Last time we talked with Miss June, they were just about to visit Hamilton as part of Future City Fest 2018. It's been too long, so we weren't going to let their MLE Single Release tour pass through town on Saturday 23rd without another conversation.


We had a lot to cover from, yes, the pandemic - singer/guitarist Annabel Liddell leads a second life as a doctor - to a recent support slot with My Chemical Romance. Here's what Annabel sent back when Max emailed a stack of questions her way...


You’re on the MLE Single Release Tour, but MLE isn’t streaming yet. What can you tell us about it?

So! MLE is our first single off the sophomore album. We've been working on the record for 4 years. This tour was supposed to be for it's release however the powers that be are holding it for a little longer before release.. we don't want to cancel the tour so we are doing it anyway! There will be some sneaky streaming links available at each show for attendees to have a listen to the single pre-release ;)


Your first album, Bad Luck Party, came out four years ago. That sounds like a long time, but they’ve been some pretty shitty years for Planet Earth. Is MLE a sign to get our hopes up for album #2? Or would that be expecting too much?

Get your hopes sky high baby. 


You supported My Chemical Romance at Western Springs a few months ago! What was that show like?

This was one of the best experiences we ever had as a band. I personally grew up listening to MCR non-stop, so to play alongside some of your idols.. man it was fucking incredible. We went out into the crowd for their set and absolutely raged. It really felt like this gig was a turning point for us and for audiences. Everyone was dressed up to the nines in their elite emo kits. I wore my archival Vivienne Westwood dress (which is different for me as I don't usually play in dresses haha). Everyones spirits were up. It was beautiful.


Can you help me solve a problem? On one hand you're a band that works perfectly in slots alongside bands like MCR or the Foo Fighters or The Datsuns (at 2018's Future City Fest, fuck yeah). But on the other hand you earn comparisons to rising rock heroes like Amyl & the Sniffers, and your sound has no nostalgia or throwback angles. How does that work?

To be honest I think we are potentially riddled with nostalgia. Guitar bands alone are inescapably nostalgic because of all of the advances in music tech recently! We enjoy ourselves and we love what we do. I am honoured by any comparisons to my queen Amy [Taylor], and gassed at any opportunity to support our idols. 

Somehow it's been about 10 years since Miss June first emerged. That's a long time for any human endeavour. Music aside, how have the four of you maintained the energy and kept the group together?

It sounds cheesy but we are a little family the four of us. We've been through so much together! I met the boys when they were still in Jazz school and I was in pre-med! A few years later we drove across America together in a van just the four of us. We don't tour with a massive party, we are self-sustaining, self-motivating and none of us are assholes or addicts so it works well. 


What do you hope the next few years will look like for the band?

Pick up where we left off pre-covid. ​

Rewinding to 2019, it felt like a big liftoff was happening. You supported IDLES here in NZ (Joe Talbot opened Great with “Listen to more Miss June!”), released Bad Luck Party, and then it seemed like you were gonna tour the hell out of the album internationally. That's my inexpert recollection, anyway. As we all know, 2020-2022 was a shit time for pretty much anything, especially if it involved lots of people jumping around in a room together. How much time did you spend overseas? Does a pandemic hit different when one of your bandmates is literally a doctor?  

We had another UK/EU and US tour booked for 2020, along with tones of kiwi festivals. It was a really hard decision to step back from that all. To be honest I worked 2 and a half years non-stop in the hospital as a surgical house officer during the pandemic. It was the right decision, our country and healthcare system were in crisis. As well as working in music for over a decade, I've also been in medicine almost a decade now and I knew that my ethical code dictated that I work and help where I can. I didn't travel at all during that time, but we recorded and rehearsed non stop. I just happy now that we can share some of that music and hard work again with our audiences. 


For anyone reading this who hasn’t seen you play yet, what should they expect?

Expect to feel liberated.


For anyone who hasn’t seen you play since 2019, should they expect anything different?

