DateMonthYear - EP Review: The Exodus Suite
22 May 2021 // review by malexa
The metamorphosis of the genesis of Exodus into The Exodus Suite while not quite of Biblical proportions is nevertheless on a grand scale. These five degrees of separation, with accompanying videos (the final installment – which is on its way) might share the same source material but, as always, DateMonthYear founder Trevor  Faville twists and shape-shifts with an informed sense of musical invention.
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Album Review: Blood & Wires Volume One
13 May 2021 // review by malexa
It’s still very much a brave new world when it comes to releasing music with its ever diminishing returns for physical product and the pecuniary stranglehold the major streaming services have on the industry. That’s why Tauranga-based boutique label Blood & Wires deserves a huge thumbs-up for its innovative and down-to-earth but wildly musically ambitious launch.
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Mark de Clive-Lowe - EP Review: Midnight Snacks Vol.1
16 Apr 2021 // review by malexa
Mark de Clive-Lowe’s musical palette has always been so refreshing engaging and diverse that each new release is like receiving a care package – you don’t know what’s inside but you know you’ll find comfort in it. The Los Angeles-based Kiwi musician, DJ and night club and record label owner has been particularly busy in the last few years with albums and EPs ranging from the chillingly melodious jazz quartet outing Live At The Blue Whale, the steamingly funky club party Church Sessions with various cohorts and the conceptual Heritage I and II, which celebrated his bi-cultural heritage (he is half-Japanese).
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Mecuzine - Single Review: Blue Skies
15 Mar 2021 // review by malexa
The slim-line edition of Mecuzine - brothers Joseph and Tony Johns – seems to have gained more than it might have seemingly lost. Blues Skies is the second single released since five became two and it’s another brooding, sonic masterpiece with an but almost tragically self-effacing punch line: “She wanted him to stay/Instead she got me/What an unlucky break”.
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Naircol - Single Review: Turbo Outrun
04 Feb 2021 // review by malexa
In an interview with Naircol, following the release of his debut album Isolate late last year, he put collaborative ventures at the top of his wish list. It seems Santa Claus came calling in the form of Canadian producer Tokyo Rat, the result of which is the dynamic driving anthem Turbo Outrun.
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Mahoney Harris - Single Review: The Shifting of the Light
19 Nov 2020 // review by malexa
There's an evocative image conjured up early on in The Shifting of the Light that beautifully illustrates the underlying theme of letting go. In referring to "paradise ducks made for life returning to their bowers time after time" singer-songwriter Mahoney Harris might well be talking about 'soul-mates' or a similarly intimate relationship that felt as if it was meant to last but didn't.
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Naircol - Interview with Naircol
30 Oct 2020 // interview by malexa
As a sonic explorer and sci fi fan, it’s apt to suggest that Matt Hennessey is "boldly going where no man has gone before". His 'starship' goes by the name Naircol and his debut album Isolate is a starburst of energy and mystery that probes themes of isolation and hallucination.
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Lou'ana - Album Review: Moonlight Madness
29 Oct 2020 // review by malexa
The official release date for Lou'ana's debut album is October 30. Whether by design or accident, it’s serendipitous.
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Naircol - Album Review: Isolate
16 Oct 2020 // review by malexa
Naircol is Tauranga-based synthesiser whizz Matt Hennessey. I like that it is an anagram of clarion because this is quite the impressive calling card.
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Stretch - Album Review: Our Dreams Are Changing
30 Sep 2020 // review by malexa
Anthony Stretch’s debut album Bury All Horses was one of the most poignant, lyrically honest and captivating albums of 2017. It was a 'dark horse', so to speak, forged in loss and loneliness, and at times a sense of anguish as he contemplated the direction of his life beyond the clouds that seemed as if they would never lift.
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Social Shun - Album Review: 7/10 of A Fridge
29 Sep 2020 // review by malexa
It’s always eye-opening when you come across an artist for the first time and discover that they already have a body of work that’s never been on your radar. Such is the case with Waikato-based sound explorer and experimentalist Jason Longhurst aka Social Shun, who has released a steady stream of albums – five in all – since The Garden of Sweden in 2014.
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Arli Liberman - Soundtrack Review: Savage
17 Sep 2020 // review by malexa
Arli Liberman is a natural fit for a movie score. As anyone who has listened to his three solo albums - Arli Liberman, Fata Morgana and Allegra will have noted, the Israel-born guitarist has a flair for visceral, beautifully textured and other-worldly soundscapes.
