Music month’s young blood
Even the most time honoured institutions need an injection of fresh blood to stay relevant – New Zealand Music Month is no exception.
Now in its 21st year, the annual celebration of the Kiwi sound has been looking a little peaky of late. We say an injection of young blood is what this tired old patient needs to get the juices flowing again.
We’re not saying hiff out the Dave Dobbyn and sell your Crowded House CDs, but we are saying the world is getting smaller, and that means the socalled ‘‘Kiwi sound’’ is changing, sucking up influences from farther afield than ever before.
Our picks for the five freshest music donors currently on the market reflect that, covering everything from alt-folk to pop to the ‘‘hushed and dreamy’’ sounds of Yumi Zouma that have been wafting up from the deep south.
Marlon Williams isn’t exactly a young gun in terms of experience. He’s been wowing us with his deeply soulful voice and lyrical storytelling for nearly 10 years now, but his well-stamped passport says he’s still only 27.
He has already won multiple awards and his second album, released earlier this year, has been a well-received hit.
The Lyttleton singer is taking his uniquely gothic-Kiwi sound around the world, and with a song featured in the Netflix culthit series Wild, Wild Country, he’s clearly not slowing down any time soon. – Bridget Jones
We’ve always loved our singersongwriters, but they’ve never been as glamorous and untouchable as Aldous Harding, nor as innovative.
Harding’s second album Party is so fresh it just won the Taite Music Prize for creativity, but more than that, it’s carved a whole new path for Kiwi music, opening our ears and hearts to alt-folk unlike anything before it.
At first it’s Harding’s mellifluous vocals that really capture your imagination. They you get lured in by the lyrics, at first impenetrable and strange, they seem to blossom in ever more profound, touching ways with each listen. United, it’s a sound that could influence Kiwi music in a whole new direction. – Kylie Klein Nixon
Drax Project are as fresh as it gets. Chosen by super pop stars Ed Sheeran and Lorde to open at their New Zealand concerts, and featured on the album of US rap star Famous Dex, they even had their own personalised cartoons for the video release. Then they released their first song Woke Up Late, which peaked 17 on the New Zealand Music Charts and certified platinum – all in the last year. Not bad for a group that started out started out busking as a two-man band on Wellington’s Courtney Place.
The now four piece are experimenting with pop, jazz and R&B and turning their skills into some perfect sounds that are sure to influence the New Zealand pop music scene before they become international heartthrobs. – Dani McDonald.
Wellington trio Hans Pucket’s latest release, Eczema, would be a perfect summer soundtrack – if only it hadn’t come out just in time for winter.
Comprising twins Oliver and Callum Devlin and drummer Jonathan Nott, they make sunny, clever pop songs that hark back to some classic Kiwi acts like The Mint Chicks.
Go listen to their stuff so you can say you were a fan before they went big. – Jack van Beynen
A band that’s now far bigger overseas than they are in New Zealand, the original trio Yumi Zouma has morphed seemingly seamlessly into a quartet.
Originally formed by a group of Christchurch flatmates who scattered to the four winds after the 2010-11 earthquakes, the formation line-up of Charlie Ryder, Kim Pflaum and Josh Burgess were initially famous for creating their distinctive sound by sharing files via dropbox while they lived in separate countries. Pflaum has now departed, replaced Fleetwood Mac-like by the duo of Christie Sampson and Sam Perry. – James Croot