Anika Moa was a charismatically unaffected, often barefoot, 21 year old when her first album ‘Thinking Room’ came out in 2001. Nine years on she has just released her fourth, ‘Love in Motion’, and if her last three albums provide any kind of marker, this one will likely spin further Kiwi radio hits, better than gold sales and quite possibly a swag of awards. Moa has done what many would consider laughably difficult and carved a successful career as a female pop star, writing music and touring at home in New Zealand and occasionally in Australia. She can rightly consider herself to be part of a club of veteran Kiwi musicians usually reserved for greying males, but she’s still as youthfully hilarious, irreverent and captivating as ever. She talked with Lydia Jenkin about ‘doing a Bob Dylan’, staying in control, and how love can break or make an artist. ...more

Fresh out of high school, Auckland four-piece Artisan Guns made a name for themselves playing folk-rock from a refined sound palette embellished with wide influences and youthful enthusiasm. Their strong musicianship saw them gigging regularly, and quickly knuckling down to record a debut EP. Early tracks were noticed by EMI who signed them last year, releasing the EP ‘Bird and Bone’ in October. Mark Bell met with guitarist/vocalist/songwriter Mathew Hope and bass player Reuben Stephens to talk about their second EP ‘Hearts’, which was recorded with long time friend and engineer Dave Parker, over a week at Dave Dobbyn’s studio. ...more

Dane Rumble bounds down the café stairs wearing a grin sized to match the pitch-black sunglasses that obscure much of his face. As he introduces himself and takes a seat it’s obvious his spirits are as high as his slickly spiked hair. And he has every reason to be cheerful; his first three singles as a solo artist each cracked the Top 20, by his estimation he and his live band have played 50 shows in the last three months, and he is now promo-ing his debut album ‘The Experiment’. It’s all rainbows and lollipops right now, but as I soon find out, the lead-up, gestation and delivery of this former Fast Crew member’s solo record was anything but. ...more

‘Ricketts Meets Fabulous at Maitland Road’, that is the descriptive title of a seven-track EP released in March, on vinyl through Rhythmethod and online through Amplifier. Will Ricketts of The Phoenix Foundation and Mike Fabulous of The Black Seeds have teamed up to bring us seven beautifully layered, psychedelic electronic, soul-funk-dub-jazz mash ups, with a grand contingent of friends contributing all manner of instrumentation and vocals. ...more

You may well know Eden Mulholland as one quarter of The Mots, or one quarter of Motocade, but aside from his distinctive abilities as a vocalist, instrumentalist and pop songwriter, the youngest Mulholland brother also earns a crust writing music for choreography. He has just released a 23-track collection of these works entitled ‘Music For Dance’, a stunning collection of vibrant and varied pieces which have accompanied dance performances choreographed by his friend Malia Johnston. Lydia Jenkin sat down with Eden to find out more about the work of a composer for choreography. ...more

With the growing popularity of the annual SXSW Music Conference, Austin, Texas has become a byword for injection into the US music market. Dozens of New Zealand artists now rush there every March to take their shot, most jumping on a plane to get the hell out (desperate for some sleep and a green salad) before the five day SXSW event reaches its end. Gore-born singer/songwriter Jackie Bristow has taken a decidedly different approach, making Austin her home for the past year. She talked with Richard Thorne about the rollercoaster that is the music business, about breaking into the Austin scene, breaking down on stage and about independently releasing ‘Freedom’, her third album. ...more

He may not be a holy man, but Riccardo Ball is all about spreading the gospel. The gospel of metal that is, and especially to the New Zealand metal flock that has, according to him, seemingly lost its way. The well known radio and television personality, singer for Auckland metal act Just One Fix, spoke to Karl Puschmann about the release of their sophomore album ‘Blood Horizon’, their aspirations and the challenges of motivating Kiwi metal fans. ...more

Nathan Haines is a man on a journey, as he tells me repeatedly, in various ways during our hour long chat – one he has been on for a number of years, but which he also feels is just starting. Now 38, he is no longer enslaved to anything much more addictive than spiritual development and music making, and in promoting his new album ‘Heaven and Earth’ has been candidly talking about just how dark things got in his not-so-distant past. Still regularly billed as a Kiwi jazz maestro, he prefers to define the music of ‘Heaven and Earth’, his seventh album, as ‘soul’, as in ‘from the soul’. ...more

While a lot of musicians might talk about pushing through genre boundaries, P-Money’s new album ‘Everything’ is the real deal. Hip hop gets mashed with electronica, rock and R’n’B to create a hybrid that seems uniquely suited to the moment. P-Money talked with Gareth Shute about mixing up genre expectations and making the music industry work for him. ...more

New Zealand Music Month celebrates its tenth outing this May with a typically broad range of low and high profile activities, various of which will be coming to you in multiples of ten. Some will remember the very first NZ Music Month and maybe even life before NZ Music Month started in May 2001. It has its carpers and critics, plenty of commentators have stabbed their pen at NZMM over the decade, and the regular ‘Do we still need it?’ debate will doubtless be an especially active one this year. On the other hand, there are now university students, certainly complete schools of kids, for whom May has always been NZ Music Month, and who find it all just as natural as hokey pokey ice cream. Richard Thorne talked to some of those most closely involved about what has become a month-long, mainstream Kiwi institution. ...more

It’s been little more than two years since the last Phoenix Foundation album, the highly rated ‘Happy Ending’, a record rooted in classic indie pop-rock. In the time since there have been solo albums from almost all of the band members, collaborations and film soundtracks, not to mention the band’s own ‘Merry Kriskmas’ EP and a support slot for Jarvis Cocker. Now it’s back to the day job, promoting ‘Buffalo’ the fourth Phoenix Foundation album since 2003. Amanda Mills talked to multi-instrumentalist and vocalist Luke Buda at his Wellington home, discovering the band are conversely as hard-working and laid back as ever. ...more