​New set list!! New songs!! And I brought a 1968 Fender Mustang which I will be playing on this NZ leg of the tour hahaha.
​

Miss June's MLE Single Release Tour hits Last Place this Saturday, September 23. Earlier today Under The Radar reckoned that tickets were nearly all gone, so move fast! You can find Miss June on Bandcamp and plenty of other places - get links via ihatemissjune.com.

The Changing Same have been around, in one form or another, for over a decade now. So it’s probably time to stop mentioning frontman Matthew Bannister’s other, older bands every time The Changing Same comes up. Let’s see if I can get through a whole review without referencing S****y F******s.


As befits the name, The Changing Same has had various line-ups since 2011 with Bannister as the only constant. Unusually this album credits Graham Sinclair on bass with the small qualification that he’s not actually in any of the recordings (it’s largely Matt’s son Albert on tape instead). Bruce Dennis on drums and John Mayden (guitar/vocals) complete the band.


When he’s not building on his impressive back catalogue as a musician, the elder Bannister is properly addressed as "Doctor" and takes an academic interest in music and film (his two most recent books are about Taika Waititi and The Front Lawn, which proves that he has great taste). So it’s no big surprise that new album The Changing Same Go to The Movies takes its title quite literally, collecting together 10 songs that are mostly inspired by films (like 'The Remains of The Day') and movie-makers (as in 'Song For Woody').


All up, it’s an easy listen with attractive guitar work and smarter lyrics than your average pop-rock.


The last verse of 'The Best Intentions', for example, regrets the things you didn’t do: “The dangled word unspoken / The song you did not write / The letter left unopened / They’ll be in your dreams tonight”. Performed live, the song has a howling coda after these closing lyrics. Bannister breaks his normal voice into a formless aahh, a yell that slides down the highest and loudest notes of the whole set: bad dreams rendered audible. Coming from a guy who’s usually a bit reserved on stage, it’s a memorable moment. (The last time I saw The Changing Same at Nivara Lounge, at least one HUP reader reckoned that the cover charge was worth it just for that bit.)

But as recorded here those same notes are sung in a much more controlled and musical way, almost choral. The song gets a new mood as a result, and perhaps those dreams won’t have you waking up in a sweat after all. This is an easier listen, but not necessarily an improvement. Either way, 'The Best Intentions' is a highlight. It comes early on, a couple of songs after the album opens with its brightest moment, 'Living In A Bubble'. If we break Go To The Movies into three parts, then Act I is the best.


​Keeping up the metaphor, Act II is a bit of a diversion from the plot. It contains two tracks that Bannister didn’t write and doesn’t front. Instead The Changing Same leave the movies and slip into bar band mode for a few minutes. Bruce Dennis’s 'Howl That Daylight Down' is a solid country rocker which could play in the background of any number of American bar scenes. 'Stay On Top', John Maydon’s contribution, is a funky little jam in which the band hits the one and handclaps the four like old pros. It veers away from the funk formula and into yacht rock territory a couple of times, but guitar and sax solos put things back where the song is best.


In between these is the first of two songs that actually pre-date The Changing Same and feature completely different personnel (Bannister aside). The CD booklet explains that 'Lothlorien' was recorded back in 1999 “...as a pitch for The Lord of the Rings - unsuccessful, obviously”. It’s a fittingly slow and slightly moody affair which doesn’t show its age as much as you’d expect. Neither does closing track 'Judgement Day', from 2001. It’s surely inadvertent that its “doo doo doo” backing vocals recall, in a very small way, the Sneaky Feelings’ 'Husband House'*. Does Bannister deserve to have that wonderful single follow him so closely around, almost 40 years later? Probably not. But you know you’ve written something unforgettable when even singing “doo doo doo” is enough to trigger a dormant earworm. 


Elsewhere in the third act, 'Sure To Rise' is a toe-tapper while 'Song To Woody' has a deceptively jaunty, poppy sound over which Bannister addresses Woody Allen. The singer may be a movie buff, but this is no fan letter. “Take the stick / Give it a lick / Would you trust Woody with your kids?”

​A good trip to the movies is a temporary lift out of the everyday, giving you something else to think about and be entertained by. Call me old-fashioned, but I also prefer flicks that don’t take all afternoon. By these measures, The Changing Same have delivered. On the surface this is an enjoyable set of tunes from a skilled group, as friendly and accessible as you could want it to be. But you’ll also find lyrics that are worth going back over, and a short 36-minute album that rewards repeat listens.


By Max Johns

​
* DAMMIT.

The Changing Same Go To The Movies will be out in September as a CD from Powertool Records, and is already on Bandcamp. There’s an album launch gig (with George Henderson's New Existentialists and the Doubtful Sounds) happening at Last Place on Saturday, 30 September.

By Max Johns

​Were it not for a single retweet from DARTZ (@coolrockband, great handle) after Ellis was released, I may never have heard of Dunedin band L. Hotel. And that would have been my loss. So if they're new to you, don’t feel bad - just prepare to be impressed.

Piecing together a few scraps from the internet, mostly Otago Uni’s Critic mag, here’s what I can tell you about the group: There once was a band called The Shitz (great name) which some time around 2020 morphed into L. Hotel (less great name, absolute nightmare to Google, I’m tempted to post this review on TripAdvisor just to really fuck with the algorithm). 

As L. Hotel, Jono Everts (guitar/vocals) Dave Borrie (bass) and Fred Richardson (drums) worked to build a reputation as a live band, mostly playing in Dunedin. Campus pint nights, basement parties, that sort of thing. Solid plan, except for covid. The next year, 2021, they were promising an EP “soon”. Then the trail goes kinda cold. Ellis, presumably, is a late delivery.

​Not that this is their Spotify debut. Four singles came out over 2020 to 2022, beginning strongly with an attractive bit of indy pop called Sit Around and ending with their version of 'See Ya, See Ya Later'. Yes, kiwi kids, we’re talking about the goodbye song that Suzy Cato sang at the end of every episode of ‘You and Me’. There’s bound to be a backstory, or at least an in-joke, there somewhere but I lack the patience and the Google-fu to find it.

So now you’re mostly caught up. Oh, except that somewhere along the line Mitch Sizemore joined the band and now L. Hotel are a foursome. But enough of this poorly-assembled backstory. Let’s talk about the new EP, and why you should listen to it. In the band’s words, “Ellis is about relationships, perspective, and not taking yourself too seriously.”

The first comparison that struck me was another Dunedin outfit, Two Cartoons. Jono Everts’ kiwi-az singing voice is a big part of that, but there’s more to it. Two Cartoons’ self-administered tagline, “pop disguised as rock”, could easily apply here. L. Hotel’s rock disguise is a little heavier but the music is still angular and inventive. More than that, it’s good for dancing and singing along. You can easily picture those U-Bar pint nights and Dunedin basements going off long into the night.

There have been truckloads of ink spilled about the place but it boils down to this: North Dunedin keeps the outside world at arm’s length. It’s home to a lot of smarter-than-average people who know how to kick back and have a good time, and that’s a social recipe for music-making unmatched anywhere else in NZ. All of this is on record here. 'Take Me For' is the party-starter, 'Let Me Down' is a more thoughtful piece of work, 'Scared of the Dark' makes the most of the dual-guitar line-up and is the strongest track, and closer 'Vest' is a straight-forward rocker that’s leading the play-count on Spotify by quite some distance.

Ellis has taken a few years to emerge, and it doesn't look like the band is putting a huge amount of promotional effort in, but it deserves an audience. Lend it your ears and spend a quarter hour or so reassuring yourself that our one-and-only university town has still got the goods.