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Kate Owen - Interview with Kate Owen
04 Sep 2020 // interview by malexa
It’s been said that extra-ordinary people are simply ordinary people who put the extra into whatever they do. Kate Owen certainly fits that description.
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Echo Children - Single Review: Our Parents Fixed It All
01 Sep 2020 // review by malexa
With the beguiling This Was Our Fault EP and the bitter-sweetness of Flowers still lingering, Echo Children are proving as alluring as they are elusive to define on their latest single, Our Parents Fixed It All. That might be because of the melting pot of nationalities – Amanda Larsson (Sweden), Niamh O'Flynn (Canada) and Oliver Young (Scotland) – that gives them such a sense of other-worldiness, beautifully infused in songs that sparkle like rare pop gems tinged with the earthiness of country and folk.
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Riqi Harawira - Single Review: Suffering
25 Aug 2020 // review by malexa
Riqi Harawira has made his calling an open book that has dealt with his personal experience of addiction and mental health challenges. His latest single Suffering, is his most powerful statement yet, precisely and eloquently encapsulating aspects of the recovery journey.
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Lee Martin - Single/Video Review: Falling Down
20 Aug 2020 // review by malexa
Now is the time Lee Martin was due to take a trip to the US.Covid has scuttled those plans and, instead, she’s released the stunning single Falling Down (and 360-degree music video) from her Lost Girl EP, which came out last year.
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Chris Bates - Single Review: Find A Way Feat. Jarna
15 Aug 2020 // review by malexa
Big ups to the multi-genre production team of EDY for this inventive, crisp and clear production take on contemporary RnB. They’ve already hit the sweet spot with rising star and recent university graduate Chris Bates, with Say The Word and have done it again on his latest single Find A Way, featuring Jarna.
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Jeramiah Ross / Module - Album Review: Infinity Forever Part 1 – Time (The Studio Sessions)
12 Aug 2020 // review by malexa
For a time, it appeared Jeramiah Ross might have put Module into permanent hibernation after the release of his last official album Imagineering in 2013. The arrival of the first instalment in the Infinity Forever trilogy puts paid to that theory in no uncertain terms.
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Gareth Thomas - Single Review: My Dog
09 Aug 2020 // review by malexa
Gareth Thomas has always had a knack with words and a persuasive way of weaving them into appealingly off-kilter pop songs. Think back to the days of Goodshirt and the delicately spun and woozy Sophie, and Fazerdaze's churning guitar epic Misread or the gentle rush of The Google Song from his 2010 debut solo album Lady Alien.
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PRINS - EP Review: Magnetic
03 Aug 2020 // review by malexa
If 2019 was the year when BENEE ruled the New Zealand pop charts, then 2020 could well be the year of another emerging talent, PRINS. It’s would be a bit cute to add an -ess, as in PRINC-ess, but, nevertheless, the Christchurch based singer and songwriter has the style and substance to wear the mantle of dance pop princess and wear it well.
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Ben Hazlewood - Album Review: Bloodline
27 Jul 2020 // review by malexa
Ben Hazlewood is a songwriter for those big moments that we all encounter when we fall in and out of love. For all the potential for joy, intimacy, belonging and fulfilment, when things fall apart there’s also the potential for deception, heartbreak, bewilderment and sadness.
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Gramsci - Interview with Paul McLaney
06 Jul 2020 // interview by malexa
Paul McLaney is one of New Zealand's most prolific artists. As a case in point, last year he released a new The Impending Adorations album, a collaboration with Jakob guitarist Jeff Boyle and a single with his "live" band Her Own Medicine.
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Compilation Review: Home Alone: Winter 2020
02 Jul 2020 // review by malexa
Wellington boutique label Home Alone has developed an exceptional roster of artists since it announced itself to the world in 2006. And while the creative backbone of the label has always been the triumvirate of Timothy Blackman, who actually launched the label in Dunedin with his debut EP, Lake South and French For Rabbits' Brooke Singer, it has expanded its repertoire and reach with such as internationalists Helena Massey and Shenondoah Davis.
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Ignatia : Rising - Single Review: You Found Me Too
03 Jun 2020 // review by malexa
The retooled Ignatia : Rising continue to surprise with their latest release - a quiet stunner, which is perhaps a reflection of these times when we have all been forced to look deep within ourselves. After three singles that made it almost impossible to pigeon-hole their style or swagger, You Found Me Too is an acoustic ballad "an ode to unconditional love".
