It’s release day for Ōtautahi-based psychedelic indie-rock spacemen Lunar Intruder; their new melodic, floaty and stripped-back EP ‘Moonlight’ is available on all platforms, and conveniently linked at the bottom of the article. To celebrate, NZM asked them to create a mixtape of songs they dig and that influenced them, and share their thoughts on a few of their favourite tunes. Their delivery is a luscious collection of fresh indie bangers fitting for any roady, camping trip, or culinary adventure.

Benee: Happen to me

Being one of NZ’s most international artists, we all knew about Benee but we were all a bit late in discovering this gem. A good memory that came to mind with this song is when we were jamming the song multiple times in the car when we drove up to Takaka to play at Twisted Frequencies and one of the bands at the festival played a cover of it which transitioned straight into Weird Fishes by Radiohead (another song we had one repeat on the way up). It felt like our prayers were being answered, and straight after the performance we were like “we need to do something like that!”

Frank On Tap: Wire Talk 

When I (Cameron) heard this song for the first time the vocal harmonizations and melodies stuck with me instantly the first time I listened to it. I heard it the day it came out and I was sure this song was going to POP OFF! And rightly so it did. At the time, I didn’t even realise that Matt (the bassist in the band) knew some of the boys, but we do live in ol small town NZ where everyone knows everyone so shouldn’t have been that surprised.

Soaked Oats: Driftworld

As one of the more charming psych bands in NZ, this instrumental piece definitely deserves some recognition. It’s weird, but strangely accessible and just seems to put you in a hyperactive state as a listener, making it a Lunar essential when we need to get our game face on and hype ourselves up a bit. The middle section kinda sounds like a Crash Bandicoot game as well

Dolphin Friendly: Hero Skies

Dolphin Friendly are another band from Christchurch, like ourselves, and I think the reason I liked this song so much was not only because it was a great song, but because it showed what the band were really capable of with their music. Christchurch, as of now isn’t the biggest scene for a “hard rock” sound if that’s what you want to classify it as, but the band kind of always had the potential to nail that sound in my opinion, and to hear it finally happen was awesome, especially because there aren’t a huge amount of notorious hard rock bands in the Christchurch scene at the moment, but hopefully it’ll come back around with songs like this!

Lunar Intruder’s brand new EP ‘Moonlight’ is out now, check it out here: