News of New Zealanders via Global Media

Brooklyn DIY Drummer on her Influences

Brooklyn DIY Drummer on her Influences

New Zealand-born Fiona Campbell, a long-time participant in the Brooklyn DIY music scene, discusses her admiration for late-00s noise-pop New York band Vivian Girls, for whom Campbell drummed in 2010. Formerly of Auckland, Campbell left…

Springsteen Covers Royals at Mt Smart Stadium

Springsteen Covers Royals at Mt Smart Stadium

According to Rolling Stone, Bruce Springsteen made the most surprising cover choice of his career when he played an acoustic rendition of teenage Grammy award-winner Lorde’s song Royals during his Auckland show at Mt…

Finn’s NY-Inspired Third Album a Whirlwind of Weirdness

Finn’s NY-Inspired Third Album a Whirlwind of Weirdness

This coming May, New Zealand singer-songwriter Liam Finn, 30, will release his third full-length album, The Nihilist, on which Finn plays 67 instruments. Vice magazine’s music channel Noisey premieres the new video…

Miami Concert a Fine Showcase for Young Conductor

Miami Concert a Fine Showcase for Young Conductor

The “clear beat and enthusiasm” of New Jersey Symphony’s assistant conductor New Zealand-born Gemma New, “charged up the Miami Symphony’s crackling brass and percussion sections”, at the orchestra’s “Valentine Fiesta” in February. “With a colourful…

Debut Radio Single Heavy Seas Rolling out in UK

Debut Radio Single Heavy Seas Rolling out in UK

With a voice described as “Bowie meets Bono”, New Zealand-born Thom Cross will release his debut radio single Heavy Sea, mixed by Grammy Award-winning producer Guy Massey of Manic Street Preachers fame. London-based Cross talked…

Lorde & the Perfectly Formed Sentence

Lorde & the Perfectly Formed Sentence

Ella Yellich-O’Connor stares at the reader from the pages of Vogue magazine looking wraithlike, almost like another famous alien fallen to earth. This Lorde looks quite unlike the girl from Devonport who improbably conquered…

Lorde Scoops Best International Female Solo Artist at The Brit Awards 2014

Lorde Scoops Best International Female Solo Artist at The Brit Awards 2014

Lorde has overcome the odds and won the best International Female Solo Artist prize at the Brit Awards 2014. Despite going into the show as a huge underdog, the 17 year old newcomer took the…

Cover Duties for Our Own Alternative Pop Voice

Cover Duties for Our Own Alternative Pop Voice

Lorde takes one of four covers for fashion magazine V’s music special as part of a feature on the “next wave of alternative pop voices,” starring alongside HAIM, Say Lou Lou, and BANKS. The 17-year-old…

Neil Finn’s Latest Solo Album His Funkiest

Neil Finn’s Latest Solo Album His Funkiest

“Neil Finn makes pop music, and good pop music at that. He can’t help it,” espouses the Sydney Morning Herald’s senior music writer Bernard Zuel, and he “makes the oddest and, to these ears,…

Other Pop Riches Doing Us Proud in the US

Other Pop Riches Doing Us Proud in the US

While Lorde is New Zealand’s biggest success story at the moment, she’s far from all we have to offer in terms of pop riches. Billboard’s Andrew Unterberger looks at New Zealanders impressing stateside in…

Detroit Connections Spark New Ladi6 Album

Detroit Connections Spark New Ladi6 Album

Christchurch-born neo-soul queen Ladi6, real name Karoline Tamati, 31, has been described as “New Zealand’s answer to Erykah Badu” in her home country and listening to latest album Automatic, it’s easy to hear why,…

Shepherd’s Bush Gig a Trip down the Rabbit Hole

Shepherd’s Bush Gig a Trip down the Rabbit Hole

Eccentric Connan Mockasin may be, but it’s his wayward musicianship that has won over famous fans like Radiohead, Beck and rapper Tyler, according to the London Evening Standard, which reviews Mockasin’s London show at…

Finn to Release Third Studio Album The Nihilist

Finn to Release Third Studio Album The Nihilist

Liam Finn has announced the release of his first full-length studio album in three years, titled The Nihilist. The Melbourne-based singer-songwriter has also unveiled the album’s first single, Snug As F-ck. The track…