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Jackie Bristow - Single Review: Blue Moon Rising
11 Feb 2020 // review by malexa
For those who have followed the career of Stateside-based, but born and bred in New Zealand, songwriter Jackie Bristow there's an unintentional (as far as I am aware) poignancy about the release of her latest single Blue Moon Rising. It signals a slight wind shift, a change in musical direction, bought about by the musical influences she's been surrounded by since moving from Austin, Texas, to Nashville, Tennessee, in 2017.
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Tattletale Saints - Album Review: Dancing Under The Dogwoods
20 Jan 2020 // review by malexa
There has always been a simple charm to Tattletale Saints ever since they announced themselves with the release of their debut album How Red Is The Blood in 2013. That album deservedly took out a Tui for best Folk Album at the New Zealand Music Awards the following year and while the duo of Cy Winstanley and Vanessa McGowan no longer call New Zealand home – they are based in Nashville, Tennessee – their OE has certainly broadened their musical horizons and palette.
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PolarisRadio - Interview with PolarisRadio
29 Dec 2019 // interview by malexa
PolarisRadio has been transmitting music for the past five years under various guises. The man behind the moniker is Dean Moroney, from Napier in the Hawke’s Bay and his speciality is synthwave.
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Devils Elbow - EP Review: ID
16 Dec 2019 // review by malexa
Hawke’s Bay alternative rock band Devils Elbow have been turning heads since their debut single KO in 2010. There’s been a few line-up changes since then and it’s been a five-year wait since their last EP, Golden Flame, but vocalist and guitarist Alec Withers has always had the kind of charisma and stage presence that was never going to remain a state secret for long.
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Tattletale Saints - Interview with Tattletale Saints
07 Dec 2019 // interview by malexa
The award-winning duo Tattletale Saints, Cy Winstanley and Vanessa McGowan, will be performing at the Auckland Folk Festival in 2020. They won a Tui at the New Zealand Music Awards in 2014 for their debut album, and then departed these shores before settling up stateside in Nashville, one of the music capitals of the world.
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Superturtle - Single Review: Wait For It
30 Nov 2019 // review by malexa
I couldn’t have put it better. In the video that accompanies the release of Wait For It from Darren McShane’s newly invigorated Superturtle, there’s a comment posted by ArapuniWizard: “Another good song from the Birkenhead hit factory!
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Lasair - Album Review: Lessons
26 Nov 2019 // review by malexa
Lasair is quite an unusual name so a quick Google search reveals some interesting options. Firstly, it’s old Irish for flame and then there are the various references to a laser diode aerosol particle counter.
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TOI - Interview with Tunes of I
23 Nov 2019 // interview by malexa
December is almost upon us and that means the season of summer music festivals, winery tours and new sounds for the backyard barbecue. An early contender for a party favourite is Get Up, the new single by Wellington dub rockers Tunes of I.
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Chris and the Kingsmen - Album Review: Regular Joe
19 Nov 2019 // review by malexa
It’s been a while coming but Chris Ward could well be New Zealand’s answer Jimmy Barnes – a genuine working class hero. His debut album is ostensibly a solo record but not without the blood, sweat and tears of the Kingsmen, a band of merry men including Chris Close, David Cloughley, Frankie Daly and Ben Crosson, who co-wrote three of the tracks, boosted by more merry men and women, Aaron Boot, Josh Saville, Ben Lill, producer TeMatera Smith and backing vocalists Jodi Wareing, Tumanako Timirau, Lucy Hiku and Lissel and Magau Stewart.
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Ryan Kershaw - Interview with Ryan Kershaw
10 Nov 2019 // interview by malexa
Ryan Kershaw has done unspeakable things to the guitar. He’s made it wail and scream.
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Secret Knives - Album Review: Snuff
05 Nov 2019 // review by malexa
The knives have been sharpened and the secret is out – Ash Smith hasn’t “snuffed” it.  He’s just spent the best part of a decade redefining himself as Secret Knives, the alias he uses to channel his creative muse,  and refining the follow-up to 2010’s low fi pop high-flier Affection.
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The Impending Adorations - Album Review: Allies
23 Oct 2019 // review by malexa
Paul McLaney is one of those artists who never fails to get me where I’m most vulnerable, least alive and yet open to the possibility of being transported somewhere beyond myself. I’ve been listening to Allies, his latest release as Impending Adorations, while attempting to rediscover a new purpose in an old life.
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