A long and tough campaign

The British summer has been long, hot and stuffed with visiting New Zealand musicians. On almost any week punters could find Kiwi artists playing somewhere between Brighton and Aberdeen. And they weren't playing the dives that so many struggling bands sweat through: Bic Runga sold out Shepherd's Bush Empire, the Black Seeds packed Camden's majestic KoKo and Fat Freddy's Drop posted "house full" signs at the Brixton Academy (capacity 3500).

This suggests a Kiwi music invasion of Britain is under way.

Yet the wall of silence - or, more correctly, indifference - from British media towards these artists tells a different story: the punters attending the aforementioned gigs wear shorts and jandals, possess healthy complexions and shout "we love you Bic" in Antipodean accents.

The huge number of young New Zealanders living in Britain means certain Kiwi musicians can now treat it as they once did Sydney.

But after the creative explosion in New Zealand music of past years, it seems that local success will only carry acts so far. Overseas breakthroughs are rare - next week's New Zealand Music Awards has dropped the usual "International Achievement" category because of a lack of possible nominees.

Politically and culturally, New Zealand is routinely ignored by a British media that is undeniably nationalistic and seemingly resilient to much of what is going on in the wider world.

Which is extremely frustrating for the current crop of Kiwi musicians as Aotearoa is now producing more consistently engaging music than the British for the first time since those dizzy early days of Flying Nun. Fat Freddy's Drop are the most prominent example: no one in British music today offers a sound quite so soulful and enchanting.

But, beyond left-field BBC DJs Charlie Gillett and Giles Peterson, FFD can't get arrested here. When a Kiwi dub band are considered so outre only DJs who generally champion African and Latin music play 'em, it says plenty about the closing of the British mind.

Indeed, the only Kiwi band to achieve a major media profile here in recent decades were the Datsuns, their White Stripes connections found them initially welcomed into town on a wave of hype.

But hype rarely lasts and the Datsuns were summarily expelled from the court of cool by a British music press where every soundbite needs to be polished, every gesture rehearsed.

This may change with teenage Kiwi rockers the Checks as they have already attracted attention from weekly indie rock bible NME without even releasing an album.

NME's nod sparked a record company frenzy leading the North Shore youths to sign with independent label Full Time Hobby and shift to London. Whether the Checks will develop their promise beyond a few favourable gig reviews to the huge hype that launched the Datsuns is uncertain: NME coverage is determined by a mix of fortuitous timing, record company spending and PR spin.

As editors on newspapers and music magazines check NME for tips about what's hot, this means coverage can be widespread: in 2002 the Datsuns were feted in the Observer, Guardian, Mojo and Time Out. After this it's down to the ultimate litmus test: the audience. The Datsuns' debut album sold 25,000 copies in Britain.

Considering they'd featured on an NME front cover, those numbers signalled failure (the White Stripes shifted 200,000 of 2002's White Blood Cells in Britain) and the music business took note. The Datsuns' efforts to generate British interest in third album Smoke & Mirrors found them treated with disdain: at the height of their 2002 triumph they headlined the majestic Shepherd's Bush Empire, earlier this year they played the tiny (and grotty) Underworld.

The likes of Fat Freddy's and the Black Seeds face a more difficult proposition as they exist at the opposite end of the spectrum to what is being sold to the British public: whether Beatlesque pop (the Kooks, Kaiser Chiefs), druggy rockers (Babyshambles, Kasabian), stolid indie pub rock (Hard-Fi, the Ordinary Boys), limp arena rock (Coldplay, Keane), banal singer-songwriters (James Blunt, KT Tunstall) or gobsmackingly awful Brit hip-hop (the Streets, Lily Allen).

The multinationals who run the British music business, alongside conservative radio programmers and a powerful music press intent on serving up standard rock star stories, have combined to reduce the British musical diet to the utterly predictable. In a nation debating issues of multiculturalism, the music the British get to hear and read about remains strikingly one-dimensional.

Example: an acquaintance working for a label affiliated to EMI mentioned they were interested in acquiring Fat Freddy's publishing but didn't want to sign the band to a recording contract. Why so? "No one buys reggae here," he said. "But we could sell their music for syncing which is why we want the publishing." Syncing involves the snatches of sound bought for TV advertisements, film soundtracks and such. Fat Freddy's, he noted, might bubble well in the background of an ad.

