The CD is a who's-who of Featherston's finest troubadours, from fiddlers, jazz bassists, poi artists, bagpipers, to experimental musicians belting out sea shanties.
Miller has marketed Yestermusic as a 2015 revival of old tunes from South Wairarapa's pioneering history -- but how and where he discovered each song remains a mystery.
Most refer to actual events, people and places, such as the Featherston Military Training Camp, the "Skandie" lumberjacks, the 1918 flu pandemic and the gold miners trying their luck in Otago.
The composers and their muses, described in the liner notes, are a bit more of an enigma -- you won't find anything on the Orcadian Conrad Monroe, who lost his father and grandfather while fishing for mackerel, or soldier Anaru Wharekauri, who translated an Italian rebel song into te reo, on Google.
No matter -- the music is a delight.
A Flood is Coming, with its jaunty harmonica riff, snappy baseline from Patrick Bleakley and "crackly" production, would not be out of place at the old music halls of New Orleans -- except instead of on the bayou, it's set on the oft-flooded shores of Lake Wairarapa.
This is followed-up by another uptempo track, Rimutaka March Ragtime, with Saali Marks' vocal chops and another of Bleakley's rollicking basslines setting the scene for the adventure our soldiers thought lay beyond the Rimutakas.
The album takes a darker turn with The Ballad of Swagger Magee -- with Matthew Hancock, in perfect Irish brogue, gleefully recounting the adventures of Thom Magee, the loveable vagabond who met a grisly end.
Darker still is South Seas Tarantella, its cheerful tambourine and Miller's deadpan vocals barely masking the tragic tale of battered wife Ava Ragnatella who, in a frenzy from a spider bite, took to her husband with a cleaver.
The Celtic flavour continues with the mournful Ne'er Home, Ne'er More, with Kate Marshall's fiddle and Marcus Harvey's bagpipes crying their guts out alongside Marguerite Tait-Jamieson's fragile vocals, and Miller's drunken drawl on Aglow in the Arrow conjuring images of unlucky miners in a laudanum-induced haze.
No less lovely are the two tunes in te reo.
He Tuna Heke shows off Marks' ukulele skills and Paris Mason's command of nga poi, and He Kona Mai E Te Tau -- Anaru Wharekauri's Maori translation -- is brought to life by Hancock's gruff yet tender vocals.
A personal favourite is Take Away The Wee Fish, supposedly written by fisherman Fabian Guinness, lamenting mankind's plundering of the sea.
Campbell Kneale's vocals are perfect for an environmental warning -- very much like Tom Waits meets Captain Barbosa in Pirates of the Caribbean.
Overall, Yestermusic is a joy -- slickly produced, but just rough enough to be charming, and full of expert musicianship.
Are Miller's tales of spiders, vagrants, and watery graves all true? You decide.
