It’s a band, but there’s no escaping that Shunkan is the vehicle of Marina Sakimoto, a clear thinking 22-year old who just a couple of years ago was a fully-fledged California musician. Somehow living ...
It’s always a considerable priviledge to attend the national final of the annual Smokefreerockquest – the culmination of more than 40 heats and distillation of 700-plus hopeful entrants down the year’s ...
Moving on from duo project Porcelain Toy to the solo persona of Ills Winter, it’s no surprise to learn that Elizabeth de la Rey naturally draws musical inspiration from the artistic realms of poetry ...
Robbie Hewson, One Waka’s vocalist, guitarist and spokesperson, admits to being obsessed with classic dub production, the likes of Lee Scratch Perry and King Tubby. The Christchurch dubsters, he says, ...
Emerging initially as a side project for members of Christchurch bands T54, Bang! Bang! Eche! and Dance Asthmatics, Salad Boys have spent the last month touring their disingenuously-titled debut album, ...
In which NZM's intrepid guitar kit space navigator Mark Bell flies over the intriguing landscape of the DigitechTrio Band Creator pedal. It doesn't seem so long ago that the first compact flip-top cellphones ...
A quarter century past now, the much talked-over ‘Dunedin sound’ left the city with a number of resident musical heroes, surely none more enigmatic and reluctant than The Chills’ Martin Phillipps. ...
We’ve been dancing happily to them for a decade but now Batucada Sound Machine is no more, the band instead formally acronymed to B2KDA. Characterised by its repetitive style and fast pace, Batucada ...
Auckland world music fusionists Beyondsemble were just one of the local musical outlets of multi-instrumentalist Craig Denham, who these days calls Prague home. Having toured Aotearoa six times with Beyondsemble, ...
The quirky, colourful and heavily detailed hand-drawn artwork adorning The Shifting Sands ’ new album brings to mind those art-rich Flying Nun releases of yore, and musically it comes as little surprise ...
Fane Flaws is a visual artist, painter and video director who has made short films and TV commercials and video clips for a number of artists. His work has seen him inducted into both the Massey University ...
Three albums in, Napier three-piece Golden Curtain can sometimes seem to be taking the piss, such is the recognisably channelled and casually vibrant nature of their latest alt pop offerings. Michael Hollywood ...
Jamie McCaskill sometimes makes up the numbers in the Auckland-based Modern Maori Quartet, a foursome who take a crowd-pleasing, part acting/part-crooning, fun and fresh approach to the territory of the ...
Analogue to digital convertor technology is now cost-effective enough to be integrated into any aspect of the audio chain. The trend has been towards replacing analogue circuitry with digital solutions, ...
'Hunter' is the latest EP release from Phoebe Hurst, a follow up to last year's 'Lessons', but the first under her new stage moniker –– Hunter. Speaking from her parents' home in Christchurch, ...
Wellington four-piece Brave New Void consists of Carl Mann on guitar, Joe Harrison (vocals), Matt Coplon (bass) and drummer Chris Hart. The band launched their first video for The Flesh Is Willing (see ...
"Electronica with a bite, reflects the way rising flame Maya Payne projects her minds works into song. Nine months fresh out of Christchurch's Burnside High School, Maya's on a steady rise with ...
"I used to only listen to hardcore and metal, but then I guess I just went through this ‘musical awakening. For Te Awamutu native Tim McGiven, this common-enough change resulted in the formation ...
Writer, producer and music lecturer Godfrey de Grut takes a closer than usual look and listen to see what makes Don McGlashan's single, Lucky Stars, tick the pop song success boxes. I first heard ...
It's late at night, you need to finish a mix and get it uploaded but you can't risk waking the flatties again… so you reach for your trusty headphones. The process of working with phones is quite ...
Many guitar players think that just playing the instrument is all that matters, but that is an idea that’'s seriously wrong. Physically playing the guitar is only about one fifth of what you really need ...
This issue's Deep Thinking bass column is the result of a conversation between some of the University of Otago Music Department staff while we took a break during recording at our Albany Street Studios. ...
Inflatable dolls & wide-mouth frogs & the spaghetti-sucking pucker! (Vowel shaping, facial anchoring and facial stretches…) Think of your favourite singers… what do they all have in common? ...
Breakout bands. Every town where live music is regularly performed has some kind of scene: an ongoing series of performances by local and visiting musicians that adds up to its own culture. Some scenes ...
In last issue's Lawful Truth column we looked at the first five of the top 10 legal tips to help keep you safe in the NZ music industry. Although some of those first five tips were pretty straight forward, ...
