2017 Artisan Award Winners Announced

by Richard Thorne

2017 Artisan Award Winners Announced

The engineers, producers, directors, designers and artists working in the music industry were last night recognized at the 2017 Artisan Awards, held at the Tuning Fork in Auckland. Four 2017 Tui winners were celebrated.

With so many of the biggest local acts (Tami Neilson, Marlon Williams and Aldous Harding among numerous others) having recorded at The Sitting Room in recent years, it was very fitting that Lyttelton Records’ owner Ben Edwards took out the Best Producer Tui – for his work on Nadia Reid’s seamless 2017 album ‘Preservation’. Nadia Reid is herself up for three Tuis at this year’s NZ Music Awards which will be held in Auckland on November 16.

Rural England-based Clint Murphy, perhaps the highest profile name among NZ recording engineers, claimed the Tui for Best Engineer for his work with Devilskin on their powerhouse ‘Be Like The River’ album, which was released in 2016 and recently certified gold.

The combination of producer super-group and super music video director proved irresistible for judges in the NZ On Air Best Music Video category, Joel Kefali winning with his video for Got It Bad by Leisure. Kefali also has videos for many of our most successful pop acts – The Mint Chicks, Kimbra, Gin Wigmore, The Naked and Famous et al – as well as Lorde and Katy Perry in his resume.

The Tui for Best Album Cover went to artist Henrietta Harris for her hand-drawn design and execution of Grayson Gilmour’s 2017 album ‘Otherness’. That combo of musician and artist were also finalists in 2014 with Grayson Gilmour’s previous album ‘Infinite Life!’, and Harris combined with Lontalius on his ‘I’ll Forget 17’ album to be a finalist in the category last year.