No Fake Jamaican Accents, Thanks
Wellington eight-piece band The Black Seeds – described by Clash Magazine as, “one of the best live reggae acts on the planet” – play the fourth Perisher Snowy Mountains of…
News of New Zealanders via Global Media
Funky Cuts for Rolling Stone
“Inventive New Zealand singer-songwriter Kimbra stopped by the Rolling Stone studio to play a few funky cuts off her experimental pop debut LP Vows.” “After impressing with her intense live looping technique, she talked…
From a New Perspective
Christchurch-born singer Bic Runga, 36, has released her first album in five years, Belle. Runga, who is currently on tour in Australia, tells the Illawarra Mercury’s Kate Walsh that since her 1997…
Headrushing Pop Fusion
Ladyhawke’s May concert at the Ruby Lounge in Manchester is reviewed in the Guardian by Dave Simpson who says that “the verdict from the front row is a shouted: ‘This is good…
Fashionable Favourites
Wellington band The Black Seeds latest album Dust and Dirt featured at No 4 in Deutsch Vogue’s May Playlist. “Reggae from New Zealand?” the publication questions, “Yes,” mentioning the “airy” title track, sure to…
Making Records Trumps Study
Kimbra started writing songs at the age of 10 as a “natural way to express myself as a kid” she tells Mel Evans of the Sunday Magazine. “It wasn’t until I started listening to…
Top of the Pops
New Zealand singer Kimbra, 22, featuring on Belgian-Australian Gotye’s single Somebody That I Used To Know, has made it to the top of the American Billboard top 100. It is the first time a…
Illuminating North America
The first of the two-day New Zealand in L.A. festival at the city’s REDCAT theatre featured eight chamber and solo works by New Zealand composers and renowned performer on Maori instruments, Richard Nunns. Los…
Emotional Provocateur
Auckland singer-songwriter Sam RB’s song Stand Tall has been chosen from more than 300 entries as the theme of the New Zealand contingent at the London Olympics. The New Zealand Olympic Committee invited songwriters…
Loving the Vibes in the Bay
Logan Bell of Hamilton reggae band Katchafire talked to the Examiner’s Alyssa Tomfohrde ahead of their San Francisco show at the prestigious Mezzanine venue. “From humble beginnings ‘jamming’ in a garage, Katchafire is a…
Harpooning Hearts in Vegas
Auckland jazz singer Sarah Frances Johnston, 21, is this month beginning a two-month residency performing at Oscar’s Beef, Booze and Broads at the Plaza in Las Vegas. Johnston, who began acting at age 11…
Stripes Under NZ lights
Early White Stripes footage from a concert the pair performed at Auckland’s Kings Arms Tavern in 2000 — some of the earliest footage of the band outside of the United States — will feature…
Recommended Listening
The release of Ladyhawke’s second album Anxiety is one of Guardian reviewer’s Alex Petridis’ “top picks of the spring.” Petridis writes: “The second album by this self-styled ‘pop superwoman creating radio-friendly songs with a single bound’ — aka…
Conducting Lifelong Love
New Zealand-born conductor Andrew Sewell is in contention to replace the current Illinois Symphony Orchestra’s music director and is profiled ahead of his Springfield audition in the State Journal-Register. Sewell, who lives in Wisconsin, previously…
Lynch Pin Performs Wonder
Originally from Auckland, SF Jazz Collective bassist Matt Penman studied at Boston’s Berklee College of Music before relocating to New York in 1995. Penman, 37, is a longtime lynch pin of the Collective, which…
Lo-fi Musical Shift
New Zealand chanteuse Ladyhawke, 32, talks to Vogue Australia about her new album Anxiety and the musical shift between this recording and her self-titled debut. She’s progressed from the synth-heavy 1980s to the gritty guitars of the 90s….