This may sound a harsh devaluation of artistry but it's a lesson in music biz real-politik. As syncing can generate vast sums of money and help break tunes not heard on radio, musicians must now consider it.

"There's a couple of reasons Fat Freddy's and the Black Seeds don't enjoy a higher profile," says Anton Hiscock, who runs British press campaigns for both bands. "Unless you are commercially visible, ie enjoying a Top 10 hit or getting championed as this week's future of music, it's difficult to get a press profile.

"It's frustrating beyond the point of endurance - you look at music mags like Uncut and Q and they've gone the way of the NME, selling ringtones and relying on easy stories, celebrity stuff.

"Fat Freddy's have done amazingly well as they have a big Kiwi fanbase here, and Charlie Gillett and Gilles Peterson played them. Still, they haven't won a large British audience. It's Kiwis who go to see them. Yet across the continent, where people are more open, they're doing very well."

Hiscock believes the new wave of Kiwi dub could win a British audience - "no one matches those bands live" - but advises caution to Kiwi bands who believe coming to Britain will facilitate international recognition.

"The best advice I can give to anyone is to get out there and gig hard, piggyback on a bigger band's success the way the Datsuns did, podcast, MySpace, anything that may put you in touch with a wider audience. Also, remember that A&R men don't know anything. Sales are down so all the record companies are running scared and no one takes risks any more. And being a Kiwi band just adds to the unknown factor."

Considering Split Enz and the Chills both toiled for several years but never cracked Britain maybe it is unassailable to musicians with Kiwi accents.

Bic Runga remains the Kiwi most likely to win British hearts and she chose to base herself in London this year, yet Sony UK has shown little interest in promoting her. The British album charts are clogged with female singer-songwriters offering, for the most part, a lesser version of what Runga excels at.

Why do they get the push when Runga doesn't? Record labels prefer to focus on established US/British signings: this is a mix of snobbery ("She's big in New Zealand? So what!") and money (Runga's being signed to Sony NZ means international profits will flow back to that office). That said, her latest album Birds lacks radio-friendly tunes which means when she does attract media attention it tends to focus on her exotic features rather than the music she makes.

This combined with the Datsuns' failure to match the hype and the British tendency to dismiss Kiwis as unsophisticated "hobbits" means Runga has faced an often cynical media.

"Runga leaves no singer-songwriter cliche unturned," sneered the Guardian. "Huge In New Zealand. Won't Be Repeated Over Here," quipped Q.

If Runga really wants to break into Britain, the sad truth is that she must take a leaf out of Neil Finn's book: to win back Crowded House's audience he and Tim made Everyone Is Here, the most blatantly commercial album of their lives.

"It's tough here because there's a lack of understanding about New Zealand music, which is a shame because it's rooted in an independent aesthetic that ought to be extremely appealing to Britain," says Bernard MacMahon, who was hired by Sony NZ to work Runga's British press campaign.

"While acts like the Chills have released great albums like Submarine Bells, they've never found the audience they deserve here. From AC/DC to Nick Cave, the Go-Betweens to the Vines, Australian artists have achieved a commercial and critical recognition. New Zealand is a much newer proposition for Britain. Things might change: French music was treated with derision here until Air's debut album broke through."

Does a world where internet sites now help to launch new music mean Kiwi musicians finally have a more level playing field? Not really, says MacMahon. "Every act has access to MySpace so, beyond the chance that people around the world possibly check out your music, it's unlikely to break you. To cross that line where people pay money to hear your music you need to be performing.

"The internet provides another means of promoting music but for young musicians from New Zealand or Mali or wherever, it's not going to really change things - you still need a record company to push your album, a proactive publisher to expose your songs and PR to help with access to old-fashioned media. Airplay on Radio 1 and 2 is still what helps launch and sustain most careers."

"You've got to have that hunger, a real willingness to work it," adds Anton Hiscock, "and a fresh approach. A lot of the UK media automatically consider anything from New Zealand is going to be inferior to UK artists, so you've got to be really good."

But Fat Freddy's are really good ... "They packed wherever they played, got the only encore at Sonar Festival [in Barcelona], achieved amazing things," Hiscock notes as he weighs up their achievements. "When they sold out the Brixton Academy that turned a lot of heads. But the competition's fierce and if the British public don't embrace them, well, I think the boys realise there are other territories to conquer."