With an evolving sound variously described as alternative noise rock, post punk and ambient psychedelia, fresh-faced Wellington four-piece Half/Angel have been a band on the run since arriving on the capital’s underground music scene late in 2024. Angular melodies often counter the shared high-energy vocals, the band quickly earning a reputation for an expectation-defying sound. Their latest single, Bunny, comes with a high drama music video, and was included on NZ On Air Music’s October NewTracks compilation.
Half/Angel is Tūmanako Waa (guitar/vocals), Everett Parker (guitar/vocals), Beck Halliday (bass/guitar) and Ish Nightingale (drums). We are all from the beautiful city of Te Whanganui-a-Tara! Born and raised.
Everett and Beck have been flatting together this year and Ish and Beck are moving in together next year, but we’re almost always around each other, haha.
We’re mostly self-taught, and honestly the time we’ve spent writing together has had the biggest impact on our musicality and instrumentation. We definitely are a collaborative effort and pick up from each other. All of us all were involved in the same Welly music scene bubble throughout high school, and often entered one another’s orbit to play gigs or watch, but it wasn’t until uni that we all connected.
Ish and Beck are both drummers. Beck picked up guitar/bass during high school and had a few lessons, but reckons he only really clocked in once he joined the band. Both have taken various Massey papers under the Commercial Music degree, which was a great way to collaborate with lots of other Welly musos – although none of us majored in music.
A few of us have played together previously and there was a strong spark which we wanted to keep pushing. We rang up Beck, after discussing how to keep this musical ball rolling in a coffee shop, and he was immediately on board. Arguably the best decision we’ve made. We are so lucky to have each other and we’re now all each others’ biggest fans, and best friends.
Beck had an extensive notes list on his phone of random names he thought were cool and Half/Angel was on the list, I guess the meaning is interpretive!
Playing together for the last two years has shaped the way we play with each other drastically, compared to when we started out. We’ve entered a more experimental world of our writing and we’re really trying to push our own boundaries.
In 2025, we played heaps with all sorts of really cool people in really cool places. San Fran, Meow, Valhalla etc. This year we’ve had to pace ourselves a bit more, especially with our uni getting super busy, and despite being offered lots of cool stuff, we’ve had to say no to a lot of shows – which hasn’t been ideal. But that’s okay, definitely many shows to come. Death in Venice definitely stands out as a song that’s always fun to play live. We love that tune!
That fundraiser show was so special, we are so grateful to everyone who came out and supported us. The album wouldn’t have been possible without everyone’s help. It’s all done and we’re slowly rolling it out now. Bunny is a part of that album, along with the next single, 654, which will be announced very soon. More to come!
Bunny was actually the final song we wrote before recording the album, as opposed to some of the tracks we wrote years before the album. It was a bit worrying during the recording process. It was audibly the freshest tune and felt a bit underprepared, but once it was finished it ended up being one of our favourites on the record, and it felt like a bold first single.
Bunny was lyrically written by Everett. A lot of his writing takes quite a lot of influence from film and literature, Bunny in particular is drawn from his love of The Secret History [a Donna Tartt novel], and reflects his take on the characters’ relationship with the story’s antagonist Bunny. We especially love playing this one live, super fun to see how it’s resonating with people. Instrumentally it’s definitely one of the heavier songs on our record.
Easily the bridge, probably the moment we spent the longest trying to figure out. Beck’s ripping bass line was definitely the eureka moment while we were writing it, and put everything together so nicely. He generally seems to have that effect on most of the tunes. We do love a sick guitar riff.
We recorded the entire album over the course of three days with legend James Goldsmith engineering and mixing. A musical legend to us, and a guy that’s recorded some of our all time favourite Kiwi records. Those three days were spent at The Surgery in Newtown, Wellington, the coolest, comfiest retro vibe studio.
A highlight from our studio time was probably recording the group vocals on the tracks Ghosts and Outside – so much fun screaming the choruses all together – as well as our long time friend Toby Stanford, aka Printwife. Huge shoutout, lots of love for Toby.
We are putting the album out through DRM and we honestly can’t thank Claudia and Holly enough for their help so far and their advice on a lot of aspects of promotion. We’ve had lots of handy guidance from James Goldsmith throughout recording with him. Our friend Ben Morgan has also been a helping hand with industry advice and merchandising.
Easily attending Going Global in Auckland as a band. We met so many incredible people, it was a real privilege to be invited into that world. We hadn’t really experienced that level of the industry and learnt so much. It was a really fun time. Aside from that, playing at Slackbarn in Hawkes Bay this January was incredible. To hang out with some of our favourite acts, like Shady Nasty, Ninajirachi, Marlin’s Dreaming, was super incredible and we strongly encourage people to get tickets to Slackbarn 3 which is on the 16th of January!
Performing at Going Global was an awesome experience. Ish and Everett talked to Auckland councillor Alf Filipaina at the start of the opening ceremony. Unbeknownst to us Alf was about to make a speech to all the international delegates at the conference and he gave us a big shoutout, which was great help getting our name heard, haha! We were all fizzing about that.
Awning – Little Green Book
The Muscle – Is There Calcium in Cheese?
Elliot & Vincent – Month of May
None! It’s super cool to be featured, we actually met Casey from NZ On Air at Going Global and she encouraged us to apply. We reached out to her via email and she helped us with the application.
On the topic of music funding, we want to give a huge shoutout to our friend Gabe Stuart, aka Manakin, and his new project, Grass/Roots. It’s a really cool initiative that we’re 100% behind. If you’re a local musician and you’ve got a cool project or need a financial boost, look into Grass/Roots 🙂
KEXP, of course. It was super exciting to see Earth Tongue on there recently. We’re huge fans of them. Also, Anky Live, shoutout to Flynn and River and co. We did an Anky Live last year and it was great fun. Everett has also listened to every episode of the DIIV podcast. We’re all very excited to see them at Laneway next year.
Beck Halliday. Beck worked so hard to bring the video to life. Ish recently bought an old bicycle off Lachlan Ferris (fantastic sound tech at San Fran). It was locked up outside the flat for a while and it sparked inspiration for Beck. He was super keen to film a fight scene, but couldn’t work out what kind of context there’d be for that to go down, so he worked backwards and put together a storyline involving a bike theft! And added various plot points and character dynamics along the way.
Big thanks to our mates involved with the production: Max Bradley, Tai Ngaia, Eddie Matthews, Rocky Mackenzie, Toby Stanford Joe Wyles, Quinn Le Cren, Sam Rivers and James Cochrane.
Thank you so much for doing this with us NZM! It’s really exciting. We everyone reading this enjoys the next single.
