Music News

Weekly Roundup: Friday 26th April

Friday 26th April, 2019 5:10PM

We wrapped up a mega short week punctuated by national holidays with a bang, as Lyttelton superstar Aldous Harding today unveiled Designer, the follow up to her globally acclaimed, 2017 Taite Music Prize-winning album Party. You can read UTR Assistant Editor Annabel Kean's candid and insightful interview with the artist about her hugely anticipated new record right here.

Upcoming events to be hyped for include Auckland dance-pop collective Leisure are gearing up to steamroll across Aotearoa with their new album Twister this winter, the fifth annual Double Whammy Festival announced a lineup of local faves for the Worn Out Collective's two night affair, featuring sensational singer of songs Wayne Anderson along with Ary & the Jansens, Aw B, Bad Timing, Dbldbl, Swallow The Rat and more. NZ-born, London-based neo-soul artist Jordan Rakei is returning to our shores for two August shows touring his upcoming Ninja Tune album Origin, and Detroit electronic dance music titan Omar S is heading back our way for an Auckland headline event teed up for Galatos in June.

We had the privilege of premiering two significant local releases this week. We caught up with Auckland songwriter Lisa Crawley (who's back in New Zealand after five years in Melbourne) about her very catchy new single 'Girl With No Name' and upcoming theatre production Once, and featured the dazzling lead single from Nick Buckton aka Sidekicknick's first record release in over a decade, which is in fact a double album drop – The Red Planet Plan and The Blue Planet Plan. We also had a quick yet illuminating chat with rising Auckland songwriter Sophie Mashlan, who's currently making a splash with her just-launched debut album Perfect Disaster on Tuesday, and is in the midst of an extensive nationwide release tour happening across Aotearoa until mid-May.

Our Caught Live clip for the week is a hefty chunk of guitar mayhem to light a fire under your ass as you jump back into the weekend, featuring Montreal technical death metal masters Beyond Creation, who'll be pummelling local earholes with their North Island tour this May, playing in Auckland and Wellington alongside Pennsylvania string-scorchers Rivers Of Nihil. Experience a devastating taste of the heavy music virtuosos in full flight, with an absolutely mind-melting recent live clip of Beyond Creation playing 'In Adversity', from their 2018 studio album Algorythm...