The song is available though Bandcamp, Spotify, Apple, and lots of other places besides!
Bandcamp: https://bitterdefeat.bandcamp.com/track/better
Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/track/0Shs9YUJI7cp8zq8gvIrkT
Apple: https://music.apple.com/nz/album/better-single/1545715823

​Princess Chelsea – on her first tour of Aotearoa in two years - plays Nivara Lounge this Saturday, with Stef Animal and Bitter Defeat! HUP caught up with Chelsea, and talked with her about her song ‘The Cigarette Duet’ amassing over 54 million views on YouTube, the influence on her life of the Yamaha Keytar, an early memory of a Hamilton right-of-passage, and more!

HUP: Kia ora Chelsea! You're coming to Hamilton... hurrah! Have you played here much over the years? If so, are there any memorable moments?

PC: Hi! I have lived in Hamilton, in Melville, but have never ever played a show. I remember jumping off the top diving board at Te Rapa pools when I was 6 though.
 
HUP: It’s been a couple of years since your last album, ‘The Loneliest Girl’. Have you been writing and recording any new music in the interim?

PC: Yes, I have been written some really weird ass music for the mental breakdown release of 2021, hahaha.
 
HUP: If it's not too cheesy a question, what is your usual writing process?
​
PC: I often arrange and write at the same time in my home studio. I use Logic and a midi keyboard to begin with generally. Then I gradually layer and layer and might even have a song after a few days! Occasionally I have sat down at the piano too and busted out an O.G. tune. This happened with more singer songwriter style songs, like ‘Overseas’, ‘When the World Turns Grey”, ‘Growing Older’ and ‘Cigarette Duet’. Sometimes I write a song old-school style then take its basic chords and lyrics and spend a week doing weird stuff to it, so it’s almost unrecognisable. An example of this would be ‘Too Many People’, which started as a piano ballad. :).

​HUP: The song that has brought you the most attention was 2011s ‘The Cigarette Duet’, which has amassed some 54 million views on YouTube. What do you think it is about this song that led to it going so big?

PC: Well for a start it’s very catchy and very simple, but I think the subject material became something a lot of people related to and was very shareable for that reason. It had an organic grass-roots type of growth, which is super cool. Just people showing their friends families and workmates. The video was probably perfect too, being so simple, and I guess without realising it at the time ‘meme-worthy’.
 
HUP: Your single ‘Growing Older’, off the ‘The Loneliest Girl’ album, had a lot of footage from when you were a kid, including you with your first instrument - a Yamaha keytar - which was left behind in a house you moved into when you were a kid. What do you think the chances are of a keytar being left behind in a house, what has happened to the instrument, and do you think this influenced your later love of synths?
​
PC: Actually, there were two of the same Yamaha Keytar and a giant Roger Rabbit! For sure they influenced my love of synths! I think those formative early years are very important in that regard. Unfortunately, they disappeared somewhere along the line. I wish I still had them because they had a great demo song of ‘Last Christmas’ by Wham! with midi clarinet playing the lead vocal line.

​HUP: I have to ask this question - I didn't realise this but you are in or have played in The Cosbys and Disciples of Macca. Were you in the bands at Camp A Low Hum in 2008? Both those bands sets blew my daft mildly inebriated mind that weekend.

PC: Yes, I was in fact. I played in Teen Wolf and Brand New Math and my very first Princess Chelsea appearance in the Renegade Room.
 
HUP: Finally, what can we expect to hear from Princess Chelsea on this tour?
​
PC: A greatest hits package performed entirely live by five of us. Lots of synths and love; animated visuals by Simon Ward - it will be really fun!

I N T E R V I E W
Shredding the Octatract: A Q&A with Kraus
with Ian Duggan

Prolific psychedelic music producer Kraus (a.k.a. Pat Kraus) is playing at Never Project Space this Friday, 20 November, and has a new track on local compilation 'In Thrust We Trust'! We spoke with Pat about the equipment he uses to produce his 'golden age' electronic sounds, what songs from his last 18 albums we might expect to hear on Friday, his inclusion on ‘In Thrust We Trust’, and more!

HUP: If you had to choose one track from your catalogue that someone should listen to, when deciding whether they should come and see you play, what would it be?

Kraus: Well if I had to pick one, it would probably be “Why Oh Why” from “Grip the Moon”. This song was my set closer for about 3 years, and it’s got all the elements I like: a hypnotic, thuggish drum loop, brain-melting electronic guitar sound, and a soaring pentatonic melody. I think a characteristic sound combo that I do is: real earthy drum sounds mixed with super day-glo bright electronic sounds. I never get tired of that contrast. You can go HARD on that for a whole career I think. Well I hope so.

​HUP: Your music is recorded with lots ‘Golden Age’ electronics sounds. Can you describe for us some of the equipment you use?

Kraus: I have an analogue modular synth that I built from scratch 10 years ago, plus a bunch of guitar pedals and a spring reverb that I built into a biscuit tin. I love the sound of analogue tape, so I’ve done a lot of work recording with tape, and making tape loops on a couple of old machines I have. Unfortunately my beautiful reel-to-reel four-track recorder is dying (it’s from 1974), so I only use that sometimes for loops and tape-echo now. But actually, in the last 12 months I’ve gotten real excited about some digital gear. I got a wavetable synth and an FM synth, and started doing stuff with MIDI, which is actually quite mental when you get into it. So I’ve really blasted into the future, i.e., the 1980s hahaha.