​‘Mike Alpha Xray’ is likely Hamilton’s biggest fan of the NATO phonetic alphabet and lover of short acrostic poems, but instead harshly describes himself in his self-deprecating press release as “Kirikiriroa’s newest and least essential recording artist”. But I’m not having it. Because Mike Alpha Xray has just released a couple of tracks as a teaser to an upcoming – and please don’t stop reading at this next phrase – ‘covers album’, to be titled ‘Protect the Drive, Give ‘em the Cut’. Why you shouldn’t stop reading there is because, 1) based on the track provided here, this album isn’t going to be full of the type of middle of the road covers you might hear blasting from bars on Hamilton’s Victoria Street at 12am, and 2) these recordings are brilliant. Here, Mike Alpha Xray covers Bitter Defeat’s ‘Pressure’, off their recent EP ‘Terrific Effort’. And it does exactly what a good cover should do; not emulate the original artist’s work, but instead makes it the coverers own. Mike Alpha Xray states the song features “two or three different synthesised pipe organs, some lyrics he definitely misheard but couldn’t be bothered fixing up, and vocal lines recorded under a couch squab while the rest of the house was asleep”. For me, I would describe it as a reimagination of ‘Pressure’ as a dark synth funeral march, with a healthy dash of keyboard lines reminiscent of those from Harry & the Potters “The Human Hosepipe’ added to the mix.

​The cover and original are provided, below:

​The second song, ‘The Water’s Still’, is an original – described in the press release as “an ill-advised attempt at creating the atmosphere of a laid-back jam session by repeatedly recording oneself doing things that one hasn’t entirely planned in advance…. It’s definitely a b-side”. But again, I’m not having it. His press release represents a failed attempt to hide his shining light under a bushel. I hope we don’t only get the future covers album from Mike Alpha Xray, but based on "The Water's Still', an album of originals also. This is great!

This is less of an album review than it is a public service announcement. In celebration of twenty years of the release of the Grandaddy album ‘Sumday’, they have released the album’s four-track cassette demos as its own standalone collection.

​I’ve had a few favourite bands in my life. Many I go back to, and they just don’t have the impact they did. But Grandaddy are different. Grandaddy’s albums always sound good and fresh, no matter how many years have passed by. Now, Sumday was not my favourite Grandaddy album – that was ‘The Sophtware Slump’, released three years earlier. But this album does contain some of my most favourite Grandaddy songs. And to be honest, despite not being my favourite Grandaddy album, it still rates as one my favourite albums by any artist. It just can’t quite compare in my mind to the brilliance of their own Sophtware Slump…

​Writing from the land of Flying Nun, where music used to stand on the quality of the song and not the quality of the playing, recording or production, these songs sound amazing. The track listing and titles on this are largely identical to the original release, bar “Saddest Vacant Lot in All the World”, which goes under the moniker “Passed out in a Datsun”. I first listened to the album on YouTube, where “Stray Dog and the Chocolate Shake" was listed as “Stray Dog and the Chocolate Karaoke", but is not actually included among the recordings there. Hopping over to Bandcamp, however, we do get to hear the song – different to the rest of the album, which (again) represents the demo versions of the album songs, this one appears to be identical to that on Sumday, just sans lyrics...i.e., it’s literally the karaoke version. Overall, this release provides an interesting document, and the songs I so love stand up really well in their stripped back – though already basically perfectly formed - state. What to recommend, if you want to dabble, like the swan on the cover? Among my favourite songs on the original, which still stand up here, try out “OK with My Decay”, “The Warming Sun”, “I’m on Standby” and “Final Push to the Sum”.

What more can I say about it? Overall, I’m likely just preaching to the converted here. Jason Lytle’s voice is amazing, as you expect, and a high proportion of the songs on this album are amazing. This is really just a little gift to the existing fans, I think, rather than ever expecting to make any new ones. But then again, the songs are so strong... if you are a lover of lo-fi (...as I know many of our readers are), then maybe this might just be your gateway into them, moreso than the highly polished sounds of the original?

Ian Duggan

by Max Johns

Bitter Defeat’s second EP is a quick-fire, four-track affair that adds nicely to what the band started with 2021’s Minor Victory. Happily, it shows off a couple of new tricks as well.

