There's certainly been, as an American would say, a whole bunch of weather recently. And people have been very excited by it.

I was driving through Auckland on Monday when the first snow fell for 35 years. It stayed on the ground for almost three minutes, which was enough to get it onto every national news bulletin. Fair enough I guess. But hysteria seemed to be more the order of the day when it came to the week's polar blast.

I was particularly impressed by one reporter, valiantly standing outside in the snow to show the brave face of television journalism.

'There's a bit of the spirit of the blitz going on here” she said.

‘Spirit of the blitz' – that was when a city was being bombed nightly by an invading air force, people were dying all around and a capital was in flames.

I couldn't help but feel a slight disconnect since she was reporting from Queenstown. Yep, there she was in a ski resort… in the middle of winter… and it was snowing. Stop the presses.

It is, however, a good chance to stay inside and catch up on stuff that somehow ended up shuffled onto the backburner. In my case, a couple of albums that I've been meaning to review, but never quite got to.

I've actually had the first one since Easter, which seems lax even by my elastic approach to timing.

It is a remarkable album by Auckland's Carolina Moon called Mother Tongue and is probably the most eclectic CD to come out of New Zealand this year. Or any other year for that matter. It was launched at WOMAD and the album's ‘subtitle' gives a hint of the wonders on store within: ‘Songs from the medieval heart of Judeo Spain'.

There you go. Music you didn't know you didn't know. Here's a brief background. 1100-1492AD is considered the ‘Golden Age' of Spain, a kind of renaissance when peace existed between Christians, Moslems and Jews and the cross-pollination resulted in fresh heights of cultural expression. In 1492, a new catholic regime ended it all by expelling Spain's Jews, resulting in the Spanish Diaspora and the songs here – written during the Golden Age in the ‘mother tongue' Ladino – being scattered across Europe, and being assimilated into the cultures they settled in.

So what you have here are songs from Spain from around the 13th century, sung in their original language, played by some of New Zealand's finest musicians.
Told you it was eclectic.

The result is stunning. The melodies and language may be unknown, but the sound is beautiful and haunting, the rhythms elusive yet strangely familiar and the performance throughout superb.

Carolina's singing caries a haunting lilt and guides you through the unfamiliar territory with ease and the virtuoso playing, Nigel Gavin on guitar and the very evocative glissantar (sounding somewhere between a guitar and sitar), Roger Manins on sax and wind instruments, Kevin Field on piano, is simply outstanding.

I could go on at length about individual songs, but it probably wouldn't get you any closer to what the album sounds like. What is most important is that the emotion of the music and of the lyric carries you across the language barrier and through the exotic sounds on a journey of strange and heartfelt discovery. Those seeking ‘world music' that is more than disco rhythms and a few anthropologically obscure instruments should indulge immediately. Mother Tongue is available at all good shops through Ode Records.

And there's just a little space for a quick mention of the other album I've been enjoying, the latest offering from Rotorua bluesman Mike Garner, Why a Woman Gets the Blues.

The songs here range from solo acoustic slide outings to full band tunes. Most feature his trio – there is also support from Richard Anaru (guitar) and Liam Ryan (keyboards) – and show off Mike's fine voice and ability to write songs that are new yet sound like recently unearthed lost treasures.

So it is with ‘Baby Don't Do That' and ‘You Gonna Wreck My Life', while the title track cleaves closer to mid-period Ry Cooder.

It's a very solid effort, worth seeking out by all fans of the blues.