HUP: How challenging is it to present it in a live form? Is the equipment you use transportable?
​
Kraus: It took me a while to figure out how to do live shows that presented the range of sounds that I use in my albums. Analogue synths are bulky, and also they don’t have memories, so it’s hard to do a range of songs in one set. This is one area that modern, digital equipment shines – it’s portable AND can remember stuff. So my current approach is to sample analogue gear and work with those samples. Recently I got an AMAZING modern sampler, an Octatrack. It’s kind of a mega-looper, and so I’ve been able to take what I was doing with tape loops, and move that over to this new machine, which is designed for live performance. It’s very exciting to use this thing. I got it in February and I’ve developed a whole new set with it.

HUP: What can we expect from a Kraus live performance?

Kraus: I have this new material based on shredding the Octatrack, with some super danceable rhythms that fly around the stereo field. I’ve got some rich analogue synth sounds in there, combined with this great hippie Mellotron flute stuff. I think it’s fun music. I describe my music as psychedelic, and one of the things I love about psychedelic music is it’s real broad, you can draw on a lot of different sounds and traditions, from medieval lute stylings to power noise to bongos to 80s voice synthesizer, it can all go in the soup. And a sampler is the perfect tool to bring all those things together in a musical and expressive way.

HUP: You have released 18 albums to date, the most recent being ‘A Golden Brain’ in April this year. In your live shows, do you play songs from across these albums, or focus on the more recent?

Kraus: My current live set is mostly new material, post-“A Golden Brain”, but I will do a couple of songs from that album. I’m really excited about what I’m working on right now, every day in the studio, with the new equipment I have. So the set is very much about what I’m discovering and exploring, rather than a retrospective. Next year I’d like to do some shows covering material from my whole career. That would be a good way to celebrate album number 20, which I’m planning to release before the end of next year.

​HUP: You have had the fantastic track ‘Rainbow Blue’ included on the ‘In Thrust We Trust’ compilation, which I think is pretty indicative of the sound of your recent work. What is the story of you coming to be included on that compilation?

Kraus: Oh thanks! The compilation is a benefit for Hamilton musician Dean Ballinger, who is dealing with Motor Neurone Disease. I’ve played shows with Dean's band the Hollow Grinders, e.g., my band The Maltese Falcons played with them at Biddy Mulligans a few years ago. One guy in the audience asked us if we could play the song "Wagon Wheel". And the bar staff were VERY adamant that sound-check must not interfere with the rugby screening. I don’t think that will be an issue this Friday. I’m really looking forward to checking out Never Project Space; I’ve heard really good things about it.

See Kraus on Bandcamp -> HERE <-

Max Johns talks with Die! Die! Die! frontman Andrew Wilson about their new double-A side (I Seek Misery/450), their umpteenth national tour (starting in Hamilton on Friday night), the Dunedin scene that Wilson and drummer Mikie Prain emerged from, the bassists they have collected over the last 18 years, feral crowds in Raglan, and marathon running. But not in that order.

HUP: Hi Andrew!
AW: Hi. 

HUP: So, new tour, new single, new video...
AW: We are going to have another video out this week, too, for 450.

HUP: When did you shoot these?
AW: 450 was about three weeks ago. It took a little while to finish. The I Seek Misery one was the first Wednesday out of our second lockdown here in Auckland.

HUP:  You've had ridiculous tour schedules, in your heaviest years especially. How was lockdown for a band like yours?
AW: It was cool. I mean, it made you really appreciate having good health, enough money and a job and stuff. If this had happened 10 years ago I would hate to think what would have happened to us. It couldn't have come at a better time for all three of us, if you can say that about a global pandemic. We were definitely some of the lucky ones.

HUP: Where was Lachlan [Anderson, bass] for lockdown?
AW: Lachie was in Auckland. He moved here [from London] back in 2018. He was going to be over here for a couple of weeks, so we rushed to do the recording of [four-track EP] O, then he just ended up staying. He's nominated for a Silver Scroll this week, for the soundtrack for The Dead Lands! The Dead Lands is what made him come back to New Zealand.

We now break from this interview for an editorial clarification and some backstory.

The editorial clarification, which APRA would probably want us to make, is that Anderson's nomination is for the APRA Best Original Music in a Series, which will be handed out at the SIlver Scrolls. We admit that Andrew's version of the story is way better. Also, you can watch the Silver Scrolls live online on Wednesday night.

The backstory is that Lachie Anderson is one of five bassists that Die! Die! Die! have had over the years, and the only one to return for a second stint. His first time lasted from 2006 to 2011, and included three albums - Promises, Promises (2008), Form (2010) and Harmony (recorded 2011, released 2012). Harmony marked a dark time. Pressure ranging from record label issues to gruelling touring schedules built up. Andrew: "We'd just done a crazy 3-month tour all around Europe and China, and we were in Japan and it was just getting nuts. It was the amount of shows we were doing as well. It just wasn't sustainable."

Anderson left and the band split for the best part of a year. After leaving it aside for months. Andrew Wilson completed Harmony alone.

HUP: New single I Seek Misery sounds to me like it could have come out of the Promises, Promises sessions in 2008. There's something about it. Is that because Lachie's back?
AW: Yep, that's Lachie there. It's just those basslines, you know?

HUP: You've gone through a few bassists, all with their own style, but the music that's come out has always sounded like Die! Die! Die! as well. It's cool to have Lachie come back and to hear that yes, this style is his.
AW: Totally. It's really nice, too, because Lachie left when recorded Harmony. It was strange. We weren't on the best of terms, but we weren't on the worst of terms like we were never going to talk to each other again. It was like unfinished business. 