If you’re reading Hamilton Underground Press then there’s a 99% chance that you’re already well aware of Bitter Defeat. Hell, if you’re reading HUP there’s about a 30% chance that you’re in Bitter Defeat. But just in case this review is your entry point, here’s a quick rewind…

Bitter Defeat have been on the Hamilton indie rock scene for a few years now. They are a five piece band that play on the pop side of the genre. If you’re old enough to remember what came after Nirvana - when guitars were allowed to have fun again, and when moshing gave way to pogoing - then you know what you’re in for here. 

The band spent time building out a set of catchy, 90s-infused pop originals on the way to releasing two singles in late 2020. Those teased the 2021 release of debut EP Minor Victory (“it’s short, it’s fun, and it stands up to being put on repeat,” we said at the time). An unarguable high point came in mid-2021 when they opened for dead-set legends The Chills in Raglan, the Mount, and Gisborne.

Things have gone a bit quiet since then. Blame the day jobs and real lives that encumber all of us. Finally in December 2022 we got a taste of ‘Sugar Blind’. It’s the catchiest Bitter Defeat single yet, and now it’s the first track on new EP Terrific Effort. The wait has been worth it.

There are four tracks on Terrific Effort. It’s no great departure from Minor Victory, but unlike its predecessor there’s more to it than Rob Shirlow singing about relationships or the inevitable decline that comes with age.

That said, ‘Sugar Blind’ is literally Rob singing about physical decline. But if there’s a catchier rock-pop number about diabetes, then I haven’t heard it. My six-year-old loves singing along with the backing “ooo-woo”s, and I love the line about checking your own toe for nerves with a pin. A health advisory warning for all the family.

​‘Pressure’ follows next, introducing us to lead guitarist Ben’s songwriting and singing. It captures the same pop fun that Bitter Defeat always brings, but in a new way. Built on structural angles, ‘Pressure’ unexpectedly veers around and turns back on itself. You’ll need to go back and check which bits were the verses and whether the singalong “take the pressure!!” parts actually were the chorus, or the bridge, or something else. There’s some art here, and putting it on repeat will pay off. Wait, is there a chorus at all? Gah. You work it out.

Next comes ‘Waft’, the first instrumental track we’ve heard from Bitter Defeat. It’s a deceptively difficult thing for them to take on, and it’s worth considering why...

There is a reason that almost every time you see guitar, keys, bass, and drums there’s a singer involved. Rock instrumentals are so hard to get right that the Grammy for Best Rock Instrumental was scrapped 12 years ago. There have been very few arguments about who’s been robbed since then, because who gets passionate about rock instrumentals? Even very good ones sound like they're missing something. Great ones involve guitars doing things they were never built to do - Hendrix’s ‘Star Spangled Banner’, Eddie van Halen’s ‘Eruption’ - the sort of thing that you don’t find on the continuum from jangle pop through indie rock to shoegaze.
​
‘Waft’ is good at doing what it does. It just does less than the other eight things that Bitter Defeat have put on record. When you see the band live it’s the jam that they like to start with, and in that context it works well. 

​Or perhaps they're wise to clear the air for ‘Falling Down’, the closer on Terrific Effort. It’s their longest song yet, all 3m44s of it, but still a familiar Rob Shirlow ditty. It’s musically upbeat, lyrically downbeat (though a bit more abstract than we’re used to), and it leaves you prone to clicking the ‘play’ button on the whole EP again.

​Terrific Effort is cleverly bookended with two tracks that closely match the Bitter Defeat of Minor Victory. In between we hear a band that can do more than we knew before, and do it well. We’ve all heard of the “difficult second album” that has tripped up many bands, but if the difficult second EP is a thing then Bitter Defeat have sidestepped it nicely.

'Southern Tribe' is the downbeat electronic project of Andrew Newth. Active since the mid-1990s, Southern Tribe has recently released 'Retrospective’, a compilation of early songs - some you may have already heard on compilations, while others have never previously released. We talked to Andrew about the shift from Love & Violence to Southern Tribe, changes in the technology he has used through time, the future of Southern Tribe, and more!  

​HUP: As far as your electronic music is concerned, you were one of the central figures in Love & Violence for around a decade (1988 to 1997). There, your music went from sounding somewhat along the lines of OMD and Depeche Mode, and became something more industrial in style as the journey progressed. Come 1997, Love & Violence ceased to exist, and you went off in two different directions. You started Southern Tribe, recording downbeat electronic music, while at the same time you began playing guitar in the also relatively mellow indie-pop band Rumpus Room. What led to the massive shift in the styles of music you began playing and recording at this time?

Andrew: Love and Violence became an industrial band somewhat by accident. We were asked to play at an industrial event and none of our current material really fit the bill. We set about hardening up our sound and writing new material. The rest is history. It was a musical tangent we never returned from. It was a great scene to be part of though, so no regrets either. When Love and Violence stopped playing, Southern Tribe was a way for me to keep producing electronic music in my own time and space. Rumpus Room was a bit of fun that went from jamming in the Cowshed at Contact 89FM to playing our first show at a party with little warning or preparation. Needless to say, we were terrible but had a blast so we just kept playing and playing and playing….

​HUP: ​On ‘Retrospective’ you are compiling songs you recorded as Southern Tribe in the mid- to late-1990s. Some have been released on compilations, and some haven’t. What is your motivation for releasing this collection now?

Andrew: Retrospective is a way for me to ‘clear the decks’ in a way. It’s always bothered me that these tracks were never released as a body of work. The eight tracks on 'Retrospective' are only a portion of the material I wrote back then, but I feel like they are the best of the bunch. Some of the other tracks just felt too dated whereas the eight tracks released here aged a little better. It’s been great to revisit these tracks. Being able to mix them in a modern DAW has meant they could be gently tweaked and mixed to a standard I couldn’t have achieved originally. Better late than never? I should also mention that these tracks would have been lost to time if it wasn’t for Dan Howard and my brother Scott Newth, both of whom looked after the source material in various formats for years. Needless to say I owe them both a huge debt.

​HUP: ​Technology has changed a lot since you started with Love & Violence, and since you did these early Southern Tribe recordings. What have been the biggest changes in how you have used technology, and the technology you have used, between starting Love & Violence, the beginning of Southern Tribe, and your most recent Southern Tribe recordings.

​Andrew: Love and Violence and Southern Tribe songs were all written using an Atari ST computer with a sequencing program called C-Lab Creator. We had three synths and a sampler that produced all the sounds we used. The sampler had a miserly 480kb of memory which meant we had to be really frugal with our sound choices. It was all about limitations back then and in a lot of ways I think that was a good thing. It forced you to be smart about what you were doing, to be more selective and thriftier. It influenced the music in a good way. The sampler was an Ensoniq EPS which was only 13bit. It had a sound that I can’t recreate today even with the endless myriad of instruments and effects available in a modern musical workstation. A big part of both the Love & Violence and Southern Tribe sound is created by slowing down samples or playing them back at lower/slower pitches than the original and this doesn’t work quite as well in the setup I use today (yet).

​​HUP: What are your favourites among the early Southern Tribe tracks?

Andrew: Hmm, I probably would have to say Closer, You Can’t Have It and Horror Story. For me Horror Story epitomises the sound I was looking to produce back then; Rhythmic, lush and a bit spooky.

​HUP: Obligatory and predictable question. What was behind the name ‘Southern Tribe’? ​

Andrew: ​I’d love to give you deep and meaningful story here, but the reality is I just like it and feel like it’s a great fit for the type of music I was and am still producing for this project. Sorry!

