Turn Around Feat. Iva Lamkum - Sola Rosa (New Zealand)

Since Andrew Spraggon’s first formative releases as Sola Rosa at the turn of the 21st century, he’s steadily built a reputation for his deft synthesis of styles and quiet disregard for the niceties of genre boundaries. With a catch-all sound encompassing the best of hip hop, reggae, jazz, latin, soul and funk, all six of Sola Rosa’s critically acclaimed albums are a potent distillation of the music that’s influenced Spraggon over the course of his decade long career as a musician and producer. From a humble, self-released one man project to a decidedly deadly live collective, Sola Rosa has grown from a national treasure into an act of truly international repute.


While Sola Rosa’s first three albums undoubtedly cast Spraggon as one of New Zealand’s finest purveyors of downbeat-electronica – something that was backed up by a raft of accolades including a NZ Music Award for 2001’s Solarized, and b-net awards for 2000’s Entrance To Skyway and 2003’s Haunted Out-takes – his fourth long player, 2005s Moves On, saw a change in tact. Not content to simply stay within the bounds of any one genre, Spraggon expanded the Sola Rosa sound, incorporating more live instrumentation and adding a healthy dollop of funk, soul and reggae to an already considerable list influences. The new direction not only reinvigorated the Rosa sound, but earned Spraggon another nomination for Best Dance/Electronic album at the 2006 NZ Music Awards.