Lorde Wins Two Grammys

Lorde Wins Two Grammys

Lorde looked stunned upon hearing her name being called as she won her first Grammy of the night for Best Pop Solo Performance at last night’s Grammy Awards, the first of two awards for…

Lorde Makes the Cover of Rolling Stone

Lorde Makes the Cover of Rolling Stone

“The thrill that’ll getcha when you get your picture on the cover of the Rolling Stone,” sang Dr Hook in 1972, a blatant but ultimately successful act of musical sycophancy that earned the band…

Mockasin’s UK Tour Begins in Glasgow at King Tut’s

Mockasin’s UK Tour Begins in Glasgow at King Tut’s

New Zealand musician Connan Mockasin is kicking off his UK tour in Glasgow on 22 January at King Tut’s promoting Caramel, ahead of the February release of his second single from the album, Do…

Brooding Synth-Pop Makes Sadness Sound Lovely

Brooding Synth-Pop Makes Sadness Sound Lovely

Auckland brother-sister duo Broods, aka Georgia, 19, and Caleb Nott, 21, “make, ahem, brooding synth-pop that makes sadness sound quite lovely,” according to the Guardian’s Michael Cragg writing for the publication’s “New Music” blog. “

Lorde to Perform at Grammys 2014

Lorde to Perform at Grammys 2014

Lorde is set to perform at the Grammys 2014 award show later this month, amongst a set list that includes Katy Perry, Metallica, and Chicago. This may not be the only chance the young Kiwi…

Lorde is “The Upstart” in NYT’s 2013 Disrupters

Lorde is “The Upstart” in NYT’s 2013 Disrupters

Auckland’s Lorde is one of the New York Times’ cultural Disruptors of 2013 – people who broke the rules in a year of artistic upheavals. She features alongside pop provocateur Miley Cyrus and rising…

Like a Weird Untitled Mixtape They Beguile

Like a Weird Untitled Mixtape They Beguile

The songwriting savant behind Unknown Mortal Orchestra, New Zealander Ruban Nielson, 33, spends many of his nocturnal hours locked away in the basement of his Portland, Oregon home, creating beguiling, hypnagogic psych-pop, the Guardian’s…

Grammy Nominee Crowned WILD Cover Girl

Grammy Nominee Crowned WILD Cover Girl

Lorde, who has been nominated for two Grammys for her hit “Royals”, up for both record of the year (for the recording) and best song (for songwriting), “stuns” on the cover of the

Amounting to a Kind of Debonair Psychedelia

Amounting to a Kind of Debonair Psychedelia

“Dean Wareham ranks high among the most faithful disciples of Lou Reed,” the Wall Street Journal’s Andy Battaglia writes in a review of Wareham’s recent New York show at Brooklyn’s Bell House. “He doesn’t have…

Taylor Swift Posts Dreamy NZ Holiday on Instagram

Taylor Swift Posts Dreamy NZ Holiday on Instagram

In between shows on her Red tour in New Zealand, American singer-songwriter Taylor Swift posted Instagrams of herself busy at “aesthetically pleasing activities … like driving a boat, gazing off into the…

Gemma New on Gender Equality in Contemporary Music

Gemma New on Gender Equality in Contemporary Music

New Zealander Gemma New, associate conductor of the New Jersey Symphony Orchestra and director of the Lunar Ensemble, talks with Bachtrack’s Meg Wilhoite about the question of gender equality in the world of new…

Kiwi Women Lead Cultural Renaissance

Kiwi Women Lead Cultural Renaissance

Once upon a time New Zealand cultural values were based on the unholy trinity of rugby, racing and beer. Then the marketing concepts – clean and green; 100% Pure – were added to the…

Creativity Before Celebrity

Creativity Before Celebrity

Lorde has suddenly become quite famous, but in reality the 17-year-old kiwi just wants to stay out of the world of smoke and mirrors like other young popstar of today. “It’s still pretty weird,” she…

Exciting Caramel Flavours Cooked Up in Tokyo

Exciting Caramel Flavours Cooked Up in Tokyo

“A defining sense of optimism and curiosity took Mockasin and his then band, The Mockasins, to London in 2006, where, despite running out of money very quickly, their initial style of…

