Weekly Round Up: Friday 27th October

It’s been a short but exciting week of musical releases and tour announcements, the Auckland City Limits music festival announced its first huge lineup of artists for 2018 featuring headliners Grace Jones and Beck, and the Kapati Coast’s Coastella Music Festival shared its summer lineup of international and local artists. US jazz virtuoso Kamasi Washington is set to play a solo show at Auckland’s Powerstation in March, skate punks Pennywise are returning to Aotearoa for a ’20th Century’ anniversary show, and Australian pop-rock dynamo Alex Cameron will be playing in New Zealand for the first time in February.

We had a chat with US electronic singer and producer Nite Jewel ahead of next week’s shows in Aotearoa, and announced the return of US songwriter Mount Eerie who’ll be playing an intimate Auckland gig in January. Badbadnotgood shared a single with Future Islands’ singer Samuel T. Herring, and Fever Ray aka Karin Dreijer from The Knife dropped her excellent long-awaited sophomore album.

It’s been a great week for live shows, you can check out our pics from The Dillinger Escape Plan’s final New Zealand tour, psychedelic folk artist Arthur Ahbez’ album launch at the King's Arms Tavern, and snaps from the superstar-laden Friday Jams concert which featured Craig David, Kelis, Sean Paul and more. Local dream-folk artists French For Rabbits also announced a new round of NZ tour dates which you can see here.

Local highlights included Dunedin cold wave artist Embedded Figures' chilling new album, Auckland electronic producer Totems' self-titled new record, collaborative tracks from Auckland hip hop artists Cleophus and Lightskinjohn (who has also dropped a new album), and the catchy debut recordings from Auckland indie-rock group Water.

Our Caught Live feature for the week features recent visitor Memphis singer-songwriter Julien Baker whose new album Turn Out The Lights is out today. Here’s a clip of Baker performing her song ‘Appointments’ on A Prairie Home Companion…

WEEKEND GIG PICKS:

Friday

Auckland: Whammyfest: Disasteradio, sere, Heavy + More - Whammy Bar
Auckland: AC Freazy, Winston Surfshirt, DUAL - REC
Wellington: Heavy Chest, Alberon, Jim Essef - Raglan Roast
Wellington: Cave Circles, Borrowed CS, Mongo Skato - Caroline
Christchurch: The Beths - darkroom
Christchurch: Delaney Davidson - Isaac Theatre
Dunedin: Milpool, Sewage + More - Crown Hotel

Saturday

Auckland: Whammyfest: Silicon, Yoko Zuna, Echo Ohs + More - Whammy Bar
Auckland: Openside, Foley, Altered Blondes - The Tuning Fork
Wellington: Slow, Namesake, ThirtySomethings - Caroline
Wellington: Anika Moa - San Fran
Christchurch: Nadia Reid - Black Estate
Dunedin: Jenny Mitchell, Sophie Mashlan - Zanzibar

Head over to our Gig Guide for more listings!!!

NEW TRACKS: