Music News

Weekly Roundup: Friday 4th October

C.C. / Friday 4th October, 2019 5:07PM

Local music news was dominated by Lyttelton songwriting superstar Aldous Harding's much-deserved win at the 2019 APRA Silver Scroll Awards, taking away the highly coveted main prize with her song 'The Barrel'. We headed along to catch the glamorous sights and sometimes polarising sounds of this year's presentation ceremony at Tāmaki Makaurau's Spark Arena, dive into our rundown of Wednesday evening's star-studded event right here.

Announcement highlights included US electronic figurehead Flying Lotus is bringing his bleeding edge Flying Lotus 3D experience Auckland Town Hall this summer, California stoner rock veterans Nebula will be blazing it up in Auckland and Wellington in early 2020, Melbourne contemporary folk duo The Maes are returning to our shores to play a seven date summer tour of Aotearoa, and Melbourne DJ and production wizard Billy Hoyle is visiting Tāmaki Makaurau this month, with supports including Tom Scott and Julien Dyne. On the local artist tip, Ōtautahi's Ben Woods is playing a spring release tour with band for his debut album PUT, and Tāmaki Makaurau "goth glam grunge psych" unit Shoddy are touring their upcoming Someday We'll Fix It EP across the North Island in late October and November. If it's summer festy action you're craving, Splore revealed their kaleidoscopic initial bill of artists from across the globe descending upon Tapapakanga Regional Park in early 2020, and Eyegum Music Collective's annual Welcome To Nowhere festival announced a diverse bill of rising artists from throughout Aotearoa for next year's Whanganui outdoor event.

Our features included Christie Simpson of Christchurch dream-poppers Yumi Zouma's conversation with Canadian indie rock fave Mac DeMarco, who's returning to Aotearoa for a special January headline event with Fazerdaze - dive into their interview here. Canterbury's Mousey aka Sarena Close today unveiled her keenly anticipated debut album Lemon Law and is kicking off her first ever tour of Australasia tonight at Raglan's Yot Club - we caught up with the rapidly rising songwriter, who generously revealed some of the sonic inspirations behind the new record here. We also got ahold of currently touring guitar-pop whizz-kids Hans Pucket, who lifted the lid on their upcoming musical ambitions right here. The fourth episode of our ongoing live in-venue video series UTR Caught Live was unveiled this week too, featuring a super catchy, never before heard song by rising RnB / neo-soul star Villette, performed at Tāmaki Makaurau's Whammy Bar – experience the latest episode right here.

Our Caught Live clip for the week features Southern Californian skate punk veterans Lagwagon, returning to Aotearoa in March 2020 to play two fist-pumping headline gigs in Auckland and Wellington. Get to grips with their classic single 'May 16' – the anthem to an entire generation of Tony Hawk Pro Skater 2 fans – via electrifying 2010 live footage of the band in action at Amsterdam's The Melkweg...