Manchester has always been good at exporting its melancholy. It has travelled in record collections, in accents, and occasionally in whole people, and two of them have landed in Tāmaki Makaurau Auckland. Vocalist Charlie MacLean and guitarist and programmer AJ met there and bonded over a shared set of Northern reference points. With Aotearoa locals Matt Chong on guitar and Scott Samson on bass, they became Echomatica, a four-piece whose sound feels like it was drawn from rain-slicked streets on the other side of the world.
The band took the long road. For years they played acoustic indie covers with a deliberately sombre bent. Recruiting MacLean pushed them towards original material, and they began playing their own cinematic dream-rock live after the pandemic. After seven years on the local scene, they released their self-titled debut in October 2025. It’s an 11-track record that sent singles “Love Isn’t Always” and “Technicolour Dreams” to number one on the Student Radio Network and earned a nomination for the 2026 Taite Music Prize. It’s a reminder that some of the best music comes from people who took their time getting there.
‘Atomic Girl’ is their first new music since that album and a taste of an EP to come. It picks up where the debut left off: slow-burning, textured and moody, with ambient electronics, shoegaze haze and a post-punk chill. The track begins in a wash of synths, sinuous and cinematic before the velvet soft vocals enter with a driving percussion backing up. MacLean’s vocal is the anchor, raw and drenched in reverb, sounding intimate even when the arrangement swells around her.
The track ends in a hypnotic whirl like a swirling fog in headlights.
You can hear the influences: the lush drift of Slowdive, the shadowy elegance of The Cure, and the trip-hop pulse of Portishead and Massive Attack. What keeps it from being a pastiche is the grit under the gloss. Echomatica balance dark elegance with something rougher, and ‘Atomic Girl’ sounds made for late-night drives and the closing scene of a film, while still feeling deeply personal.
This is wonderful stuff and proves that there is something in the land of the long white cloud that is truly special. Auckland audiences can catch Electromatica at venues like the Whammy Bar and Ponsonby Social Club, with more shows planned around the EP. On this evidence, the long apprenticeship has paid off and there is a global market awaiting.
‘Atomic Girl’ is out now and available to stream and download here.
