The music biz appears to be sinking around us but, as always, musicians play on as they rearrange the deckchairs on this musical Titanic.

That is good news: musicians and bands are still creating music. They do so now with little expectation of financial return – in fact it will probably cost money to release music – but at least they're still doing it.

This week I managed to pick up the new CD, a 4-track EP, from local band Dead Recipe. And I've been enjoying it. I first caught them at one of the Lettuce Inn festivals in Katikati, a four-piece two-guitar band with a psychedelic surfy tilt and a lean towards cruisy jamming. They are Dylan Israel, Joe Gear, James Annear and drummer Ellie Burgin.

This EP, which goes under the name ‘The Art of Baking', is more of that. The four songs are engaging and occasionally musically surprising, as when the cool ska/reggae groove of ‘Across the Border' segues into what sounds like Tex/Mex territory. The ‘single' is ‘Ocean Breeze', which grooves along smoothly with the sound of summer in its noodling guitar lines.

But it's not exactly perfect. ‘The Art of Baking' sounds like it has been recorded in someone's house and they've not done a bad job on it, but you wouldn't mistake it for full studio-level quality. The EP I've got is a simple burned CD with writing in felt pen (it does have a photocopied cover). And I suspect these are the economic realities these days. Recording and making physical CDs costs money – money that is never likely to be recouped.

Hard to find

Dead Recipe do, however, move in mysterious ways. They have a website which has an address I've never seen before, which is deadrecipe.co – just that. Best to go there to find their Facebook page since there appears to be a very well-promoted American band also called Dead Recipe which has monopolised Google searches for Facebook, Bandcamp and others.

But deadrecipe.co is very classy. Not informative, but extremely arty, with great photos of the band and cool video clips. ‘Ocean Breeze' is there but oddly, I couldn't find the rest of the EP. Even so, well worth a look and listen.

If there was any justice, these guys should be in a full studio producing sounds that are as good as their musical chops and imagination. But it's hard to throw money at music with little return. And the latest figures out of YouTube show that the video-streaming service, which accounts for a full quarter of all music streamed live in the world (dwarfing Spotify and others), is completely failing to come to grips with actually, er, paying artists.

I could witter on endlessly about this but I'll keep it to two figures: Zoe Keating, an instrumental cello player and a typical, if popular, example of a musician on the service, got 1.42 million views on YouTube. She was paid US$261. YouTube is estimated to pay only around a tenth of what Spotify and iTunes pay.

Prepare for the brave new world where bands can't afford to record music except at home.

Incubated music

Now, before I go, a plug for another gig at The Incubator in the Historic Village.

This Saturday (July 22) Tony Daunt and The Dauntless from Auckland launch their debut album, ‘Gypsy' They have guitars – even a pedal steel – upright bass and drums and play a sort of Americana nodding towards country rock 'n' roll. You can check out their music online.

What, however, might make the gig extra special is the support slot from Kendall Elise, a flaming red-head who has a great voice (not dissimilar to Tami Neilson) and whose music is a blend of rhythm and blues, folk and country. ‘Heart Full of Dirt', the lead track from her debut EP, was one of three finalists for the APRA Best Country Music Song 2017. It's on YouTube of course. Look it up and I think you'll hear more than ample reason to get down to The Incubator on Saturday.