My music taste over the past year has changed a wee bit, and
I am loving music that harks back to the 80's, and Ha the Unclear do just that.
Their eccentric sound is filled with unconventional retro alt-pop
music making them the perfect backing track to the New Zealand summer, pity we
have just come into Autumn!
These guys are the kind of band I can see playing at summer
festivals all season long. The perfect band to accompany a day spent with fresh
green grass under one's feet, the sun shining and a drink of choice in hand.
Now I can totally understand that these guys sound may not
be for everyone, but if you are into ambitious musicians creating music of
texture and uncontainable and infectious tunes, then I suggest giving them a
listen.
Their track Wallace Line is filled with vitality and enthusiasm. I really can’t fault it to be honest and I have to say this has to be my most favourite single I have reviewed on muzic.net. I am gutted I won’t have the opportunity to see them live on their current tour, as I can tell they will be just as good, potentially more so when listened to live! I am now off to listen to more of their ridiculously catchy tunes, see you on the other side!
Review written by Ria Loveder
Ha the Unclear (an anagram for Nuclear Heath) is a band from the Gothic harbour town of ?tepoti/Dunedin, New Zealand.
After recording a run of lo-fi EPs, the band migrated northward to Auckland. While student radio peppered the national airwaves with singles like Growing Mould and Secret Lives of Furniture the band soon garnered wider reception with performances on prime-time TV shows 7 Days and Seven Sharp. More success followed with Invisible Lines reaching #9 on the NZ Album Charts and 2020 elevator anthem Strangers hitting #1 on the Radioscope Alternative Airplay Charts. Accompanying this, the band released a series of mind-bending music videos featuring a room full of furniture meddling in the life of their owner (Secret Lives of Furniture), an astronaut crash landing on a foreign planet (Kosmonavt), and the emergency delivery of a baby puppet in a broken elevator (Strangers). The latter track was later released on the Threads EP alongside the Sylvia Massy co-produced Julius Caesar and time travel lament Supermarket Queues.
Now signed with Paris-based label Think Zik!, the band has been warmly embraced by French audiences with playlisting on significant national radio including Europe 2, FIP, RTL 2, and France Inter and a milieu of college radio taste harbingers. 2023’s Handprint Negatives EP was recently released in the EU to critical acclaim with French press describing it as "a sweet madness" (Rolling Stone), “a real triumph…maybe confirmation of a major band” (Benzine) and a “spontaneous enthusiasm with a feeling of freshness” (Revue Pop Moderne).