​​HUP: After a break of a number of years, Southern Tribe released new songs in 2018 and 2019, while also producing remixes of System Corporation’s ‘Apathy is Easy’ (2018) and, most recently, Rubita’s ‘Cold South’ (2021). Given the changes in style among your various projects, there appears to be a remarkable consistency between your older and newer Southern Tribe tracks. Do you feel Southern Tribe’s music has changed from the early tracks and now? And after the dust resettles on the ‘Retrospective’ tracks, what is next for Southern Tribe?

Andrew: ​I think the music I’m producing now is a progression of the earlier stuff but is still rooted in the same ideas of producing downbeat, lush and rhythmic tracks. The way it’s produced these days is a far cry from how I did it originally though. Now we have access to almost unlimited sound sources and software that provides a level of creative freedom you could only dream about in the 90s. When I first got back into producing material for Southern Tribe I struggled with that a bit. I had kid in a candy store syndrome! Throwing everything I had at my tracks just because I could. Probably one of the biggest challenges I’ve faced when writing the new material is learning restraint and remembering to leave space in the music. Later this year I will be releasing some new material that’s been percolating over the last three or four years. There’s eleven new tracks plus the two I’ve already released ‘Coil’ and ‘March to the End of the World’. Beyond that is the unknown.

​Last time we spoke with Andrew Wilson from Die! Die! Die! the band was touring New Zealand in support of a new single, and we had a long, wide-ranging chat about everything. This time around there’s a whole new album, but we could only fit in a quick Q&A. Funny how things turn out.

This is Not an Island Anymore has been out for a few months now (nice to see it in the album charts when it was released, too!). What’s the reaction been to the album so far?
Initially the reaction was super positive, especially from people who appreciated our earlier material. I am still getting the odd email now about people appreciating the album which is lovely after it’s been out for 6 months. 

The video for 'Losing Sight, Keep on Kicking' is a pretty unforgettable watch. Where did the idea come from?
From Lachlan’s friend Jonas, who directed the video. He said he thought of the idea when he was in the gym….. go figure. 

​Your setlists usually have a pretty deep spread of old and new songs. This tour is celebrating the new album so will we hear more of This is Not an Island Anymore than anything else?
Haha, yeah I think the set will be focused on the new album. I don’t want to give away too much though. People will have to come to the show to see ;)

What else can Hamilton expect to see from you on August 5?
I can only speak for myself but I have some lovely new pedals I am excited to try out for the first time live. 

You’ve said that “This will be the last chance to see DDD for a while”. Why’s that? What have you got planned once this tour’s over?
We have a new EP coming out very soon. But to arrange a tour with the three of us has been quite challenging so these shows will be it for a while. We’ve played a lot over the last 19 years. But you never know…..

Die! Die! Die! will open their This Is Not An Island Anymore Tour at Never Project Space on Friday August 5. Tickets from Ticket Fairy.

​R E V I E W
The Dolby Brothers; ‘The Nightclub Scene’, ‘Supermarket Stories’ and ‘Radio Dolby 89.6FM’
By Ian Duggan

How to describe ‘The Dolby Brothers’?
​
The Dolby Brothers are a mysterious duo who have released three concept albums to date - ‘The Nightclub Scene’ in October 2021, followed by ‘Supermarket Stories’ in December, and most recently ‘Radio Dolby 89.6FM’ last month. But their Bandcamp doesn’t give a lot away about them. To break a little of the mystery, however, one I know was a member of a band popular from the Waikato University scene in the early 1990s. Don’t expect any indie pop songs here though.

