As a concept, drinking on weeknights is aspirational to me, in the sense of sending yourself out there for it to be the main event of your day. In reality I have a job I care about and find myself increasingly ageing, so my priorities lie elsewhere. What I think Sarah Mary Chadwick is making a point of in her song “Drinking on a Tuesday”, is that it takes commitment, to preparing the right social attitude - “you gotta have a joke to tell” - to really earn a place among the dedicated. I’m just not that fun.  I happened to listen to it over again in a hotel room in Germany with a gymnastics ..read more

Photo by Jim Tannock On Jazmine Mary’s ruminative new single “Seagull”, the artist makes a poet’s choices with lyrics that would fit in the cannon of Aldous Harding, or even a little bit Lorde, and twists their voice like a chopped ’n screwed Fiona Apple. Usually when I write to review a song I’m looking to uncover meaning in those lyrics, but instead I find myself accepting that the inscrutable nature of “Seagull” means I’m just going to have to let it be what it is- because ‘Hound dog/ flower power/ hound dog/ flower power’ has never made so much sense than in the place where ..read more

Photo by Monique Hopkinson Once in a weenie while you catch a live band that comes at you from all angles, making multiple concurrent cases for immediately becoming one of your must-see acts. A couple of weeks ago I had the magnificent fortune to see Ringlets live, and by the end of their set I had already texted everyone in my rolodex to spread the good word. A deceptively classic-shaped indie rock quartet, Ringlets is the musical Voltron formed by Arlo, Arabella, Leith, and László; this isn’t your cookie cutter rock band, no ma’am. Their self-titled debut album has just dropped, and it’s p ..read more

Madonna’s Ray of Light is the album that made her a voice- less the idiosyncratic character she’d been known as for decades, instead recognised as a proper, skilled vocalist. Her voice is clear and right up front on that album- her run in the musical Evita trained her not just to perform, but to really, properly sing. I say this because Disembody from Soft Plastics is the best recording I’ve heard from them yet- just how deft those vocals have become from all their training together over only a few years.  Disembody begins with these vocals up against a background of bass and a casiotone ..read more

If you listen to Being Alone by Wiri Donna around other people, no one will talk. The clarity with which musician Bianca Bailey outlines the impact of violent separation, as a soft opener, will take up all the air in a room. It has the effect of someone casually dropping into a conversation at a party that they hate it here, while everyone around them is out of it. In both the lyrics that rhyme without the appearance of any effort, and the way that she pronounces them, “so I place toothpaste/around my neck/an old wives tale to/get rid of bruises/that nobody uses.” That Courtney Barnett and A ..read more

I went to Paekākāriki for the first time this Easter, and I wasn’t prepared for how satanic it felt. Driftwood fences, an abandoned (for the holidays) train station, dark green hills looming over us. Anywhere south of Auckland, it seems, has this evermore warp to the weft of time- are we when or then? And the further down you go the more uncertain it gets. Ben Woods’ Hovering At Home follows this same course, sinister chords slip in and out, drawing in tension and teasing its release, pulling you along to somewhere unknowable and resolving in an ominous squall, like a dissonant orchestra colle ..read more

If there was one band I trust to rehash a kiwi anthem as Iconic as Dominion Road by the Mutton Birds, it’s DARTZ. The band have combined forces with Sports Team to put together a hot video for their new single ‘Dominion road (Dumpling House)’, and it is a very tasty take indeed.  The video follows the boys (joined by some other Tamaki Cuties) on a culinary journey, hitting the plethora of hotspots along Dominion road. It contains a few of my favourite things, Dumplings, Slow-motion eating shots, Rollyz, and of course the infamous Gogo’s Music Café. Gogo’s is arguably the best place to ea ..read more

First things first, I know nothing about music and this is the first song I have heard by Hans Pucket. BUT I do listen to a lot of christmas music, through choice, in the last two months of the year, and so I will be assessing this song on it’s qualities as a christmas song. IDKWTGYFC (DIRLY) steers away from the “sincere belief in the magic of Christmas” themes that dominates the genre, and focuses on the universal practicalities. Online shopping time frames, appropriate gift choice, consumerist waste. All definitely relatable seasonal concerns. So ticks there. Also it’s actually about love ..read more

It is not often I consider a tab on Chrome to be a little pocket of peaceful darkness from which beauty can be tapped into. All week I have kept Samara Alofa’s Bandcamp page open, tucking it behind emails, social media, Google Docs. Its favicon has soothed me, a black square with a bright blue multi-layered, multi-featured face in its centre. When I have spare moments, I play B.T.T.G (Back to the Gods) quietly to myself.  B.T.T.G by Samara Alofa The song seems to resonate out of darkness, like the moon catching tips of waves at night-time. Layered translucent vocals, gentle beats and rhy ..read more

I’ve heard enough yuletide songs. I even wrote one once. It’s not exactly a genre of music I feel excited by anymore. So when the subject of the email from Ant is “250 words on this? ‘Pop Punk Xmas’ “ I wasn’t thrilled. I guess playing in emo covers bands garners a certain reputation.  And yet. This song is sick. Checking off the pop-punk formula like Santa’s wishlist,  “Not Another Pop Punk Christmas” by How to Escape Reality is immediately reminiscent of the bands I grew up on. Almost too much. I’ve no idea who’s behind this act but I am certain that A) They can play the hell ..read more