It's really nice to be creating stuff and—not picking up where we left off, but—just doing justice to how all three of us play together. In hindsight, I definitely would have handled how I acted differently. It's just really nice to have Lachie back.

HUP: That split goes back to some of your heaviest years of touring. So what sort of a touring schedule would you aim for now? What's ideal, assuming the pandemic gets solved?
AW: We were laughing about this at band practice, about how we don't want to be the biggest band in the world. We don't want everyone to know us, haha! But we want people who like us to know us. A lot of people don't know we're still going.

It's quite funny, we get tagged a lot on Facebook and Instagram by people saying, "oh do you remember this band? They were…" like it's in the past. And I'm like, "hey! We're still going!"

I don't think we'll ever go and do 100 shows in 100 days again. It's quite nice touring around New Zealand. We've got it at a manageable pace now. When we release the album [next year] we could probably go and do some more [international] shows. As long as we're all happy and healthy and everyone around us is happy and healthy, you know.

Also not paying to play. It's a lot of money to go overseas, which was always our motivation. We would go to America and, okay, airfares cost this amount of money so we have to play this many shows to cover the cost. And then the same for Europe, etc. and we'd never really lose money…

HUP:  ...but you were aiming only to break even.
AW: Yeah.

HUP:  How were things like Bandcamp Fridays when all the money from sales would go straight through to artists? During lockdown was it possible to run a band that doesn't lose money?
AW: That was amazing, man. We didn't actually know who was running our Bandcamp for a wee while. There's all these little things. Because we were just so busy and focusing on the music, we weren't really looking at the nitty gritty of the business like who owns the rights to stuff.

We found out that the Bandcamp was being run by someone else, so we got the rights back for that at the beginning of last year, I think. It was an old record label.
So we managed to put all our stuff on there and it came at a really good time. Also a lot of record labels have released our stuff over the years, and we got a lot of stock back, like coloured vinyl of different albums. That was really cool to put up [on Bandcamp].

There must be some sort of good moral core at the centre of Bandcamp. It's not like Spotify, because they wouldn't do it. Being willing to do [Bandcamp Fridays] once a month, that's amazing. You could argue they could be doing more, but it's an incredible thing for a multinational big behemoth like Bandcamp.

HUP: How have sales been for the new blue vinyl [I Seek Misery/450 7”]? It looks beautiful. 
AW: Awesome! We've got a little bit left. We didn't go super-limited like for O, so we've probably got enough for the tour but that will be it.

HUP: Hamilton's first on the schedule, isn't it [this Friday, October 30, at the Never Project Space]?
AW: Yep.

HUP: Good, I'll be at the merch table early. Why is Hamilton first out of the blocks?
AW: It just fits in with when our Auckland show is, at Whammy on the 31st.

HUP: That puts you back in Auckland in time for the marathon on Sunday. You run distance, don't you?
AW: Yeah, I'm doing the Queenstown Marathon this year.

HUP: How did you get into that?
AW: I've got a really good friend called Greg. He was a drinking buddy of mine, and one of the first times when I tried to get healthy and quit drinking I swapped it for running. So me and Greg started running together, and he's a crazy running nut who does, like, ultramarathons. I've never done an ultramarathon, but he got me inspired. I ran a marathon in 2015 and I've been hooked ever since. Queenstown will be the first marathon I've done since 2017.

HUP: What do Mikie [Prain, drums] and Lachie think of having a marathon runner as a bandmate? Are they looking at you sideways?
AW: I think they're happy that I'm healthy, probably. They've seen me in some pretty funny states over the years and running is a positive influence in my life.

HUP: You've been in bands with Mikie since high school. He must have seen every possible state you've got.
AW: I could say I've seen him in similar states! It's the nature of being friends with someone so long.

HUP: I absolutely loved the piece that Henry Oliver wrote when he interviewed you guys two or three years ago. He came back into the fold and looked at the two of you to work out how you've kept it going and going. [Oliver was DDD's second bassist, in 2004-06, before becoming a journalist.]
AW: Yeah, it was awesome, eh? Henry's really cool, and it was nice to do that because it was similar to what I was saying about Lachie: It didn't end badly with Henry but it didn't end amazingly, it sort of just ended. So after a period of time it's nice to be on good terms and all reflect on that time that we spent together. He's such a cool guy, too.

HUP: He's kind of fitted two or three different lives into his time so far, from Die! Die! Die! to editing Metro magazine.
AW: Totally, yeah. He was such an inspiring person for me and Mikie to meet at that period in time. Such a positive influence as well. 

HUP: You met him in Auckland, right? After you'd left Dunedin?
AW: Yeah, we were doing a tour with the Mint Chicks and Henry was a couple of years older than us. We just thought he was so cool! He'd been in a hardcore band, which we were quite fascinated with because hardcore didn't really exist in Dunedin. He listened to vinyl, he was quite sophisticated and cool. 

He had such an incredible ear, and I can say now in hindsight that he wouldn't let us go down any indulgent pathways.

HUP: And when you own a lot of guitar pedals, indulgent pathways can just open up.
AW: Yeah, exactly! He'd do it in a good way, he wasn't condescending. He'd be able to frame it in just the right way that you think you've come up with the decisions yourself, rather than just being like, "oh my god, that's so lame". I've got a lot of gratitude.

HUP: In your Dunedin days I was writing about music for [student "newspaper"] Critic. I think I was music sub-editor the year after you and Mikie won Rockquest with Carriage H, so I had an ear on you even back then.
AW: Oh, wow! Crazy! 