​The sound of the Dolby Brothers is probably best described, as their Bandcamp tag suggests, as ‘experimental electronic’. A touchstone, perhaps, is the early disco infused French synth band ‘Space’, but with a little added inspiration from ‘elevator musak’. The lyrics, though, are observational, which at my age makes ‘Supermarket Blues’ resonate far more strongly than ‘The Nightclub Scene’ – a regular chore versus a now distant memory. The opening track, of that EP, ‘I Shop Alone’, provides a good example of the lyrics that will unite introverted or focused supermarket shoppers everywhere:

   “I need to get the supermarket shopping done real quick;
   I want to get out of here as fast as I can;
   My wife has written the list;
   This is going to be easy.”
​
….only for the shopper, Dylan Dolby, to run into Denise from work and then another acquaintance who wants to chat about the rugby, while poor Dylan is just wanting to get the shopping done in peace. The lyrics are delivered as a mix of spoken and sung, and I’m going to have to go with William Shatner here as the most relatable comparison for vocal style. The newest of the releases, ‘Radio Dolby 89.6FM’, is the music associated with a mockumentary-style podcast recorded by the duo, based on the broadcasts of Radio Dolby 89.6 FM, “a fictional radio station based in Dolby city, a dystopian post-apocalyptic metropolis”. On this, which can be found on Spotify, “Dylan and Drew Dolby host a late night radio show featuring music, street interviews and talk back calls from the eclectic residents of Dolby city”.

To hear more, check out the releases on Bandcamp, and other good online musical outlets. 

​R E V I E W
‘Total Eclipse of my Brain’ EP by Belladonna
By Ian Duggan
 
“The time has come to open thy heart/wallet” Bandcamp tells me, as I listen freely to Belladonna’s ‘Total Eclipse of my Brain’ EP one too many times. We have been a bit quiet at HUP recently, with seemingly little happening in the music scene to keep us excited, but here is an EP that has pulled me out of my unintentional slumber. 

Belladonna is Bella Cook, an ex-Hamiltonian, who despite moving to Wellington at the age of 16 still reflects on the misunderstood city with a genuine fondness. No Kirikiriroa-associated cultural cringe to be seen here, thank goodness. ‘Total Eclipse of my Brain’ is a wonderfully coherent EP - Bella knows her sound – and it features four songs from the top shelf. This isn’t surprising, when looking at her past releases; ‘Hands’, from her 2020 ‘Salty Dog’ EP, was one of the twenty finalists in the APRA Silver Scroll Awards that year, while I hate to think how many times I’ve personally listened to wonderful ‘Kiss Me’ off that same release. Bella knows how to write a great pop song. On the new EP, Bella comes across as a sensitive and nostalgic type, with emotive lyrics and mentions of Hamilton (and suburb Hillcrest) never too far away.

​The first track on ‘Total Eclipse…’, ‘Slow Motion’ is representative of songs on the rest of the EP as a whole, with lyrics indicative of Bella’s overtly reflective nature - “I’ve been thinking about my old house…” she sings, and it is at this point she gives us the first mention of her former hometown also. Here she taps into universal feelings that will resonate with anyone with a heart, but it also hits hard at my own personal emotions; the mere mention of my long-term home of Hamilton, a city about which there aren’t nearly enough songs, and a location that isn’t celebrated enough (in song, or otherwise). I think this may be my new favourite Belladonna song… 

Second song, ‘Love Like This’, comes with a brand-new video, which she states “reflects how awesome female friendships are”. Scenes in the video of her cycling with a friend remind me of one by some other individuals schooled in Hamilton – that of ‘Raglan City’ by Duchess, which included Anna Coddington and bandmates cruising the streets of Raglan. And then there is ‘Hillcrest’. Hopefully many will already be familiar with this wonderful song, another built on both memories and complicated emotions – an ode, she told us, to both an early crush as well as to the Hamilton suburb itself. Besides the fantastic tune and lyrics, there are some lovely sounds going on in here that the BBC Radiophonic Workshop would have been proud of. Okay, so maybe I can’t pick a favourite Belladonna song, because I am certainly still in love with this one also, many months after first discovering it. The second of the four songs on the EP to have a video, nostalgia runs thick here, with lots of footage of Bella and friends from their younger days, and featuring scenes from the titular suburb, Silverdale and beyond.

Overall, ‘Total Eclipse of my Brain’ is a fantastic EP, which has certainly helped get me excited about music again. And if you run out of listens on Bandcamp, you can find it on plenty of other platforms also!