Schkeuditzer Kreuz 'No Life Left' Debut New Zealand Tour Announced

Schkeuditzer Kreuz is the sonically scorched industrial synth crust project of New South Wales-based Aotearoa punk stalwart Kieren Hills (S*M*U*T, Murder Disco X, Death Church, Septic Noise Grinder), who chatted with us HERE when his group Dark Horse bombarded local gig-goers in 2018. Having just wrapped up an extensive EU tour, Hills is returning to our shores to celebrate Schkeuditzer Kreuz's in-the-red new second long player No Life Left via Bad Habit Records, playing headline dates in Tāmaki Makaurau, Pōneke and Ōtautahi this coming January. With even more recordings on the way, experience the mind-mashingly raw, synth-punk power of Schkeuditzer Kreuz touring Aotearoa for the very first time and get your ears around No Life Left below. Hills explained how Schkeuditzer Kreuz arose from his previous work with S*M*U*T...

“I started playing in punk bands around New Zealand in about 1987, and in ‘91 I moved to Wellington and joined S*M*U*T. That was the first band I was in that toured and released music, and that’s when I really got hooked, setting off on the trajectory that I’m still on now. We toured and played with a wide variety of bands: from punk and hardcore through to goth, experimental and industrial. That’s how it was then: a lot of crossover between different scenes and genres. The first time I recorded with S*M*U*T, we went to The Stomach in Palmerston North, and recorded with Claire Pannell. Claire was playing in Froit Head at the time, and we stayed at her place. That weekend, she introduced me to a whole world of weird and wonderful music. That marks the point when I discovered the wonders of industrial sample music: a moment in time that I can connect directly to what I’m doing now. Between touring and playing with bands like CeLL and Invisible Dead, and seeing acts like Children’s Television Workshop, to moments like meeting Claire – that’s when the existence of industrial music really started to make an impact on me, and planted the seed from which Schkeuditzer Kreuz has grown.

I’m just so excited to see old friends and show them what I’m doing – to play in cities I lived in 30 years ago, and share my noise with them, and to see what people are doing there. New Zealand has always had amazing and inventive bands, and I’m really excited to see what people are doing there now."

Schkeuditzer Kreuz - 'No Life Left' NZ Tour 2024

Friday 26th January - darkroom, Christchurch w/ Placenta Cookbook, Wilieu
Saturday 27th January - Valhalla, Wellington w/ Forced Starvation, Fog, Narrow Utility Function
Sunday 28th January - Whammy Backroom, Auckland w/ Malevolence, Creassault, Vihil

Tickets available HERE via UTR

Experience the onslaught of Schkeuditzer Kreuz's 'Second Life', from No Life Left...

Press release:

Fresh from an extensive tour of Europe (Sept-Oct 2023), expat NZ punk veteran Kieren Hills (Dark Horse, S*M*U*T, Murder Disco X, Death Church, Septic Noise Grinder, et al) finally brings the Industrial Synth Crust of SCHKEUDITZER KREUZ back to NZ, where he first discovered noisy and experimental industrial music as a kid.

Now based in NSW, Australia, Kieren is touring everywhere and anywhere in support of the second full-length SCHKEUDITZER KREUZ album, ‘NO LIFE LEFT’: an absolutely crushing slab of dark, abrasive, apocalyptic, post-Industrial music, with unique roots in the crust punk, hardcore and d-beat music scenes of Australia, New Zealand, and Germany.