Joel Little on Lorde and Opening Doors

Joel Little on Lorde and Opening Doors

Starting his music career as a member of pop-punk band Goodnight Nurse in the early 2000s, kiwi Joel Little is now becoming one of the most in-demand producers on the planet after producing Lorde’s…

Kiwi Duo Grabs Attention of Billboard

Kiwi Duo Grabs Attention of Billboard

Hot on the heels of Lorde’s success, Auckland pop-synth duo Broods are making a positive international impressions of their own. The brother-sister duo, made up of Caleb and Georgina Nott, have worked closely with…

Bringing Something Different to Every Party

Bringing Something Different to Every Party

Neil Finn, who is playing at Australia’s Falls Festival in December, has had a colourful career so far. Wild in Split Enz, he’s been a straightforward balladeer, the front man of a…

Businessman Buys up Rights to Lennon’s Solo Recordings

Businessman Buys up Rights to Lennon’s Solo Recordings

New Zealand businessman Sir Douglas Myers has secured the rights to John Lennon’s music and some early Beatles records, he says in an exclusive interview with the Herald on Sunday. Meyers owns Downtown Music, a…

Beyonce: NZ Tourism Ambassador

Beyonce: NZ Tourism Ambassador

New Zealand got unparalleled international exposure from the recent tour by Beyonce, arguably the biggest music star on the planet at the moment. Whether posing for an Instagram with a Kiwi fan, promotion of…

Kiwi Making YouTube Waves with ‘Royals’ Cover

Kiwi Making YouTube Waves with ‘Royals’ Cover

As Lorde goes from strength to strength, covers of her number one song ‘Royals’ are sprouting like mushrooms on YouTube, and now a second Kiwi is finding fame with his take on the world…

Letting Go of NZ Essential for Artists

Letting Go of NZ Essential for Artists

If artists get a chance to leave New Zealand, says Thom Powers, co-founder of The Naked and Famous (TNF), then they must seize the opportunity. Los Angeles-based Powers is in the US with TNF…

Introspective New Album for LA-Based Singer

Introspective New Album for LA-Based Singer

New Zealand-born singer and songwriter, Los Angeles-based Ted Brown has released his second album, An Unwide Ride; “an elegantly spare and tenderly introspective record”, recorded at Roundhead Studios in Auckland. In 1993, Brown…

Lorde’s Bid for the Big Time

Lorde’s Bid for the Big Time

Lorde makes it into the New Yorker this week, the subject of a profile by contributor and music critic Sasha Frere-Jones, who conducted several conversations with the 16-year-old about, amongst other things, how important…

Pop Sensation Unfazed by Impending Global Stardom

Pop Sensation Unfazed by Impending Global Stardom

Lorde, 16, who says she chose her stage name because she wanted an aesthetically feminine aristocratic title, tells the Guardian’s Alexis Petridis that the record company “got straight away that I was a bit…

Rihanna Gets a Maori Tribal Tattoo the Traditional Way

Rihanna Gets a Maori Tribal Tattoo the Traditional Way

In order to mark her recent trip to New Zealand, Rihanna decided to get a permanent reminder by having a traditional Maori tattoo added to her already vast collection of inkings. The tattoo was done…

Lorde Number One in the US

Lorde Number One in the US

Sixteen-year-old singer, Lorde has become the first New Zealander to top the US Billboard charts, following the release of her first album, Pure Heroine, in the US at start of this month. Her single…

Gracefully Addictive San Francisco Gig

Gracefully Addictive San Francisco Gig

“The Portland-based (though one-third New Zealand-born) trio finds a delicate balance between lo-fi minimalism and swirly, disoriented pop songs heavy on themes of isolation, which they translate gracefully into a live…

How The Naked and Famous Will Make It In America

How The Naked and Famous Will Make It In America

Though alternative rock bands of the last few decades have oozed cool by rejecting the music industry and pretending not to care, The Naked and Famous didn’t move 19 time zones and nearly 7,000…

Connan Mockasin Swims Upstream

Connan Mockasin Swims Upstream

New Zealand psych-funk oddball Connan Mockasin hasn’t listened to anyone else’s music for 10 years; he shuns record labels and recorded his bewitching new album in a Tokyo hotel room, Ben Arnold…