HUP: And just the other day I dug up my copy of a free Rip It Up CD with Carriage H on it. I'd forgotten I even had it, but in those days that was how you got hold of songs by new local bands.
AW: What a funny period of time now in hindsight. It's so weird that I keep doing interviews that turn into nostalgia. 

HUP: Oh, sorry about that.
AW: No, not at all. It's so funny now, in the context of these times, to try to explain that CDs used to come with magazines - two things that are now completely dead.

HUP: You'd read about a band, but without that CD you couldn't go and listen to the music straightaway.
AW: Totally! Like going to Echo Records in Dunedin, and having to wait six weeks for a CD I wanted.

HUP: That comment you made about the Dunedin scene at the time, and no hardcore bands, rings really true for me. There were Gestalt Switch, Grit, Sifty Chris and the Gladeyes...all these bands playing rockier or poppier stuff. So how did you guys end up being such a heavy high school band?
AW: I mean, Chris and the Gladeyes, those guys were in a band called MAHTH - My Ass Has Two Holes - and one guy from Gestalt Switch, I think the drummer, was in a band called Goat Vomit. They were pretty heavy metal. And Ritalin were there with punk. But we were pretty anti-social. We used to book this all-ages venue where I met Natasha who was HDU's manager and Shayne Carter's sister. I was 15.

HUP: What a person to just run across at the time.
AW: Totally. It was like, this is amazing and I want to change everything I'm doing musically. I was just such a fanboy of that band [HDU]. The next year we went on tour with them, which also changed my mind. Then we toured with [Shayne's group] Dimmer, and that blew my mind. Then we toured with The Clean, and that blew my mind! It was really cool. Such an amazing thing to do when you're 16, 17 years old.

HUP: Have you read Shayne's book, Dead People I Have Known?
AW: I haven't read Shayne's book. I have a copy of it that my supervisor at uni gave me, and I've read the Die! Die! Die! section.

HUP: I was thinking about it mainly because you mentioned growing up as an anti-social muso in Dunedin. You're a couple of decades apart, but there'd be a lot of familiar stuff in there.
AW: Shayne's such an incredible influence on me, as a person, over the years, and musically as a pretty cool guy. 

HUP: When he produced Promises, Promises you were recording in the US.
AW: That's right, 2007 in upstate New York.

HUP: He mentions in the book that he's never produced another band since. What did you do to him?
AW: [Laughs]. I don't know. I know that he asked a friend's band, but that obviously didn't happen. It came out of the blue for us, but Shayne would probably be interested in continuing producing bands if people want him to.

We were in America, and Dimmer were touring with Brian Jonestown Massacre, and we were quite good friends with them. So they were messaging us all the time while they were with Dimmer. We'd done the Steve Albini album [self-title debut Die! Die! Die!, 2006] and we were choosing who we were going to work with next. 

We were young and missing home, and we really wanted to have some sort of connection to New Zealand and Shayne personified it - this Dunedin guy who's awesome and has been around the world, you know? He was relevant with everyone we were hanging out with and he was a really good choice for us at the time. I learned so much from that experience. 

We've just had Promises, Promises remastered and it sounds so frickin' cool! The first time something went wrong with the mastering and it's taken us 12 years or so to get it fixed. Just typical Die! Die! Die! style, leaving something not quite right for 12 years. The drums sound so good now.

HUP: Skipping forward to now, which I'm meant to be writing about, are there more songs to come out of your recent recording or was it only 450 and I Seek Misery?
AW: We're recording a new album in the middle of November. We were going to be recording in Chicago in July, with everything booked before covid happened, but in some ways it's good because we just kept writing. So most of the material we'll play at these gigs will be new songs. I hope that's alright. We'll try to play mostly new music.

HUP: That's not your normal approach. You normally mix it up well, the whole back catalogue.
AW: Yeah, the old and the new. We'll probably do some old stuff. But there's nothing better than playing songs live before you go and record them. That was the impetus for doing slightly more shows on this tour.

HUP: How would you describe the new stuff?
AW: It's not that similar to I Seek Misery and 450. We'll see how it goes when we finish recording it but I'm pretty stoked with it so far. It's just a really cool buzz working on all this music that we've got. We've got so much stuff, it'll be interesting to see what we actually put out as an album. We started working on it at the end of 2018 when we went up to Dargaville. We rented a house for a week and started jamming.

We wanted to get I Seek Misery and 450 out because they do fit with the new music, but they don't really belong on the album with the other stuff. We thought we'd just do a 7-inch and see what was happening with covid etc. It kind of pushed everything back. Obviously we're not going to Chicago anymore, so we thought we'd just put these songs out.

We're going to record at Roundhead with Steven Marr. It'll be interesting, what we finally put out there, I think.

HUP: It’s good to have you guys tour through Hamilton so often. A lot of bands skip us, or go through Raglan.
AW: I really like it in Hamilton, and I'm not just saying that. Raglan's not the same buzz. It's like you’re playing at a beach town, which you are, but you know? Even Port Chalmers can be a bit 'eugh', because people from Dunedin don't want to go all that way. Raglan and Hamilton have that Port Chalmers and Dunedin thing, but extremely. And every time we've played there it's just been so feral in Raglan.

The Never Project Space that Nick [Walsh] and co have put together looks so cool. We haven't played there yet but we’ve known Nick a long time. We saw Nick at a Shanghai show in 2017. That's a change, from Shanghai to Hamilton.

HUP: What sort of crowds did you pull in Shanghai, and will Hamilton be able to match them?
AW: I'm sure Hamilton will be totally sweet.

HUP: You're a lovely man.