Hooking Syllables At SXSW
New Zealand singer Kimbra, 21, is on tour in the United States, where she spent four days at the South by Southwest (SXSW) festival in Austin, “playing the biggest sponsored parties along with…
Big British Hopes
I Am Giant, a four-piece band formerly of Auckland and now based in London, explain their reasons for relocation in an interview with The New Paper ahead of the group’s Singapore gig at Hard…
Juke Joint Revelations
In the wake of her successful debut album Holy Smoke, Auckland-born songstress Gin Wigmore talks about the process which led to her second, the blues-inspired Gravel and Wine, a sophomore album high on sass with numbers…
Worth The Wait
Ladyhawke, a.k.a. Pip Brown, 32, features in the Guardian’s ‘The Week in Music — in pictures’ gallery performing a free in-store gig at Rough Trade, east London. The release of Brown’s highly-anticipated second album Anxiety has been postponed…
Dave Takes Avalanche On Tour
Auckland folk band Avalanche City has signed to Roadrunner Records for distribution in North America, releasing the four-track Love Love Love EP on 3 April. Avalanche City is the brainchild of Dave Baxter, a singer songwriter…
Anxiety Android App Out
Ahead of the March release of her second album Anxiety, Masterton-born musician Ladyhawke has an app out in advance to promote it available on Android and iPhones. Guardian weekly apps review column writes: “Besides news, tweets and…
Innovative From Back To Back
New Zealand band The Renderers’ new record A Rocket into Nothing is reviewed on music site Pop Matters. “Even among the angular, bizarre likes of the Clean and the 3Ds, the Renderers have always been outliers….
Fortunately For Paul
In his spare time, when not drumming for Canadian singer Feist, New Zealand-born musician Lucky Paul “makes densely hypnotic, drum-heavy dream-pop for label somethinksounds.” “Elephant Island, the follow-up to last year’s well-received The Slow…
National Treasure On Tour
“Beloved at home but never exactly part of the mainstream, McGlashan has maintained a level of consistency over both group and solo releases, which has earned him great respect within his peer group…
These Cats Kick A**
New Zealand heavy metal band Legacy of Disorder are an “exception” to the “formulaic” and “pointless growls” of the last decade or so according to the Examiner’s David Garlow. “This band has parts Pantera,…
Electrifying In The Tropics
The Naked and Famous play Bangkok’s Moonstar Studio on 17 January and are “set to electrify Thai audiences with alternative pop and rock songs, including Young Blood and Punching in a Dream.” “The quintet…
Ridiculously Handsome Nomads
The biggest thing to happen to New Zealand since Peter Jackson’s makeover is Auckland band The Naked and Famous according to Aidin Vaziri writing for the San Francisco Chronicle. “ a…
Foo Fighters Make Earth Move
Auckland GeoNet scientists have said that the recent Foo Fighters concert at Western Springs caused geological vibrations on par with “volcanic tremors”. The vibrations emitted “a strong low signal,” geologists at GeoNet reported. “The…
Big Crowds In The Bay
“At the close of 2010, members of Auckland rock combo The Naked and Famous were innocents abroad, wide-eyed New Zealanders who — thanks to sudden international interest in their debut Passive Me, Aggressive You — finally…
Moving On From Terrible
Naked and Famous guitarist and vocalist Thom Powers admits to have been part of several “terrible, terrible bands” in his time. “Everything that was terrible about ‘90s rock music — I did that,” the…
Album Upbeat She Swears
Ladyhawke has announced the release of her second album, Anxiety, which will be out on 19 March 2012. It has been recorded over the past year at producer Pascal Gabriel’s house in the south of…
Kudos Across The Tasman
Hamilton-born singer Kimbra has taken the title of Best Female Artist at the Australian 2011 ARIA Awards, following in the footsteps of fellow New Zealander Jenny Morris who won the title twice in 1987…
Crooning Retro Sass
Wellington-born 21-year-old Willy Moon is “dressed up to the nines in a black wool coat, white suit, pale blue shirt and tie, hair greased and parted with precision — the spitting image of a…
On The Road In Western Australia
Hamilton-based eight-piece reggae group Katchafire play at the Prince of Wales Hotel in Bunbury on 25 November as part of the band’s Australian tour promoting their new album, On the Road Again. Vocalist Logan Bell,…
Antipodean McCartneys
Message to My Girl is a “latter-day classic from Split Enz” and “the missing link between I Got You and Crowded House’s Don’t Dream It’s Over according to the Guardian’s Russell Cunningham writing for…
From a Different Perspective
Former Split Enz frontman Tim Finn, 59, plays the Tanks Arts Centre in Cairns on 26 November, which is to coincide with the release of his latest album, The View Is Worth The Climb….