Urban Branches out with Billboard-Topping Fuse

Urban Branches out with Billboard-Topping Fuse

New Zealand-born country singer Keith Urban, 45, has been branching out musically – playing with the Rolling Stones and others, and fresh collaborations on his latest album, Fuse, which debuted on Billboard’s 200 Albums…

Rolling out Their Second Album from LA

Rolling out Their Second Album from LA

Naked and Famous singer-guitarist Thom Powers says Los Angeles was the perfect environment for the New Zealand synth-pop outfit to make their second album, In Rolling Waves. “That side of living in Los Angeles is…

Lorde Lands Cover of Billboard Magazine

Lorde Lands Cover of Billboard Magazine

New Zealand singer, Lorde, has graced the cover of Billboard magazine, while saying in the accompanying interview that in a perfect world she would never do interviews. The comment, according to the magazine, stems from…

Royals Makes Top 10 and Selena Gomez Covers

Royals Makes Top 10 and Selena Gomez Covers

Auckland singer Lorde, 16, has made it into the United States Billboard Top 10, with her “debut alternative/pop hit” Royals, which pop star Selena Gomez covered at the Heineken Music Hall in Amsterdam on…

Kiwi Band Wins Top Prize at US Music Competition

Kiwi Band Wins Top Prize at US Music Competition

New Zealand band, Streets of Laredo, have taken a top spot in the US indie music competition, Unsigned Only. The New York-based band, made up of brothers Dan and Dave Gibson, and Dave’s wife,…

Lorde Single Breaks into Billboard Top 10

Lorde Single Breaks into Billboard Top 10

Sixteen-year-old New Zealand singer, Lorde, has had continued success the US, with her single ‘Royals’ currently sitting at 8th place on the Billboard Hot 100 List. The single has also been sitting atop of the…

Plans for Labyrinth-inspired Puppet Musical

Plans for Labyrinth-inspired Puppet Musical

Flight of the Conchords star, Academy and Grammy Award-winner Bret McKenzie, 37, wants to bring back to life the eighties classic storytelling technique of real people and puppets singing and dancing side by side…

Dropping Soul-Dub in to Some Far-Flung Corners

Dropping Soul-Dub in to Some Far-Flung Corners

Wellington septet Fat Freddy’s Drop “are spreading their infectious grooves all over the world,” according to The Sydney Morning Herald’s Paris Pompor. In a shrinking, fibre-connected world, the band find themselves in ever more…

Who is This ‘Lorde’ Everyone’s Talking About?

Who is This ‘Lorde’ Everyone’s Talking About?

Lorde continues to make waves internationally ahead of the launch of her debut album, with US online magazine Vulture writing giving their readers a crash course in who the 16-year-old singer is and why…

Lorde, First Woman to Top Billboard Alt Chart in 17 Years

Lorde, First Woman to Top Billboard Alt Chart in 17 Years

New Zealand singer/songwriter, Lorde, has landed the top spot on the Billboard Alternative Songs Chart with her hit single ‘Royals’. Not only is she the first solo woman to top the charts in her…

America Better Watch Out

America Better Watch Out

The “unflappable” Lorde, 16, “hypnotises” at her first concert in the United States introducing “her collection of immaculately drawn pop compositions with a confidence and demeanour well beyond her years”, Billboard’s Jason Lipshutz writes…

From One South to Another

From One South to Another

Formerly of Gore, singer-songwriter Jackie Bristow, who has been based in the United States for the past eight years, recently performed two shows at the Neutral Ground Coffeehouse and House of Blues in New…

Young Kiwi Artist’s Focus is Art, Not Boys

Young Kiwi Artist’s Focus is Art, Not Boys

In an interview, Auckland singer-songwriter Lorde, 16, said that unlike many female teenage artists, boys aren’t all she is interested in when it comes to writing songs. “I feel like that isn’t maybe the…

Mystery Making Process Paying off in US

Mystery Making Process Paying off in US

Identified only as her stage name, Lorde, 16, the artist kept her true identity a mystery for months, Wall Street Journal correspondent Megan Buerger writes. The only available representation of her was a drawing…