See Die! Die! Die! play at Never Project Space on Friday (tickets from Banished Music), or head to Bandcamp to order the brand new 7" single and listen through the entire DDD back catalogue.

R E V I E W
REPAIRS – REPEAT, REPEAT LP
By Arpie Shirehorse

Tāmaki Makaurau three-piece REPAIRS have just released their debut LP ‘Repeat, Repeat’ and, ladels and jellyspoons, to save you guessing where this review is heading, it is ruddy magnificent.

Kicking off with the deliciously jarring ‘Pop Song’, a semi-industrial ode to heaven-only-knows what. “I just wanted to write a pop song” repeat the band throughout, and, depending on your particular musical taste, it’s hard not to conclude anything other than ‘mission complete’.
​

Tone set, the flavour continues for the next half an hour as pounding drums, angular guitars, looping basslines and the dualling vocals of Nicola Edwards and Martin Phillips flood over you for another 13 tracks of mildly dystopian post-punk.

It's a thrilling ride and is very much a sound of its time. In fact, if 'Repeat, Repeat' was a stick of rock, it would have 2 0 2 0 emblazoned solidly through its candy core. The highlights are many – personal favourites are ‘Cut to the Chase’, (not a song about having a trim to a popular gameshow, alas), the simmering ‘Slow Centre’ and perhaps the most ‘pop’ of songs on the LP, ‘Thanks for the Advice’ one minute and thirty-three seconds of perfectly-paced, um, perfection.
​

​
​Seriously, I don’t know what else you want from a song in this day and age. It’s perfect accompaniment to pretty much any activity – running, hanging out washing, chopping onions, (careful now), or shouting in the face of a mask-avoiding conspiracy theorist. The other thing to mention is this - not only is ‘Repeat, Repeat’ a collection of fourteen fantastic songs, but the whole body of work is a beautiful thing in its own right - a delicately placed, powerful slap in the chops followed by the biggest hug you've ever had. Buy it now, get the words and riffs stuck in your head, then go see them slay at a venue near you ASAP.

Flight Mode Vol. 3 was the third instalment of the monthly ambient event hosted by The Never Project Space. It featured two well-known local musicians/artists: Wairehu Grant and Oliver Stewart.

​First up was Half/Time, the new solo project by Wairehu Grant. Formerly of Cartoon Villain, Blood Lux, Celebrity Death Hoax, Grant is currently mixing with punkademics as he’s in the midst of completing a PhD at the University of Waikato (Te Whare Wananga o Waikato) entitled: Three Chord Rebellion and the White Cloud: Examining Indigenous Punk Identities in Aotearoa.  The relevance to a gig review? His academic work is clearly not separate from his creative and community life. Grant’s current musical output as Half/Time is a vehicle for his current thinking and engagement with the politics of indigenous self-determination and rights (“I’ll Ask the Mountain”). The set featured Grant’s first song penned in Te Reo, “He Tangata,” alongside his version of “Pokarekare Ana.”

​Described as: “Inspired by post-rock and film soundtrack assemblages of synth, guitar and rhythmic loops,” Grant’s set was indeed an eclectic mix of instruments and tools incorporating many aspects of his former projects. What’s new about Grant as Half/Time is the effortless blending of genres, with the set featuring elements of dark ambient, hints of ambient neo-classical, trip hop, protest song, post-punk, and garage rock. Large sections of the set began as ambient or instrumental tracks that then became a platform or container for more conventional song structures. I got the sense that the aim wasn’t to convince an audience they were watching a full band. On several occasions throughout the set Grant was content to play either guitar or keyboards unaccompanied by any other sonic layers. Moments that are rarely possible in a band context. Overall the set moved between melodic, serene ambient soundscapes, biting political commentary and nostalgic celebration.

​After a wee false start (a small technical glitch) the unflappable Glass Shards, dressed for the performance in his Sani Does custom-made Shards tracky suit and clown make-up, got things going again. I think it is probably time for Stewart to review and update the way he describes his music as “the ringing in the back of your skull after a skull fracture” as Glass Shards has evolved into so much more. He has become a truly melodic, tuneful, rhythmic live act. In the earliest days of the band Stewart certainly seemed to purposely test (even punish) his audience with the most gruelling combinations of twisted, distorted, shattered, cracked sounds. While his sonic palette largely remains the same, sounds and effects are blended and used in support of increasingly more complex song structures. Stand out track was set closer “Roar / Whimper.” Like Half/Time the transitions between songs were flawless.
 
For both performers the venue worked to their advantage. So often solo performers are confined to the early part of the evening, first up, warming up the stage for full bands that are inevitably louder (but not necessarily better). With no stage, those present were able to gather around the performers, giving them access to all the actions and manipulations necessary to make the lush ambience and soundscapes of both bands. Performatively the coordination of pedal pushing, knob twiddling, channel selecting, string plucking and cable wrangling was amazing to behold. How Glass Shards recalls and sings lyrics whilst cueing up the next sound, sample, or instrument setting is a joy to watch. Staring at the slogan “shard me up daddy” written on his track pants backside, less so. Although, those words provide a reminder that Glass Shards will always find a way to unnerve regardless of how professional and efficient the music making gets.

​It has been a good few weeks for the DIY local solo artist. The new single by Bitter Defeat “Light that Shines”, once a solo bedroom recording project (now a full band), has received radio play across the country. Nick Johnson (Sora Shima, The Changing Same and Dynamo Go) has just released the excellent Ultraviolet EP as solo project Empasse. Nick was in the audience for this show. Let’s hope that as he was enjoying Half/Time and Glass Shards he was also contemplating how he might translate his solo recordings into a future Flight Mode live show.

