Daniel Ashcroft - Album Review: Chica De La Bum
05 Feb 2024 // review by Callum Wagstaff
Daniel Ashcroft is a multi-instrumentalist, producer and composer based in Feilding.His musical goals are simple: He wants to play every instrument he possibly can, explore every genre and collaborate with as many singers as possible.
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Bad Jelly Collective - EP Review: WESTBOUND&DOWN
10 Oct 2023 // review by Callum Wagstaff
Bad Jelly Collective is the brainchild of 'Bad Jelly' Ben. Tucked away in his Huia road Home Studio in the Waitakere Ranges, Ben weaves his psychedelic soundscapes together with the creative forces of his team of musical mates.
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SACHI - Single Review: Whole Again
17 Jul 2023 // review by Callum Wagstaff
SACHI are an electronic dance duo made up of Nick Chrisp and Will Thomas. Whole Againis their first music release of 2023.
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Bad Jelly Collective - Single Review: RUN0UT
30 May 2023 // review by Callum Wagstaff
The Bad Jelly Collective is made up of Bad Jelly Ben and a few buddies who weave creative forces in their Huia Road Home Studio, nicely tucked away in the Waitakere Ranges.In the live setting, BJB "utilizes his arsenal of pedals, guitar amp & voice to create mood specific textures and colours.
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Trig - Double Single Review: Entity & Player 67
23 Mar 2023 // review by Callum Wagstaff
Trig is the musical moniker of Christchurch based artist Michael West, formerly Michael Aisuru, formerly Sick Cycle.After using computers and a few synths to produce music for the past 22 years, Michael has chosen to give up the computer and DAW and focus on live performance via drum machines and modular synthesis.
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Soaked Oats - Album Review: Working Title
11 Dec 2022 // review by Callum Wagstaff
Soaked Oats is a Dunedin indie 4-piece. Working Title is their first full length offering, crafted over the last 18 months in a community hall in the remote township of Okuru, Haast, on the West Coast of the South Island.
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Sweet Mix Kids - Album Review: Stargazing
17 Oct 2022 // review by Callum Wagstaff
Sweet Mix Kids are an Auckland DJ/Production duo made up of Sandon James and Chris Scott. They've played some of the hottest parties around the world, including a sold out 14,000 Synthony show at Spark Arena.
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Nick Burson Band - Single Review: Should Have Let You Know
08 Aug 2022 // review by Callum Wagstaff
Nick Burson spent a decade cutting his teeth on the covers scene of Christchurch city. The lockdown of 2020 allowed him to finally focus on releasing his own music to the world.
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Anamnesis - Single Review: Coms
26 Jun 2022 // review by Callum Wagstaff
Coms sounds like a clown rubbing wet crocks against a saxophone. After a few seconds it also sounds like somebody close is tracing their finger around a half empty wine glass and somebody far away is buffing a bird cage with an angle grinder.
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Elliott Dawson - Single Review: CEO
18 May 2022 // review by Callum Wagstaff
Elliott Dawson plays angry art rock inspired both by British post-rock and South London jazz. CEO is the first single from his album Hang Low which will be released independently in September 2022 and was recorded at Surgery Studios in Te-Whanganui-a-Tara with engineer James Goldsmith (Avant-Glass, Recitals, Wiri Donna, Mermaidens, Earth Tongue).
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Birdfeeder - EP Review: The Vile Isle
24 Mar 2022 // review by Callum Wagstaff
Led by keyboard player and songwriter Stephanie Cairns, Birdfeeder makes music for time travellers, tea leaf readers and full moon gazers. Their south seas art-pop is characterised by unearthly melodies, surprising shifts and vintage timbres.
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Motel Midnight - Single Review: Save Me
28 Jan 2022 // review by Callum Wagstaff
Motel Midnight are Reuben Keeling (vocals, bass guitar), Bruce Ferguson (vocals, guitar) and Ben Stanley (synths, beats, production). Emerging from the smoky neon haze, Motel Midnight have arrived with their new single Save Me.
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Bediquette - EP Review: Not Now
04 Nov 2021 // review by Callum Wagstaff
If somebody decided to make an EP out of samples they ripped from a pirate alien distress beacon it might sound like Not Now. It feels like somebody's beaming a scrambled signal from a haunted bunker.
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Dark Water - Single Review: While the World is Bleeding
30 Sep 2021 // review by Callum Wagstaff
Dark Water are a New Plymouth based alternative rock band formed in 2009. While the World is Bleeding is their new single, mixed and mastered by Crazy Daisy Productions, USA.
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Rain - Single Review: Pretty
19 Jul 2021 // review by Callum Wagstaff
Rain is the music making moniker of Wellington artist Cathy Elizabeth. She has been active since 2018, collaborating with producer Thomas Te Taite to create songs that are genre fluid, but all wrapped around the singer songwriter heart.
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Oh Sweet Nothings - Album Review: The Math
31 May 2021 // review by Callum Wagstaff
"Completely DIY and 8 years in the making, “a tribute to the pipe dreams of the struggling indie artist”.The tagline for The Math by Wellington based indie post-everything band Oh Sweet Nothings is a likeable description.
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Merk - Album Review: Infinite Youth
13 Apr 2021 // review by Callum Wagstaff
Merk has been up and running since 2016, collecting a few accolades and getting some attention in that time. He is a Red Bull Music Academy alumni and winner of the Auckland Live Best Independent Debut award in 2017.
