December/January 2015

FEATURES

Interviews

Dictaphone Blues: Like A Wave

Dictaphone Blues’ sophomore album ‘Beneath The Crystal Palace’ earned plenty of admiring talk following its release three years ago, and could even be credited with bringing the wonderful old theatre ...

Industry

Industry: Musical Electronics Library

The MEL project is an electronic musical instrument library that will be hosted and operated out of the Audio Foundation in Auckland. The Musical Electronics Library (MEL) will lend equipment from a ...

Ex-Pat Files

Ex-pat Files: DJ Nicole Leone

Nicole Gilbert (these days DJ Nicole Leone) was the very first radio plugger employed by NZ On Air, back in 1998. Leaving NZ on the eve of Christmas 1999 to catch up with soon-to-be-hubby Kirk Harding, ...

Interviews

The Doqument: Double Statement

An album and a series of singles have followed since The Doqument’s self-titled debut track was released in 2012, leading them to the unleashing of their ambitious double album, ‘Black Canvas: Wall ...

Interviews

Nadia Reid: Reid The Signs

Nadia Reid has an evident penchant for giving meaningful titles to her song collections, her new album ‘Listen To Formation, Look For The Signs’ following ‘Letters I Wrote and Never Sent’, the ...

Get Yer Kit Off

Get Yer Kit Off: Jason Johnston (Jakob)

Jakob. It feels like they have been around forever, but that could just be because it's been eight years between their last album, 'Solace', and 2014's well-received 'Sines'. A variety of injuries, ...

Interviews

Thee Rum Coves: Polish & Grit

With old-school swagger and sharp-edged attitude, Thee Rum Coves have been electrifying the Auckland music scene with their energetic live shows. Now the band are gearing up to release a self-titled debut ...

Fresh Talent

Fresh Talent: Alexander Wildwood

Alexander Wildwood spent the last two years writing more than 30 songs to go toward his début EP. Wildwood, whose real name is Alex Price, has been producing/engineering for the last couple of years from ...

Fresh Talent

Fresh Talent: HeadChef

Riding high on the back of a series of nation-wide musical victories, including taking out the national championship at the 2014 Smokefreerockquest (SFRQ) finals in Auckland in September and winning theaudience.co.nz's ...

Fresh Talent

Fresh Talent: Hartebeest

Isaac Tollestrup, better known by his pseudonym Hartebeest, strikes me as a musician who belongs very much to his generation. He began producing beats as an early teen – an age many start learning their ...

Fresh Talent

Fresh Talent: Stef T

There's something truly compelling about a classically trained musician casting aside their constraints and delving into the world of indie electronica. It makes a hell of a caterpillar/butterfly story, ...

Fresh Talent

Fresh Talent: Summer Thieves

Within just a few months after they formed in late 2011, Dunedin band Summer Thieves were supporting hip hop royalty De La Soul. Singer guitarist Jake Barton attributes this coup simply to performing in ...

On Foreign Soil

On Foreign Soil: Jed Parsons & Hera

Christchurch artists Jed Parsons and Hera recently performed at Iceland's Airwaves Music Festival. First held in 1999, what was supposed to have been a one-off event was held in an airplane hangar at ...

Interviews

Randa: Critically Likely to Succeed

If you hadn’t previously noticed Randa, or Randa’s impressively deep investment in pop culture, then the mid-2013 video to Frankenstein ought to have fixed that. Produced by Alix Whittaker and Anna ...

Interviews

Death and the Maiden: Temporarily So

Although conceived as more of a recording act, Death and the Maiden have been playing their intriguing brand of gothic techno-electronica around Dunedin for the last few years. On a suitably gothic Dunedin ...

On Foreign Soil

Ekko Park: On Foreign Soil

Ekko Park is Joe Walsh on vox and guitar, Joel Halstead adding guitars and BVs, bassist Callum Tong and Nick Douch on drums. Their debut album 'Tomorrow, Tomorrow Today' pushed the rock band into the ...

Interviews

Eyreton Hall: Corrugated Splendour

In Melbourne they performed as The Portraits, but Toni Randle and Andrew Keegan have more lately named their music collaboration after the Canterbury building Eyreton Hall, where much of their exquisite ...

Interviews

Darren Watson: Bugged By The Blues

He’s beholden to the blues, and it seems, the capital. Darren Watson has done his time in Chicago, been feted in Nashville and competed in Memphis, but remains firmly rooted in Wellington. Never really ...

LESSONS

Legal Advice

The Lawful Truth: Performance Agreements – Part 1

Live performance is one of the absolute bedrocks of the music industry. There are few better ways for an artist to prove what they are capable of, and to really cement a following, than by delivering quality ...

Deep Thinking

Deep Thinking: Jack Bruce (1943 – 2014)

Many readers of the Deep Thinking column will be familiar with British trio Cream, one of the bands of the late 1960s that moved from blues-based improvisation to experimental progressive rock, and influenced ...

Tutors' Tutorial

Tutors’ Tutorial: Compression

The topic of dynamic range compression (not to be confused with data compression like zip, rar, mp3 etc.) is always worth revisiting, as it is a favourite form of processing for many engineers. How ...

Guitar Cool

Guitar Cool: Octave Licks

Guitar players are always borrowing ideas from each other no matter what genre of music they are involved in. In the 1960s jazz guitarist Wes Montgomery made the playing of octaves famous, then during ...

Building Blocks

Building Blocks: Peak Performance Part 5 – Stage Etiquette

If you've been following the advice of this column over the past few issues, then your gear is set up and sound checked, and you're waiting for the changeover that signals your turn on stage. You've ...

Finding Your Voice

Finding Your Voice: The Importance of Honesty

"Honesty is such a lonely word, ‘cause everyone is so untrue." Amen Billy. Singing requires physical honesty – songwriting requires emotional honesty. Performance requires us to have a very clear, ...