How many artists can you think of whose first single made it right into the Silver Scroll Top 20? Here’s one! Until the release of her single Extreme Highs as Mousey in June this year, the biggest claim ...
Troy Kingi is systematically establishing himself as a national treasure. Over the last few years, the Kerikeri resident singer/songwriter has risen in prominence thanks to some creative recordings, a ...
Carving out a path from modern pop-and-electronic-influence, Auckland duo Imugi cut through their tightly produced dreamscapes with honesty and insight. Combining passion and vision, and with a broad scope ...
It has been four years since NZM last caught up with Eddie Johnston, aka Lontalius, but one thing hasn’t changed – his music is still as honest as it gets, tapping right into his emotions – something ...
With an intoxicating blend of reggae, dub, soul and funk, Wellington seven-piece Dr. Reknaw have developed a live show that fits perfectly with Aotearoa in summer. Bass player and singer Sophie Cooper ...
Formed by mates Semisi Maiai, Tim McNaught, Oscar Johns and Hamish Morgan, Marlin’s Dreaming has since been riding a fast-breaking wave into the limelight, at home and abroad. The Dunedin band’s dreamy ...
Auckland four-piece Makeshift Parachutes have followed a trajectory that’s the complete opposite of most aspiring Kiwi bands. After forming in Austin, (yep, the one in Texas which annually hosts the ...
Christchurch duo Nat & Jono have grown up together making music and worked for nearly 10 years to find their sound – a fusion of indie pop and indie folk that work perfectly together, enhancing youthful ...
Lake South is a musician, producer and a director. He makes most of his own music videos and was the director and writer of NZ Idle, a web-series about an artist on the dole. In 2019 he released an album ...
As strong a year as 2019 may have been for various Kiwi acts around the globe, their achievements have been gazumped by the successes of a number of breakthrough Australian artists with evident worldwide ...
When talent and hard work unify the result can be something special, a proposition well illustrated by Auckland producer-artist EDY. At the centre of an energised local urban music scene, the talented ...
It’s no stretch of the truth to say that Auckland punk rock act Miss June have had quite a year of it. Playing their first gigs outside of Australasia in Europe and the States, signing to Frenchkiss ...
Solomon Crook grew up in a small town in Coromandel – Opoutere which is around about halfway between Whangamata and Pauanui. With two older sisters he grew up for his first seven years, in the bedroom ...
Intersecting between being Afro-Kiwi, female and queer makes Auckland MC JessB even more multi-faceted than many humans – importantly able to connect and offer a voice to some less visible communities. ...
Olivia Foa’i possesses an angelic voice that has featured on many of Te Vaka’s nearly a dozen albums, and altogether more famously on the soundtrack of Disney’s Moana. With the release of ‘Candid’, ...
Dunedin’s Mild Orange have had a busy year. They spent most of May 2019 on tour in Europe and the UK, only to head off again for Mexico’s RadioBosque Festival in November. Now signed up with international ...
Setting out to document and pay tribute to the contribution Eldred Stebbing made to the NZ music scene over seven hard-working decades of the 20th century, the team writing this book discovered that their ...
A confession first. I’m not really one for solid state amps, though I do have a little bit of an exception for my old Stage160 Fender solid state, which has held a special place in my heart since I was ...
Born in Hamilton, singer/songwriter Sam Bartells lives in Auckland these days and writes songs with his heart on the sleeve, being remarkably outspoken about past issues with alcohol and substance abuse. ...
How do you go about following up an album that was internationally acclaimed, Taite Prize-nominated and widely deemed influential? That was the task for Lily West (bass/vocals), Gussie Larkin (guitar/vocals), ...
Arriving in a sealed box, straight out of the warehouse so not set up since shipping, the Yamaha TransAcoustic FG took a little time for me to warm to. However once I ‘broke her in’ I found my initial ...
Renowned as a hard-driven, saxophone-wielding RnB/rock singer throughout the 1970s, 1980s and into the ‘90s, students of NZ’s musical history will know his name well. More recently his charismatic ...
Well evidenced by the regular additions to playlists of the ChC and DND student radio stations, there are a number of South Island acts doing incredibly well locally, but yet to find support from programmers ...
As a musician you will almost certainly have heard the line “play what you hear” – but many find that doing so is way more difficult than the apparently simple theory behind it. No doubt it would ...
Question: What do Finding Nemo, Taylor Swift and Aldous Harding have in common? Answer: Perhaps more than you might think. In October, Harding’s song The Barrel claimed the 2019 APRA Silver Scroll ...
Managing your band, part 3: Paying yourself. Thus far in this series, I’ve discussed the need for a band to have a manager within its ranks, and the basic duties that job entails. Before I go any further ...
2020 IRD Revisions: The Inland Revenue Department promised to make the claiming of motor vehicle usage much easier and so they came up with a range of solutions, all worse than the next and making it more ...
In this Deep Thinking session, we are going to look at a couple of tracks recorded by legendary US session bassist, Carol Kaye. Carol was a member of the Wrecking Crew, a team of recording musicians used ...
One of THE most debilitating mindsets, that destroys all enjoyment and ease, is perfectionism. Sure, it’s great to work hard, be diligent, discerning and conscientious, but when perfectionism takes hold, ...
