It seems to be that the colder it gets the more likely bands are to release new albums.

Which actually makes a certain amount of sense. When it's bright and sunny outside musicians and bands are busy playing all those warm and inviting outdoor venues. Come winter the gigs dry up a bit so it's time to hit the studio.

That may of course be completely untrue. Perhaps bands release albums in winter purely because they ran out of time to get them out in summer.

When you're recording, everything tends to take longer than you think.

That's certainly true. My best advice to anyone making an album is to start working on the artwork as soon as you start recording. That way there isn't a big gap after you finish recording when you try and figure out what the cover and accompanying images will look like.

All of which is building up to saying there's another album being launched in Tauranga next weekend by the New Zealand-based Swiss-Kiwi one man band who goes under the name Sonic Delusion. He's been a frequent visitor to Tauranga in the last few years and in real life is known as Andre Manella, one of the early adopters of a looping approach to music. He's been working on it for over a decade.

Andre kicked off his serious touring career in 2013 with an epic 9-month, 70-venue tour of New Zealand, and has now performed over 500 gigs in New Zealand, Australia, Switzerland and

Germany, including several international festivals.

Unorthodox

Andre actually takes pride in playing at unorthodox venues, having played concerts from a purpose-built stage on the roof of his family's house bus, a shop roof, a lake, and multiple gigs in lounges around the country.

When he's not on the road, Andre lives down in New Plymouth, writing and recording music. Anything Goes, released this month, is his fifth album since 2012, continuing his friendly easy-grooving style which NZ Musician described as 'a rich, colourful sonic landscape full of funky bass lines, crisp, jazzy guitar riffs and warm, disarming vocals”.

And that's a good description of Anything Goes, which kicks off with the title track, one of the album's three singles, sitting in a pleasant area where reggae meets folk music. It's open and welcoming and sets the scene for an album filled with sunshine and good vibes.

Those three singles were released over summer (the other two are Hey Trouble and Mama Please) and the entertaining videos that accompany them can be seen on either YouTube or Andre's website – sonic-delusion.com – where there are also touring details.

Busy times

And it's a busy schedule. Andre comes to town on the Saturday of Queen's Birthday weekend having played in Rotorua the night before and again that morning. Over here he's making music at Our Place in the CBD on Saturday at 5.30pm and then on the Sunday over at the Mount, at The Rising Tide, at 2pm where you can also enjoy the optional pleasure of freshly-made dumplings washed down with a choice of many, many beers.

And if you happen to be in the Mount next week, or of course if you live there, you might want to check out the monthly jazz jam at the Mount Social Club which kicks off at 6.30pm on Wednesday (29 May) and always attracts a fine and interesting assembly of musicians.

Or, on Saturday night (June 1), if you can't wait for the real thing, there's a Fleetwood Mac tribute band called Landslide playing at Totara Street. No word as to whether they have added a Neil Finn lookalike to their line-up.

The other thing you could do over the long weekend is head over to Rotorua for the annual Rotorua Blues Festival, which features music downtown on both Saturday and Sunday and special events such as a cruise on the Lakeland Queen while being serenaded by the Mike Garner Trio.

And back to recording again to finish things off, Mike is currently making a new album at the Boatshed Studio as are the guys from B-Side Band. The bits I heard of both are sounding great. More updates when I get them.