I’ve been listening to their single Depression for many months now, and it was a joy to hear it played live. The band put on a great performance for an attentive crowd, with the three-piece sounding bigger than their parts predict, but look at the sound the White Stripes made. Like the White Stripes, they have tight musicianship, and their music is muscular.
Their songs came across as being flung at the crowd. The emotion in their lyrics is raw, their vocals are experimental and their performance was a balance of decisive professional talent and ease. Ease that perhaps comes from being part of the same rich music scene which I’ve been lucky enough to sample many times over, during my first year in Aotearoa.
Dead Little Penny have heaps of talent. They are authentic and have a beautiful electro-driven dirge sound. I look forward to seeing them again.
Dead Little Penny is the coming together of guitar-slinging vocalist and songwriter Hayley Smith, and drummer/synth player Simon Buxton, who create a soundscape of noisy textures, fizzing guitars and ambient synth, paired with catchy fuzz-pop melodies.
What originally began as a dreamy alt-country project, tracks from their self-titled EP received radio play, with the band fast becoming popular amongst musicians in Auckland’s underground country scene.
What seems like an unlikely change of genre, Hayley feels more at home writing with a broken drum machine and an electric guitar. As a teenager, she began making pop- punk and wall-of-sound music in her bedroom with a guitar gifted to her on her 13th birthday. Playing at beer-fuelled house parties in Central Auckland, Hayley became a regular gig-goer, fast drawn to favourites The Mint Chicks and Die! Die! Die!