I’ve been borrowing a lot of CDs recently. I’ve been taking albums out of the library. People I work with have been handing me albums that I “need to hear”. And I’ve been dutifully listening to as much of it as I can possibly get through. Not that it’s a chore…

This has to be the first New Year’s Resolution that not only have I kept, but I’ve happily surpassed all of my own expectations.

In fact, it’s become a little obsessive. An album a day is turning into four or five.

You know what’s missing though? New Zealand music.

Of course, I do have rather a lot of albums by homegrown artists at my disposal, and I do continue to listen to these – but more often than not, I find I keep putting them to one side. Partly because there’s such a variety of non-kiwi ‘crucial’ albums being thrust at me, and partly because what I really want to hear from New Zealand right now – is music I haven’t already heard.

As a high-use library card owner, I used to borrow and listen to far more NZ records than I ever bought or had sent to me from the labels. Unsuprisingly, the range and currency of the kiwi collection in the Birmingham City Library is less impressive.

There’s nobody over here in Birmingham enthusing about New Zealand bands to me, and thrusting CDs into my hands the way they did when I was in Auckland.

I knew this would happen when I left, and it did concern me. But now I’m really starting to notice it.

I’m on a pretty tight budget over here and no matter how keen I am to stay up with the new releases from home, I just can’t afford to buy all the items on my Smoke CDs wishlist (incidentally, anybody worked out how to make their wishlist public?).

I do still get a few CDs for nothing – nowhere near as many as I used to get – and these are generally albums that people want me to push on the jazz show. They get sent to my NZ post box, and then The Amazing Matt puts them into a prepaid envelope I’ve supplied him with, and when it’s full, he sends it over to me.

Now, while I love getting the odd local jazz CD in the mail, there’s a whole lot of stuff that I’d love to get my hands on that for whatever reason, I just don’t seem to end up with.

I don’t have to own them. I’d be perfectly happy to borrow them and listen to them – maybe play them on the radio – and return them.

The immediately obvious thing to do would be to source illicit mp3 copies of kiwi albums. I could probably organise that if I put my mind to it. I’d prefer not to (even if that sort of carry-on is condoned by certain librarians I could mention…)

I suppose if labels like Loop, Capital Recordings, FMR, Wildside, Arch Hill, Kog, Dawn Raid, Antenna and so on would send legit mp3 promos to people like me who would play them on the wireless, and would enthuse about them to their limited but growing collection of UK music industry contacts – then that would solve the problem.

But really, I just want to borrow some CDs from my friends, listen to them for enjoyment, and then return them, just like I used to.

I’m struggling to think of a transglobal, internet-age way of doing that.

Thoughts? Suggestions?

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39. Duke Ellington – South American Suite Fantasy 1970

40. Fluke – Six Wheels on my Wagon Circa 1993

41. Burning Spear – Social Living Island 1980

42. Captain Beefheart – Trout Mask Replica Reprise 1970

43. Prince – Around the World in a Day Warner 1985