Julien Dyne (Ladi6, Avantdale Bowling Club, solo) speaks to Wellington-based drummer/composer Cory Champion to find out how he does it all. One of the hardest working and nicest people you’ll ever ...
READ MORE >"‘It may sound corny, but love is the answer." These are the words spoken in the intro, setting the tone for the Eliezer Apfel's hip hop album 'Love Me'. You can clearly hear the love that has gone ...
READ MORE >NZ On Air Music and Te Māngai Pahō have announced the recipients of their initial round of Waiata Takitahi - the new co-fund collaboration between the funding agencies for songs with a minimum of 25% te reo Māori lyrics. Congratulations to the artists and groups, particularly Bic Runga who is involved with three projects, and Emily Rice and Matiu Walters, who are part of two projects granted up to $14,000 in this round to bring new bilingual songs to Aotearoa audiences. The ambition for ...
READ MORE >For the 2021 Folk Tui, Darren Watson and You, Me, Everybody are in line for their first time trophy, alongside previous title winner Tattletale Saints. Known as more of a blues man, Darren Watson doesn't quite fit the usual mold of a finalists for the Folk Award, but the folk world will hopefully embrace his finalist spot for the quality of songs he has provided. The Pōneke-based musician’s latest album 'Getting Sober For The End Of The World' was released in September this year. The Tennessee-based ...
READ MORE >Applications are open for the 2021 Industry Internship Programme administered by the NZ Music Commission. The programme seeks to partner interns with NZ music businesses and organisations to develop their skills, knowledge and networks, and help kick-start their careers in the music sector. Host music organisations benefit from the additional resource and low-risk development of potential employees. The internships will run either part-time over an approximate 16-week period, or full-time over ...
READ MORE >NZ On Air Music announced the first batch of recipients for the New Music Development funding scheme this week. Launched in October this year, the new scheme is a result of extra investment from Government through the Arts Recovery Package. The funding is focused on the art of songwriting and creation of new works. For this inaugural round there 76 were applications by producers pitching their plans to help develop the songwriting and sound of new and emerging NZ artists. The scheme invests ...
READ MORE >Sapati Apa-Fepulea'i, aka Disciple Pati, is quickly becoming one of Tāmaki Makaurau’s newest powerhouses, and will be remembered for her outstanding performance at the streamed 2020 APRA Silver Scroll Awards. In the live awards’ tradition, Pati and her band performed a funky-rendition of Reb Fountain’s track Don’t You Know Who I Am? as part of the live-streamed ceremony filmed around various locations in Aotearoa. While she has as yet only a few released singles to her name, awards success ...
READ MORE >Music is fashion and movements within the musical landscape often come in waves that follow, or sometimes herald the arrival of the latest industry trend. The closing end of 2020 saw a flurry of initiatives aimed squarely at Kiwi music producers; the announcement of new artist development-focused funding from NZ On Air, the establishment of a NZ producers’ representative body and staging of the two-week-long 2020 Aotearoa Music Producers Series, with 10 established local producers as speakers. ...
READ MORE >There are plenty of reasons why NZM might have run an article on Nic Manders; he’s a musician, engineer, and music producer, responsible for tracks released by several of Aotearoa’s biggest commercial acts, dating back as far as the Parachute Band in the late 1990s on through to new singles by Fred and Unity Pacific in 2020. Nic’s studio CV includes a list most easily described as a who's who of genuine local talent, but it is in his guise as a solo artist singer-songwriter who has had a ...
READ MORE >From busking at Botany Town Centre to winning SFRQ in 2017 as punk rock trio Minimal Silence, Cherry Blind is now preparing the ground for their upcoming self-titled debut album with a new same-named single. Though the song itself sounds catchy and energetic, Cherry Blind is written about the uneasiness and struggle young people go through in their teenage years. NZ On Air Music featured it on their NewTracks compilation this December. Where are you from and who is in the band? Cherry Blind ...
READ MORE >Angel is the first song Jacqui Siu released in 2020 and it feels like a consistent effort to explore the mixture of melancholic RnB and electronic music she has been making since her two strong earlier singles, Fluorescent Lovers and Danger. Though Jacqui has kept a relatively low output for the past few years, her new single produced by Rory Noble tells us she is getting better at making electronic sounds stand out in her music. Reckoning that Angel is a song which should not go unnoticed by ...
READ MORE >Voodoo Bloo deserves to be characterised as bigger than Rory McDonald, but it's with the versatile UK-Wellington musician that the concept and purpose of the act have taken hold. Music with a message, which makes Ha Ha Ok Ok possibly an oddball song title, at least until you read between the lines, or hear the vocal ferocity with which those superficially meaningless words are delivered. NZ On Air Music featured the song on their NewTracks compilation this December. What's your given name, where ...
READ MORE >Auckland-based artist Benee, born Stella Rose Bennett, has seen a consistent swell in her career since uploading some covers to Soundcloud in 2017. In 2019 the bubbly pop sensation crossed the threshold of the country’s lounges in winning NZ Music Awards’ Tuis for Best Solo Artist, Best Pop Artist, Breakthrough Artist of the Year, and Single of the Year for her debut single Soaked. It was a four-feat she was even more incredibly able to repeat at this November’s Aotearoa Music Awards. Following ...
READ MORE >Last weekend, Trevor Villers started his annual trek to attend as many Music In Parks events as he can reasonably fit into one summer, including the very first one of 2021, in Papatoetoe's Allenby Park, featuring a showcase of the latest crop of Stand Up Stand Out, an Auckland secondary schools' music and dance competition.
READ MORE >Audiences for Auckland Museum’s Live At The Museum music gigs are typically diverse, united by their interest in seeing local acts perform in a more genteel environment than the norm. So it was for the crowd drawn to the museum’s opening night of a new series, combining the floating vocal simplicity of Tiny Ruins, with the cleverly subversive songsmithery and striking falsetto of Lawrence Arabia. As diverse as the audiences for these two artists might have been there was a palpable sense of ...
READ MORE >After a number of Covid-19-related delays, Record Store Day 2020 in Aotearoa took place on September 26, and like every year, photographer Trevor Villers went along to see what was happening in Auckland City. Here is a small selection of his many photos, including opening time queues, "plenty of masks (but no ear muffs!)", as Trevor observes, and, of course, lots of records.
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