Urban Disturbance - lost second album?

Urban Disturbance interviewed by Ian Hughes (later known as Hugh Sundae) on TV show Music Nation, in 1996 (Ian hosted it alongside Bic Runga). They are seen in the studio working with engineer Chris Sinclair on their second album which they say is slated for a 97 release. The studio looks like it was set up in the old 1YA/TVNZ studio in Shortland St. The album never saw the light of day. Wonder what happened to it? Maybe it ended up getting consumed into Zane's next project, Breaks Co-op, who released their first album in 1997.

ADDED Mon 12.22pm; Zane Lowe popped up on Twitter and added some thoughts… cheers, fella!

" Wow. Just got lost in your blog. 'Relay'...it has been a minute since I heard that. The guitar is way too low in the mix, lol. Wish we had mixed some of the music on LP2. Some nice ideas on there...Rob left that band. It wasn't the same. We wrapped it up."

I asked Zane if any of that music from the abandoned 2nd UD album ended up being used for Breaks Co-op? "Not from memory. That was pretty much made over 3 weeks with Hame just before I left NZ. Maybe a few loose samples here and there." Zane also told me that Oli lives round the corner from him these days.


Chris Sinclair worked as engineer at The Lab, and shifted over to working in the inhouse studio Deepgrooves set up in its Victoria St offices, called Kaiun Digital. Deepgrooves also splashed out and bought a video editing suite, so they were able to produce clips inhouse also.

These large purchases happened to coincide with a 6 month period where Deepgrooves scored 12 NZ On Air video grants. There was speculation at the time that Deepgrooves might have used their NZOA funding for equipment purchases, which is forbidden under the grant scheme. This led to NZ On Air conducting audits of some video grants for the first time, to account for how the money was spent and to see it was being spent appropriately. In the case of Deepgrooves, they were able to produce the appropriate receipts for all the videos, which satisfied NZ On Air.

NZ On Air's site search shows up video grants going to the following Deepgrooves artists: 3 The Hard Way, Breaks Co-op, Cinema, DNE, Ermehn, Freaker, Fuemana, Funhouse, Grace,  Jordan Reyne, Jules Issa, Lole, New Loungehead, Pause, Sulata, Mighty Asterix, Urban Disturbance, and Unitone Hifi.

By my count that totals 53 video grants between February 1992 and October 2000 (and in 1999 and 2000 Deepgrooves only got  two grants, both for videos for DNE), assuming the information on NZ On Air's site is accurate. During 1994 Deepgrooves got 12 video grants, and the following year got 13. It's also worth noting that NZ On Air's site doesn't list if the videos were produced or not.


UPDATED August 16, 2011: I just checked back on NZOA's site with their listing of all funding decisions, and it appears the data has been amended, and now shows a total of 40 music video grants going to Deepgrooves from 1992 - 2000. Deepgrooves got 12 video grants in 1994, and 13 in 1995, according NZOA's current data.