Music News

Weekly Roundup: Friday 17th August

Friday 17th August, 2018 3:52PM

It was a landmark week for Aotearoa hip hop figurehead Tom Scott in the lead up to today's release of his new project Avantdale Bowling Club's self-titled debut album. He was kind enough to share with us five records that inspired his star-studded collection (plus a playlist of more favourites), dropped a short documentary exploring the ideas surrounding A.B.C., and spoke with Fluffy about the album and accompanying art exhibition happening this weekend at Auckland Central's CorpStudio. If you're in the area we recommend you head on down and take in a selection of images that inspired and were inspired by the album, check out some dope merch and catch a DJ set from one of the many talented local contributors - more info on the show can be found here.

Significant tour announcements for the week included US funk-metal legends Living Colour are returning to Aotearoa in December to play songs from their still-electrifying 1988 album Vivid, plus a selection of greatest hits. Auckland's The Other’s Way festival lifted the lid on their second lineup of artists set to play at the multi-venue event in late August - highlights include Anthonie Tonnon, Bad Friend, Eno x Dirty, High Beams (IllBaz + MELODOWNZ + Raiza Biza), Polyester, Purple Pilgrims, Two Farben and Kraus. Country and folk fans will revel in the announcement of this year's Southern Fork Americana Fest lineup featuring a raft of international and local Americana stars including Margo Price, Steve Gunn, Tony Joe White, Reb Fountain, Emily Fairlight and more at Auckland's South Pacific Tuning Fork in October. On top of all that, rising Atlanta hip hop star 6LACK is returning for his first New Zealand headline show at Auckland's Powerstation in October.

We were stoked to premiere Wellington anarcho-punks Unsanitary Napkin’s ear-bleeding six-track scorcher Orgasmic Capitalism, and were equally psyched to chat with the Japanese-American avant-pop star Mitski ahead of today's release of her excellent fifth studio album Be The Cowboy. We also had the privilege of sharing a conversation between Wellington songwriter Emily Fairlight and contributor Paul Taylor about her latest album Mother Of Gloom, ahead of this weekend's show at Auckland's Anthology Lounge.

Local highlights included the return of ex-pat psychedelic pop master Connan Mockasin, who shared the lead single and video from his third studio album Jassbusters, and teased the release of a five-part self-directed film project titled Bostyn ’n Dobsyn. Wellington’s buzziest trio The All Seeing Hand released a mind-melting video for their song ‘Lizard Brain’, their capital city contemporaries Groeni dropped a dazzling animated mind-bender for their track ‘Warborn’, Auckland cyber-pop duo Queen Neptune unveiled futuristic standalone tune ‘UtopiaPlus’, and trans-tasman punks Blame Thrower dropped a DIY audio-visual combo titled 'Best Friend’. Auckland hip hop artist Meer threw down a powerful two track EP titled Post Winter with local rap star JessB guesting on her song ‘Woah’, Wellington noise / metal duo Tuscoma dropped their debut collection Arkhitecturenominus, capital city hypnagogic pop / soul crew Heavy Chest unveiled their deeply-zoned HOMETURF EP, and super city power-violence / fastcore bruisers Bulk Bogan bought the ruckus with their debut collection Flex.

Our Caught Live video for the week features Melbourne musical icon Courtney Barnett, who is heading our way this month for shows in Auckland and Wellington in celebration of her new album Tell Me How You Really Feel. She recently spoke with local guitar-slinger Roy Irwin about that collection and lots more, and today has shared a generous selection of live material from that record filmed at Atlanta's Piedmont Park. Enjoy sunny footage of Barnett playing a dreamy version of her song 'Sunday Roast' below and head along Barnett's site for another nine (!) videos from the same session...