Music News

Weekly Round Up: Friday 20th January

Friday 20th January, 2017 4:20PM

This week has been pretty fruitful in terms of tour announcements. Alt-folk artist Nadia Reid announced a nine-date tour for April to celebrate the release of her sophomore album Preservation. Electro pioneer Egyptian Lover lined up a Splore sideshow for Wellington which will see him joined by Awesome Tapes From Africa. Speaking of sideshows, Aussie scallywags Cosmic Psychos revealed the date for an Auckland show while they're on these shores for Woodcock next month. Dirty Three drummer Jim White and Cretan lute player George Xylouris have locked in an Auckland date for March for their project Xylouris White. Melboune garage pop group Swim Team will be crossing the Tasman for four shows in mid-Feb. French blackgaze duo Alcest are coming this way for two performances in April. And desert rock luminary Brant Bjork will be tearing this up for two dates in May.

On the release front, some of the week's highlights included the amazing post-modern video from the Young Thug camp for his tune 'Wyclef Jean'. Gorillaz dropped their first single in six years which featured guest lyricist Benjamin Clementine. We were delighted to hear a new tune from psych-folk outfit Timber Timbre as they work towards releasing a new record. And we've been buzzing on the new single 'Transmission' from Brooklyn-based noise artist Pharmakon. We also we stoked to get our hands on the new Ep from Hamilton's purveyoprs of punk Wizz Kids (plus we got a wee interview in). And hot off the press is the debut EP from Christchurch duo New Dawn.

This week's Caught Live is a clip of UTR office faves X-Ray Fiends performing at Wine Cellar recently. We don't often share full-set clips but this one is too good...