Backseat
by Balu Brigada
Balu Brigada are New York-based Auckland brothers Henry and Pierre Beasley, who with their mix of dance floor electronica, scratchy guitars, and rock voices have been building their profile and getting impressive streaming numbers since signing to US label Atlantic three years ago. They were back home last year supporting fellow duo Twenty One Pilots with fellow Big Apple transplant Harper Finn moonlighting as a live keyboardist. Now, as they head to the release of a debut album in August, they’re appearing on US late-night chat shows and on the road in Europe and US for the rest of the year. New single Backseat may well do wonders for their stadium ambitions, especially when midway through this six-minute epic it switches from wiry pop to a rafter-rattling massed synthesizer rumble. Would go well with lots of lasers. – Russell Baillie
Man of the Year
by Lorde
Our pop wonder woman whizzed through town last week to play her album to fans in … checks notes … a YMCA toilet (well, a full flush does sound like applause). Then pick up the Aotearoa Music Award for single of the year for her appearance on the remix of Girl So Confusing by Charli XCX (only got to number 24 hit in NZ but a critical hit around the world). Then flit off back to the US for yet more spontaneous internet-breaking activations ahead of the release of fourth album Virgin, later this month.
She also dropped off a new song Man of the Year, a ballad that at the start, with just voice and unfussy bass guitar, recalls the spareness of debut album Pure Heroine. And if it’s also suggesting the confessional vulnerability of Melodrama track Liability, it all gets cranked up into the red quite thrillingly. It’s not quite a pop song and its disarming video feels more like a gallery performance piece than a promo clip. It’s very earthy. As with that earlier gig, hope she washed her hands afterwards. – Russell Baillie
Boys With the Characteristics of Wolves
by Unknown Mortal Orchestra
Expat Ruban Nielson’s muse leads him on a merry dance. The 2023 album V had brief elements of Hawaiian music, March’s instrumental album IC-02 Bogotá headed to Colombia, and this single – in advance of the short (12 minute-plus) EP Curse due June 18 – is part Gothic unease and abrupt Jack White guitar crunch. Earns repeat plays. Check the enjoyably weird video for more of the unnerving mood. – Graham Reid
Blister
by Yumi Zouma
Since the synth-influenced dream pop on their 2020 album Truth or Consequences, expats Yumi Zouma have steadily turned up the energy (check their previous single Bashville on the Sugar) and here dive headlong into guitar-heavy alt-rock with their typically self-confidence when it comes to firing off a distinctive chorus. This compact package – with an isolated breakout part by singer Christie Simpson – pulls together a lot of noise, tension, and melody into three minutes of raw, left-field New Wave. Good one. – Graham Reid
Constellation
by The Circling Sun
Perhaps less a single than a warning to have your credit card ready. These swirling seven-and-half minutes announce a new album Orbits (due July 11) by this exceptional local jazz ensemble which taps into John and Alice Coltrane, Sun Ra, Rahsaan Roland Kirk, and spiritual jazz, with a shading of Latin sounds from the 1970s (Airto, Flora Purim). Wonderful deep immersion music from the band whose 2023 Spirits debut album was widely acclaimed. – Graham Reid
New Leaf
by Soft Bait
Tāmaki Makaurau Auckland four-piece revive aggressive guitar rock and tense American post-punk reductivism (Romeo Void’s Never Say Never springs to mind) while taking a stab at gossip mongers and readily accepted misinformation. By saying less lyrically it actually says more, and more emphatically. Now signed to Flying Nun, their second album Life Advice is due July 25. One to look forward to because this single is annoyingly addictive. In a good way. The retro video also sells it. – Graham Reid
Always
by Tusekah
A slice of infectious sophisticated, bittersweet bossa nova-soul by the Auckland-based, Durban-raised singer-songwriter who has been releasing the occasional single since 2021. Amy Winehouse fans should investigate. – Russell Baillie
Real Thing
by Drugdealer and Weyes Blood
Professing love is perhaps not quite what you’d expect from the names of this duo – Michael Collins and Natalie Mering to their families – and least of all with a pulsing bass, disco strings, and a 1970s’ sax solo. However, both have prior form in the area, Drugdealer as a mainstream, almost yacht-rock, songwriter. Joyfully retro and perhaps unfashionably happy at a time when many artists seem to have demons to deal with. But with “I think I found someone who loves me /Somebody that loves me in every way” and Blood sounding close to Karen Carpenter, this should bring a smile and a skip in your step. – Graham Reid
Lovers’ Holiday
by Durand Jones and the Inclinations
Soul star Jones gets down and sultry in this warm slice of sensuality infused with the spirit of 1970s’ mood music (the smooth end of David Ruffin, Teddy Pendergrass, and Smokey Robinson). This is the third polished single in advance of the new album Flowers on June 27, all of which turn the lights down low. Oh, mmm baby. – Graham Reid
Gareth Farr – Wakatipu
by Itamar Zorman violin
Let’s sneak a final piece into NZ Music Month and hope no one notices it’s June. Gareth Farr is probably still best remembered as the percussion rhythm king and queen of works like From the Depths Sound the Great Sea Gongs. That was almost 30 years ago, though, and Farr, now 57, has become a more nuanced composer. Wakatipu, for solo violin, was written to be performed by contestants at the 2009 Michael Hill Violin Competition. Itamar Zorman, who plays Wakatipu on this recording, never won the Michael Hill. He did, however, claim silver at the Tchaikovsky International Competition, which puts him in the company of musicians like Johannes Moser, Vladimir Spivakov and Nikolai Lugansky. Not bad. #NZMM – Richard Betts
