The Spinoff presents the premiere of buzzed-about Auckland post-punk band Daffodils’ new music video ‘Boys’. Daffodils songwriter and frontperson Theo Spike Salmon says: I wrote ‘Boys’ two years ago, around the end of high school. We’ve revised stuff, and played around with slightly different structuring, but it’s honestly not changed much at all. When I … Read more
Flying Nun’s rightful place in New Zealand history has been secured with the acquisition of the legendary label’s master tapes by the Alexander Turnbull Library. If Alexander Turnbull was around these days, he’d be your classic bearded, single-origin-coffee-and-fancy-toast-loving Wellington chap. Had he been at his peak in the early 1980s, on the other hand, he … Read more
RNZ’s Jana Whitta talks to Sydney post-punk band Mere Women about their new album and women’s experiences over generations. Sydney based post-punk outfit Mere Women make loud music that takes you on a journey through big open spaces. Their third album Big Skies was released on Poison City last year, receiving critical acclaim from the Herald Sun … Read more
Music editor and former member of Die! Die! Die! Henry Oliver talks to his ex-bandmates about making music together for nearly 20 years. I met Andrew Wilson and Michael (we called him Mikey) Prain in the summer of 2003-04. I’d seen their old band Rawer open for Trans Am, if my memory serves, and they … Read more
All week this Christmas week we countdown the best six books of 2017. Number four: Art Sex Music, the memoir by musician Cosey Fanni Tutti, whom reviewer Kiran Dass describes as ‘a staunch, fearless woman with backbone’. “I don’t like acceptance. It makes me think I’ve done something wrong.” – Cosey Fanni Tutti. In the last … Read more
Alea Balzer talks to journalist, critic and experimental music obsessive David Keenan about his debut novel This Is Memorial Device. When is life the equivalent of music, except in memory, except in dreams? Can you be alive for the moment in the moment or is it always retrospectively that you understand the magic of it? In … Read more