Mower) has created an album unlike anything he’s done before, rolling seamlessly from track to track—not just a collection of songs but a singular project conceived to work together as a unified statement.
For his second full-length LP and most realised release as Serebii yet, the artist had one thing he had to overcome first: he was “terrified” of himself.
Serebii (aka Callum Mower) shares the story behind his latest live video for ‘Goji’:“After three years apart, myself and dear friend Skud Gumbosi decided to do what we both missed dearly and write music together. We spent a good portion of the day working on this Bossa groove with some chords Skud pulled from his back pocket. By the end of the session we both knew we had something special but felt the ideas were far too sluggish for our liking. As you can imagine the only downside to this is that you’d need to start the song from scratch in this new BPM and key, but that meant we would get to spend another day in each other’s company, and so we did just that.
This song is about our flat cat Goji, she was a street cat from Hamilton, New Zealand, she accidentally ate a box of weed brownies and we believe she has been stoned since.” After establishing the Serebii project with several albums worth of trancing neo-soul and shape-shifting ballads, much of it done in collaboration with fellow New Zealander Arjuna Oakes, Mower had no lack of confidence in his musical abilities. But much of Mower’s focus in the past was on instruments and production—swirling, cinematic instrumentals under his own name or funky art-pop jams with others on vocals. On Dime, however, Mower knew he wanted to push forward with his own singing placed center stage. “It’s exposing,” Mower says of releasing music so heavy on his singing.
Mower, it turns out, has nothing to be afraid of. He has a gentle croon deceptive in its power—on a song like ‘Feet for Pegs,’ for example, he lures you in with a Tropicalia guitar progression, but carries the song on vocal subtleties that pass like wisps of smoke. And using that voice, he’s created an album unlike anything he’s done before, rolling seamlessly from track to track—not just a collection of songs but a singular project conceived to work together as a unified statement. “That was the approach with Dime,” Mower says. “To really focus on putting something together that sounded like it was done in one sitting. One chapter.”
Serebii and his band also released a jazzy-soulful live performance video featuring swirling cinematic instrumentals for first single ‘Might As Well Be Watching’ and an endearing video for track ‘Verrans Corner,’ where Mower is shrunken to the size of a pea and sent out floating on a toy sailing boat, looking every bit like the skipper for top local sailing team Emirates Team New Zealand.Serebii – ‘Verrans Corner’ (Official Music Video)
Serebii – ‘Verrans Corner’ (Official Music Video)
Download: https://s.disco.ac/wjfwlrhvgswf
Serebii – ‘Might As Well Be Watching’ (Live Performance Video)
Download: https://s.disco.ac/xggxqttllhmo
Praise for Serebii/Dime
“a talented, jazzy crooner” – KCRW
-…approached this album with deep introspection to produce something breaming with self-expression with his own vocals front and center” – KUTX
“Expertly displays the kind creative originality that not only signals a rising talent on the New Zealand music scene but one fuelled with an ambition to carve out a sound of his own and add something unique to the musical tapestry of Aotearoa”
– Muzic.nz
Special thanks to NZ On Air for supporting the release of Dime.
Serebii
Dime
Tracklist
1. Lungs (feat. Tessa Dillon)
2. Feet For Pegs
3. Goji
4. Verrans Corner (feat. Leith Sye Towers)
5. Telling Lies
6. By Design
7. Dime
8. Might As Well Be Watching
9. The Randan
10. Assembly (feat. Carla Camilleri)