I N T E R V I E W
“I can’t believe it’s gotten this far”: Bitter Defeat defeat lockdown and hit the studio
by Max Johns

​Covid-19 may have ruined Bitter Defeat’s plans for recording sessions in March, but they’ve flown out of lockdown into The Porch and already released their first single, Light That Shines. With an EP in the works the five-piece band have gotten serious. They’ve set up Spotify, cleared Bandcamp of Rob’s gritty old solo recordings, joined Twitter and YouTube, and even had their first real photoshoot in front of the psychedelic-as-hell exhibition of giant inflatable mushrooms that BOON is running in Garden Place. (It’s called Shrooms and you should go see it.)

HUP is run by Rob (Bitter Defeat’s songwriter, singer and guitarist), and Ian (keyboards) is probably its most prolific writer, so this interview was soaked in conflicts of interest before it even began. All five members were invited to a socially-distanced group chat but, ominously, three of them didn’t make it. Guess which two turned up... 

Rob: Hi, it’s just me and Ian!

HUP: The Big Two, amirite? So, which one's Bitter and which one's Defeat?

Rob: I’m both, Ian is Sweet and Victorious.

Ian: I just do what I'm told.

HUP: Were you told, for example, how to dress for the Shrooms photoshoot?

Ian: No, we got no direction on dressing for the photoshoot. I made an effort though. Shaved and everything. I don't even shave for work! The effort I go to for this band. Rob specifically went for an indie look.

Rob: I mean, I wore my Sonic Youth hat, but apart from that it was standard 'having your pic taken with shrooms' attire.

HUP: Rob, you went for the non-power power move of not standing front and centre in your own band's portrait. Was that deliberate, or are you naturally Just That Indy?

Rob: Did I? It was squidgy underfoot. I couldn’t be arsed to move, for fear of slipping. So it just happened and it’s totally cool with me. There are other pics, that was just a nice one!

Ian: We got some photos in front of a deflated mushroom that we thought was pretty reflective of the band. We’ve gone with the glamour shot first up though.

HUP: With new recordings coming out you've got yourselves a nice new shroomy photo or two, a Spotify presence, a Twitter account... how much of being a band is playing music and how much of it is 'all the other stuff'?

Rob: My god! The Sunday before Light That Shines came out I think Ben (guitar) spent a whole day getting shit ready… all the socials and that. But it’s all in place now so the next songs will be less hassle.

Ian: Most of it is playing music. It has taken us two years to get to this point. We have been hitting social media in the last week or so, because now we are getting into promotion mode. The social media side hasn't been so important until now, other than to promote shows.

Rob: It has taken ages! But we've had challenges along the way. Good experience though, and it’s nice to feel in control with some songs in the bag ready to go.

HUP: You're drip-feeding the music out now. Light That Shines is available now, and then I guess there'll be a two-week teaser campaign before single #2...

Rob: Weeeeell... I think it will be a bit longer. We decided to record a video for the next one. Another new experience. It will take a little while, but sometime in October, all being well.

HUP: Will you go back to Garden Place for filming, or somewhere more exotic?

Rob: No firm plans as to what it will be like, just that we will do it. We only decided about two hours ago! I’m keen to get some Kirikiriroa in it for sure. I like the idea of Fairfield Bridge in it in some way.

HUP: The greatest H-Town video ever is Trade Secrets by Dubious Brothers. So if you need a template for local sights, there you go. [Made in 2002, highlights include an elevated shot of the duo rolling over Fairfield Bridge, tyres smoking down Rostrevor Street, the whole crew hitting the river to go gambling speakeasy-style on the Waipa Delta, and a breakdancing scene that I’m 99% sure is filmed in the Gardens.]

Rob: Ooo thanks, I’ll check it now. Cool vid!

Ian: Watch the video later - rude!

HUP: Anyway, let's go back to the recording side of things.

Ian: Yeah, getting to the point of having recordings has taken a while. We were originally meant to be in the studio on what became the first weekend of lockdown.

Rob: We were going to go to The Porch with Scott Newth, then lockdown hit.

Ian: That was our original, original plan. Then [post-lockdown] we were set up to do some more lo-fi type recordings, but that fell through fairly last minute. 

Rob: We’d lined up our pal Cam to demo them first before full-on recording. We were set up to record in our practice space, but circumstances got in the way.

Ian: Because we had all set our weekend aside, we checked back with Scott Newth and The Porch and they could take us. We started out as a 'lo-fi' pop group. With these recordings, it is difficult for us to carry that moniker!

Rob: It was lo-fi as when it was just me with one mic, a small amp and a Casiotone in my spare room!

HUP: How do you think the abandoned sessions would have gone? 

Ian: They would have been very different recordings. They would have been great, either way... but they would have been different.

Rob: Yes, true, we would’ve learned lots and done things a bit differently in the studio, but Scott has been amazing and got us to where we want to be.

HUP: He’s a one-man institution.

Rob: He is. Legend and a gent.

HUP: You’ve gone from a solo kick-around project to a gigging line-up, now a well-recorded group with a Real Digital Presence... is there a goal in mind? Or just a track to keep travelling down?

Rob: Honestly, I don't know! I can’t believe it’s gotten this far. It’s a very good thing to have in my life - finding these people to be in a band with, who like the same things and have a similar level of ambition - not that much, but just enough. I’m lucky as.

Ian: I think the main goal is to just enjoy ourselves. I would love for the songs to get a wide audience, and for people to appreciate them. I'm not counting on being able to give up the day job.