Ladyhawke Takes London
Ladyhawke is returning to the London stage in November playing an “intimate gig” at the 100 Club, according to XFM. “The New Zealand-born musician, aka Pip Brown, will play the legendary venue on 15…
Squared to Power of Awesome
Neil Finn’s “Kraut-inspired” Pajama Club recently performed a special set on Later With Jools Holland enlisting Ladyhawke on drums. Pajama Club also features Sharon Finn, Sean Donnelly and Alana Skyring. The band…
Whimsical Wannabe Snat
“Behind the tomfoolery, the chap who appears to have stumbled off the set of Withnail and I is making some of this year’s boldest music,” Guardian reviewer Dave Simpson writes about Connan Mockasin’s Manchester…
Rather Unsettling Logic
“Twentysomething” New Zealand musician Connan Mockasin is on tour in the United Kingdom playing gigs in Glasgow, Manchester, Sheffield, Bristol and Brighton. The Guardian includes London-based Mockasin in its website’s ‘This week in live…
Rediscovering Talent
New Zealand singer-songwriter Liam Finn, who is promoting his latest studio album FOMO, plays at Philadelphia’s World Cafe Live on 18 September. Co-producer of FOMO Canadian-born Burke Reid helped Finn avoid the trap of…
September’s Best Track
Wellington-based musician Jon Lemmon’s “opus” Exodus I is the Guardian/Music Alliance Pact (MAP) New Zealand selection for September included in a list of best tracks from around the globe. Every month, 35…
Boasting Grand Beginnings
Twenty-one-year-old singer Kimbra’s debut album Vows is reviewed in The Sydney Morning Herald by Bernard Zuel. “On Vows, Kimbra leaps from rhythmic, multi-vocal exercises in the style of French artist Camille (a comparison which…
Artists of the Week
Auckland folk-fusion hip-hop-electronic foursome Sola Rosa recently secured the coveted spot as MTV IGGY’s Artist of the Week, edging out the likes of Rocktigers, Los Hollywood, Dama Do Bling, and Scarab. Their victory is…
Southern Storytelling
New Zealand singer/songwriter Jackie Bristow, who is based in the United States, recently played a solo acoustic set at the Henry Miller Library in Big Sur, California. On her most recent release…
Soprano in the Scrum
New Zealand soprano Hayley Westenra has been snapped with a number of burly rugby players, after she was named as the official voice of the Rugby World Cup for audiences in the UK. Westenra’s…
Love Song to Opera House
New Zealanders musician Neil Finn and opera star Teddy Tahu Rhodes have been included in a line-up of artists chosen to perform sections of Nick Cave’s classic The Ship’s Song for a Sydney Opera…
Grass and Seeds
Wellington reggae-soul group The Black Seeds played at the Australian music festival Splendour in the Grass at Woodford in Queensland on 29 July; keyboardist Nigel Patterson was interviewed ahead of the gig by the…
Curing the Post-Tour Blues
New Zealand musician Liam Finn admits that on the back of tours around the world with Pearl Jam, The Black Keys and Wilco, he was cast adrift by his sudden sea change. “I didn’t…
Back to the Place He Loves
Los Angeles is losing one of the greatest living jazz pianists, and a composer-orchestrator who has few peers, if any, New Zealand native Alan Broadbent. Before Broadbent moves his family to New York this…
Cameo Contest Win
Hamilton-born singer Kimbra has won the AU$5, 211 Vanda and Young Songwriting Contest, receiving the honour for her song Cameo Lover ahead of 4 other entries. Now based in Melbourne, Kimbra — real name…
Finding Solitude in the North
New Zealand is American musician Moby’s favourite place on the planet to holiday. “My fear is that every person you talk to is going to give that answer, because New Zealand is so beautiful…
Talent Exported
Lead singer of The Naked and Famous, Thom Powers tells The Irish Independent’s Ed Power that he thought the band could pretend they were from some obscure part of Europe. “It must annoy you…
Delicious Synth-Pop
Christchurch three-piece Sleepy Age’s “synth-heavy, European disco-inspired single Décor” has been selected by the Music Alliance Pact (MAP) as one of July’s best tracks from around the globe. “In 29, Sleepy Age…
Revealing Familial Tales
“They didn’t know it at the time, but when New Zealand-born Chris and Peter O’Doherty lost their quietly spoken father 11 years ago, his story wasn’t over and theirs was about to take a…
