Music News

Weekly Round Up: Friday 9th March

Friday 9th March, 2018 4:39PM

We started the musical week with a bang, our team of keen reviewers descended upon Auckland City Limits 2018 to bask in the godlike presence of visiting pop legend Grace Jones and more, check out our in-depth coverage of the festival event HERE, alongside a gallery of jaw-dropping images by tireless photographers Ngamihi Pawa and Connor Crawford.

Local expert on all things rockin' John Baker tracked down Dion Lunadon of garage punk legends The D4 and Dolf de Borst of beloved Cambridge upstarts The Datsuns for a career-spanning conversation ahead of this week's joint North Island shows, you can check out that great read HERE.

We were stoked to premiere a number of significant local sounds this week. Auckland songwriter Vincent H.L. (of Hang Loose, Magic Factory and more) unveiled his laconic solo debut single, psychedelic dance duo Ghost Wave dropped the latest in their ongoing series of single + remixes packages, and Auckland-via-Texas post-rock artists My Education shared an abstract video work filmed at Huia Dam ahead of this month's shows at SXSW.

The week's notable tour announcements included Australian multi-instrumentalist Tash Sultana is heading back to Aotearoa for a nationwide tour this July following her winning performance at Auckland City Limits, Brisbane electronic sound explorers Scraps and Worldpeacesanta are playing shows throughout New Zealand this month, and Wellington jangle-pop artists girlboss will play around the country in support of their latest single 'Body Con'.

The shortlist of finalists for this year's Taite Music Prize was announced yesterday and already has tongues wagging. Local release highlights for the week include a hair-raisingly energetic tune from Auckland legends Hallelujah Picassos, a piano-driven dance single from Auckland duo Madly (Dahnu Graham and Suren Unka of Beach Pigs), two cinematic tracks from Wellington electronic artists Groeni, the dreamy latest single from Dunedin dup Astro Children, and a striking new video from Auckland rap heavyweight David Dallas.

Our Caught Live video for this week features Auckland fuzz-pop geniuses The Beths, who'll be tearing up the stage at this weekend's Future City Festival 2018 in Hamilton. Check out great recent footage of the band playing a live rendition of their thematically appropriate tune 'Future Me Hates Me' on 95bFM's Freak The Sheep show for Live & Direct...