Auckland
Track: Everything is ‘Bright’ for New Zealand’s Marmalade: a shimmering tasty dollop of sweet indie pop, with launch date announced.
Tāmaki Makaurau-based five-piece band Marmalade today release their new single ‘Bright’ – a jangly sparkling track laden with a dusting of melancholy and the sweetest harmonies to ever nest inside your head. With a chorus more expansive and beautiful than the Southern Alps, this is a shimmering piece of pure antipodean indie pop that floats …
Track: New Zealand’s MACEY unveils the smooth and bucolic sounds of ‘Summer Grunge’ and announces EP ‘Lovers: Side A’.
‘Summer Grunge’ from Auckland-based artist MACEY is a smooth and shimmering track which has an easy sibilant and aquatic flow evoking images of balmy sun-soaked afternoons in a green and pleasant land. The instrumentation provides a string-laden billowing dream pop pillow supporting the velvet soft vocals that hypnotise. MACEY is the nom de plume for …
EP: Auckland’s Silk Cut shape out another elegant dream pop delight in new EP ‘panda’.
Last year’s ‘astronaut’, the debut EP from New Zealand’s enigmatic Silk Cut (reviewed by me here) was a hazy dreamy introduction to a band that has, amongst its constituent members, a breadth of experience. Singer/guitarist Andrew Thorne has played with Modern Chair – a collaboration between him and another veteran of the NZ music scene, Wayne Bell. …
Track: New Zealand’s Ruby Frost will ‘Never Be Your Baby’ – a charming slice of luminescent indie pop.
Cantering along with a vivacious bounce, and with that essential dash of yearning necessary for a good pop song, the new single from New Zealand’s Ruby Frost ‘Never Be Your Baby’, is a sparkling and luminescent track that exudes rays of sunshine despite a more melancholy subject matter. Frost says the track is about: An …
EP: Silk Cut shapes a gorgeous, shimmering cloth in debut EP ‘astronaut’, with tracks that sparkle like stars in the firmament
Silk Cut is a magical Auckland dream pop/shoegaze band that has just released their debut EP ‘astronaut’, and while the band is a brand new piece of clothing, it is formed from vintage material. Singer/guitarist Andrew Thorne has played with Modern Chair – a collaboration between him and another veteran of the NZ music scene, Wayne …
Track: Auckland’s Silk Cut unveil an immersive shoegaze dream pop debut in ‘Getting In Close’ and announce new EP
Andrew Thorne has graced these pages under a few different guises. He first came to my attention in Modern Chair– a collaboration between him and another veteran of the NZ music scene, Wayne Bell. Modern Chair can best be described (and indeed have been) – as dirty, stomping squalls of pure joy laced with a …
Track: New Zealand’s Isla Noon releases a piece of yearningly smooth pop with single ‘Talk About Us’.
New Zealander Isla Noon‘s single ‘Talk About Us’ is as perfect as a pop song can be – luscious layers of smooth music and a melody that enamps inside the brain, puts up its feet and sets up residence. All burnished by Noon’s gorgeous yearning vocals that have a greater range than the Southern Alps …
Track: New Zealand’s Sulfate release the dark, fuzzy track ‘Crossing’ and announce new album ‘Godzone’ through Flying Nun Records
‘Crossing’, from New Zealand band Sulfate, is a delicious, fuzzy, angst-ridden piece of darkness that buzzes with a satisfying intensity. A metallic syncopated undercurrent is swamped by angular, crunchy guitars and yearning vocals that have echoes of the brittle, observational delivery of the Robert Forster side of The Go-Betweens. The themes match the gothic darkness …
News: New Zealand’s Merk announces new album and releases gorgeous, yearning single Laps Around the Sun
Merk’s new single ‘Laps Around the Sun’ is a gorgeous reflective piece, infused with a sense of yearning and constructed around a deceptively simple synth-based framework. Merk is the work of Auckland, New Zealand artist, multi-instrumentalist and producer Mark Perkins who began his career as a touring member of Tom Lark and Fazerdaze. In this …
Say Psych: Album Review: Joe Ghatt – Banana Sludge
Australian label Third Eye Stimuli Records have this week ventured across the waters to release the debut LP from New Zealander Joe Ghatt, Banana Sludge. Originally from Nelson on South Island but now residing in Auckland, Ghatt has been performing and collaborating for the last few years with Kiwi psyhc rockers Arthur Ahbez and Kelvin …