Rob: I don't want it to end - writing songs, covering cool songs, playing neat shows, having fun. It's a hobby for sure, but it's a buzz and so much fun.

HUP: How much does playing neat shows and having fun rely on the state of the local scene?

Rob: Good question. I don’t know really. A decent venue is important for any scene, obviously, and we have that. Never, in Frankton, is coming on the scene, and there’s the Meteor too so there’s enough places. I think we need a proper music bar that’s open all the time though, for 'those people' to hang out and meet, drink, talk, form bands, listen to music etc. If I had the money...

HUP: If we're lucky this pandemic will crash inner-city property prices, drive out everyone who complains about noise, and set the scene free!

Rob: I mean, that sounds amazing! The scene I know is mostly older people who go for a beer and to listen and watch rather than much else, but that’s cool. I'm quite old now but I don’t like old person music... or do I? God, I never thought of it like that.

HUP: I have a sneaking suspicion that guitars = old person music these days, but I don't care to check. As one of our more established groups, is Bitter Defeat better-placed to have fun and find listeners no matter what, or are you more reliant on venues and ears to get what you want out of it all?

Ian: Are we well established?

HUP: By Hamilton standards, absolutely.

Rob: REALLY?! Jeepers! 

HUP: Name me a non-Dunedin band that's been on the Radio One top 11 without counting as established. [The week of this interview saw Light That Shines voted #9 on the Otago student station’s weekly countdown]. I'll wait.

Rob: Haha, fair enough. Quietly stoked about that btw, good on ya, Ōtepoti. We lucked in with [opening slots for] The Bats and Hamish Kilgour. They were good to get the name out there. And Phil on the HUM has been very supportive. I reckon if we keep the filter high and release decent tunes and get better at playing live, we'll do alright.

Ian: I think the way things are playing out, online is a really important outlet for us currently. If this is any measure, our followers on Facebook are up 4600% in the last week; that has been from the release of one song, rather than the two years of gigging.

Rob: Ian is the band statistician, and not just cos it has -ian in it either. Statistic(ian)! There’s another song to write.

HUP: Some of those 4600% are going to be from ages away, like Dunedin, for example.

Statistic(ian): Interestingly, a lot of the new fans are from the UK!

HUP: You have the means to keep those fans without ever being in the same room as them. Does that appeal to you guys?

Ian: I'm stoked about the airplay on Radio One. If you had asked me a week ago what a measure of success would be for a band at this stage, charting on a student radio countdown would be it. I'm going to have to raise my expectations now.

Rob: And of course one day we will go there and play, on the great road trip we have in our heads. I’m really looking forward to releasing an EP on record, and a wee tour playing nice little shows around the place. And, of course, playing here to people who are into the music.

HUP: How many tracks will be on the EP?

Rob: 4 songs on the EP.

HUP: And when’s it coming out?

Rob: That depends on format - will we do a record or not? - and the lead-times involved. It might just be CD but it will be a financial decision really. 150 records is about $2,000 to press, which is a big chunk of change. We could record another 5-6 songs for that.

[Hi, readers. Light That Shines is available via Bandcamp as a name-your-own price download. You could, for example, name $2,000 as your price. Just an idea - Ed.] 

HUP: How different was the dynamic in the studio vs practice or performance?

Ian: I think we were all genuinely a bit nervous going into the studio. We all started this band a bit out of our comfort zones: Rob not having sung before, Julian on bass rather than guitar, Ben and I not having really been in bands before. (And me not really being musical, at all!) Kathryn [on drums] was probably the most comfortable on her instrument coming in. In the practice room, we probably have more of the lo-fi ethic... that it doesn't matter if you play some bung notes. The stakes were higher in the studio.

Rob: Dynamic-wise, it was more focused, but reasonably relaxed I think, lots of excitement. It was good overall - two half days and we were all done. Really neat process. Scott was amazing. We tried to get as much as we could, live. On day one we did a couple of setup hours then live takes of Better, Long Lash and some bad Light That Shines.

HUP: Light That Shines came out brilliantly. 

Rob: We couldn’t get Light That Shines on day one. Then on day two: first take, done.

HUP: What was up on day one?

Ian: My family came in on the morning of day two. Having the audience made us up the game, I think. And it gave Rob people to play up to.

Rob: We did a bit of patching up of bits where needed, and Scott tweaked some in post-production too, but overall we're stoked. All the songs are different, but I think we're really all excited about the next one because it sounds, if I can say it, grrrreat.

HUP: Rob, Light That Shines is about your Nan, yeah?

Rob: Yes, when I saw her last she was 97, asleep in an old folks’ home. She didn't know I was there, but the light was coming through the window catching her silver hair. Just a picture in my head.

HUP: That's a beautiful image. 

Rob: I cried like a baby! My daughter never met her and had been looking forward to meeting her at last. But she [Nan] was out of it and not able to see or talk to her. We all cried loads.

HUP: The lyrics could be quite sombre, but you went in another direction and sang something celebratory.

Rob: Yes, Nans are really great. Mine was. So many ace memories. And even though it’s a sad image, it was lovely because my daughter and I were both super-sad together. There’s something oddly grounding about shared grief, I think.

HUP: What does your daughter think of the song?

Rob: She loves it, haha. All the bloody comments on YouTube are her and her friends - “so lit”, etc.

Ian: If you think that's meaningful, wait until you hear Long Lash.

Rob: Haha!!

HUP: I was about to ask you to wrap things up with a plug, but Ian's just nailed it.

Rob: There you have it!

Light That Shines is out now on Bandcamp (for those who want to flick the band a couple of bucks), Spotify (for cheapskates), and YouTube (where you can comment on how lit it is). 

