Authenticity is vital. Despite what the media say about Lana del Ray and similarly ‘manufactured’ artists, it can and does exist. ...more

Auckland act Cool Rainbows is Djeisan Suskov’s baby. Suskov has been around for a while, playing in bands such as Trees Climbing Trees, the early 2000 post-punk outfit Nova Echo, who were basically Cut Off Your Hands, plus Djeisan. Cool Rainbows features around six other musicians when performing live. ...more

Five Mile Town are fresh talent at its freshest. The three teenagers have only been making music together for six months, but somehow in that time have managed to put together a solid bunch of songs, release an EP, sell out the release show, perform live on Good Morning and nab two shows in Australia, opening for Sydney-based band, Set Sail, in June. ...more

Christchurch power trio Ipswich – named from a street sign somewhere between Christchurch and Dunedin – are a force be reckoned with. ...more

Here at NZM Towers we frequently toss around ideas for new columns that, for various reasons, typically don’t get progressed beyond caffeine chatter. When Dave Berry, the highly regarded Wellington music tinkerer, former instrument retailer and ex-venue owner, sent us some photos of his latest workshop guitar project our eyes lit up, pennies dropped, coffee was spilled and concepts crystalised. A column for the professional, and otherwise, luthiers of Aotearoa – one where they get to talk about their latest (or not-so) stringed instrument design and take us through the concept, design and build processes. Okay, a brag piece potentially, but as far as we’re concerned, folk that damn clever fully deserve the right to brag a little in NZ Musician’s pages. As a long time friend of the magazine and occasional NZM contributor, Dave was the perfect person to kick off the series, setting the tone for other luthiers and instrument builders to follow in future issues. Not to mention that his bamboo composite guitar, the Dave Berry Model 1, is both genius and gorgeous. His email sign off is ‘Making the world a better place, one guitar at a time.’ We’ll let Dave take it from here, welcome to the first Luthiers’ Fancies column. ...more

Along with plenty else since, Auckland-based guitarist, recording engineer and producer Glyn Tucker Jnr was responsible for a plethora of good records between the 1960s and the ’00s. Important Kiwi acts he has been associated with include the likes of The Mockers, Marginal Era and Street Talk. The singles he recorded with his band the Gremlins back in the ’60s were mini-masterpieces of studio production, a skill Glyn continued to develop in his years as owner of Mandrill Studios and its in-house label, Reaction Records. In what were pretty heady days, Glyn was always a gentleman producer with a natural instinct for a ‘pop hook’. ...more

Dunedin ‘weirdo metal’ band El Schlong left NZ in 2008 and have been playing around Europe ever since. They spent the first two years living in London, making a bit of a mark on the underground scene before relocating to Berlin, Germany in 2010. It was while based in Berlin that they began touring heavily. With plans in place for the band to return to NZ in December, guitarist and band organiser Leah Hinton provided NZM with this hilarious insight into doing Europe the El Schlong way. ...more

Just because you record with two microphones doesn’t necessarily mean that you are recording in stereo. To get a good stereo recording you need to consider what exactly you are recording and why it needs to be in stereo. ...more