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Lasair - Single Review: Running
27 Feb 2021 // review by Callum Wagstaff
After years making music constrained by labels and opinions, Lasair's musical approach is "genre fluid" and built from the inspiration he finds around him wherever it happens to come from. Rather than talk about his persona, Lasair prefers to let his music speak for him.
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Pale Lady - Single Review: Lost and Found
19 Jan 2021 // review by Callum Wagstaff
Pale Lady formed in 2016 when a bunch of guys with a love for rock and roll found themselves in the same music degree. By 2017 they had won that years Battle of the Bands competition.
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Internet Death - Album Review: Not Your Dog!
09 Jul 2020 // review by Callum Wagstaff
Mild mannered billionaire journalist (citation needed) 17-year-old Christchurch musician by day, Finlay Anderson dons the Internet Death undies by night to slap us in the ass-face with the cyber hardcore anti-hero anarchist justice of Not Your Dog!Christchurch in 2020 is a Petri dish of physical isolation and the chaos of the entire world being beamed directly into the brains of the population potentially 24/7.
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Something Zesty - Single Review: Mad About It
24 Jun 2020 // review by Callum Wagstaff
'All Zest, No Stress' is the catchphrase for Whanganui-based one-man cartoon band Something Zesty. If it were on a cereal box it would be the bit written in a big spiked speech balloon.
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Big Scout - Single Review: Flung
30 May 2020 // review by Callum Wagstaff
At times dizzying and sometimes catastrophically frenetic, Flung descends into chaos.Flung is the first of four singles set for release over the coming months from Blenheim's guitar bashing wastrels Big Scout.
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Goodspace - Album Review: Under the Loquat Tree
14 May 2020 // review by Callum Wagstaff
Goodspace started life in 2017 as a more grunge influenced band called Restless Electric before refining their line-up and reconvening their efforts in a more lo-fi indie Britpop capacity. In 2019 they emerged as Goodspace, dedicated to helping listeners feel present and providing a more connected experience; "from our goodspace to yours".
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Swallow the Rat - Album Review: Leaving Room
28 Apr 2020 // review by Callum Wagstaff
Swallow the Rat sound like if a tornado became sentient and could communicate that it just wants to shoot the shit and have a chat.Swallow the Rat formed in Auckland in 2017 when Texan guitarist Brian Purington moved to New Zealand and started jamming with Sam Vercoe.
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Iveta & Simone - Single Review: Psycho Baby
20 Apr 2020 // review by Callum Wagstaff
Iveta and Simone are a duo that cut their teeth singing covers all over the world. They describe their original material as new age, contemporary alternative rock.
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Social Shun - Album Review: What Is Music
04 Apr 2020 // review by Callum Wagstaff
What is music? It's kind of a rhetorical question.
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Amos/Anon - Album Review: VHMET
24 Mar 2020 // review by Callum Wagstaff
Amos/Anon have been around in the margins of music society for over a decade now, occupying space around buzz words like Gothic, Acoustic, Industrial, Doom and Progressive. People used to find Amos/Anon CD's and USB's hidden in university libraries.
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Alae - Single Review: Summer Thing
02 Mar 2020 // review by Callum Wagstaff
Alae have been working solidly since 2016, going from strength to strength, garnering radio play both in NZ and abroad and making Spotify playlists internationally. Summer Thing is the second single from an upcoming EP due out in June and it's the perfect song to have playing in the lounge while you hang your body half outside onto the deck and half inside because it's so nice and sunny but so hot; your beer sitting just out of reach of your lazily extended, slightly burned arm.
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Holloway - Single Review: Please Hold (An Operator Will Be With You Indefinitely)
27 Feb 2020 // review by Callum Wagstaff
A fire siren boots up as a clap-along snare cracks its way across a crushed up vocal telling some barely indecipherable story about talking to an operator who's either gonna get murdered or is coming to murder you or something but then it all cuts out leaving a whispered "already dead."The song launches back into the chorus with the slanted scribbly voice half chanting half crooning the catch phrase lyrics over the naked crunch of punk riffing chords: "It's the way you've got me wrapped around your little finger.
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Impostor Syndrome - Single Review: The Hole in Your Head
08 Feb 2020 // review by Callum Wagstaff
Shannon Coulomb, Scott Nicolson and Ryan Culleton form the components of Imposter Syndrome. Coulomb chose the name as a kind of pact that nothing will get in the way of releasing music.
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Rumour City - EP Review: Bury All The Lies
11 Dec 2019 // review by Callum Wagstaff
Auckland based band Rumour City are a fairly new occurrence. As of 2019 they have a handful of gigs under their belt and a debut EP.
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Makeshift Parachutes - Album Review: The Daily Absurd
14 Nov 2019 // review by Callum Wagstaff
What started as a jam session in a wine cellar in Houston Texas around 2012 would eventually emerge in Auckland, New Zealand under the name Makeshift Parachutes. Seven years later Makeshift Parachutes are releasing their debut full length album: The Daily Absurd.
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Lucifer Gunne - EP Review: One Day You'll Be The Best Thing That's Ever Happened To Someone
30 Oct 2019 // review by Callum Wagstaff
Lucifer Gunne come out with an EP of acoustic sessions showcasing the dark and pensive songwriting of lead man Rory McDonald. McDonald's unusual voice is an amalgam of influences including Marilyn Manson, Kurt Cobain and Mike Patton.
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Tom Ashman - Album Review: Degenerate
24 Sep 2019 // review by Callum Wagstaff
Tom Ashman is a guitarist, singer-songwriter and music producer from the Orkney Islands in the far north of Scotland. Now based in New Zealand, he has created new material infusing elements of grunge and punk into a folk rock foundation.
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