This interview has been heavily edited to remove a bunch of emoji, some atrocious spelling, a 15-minute detour into gnome-related facts and puns, some terrible banter about metal detection as a hobby, and a photo of the interviewer playing a tiny violin. 

R E V I E W
​'Ultraviolet' EP, by Empasse
​by Ian Duggan

I grew up beyond the west-side of Huntly, a bike ride from Rotowaro, and I was schooled in Huntly itself. In primary school I had a friend who I visited in Rotowaro - the son of a miner - so I have vague memories of the town, before it became a (literal) hole; the site of the town went on to become part of the second largest opencast coal mine in New Zealand. Most vividly, I remember ‘tapping’ the pay phone in the main street. So, with these memories, the debut ‘Ultraviolet’ EP from ‘Empasse’ piqued my interest, being described by Nick Johnston (late of Sora Shima, The Changing Same and Dynamo Go), the musician behind the project, as “a soundtrack to a story that is not well known in New Zealand… the story of the town of Rotowaro, a former mining village that was entirely removed in the 1980s to make way for an opencast coal mine”. The cover art, featuring the Huntly Power Station, also has a personal interest, as an area I watched emerge from paddocks in my childhood, which I passed every day on my bus trip to school, and where my sister ended up working for a time. To date ‘What’s Wrong with Huntly’ by ‘Hugh and the New Zealanders’ is probably the best known song about my hometown; “Angus McDonald’s the mayor of the town, he’s into coal mining….”.
​
Rather than celebrating the coal towns, however, Nick describes ‘Ultraviolet’ as being “about the damage and wounds that we cannot see – in this case, it is the rural communities that have [been] battered over many generations to grow and power our larger cities…”; “successive generations in some of those communities have been hit particularly hard for land and mineral extraction. In the case of Rotowaro, a whole village that had to be destroyed to keep the coal flowing to Huntly Power Station, or the power station itself being built on sites of importance to local hapū, with the station built right next to Waahi Pā”. All of this resonated with me, having grown up there through the ‘boom’ and eventual ‘bust’ of the mining and power industries, witnessing the social change of the area first-hand, before I eventually escaped to Kirikiriroa.

But what of the music? Composed primarily during our first COVID-19 lockdown, Johnston describes it as “having cinematic qualities… something that would not feel out of place on the big screen”. This is certainly true; I can easily see these instrumentals, each of which represents different moods, from the dark and atmospheric opening track ‘Lockdown’, to the more upbeat ‘Battering Ram’ (with its relentless beat reminiscent of industrial progression), being picked up for the soundtracks of New Zealand movies. As much as I love The Phoenix Foundation, heaven knows we need a bit more variety in our movie soundtracks!
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The EP is scheduled for release on 14 September 2020, and will be available through Spotify, Apple Music, Soundcloud, Bandcamp, Tidal and YouTube.

I N T E R V I E W
Repeat, Repeat: A Q&A with Repairs
with Ian Duggan​

​The debut album by Auckland band Repairs, ‘Repeat, Repeat’, features a whopping 14 songs, and is due out on 18 September. In the meantime, the release of their third single from the album, ‘Pop Song’, is also imminent. We spoke to Repairs bass player Nicola Edwards about the upcoming releases, impostor syndrome, the time taken to get the album to completion, and hidden messages in the album cover!

HUP: As I haven’t heard the single, or the album yet, what can you tell me about them? Do the lyrics of the single or album have themes or significance?

Nicola: The themes running throughout the album – anxiety, feeling isolated, disillusionment, searching for meaning and hope – are ones I think everyone can relate to, particularly at the moment. Pop Song’s lyrics are an admission of imposter syndrome and feelings of inadequacy – which again is something I think resonates with a lot of people.

HUP: When I was an undergraduate student at university, I felt I was part of a psychology experiment – not feeling worthy of being there, and thinking I was being monitored for my reactions to any good grades I received. Is impostor syndrome true to life for the band members, and in what facets of your lives would you have these feelings? 

Nicola: Oh I so understand! Impostor syndrome is definitely something that I’ve felt for most of my life, particularly creatively. I went back to study animation a few years ago, and even though I’ve done various bits and pieces of illustration and design work since, I still feel uncomfortable or unable to call myself an artist. “Faking it until you make it” certainly isn’t something that comes naturally to me! Luckily I have bandmates and friends who are incredibly supportive of my playing music, and so the impostor syndrome around being a musician seems to be lessening slowly but surely.
 
HUP: The album seems to have been a few years in the making. When I talked to Repairs guitarist/vocalist Martin Phillips in 2018, he said the album was mostly recorded, and thought it would be out in late 2019. What happened? Is the album that resulted what you thought it would be back in 2018?
​
Nicola: I know, we were so optimistic! At the time Martin spoke to you, we really did think we had all the songs for an album – but then we started playing some of them live, and we found ourselves thinking “Hmmm, actually it sounds better if we structure it like this” or “These lyrics don’t quite work when we play it live, how can we fix that”. Songs like “Stop/Start” for example (which was our set opener) is a completely different song lyrically than when we first played it. 

We also took a bit of a break from playing shows mid-2019, with our practices being more about jamming on ideas and just having some fun recording demos. I think that’s when we started to really hit our stride creatively. In fact “Pop Song” happened to be one of those jams where everything just seemed to click. 
​
Martin does all of our recording as well as mixing, and so I think that time we spent just creating really helped us to gain the confidence to go – “You know what, we have some really good new songs and can record this ourselves – let’s start the album from scratch.” [continued, below]