Auckland
Album Review: The Circling Sun –‘Orbits’: the spiritual jazz collective return refreshed and vital as ever.
The ever-orbiting Aotearoa/New Zealand based cosmic jazz big band The Circling Sun are clearly on a roll. After building a live reputation on the NZ scene for well over a decade, their first album ‘Spirits’ appeared in 2023 and made some commotion beyond their home shores. Here was a massive new sound, a fermentation of …
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 …