Music News

Weekly Roundup: Friday 28th September

Friday 28th September, 2018 4:48PM

It's been a red hot week of local and international music news, and we're not just talking about US rapper (and recent visitor) Lil Xan's Flamin' Hot Cheetos incident. The week kicked off with a trio of huge hip hop announcements - Californian singer, rapper and producer Anderson .Paak and his band The Free Nationals are returning to Aotearoa this summer for a headline show at Auckland's Logan Campbell Centre, Washington rapper Oddisee is heading back our way for a run of shows in December, and the inaugural Auckland leg of Australasia's FOMO By Night summer festival was announced, with US pop icon Nicki Minaj, Florida hip hop artist Lil Pump and Colombian-American singer / songwriter Kali Uchis heading the star-studded bill at Auckland's Spark Arena this January.

More notable announcements included Los Angeles dance-pop stylists Drab Majesty are hitting Aotearoa for four summer shows this January, Auckland pop-punk hitmakers Elemeno P are reuniting for a seven date spring tour in October and November, and Auckland tunesmith Anthonie Tonnon is embarking on a very special off-the-beaten-path nationwide tour, which will see the artist performing in venues located "via some of the world’s most beautiful and miraculous passenger rail lines." The the WOMAD New Zealand 2019 festival of world music, arts and dance revealed Angelique Kidjo, The Silkroad Ensemble and TEEKS are the first acts announced for the three day event in March, and a mind-boggling lineup of disco icons will perform at A Summer’s Day Disco in January, with The Jacksons, Kool & the Gang, The Pointer Sisters, Village People, Sister Sledge and Sound Of The Supremes all set to appear at ASB Baypark, Mount Maunganui. On top of all that excitement, the Vodafone New Zealand Music Awards revealed the finalists for this year's glitzy prize-giving affair - you can check out the full list right here.

Australian cow-punk legends The Johnnys have hit Aotearoa for an extremely rare five date national tour this week, we caught up with Slim Doherty who reflected on his five favourite clips from the long-running barnstorming group. We were also thrilled to feature a conversation with visiting Canadian audio-visual artist Nicolas Bernier ahead of tonight's performance at the first ever Aotearoa Audio Arts festival in Wellington, and premiered the elegant and heartfelt debut single from windy city indie-pop trio namesake.

It was a straight up killer week for local releases, with Unknown Mortal Orchestra announcing a new instrumental album recorded during their Sex & Food sessions due out in October, Auckland multi-instrumentalist Julien Dyne dropped the shape-shifting lead single from his upcoming album Teal, Hamilton punks Contenders unleashed a powerful singalong single, singer and producer Tei. shared a six track collection of futuristic beats, haunting melodies and powerful lyricism, and Wellington psychedelic four-piece Earth To Zena unveiled their debut collection crammed full of fuzzed-out melodies, spacey synths and ethereal vocals. Waikato surf-rockers The Hollow Grinders lifted the lid on a monstrous wave-riding collection titled Surfin' Taniwha, Wellington's Tidal Rave shared an infectious garage-pop tune perfectly summing up a great night out in the capital, and South Auckland producer Mapili dropped their debut album of beat-driven musical mutations Black Sheep via underground Tāmaki Makaurau label / collective The Grow Room.

Our Caught Live video for the week features Wellington-based alt-country ensemble Eb & Sparrow, who are sadly playing their final tour for the foreseeable future in early October, rounding things off with a special trio of North Island shows. Check out superb footage of bandleader Ebony Lamb with Jason Johnson playing their song 'Kimbolton' from 2015's Sun / Son in a house in Wellington's Melrose overlooking Lyall Bay, for the ROAM project...