Amelia Murray is the shy enchantress behind the dreamy fuzz-guitared world of Fazerdaze. After moving north from Wellington to Auckland to study music she served her uni time playing in bands, alongside ...
It’s hardly an exact science, but when you’ve been making music with the same core group of ex-high school friends for more than a decade it goes without saying that simply having fun is key to that ...
Annemarie Duff has lived many lives as an artist. The one-time lead singer of Melbourne-based band Miniatures and current solo talent behind dream-pop delight Mmdelai, she now calls Christchurch home and ...
For the majority of musicians, choosing a portable PA system (or any audio equipment for that matter) is a compromise of performance, function and price. For this review, I’ve been looking at two portable ...
Following time in London where they performed and recorded as Her Make Believe Band, Cy Winstanley and Vanessa McGowan relocated back to Auckland for a few years. After securing the money needed by crowdfunding, ...
Hamilton grunge/pop trio-turned-duo Cheshire Grimm are no strangers to adapting to challenges. With a new EP just landed and guitarist Lora Thompson now based in Melbourne, while bass playing vocalist ...
Auckland-born, Bryony Matthews has been a singer and writer all her life. Still, it required leaving her home turf to find the confidence to perform the lyric-based alternative-folk music she’d been ...
Along with writing smart rock songs, Stonehurst guitar/vocalist Tim Hunt clearly enjoys the telling of a good story. Like the band’s unlikely links to Evermore, or the one about how the five-piece which ...
The musical output of smart Kiwi production duo The Map Room is typically described as ‘atmospheric indie pop’. Clever then that the second album from them should be titled ‘Weatherless’, even ...
Balu Brigada is quite literally a band of brothers – comprising three Beasley brothers and one close friend. Henry Beasley owns lead guitar and vocals, with brothers Pierre manning the keyboard and Charles ...
New Plymouth library might not be the most rock and roll of settings but according to Alastair Ross it provided an ideal location to chat to a relaxed and enthusiastic Andre Manella (aka Sonic Delusion) ...
‘Dull Life’ – hardly an inspirational kind of album title you might think, but then again ‘Parklife’ did Blur no harm back in the mid ’90s. Clap Clap Riot have a strong history of enigmatic ...
A quick Google will tell you that there are as many basic recipes for borscht as there are past and present members of Wellington brass act Niko Ne Zna. Actually far more, even though the capital’s self-titled ...
Running hard off the back of his Platinum-selling single Runnin’ and its Gold-charting follow up The Wire, David Dallas had a 2014 to remember. His third album ‘Falling Into Place’ earned him three ...
Despite an already solid and diverse career playing in his own band, providing vocals for drum ’n bass tracks, putting out the first all-instrumental Weissenborn slide-guitar record (2013’s ‘Beneath ...
Dunedin electronic trio Elan Vital make synth-based music that washes all around you in the manner of the waves at St Kilda on a post dance party Sunday. Occasionally the water is calm and warmly familiar, ...
In the last issue I wrote about the role of the rhythm guitarist, so this month I will give you some cool ideas to use when you are in the lead guitar role. Essentially a good guitar player can play ...
This column has covered club gigs several times in the past, but here I want to focus on three important points that fit nicely into this Stage Trek miniseries. First, finding and booking gigs at local ...
Much space was left behind in the wake of my last column about the myth of needing the self-confidence to sing. Listing pitfalls of over and under-confidence didn’t provide strategies of how to grow ...
It must be challenging for any artist to follow up a successful debut album, let alone a Grammy Award-winning multi-platinum single like Royals. Prior to the release of Green Light, Lorde discussed how ...
Have you ever been in a bad relationship? When things go south you need to know where you stand – what’s rightfully yours and theirs – so you can move on (and move out) without cutting your record ...