Singer-songwriter Sabreen Islam releases sweet new indie bop ‘still love you’ + announces debut EP
Auckland singer-songwriter Sabreen Islam has released her super sweet, catchy new single ‘still love you’. Following on from popular singles ‘you will never see this’, ‘count me out’ and ‘like a movie’, this fresh new offering from Sabreen is about pining for a childhood crush who’s moved on.
Auckland singer-songwriter Sabreen Islam has released her super sweet, catchy new single ‘still love you’.
Following on from popular singles ‘you will never see this’, ‘count me out’ and ‘like a movie’, this fresh new offering from Sabreen is about pining for a childhood crush who’s moved on.
“I wrote it sort of making fun of myself,” says Sabreen, “and so it’s a bit of a comical take on not being able to move on from someone. It’s very self-aware and self-deprecating, and I have a lot of fun performing it. The vibe of the track is incredibly fun and upbeat, with themes of youth and high school woven throughout. I wanted it to sound like the feeling of standing on the precipice of childhood and adulthood, and not feeling like you fully fit into either.”
Recorded at Parachute Studios with Sophie Bialostocki, it was then mixed and mastered by Ariki Perana at Poynton Studios. “We recorded tabla for this song, which is a traditional Bangladeshi drum. I really want to start incorporating my culture into my music,” explains Sabreen, who is Muslim, “as the subcontinent I come from has such a rich musical history and is a huge part of who I am. My friend’s dad agreed to play it for me, which was such a special experience. It’s one of the elements I’m the proudest of about this song. It’s the first song where I’ve included a hint of my culture. I’m so excited for people to hear that part of me for the first time.”
Along with releasing ‘still love you’, Sabreen has announced that her debut EP ROOM SERVICE is on its way. “It comes out in March and is a real eclectic mix of all the styles I love. I worked with Sophie Bialostocki to produce the whole EP, and she’s absolutely incredible. I had a blast working with her and can’t wait for people to hear all six songs we did.”
Auckland-raised, Sabreen weaves her signature style with inspirations from the likes of Hozier, Conan Gray and dodie. Her single ‘Glow’ was selected as a semi-finalist in the International Songwriting Competition 2020 and she has performed at Auckland’s popular Others Way Festival. Not only a talented singer-songwriter, Sabreen is also a published poet. In July 2022 she published a critically acclaimed collection of poetry called spring clean. With a debut EP and much more on the horizon for this talented creative, be sure to follow her socials!
Find Sabreen Islam
Genre Fluid 'Bonafide Lover'
Dynamic Kiwi duo, Genre Fluid, have just independently released their second single 'Bonafide Lover' from their debut album, coming out in February 2023. And over the next 3 months they will be bringing their unique synergy onto stages all over Aotearoa for 'The Groova Meista Tour 2023'.
Dynamic Kiwi duo, Genre Fluid, have just independently released their second single 'Bonafide Lover' from their debut album, coming out in February 2023. Check it out here: https://linktr.ee/genrefluid
The Nelson-based funk-rock duo who fuse music and theatre into high-energy anthems and improvised acts, are super excited to be riding into summer with the release of their debut music, which they have been crafting for over a year at 'garage turned music venue/studio, Room Twenty5 in Richmond NZ.
Over the next 3 months they will be bringing their unique synergy onto stages all over Aotearoa for 'The Groova Meista Tour 2023'. Be part of a captivating experience and book a Genre Fluid show in your diary now! Visit www.genrefluid.co.nz/live to find tickets.
The duo consists of Wellington-born vocalist and performance artist, Silk Satin Suede, and Nelson-born multi-instrumentalist and looping artist, Bosho. Their journey began in 2020 where they quickly found a synergy within improvised music in Bo’s jam room in Nelson, New Zealand. Max and Bo are both heavily inspired by the likes of Led Zeppelin, Talking Heads and Fat Freddy’s Drop, with all Genre Fluid songs being born with the channeling of one feeling and the passion of another; contributing to a multi-genre’d catalog of music.
Genre Fluid’s engaging theatrical street performances found them early local success, becoming well recognised for their creative musicality in live looping, improvisation, theatrics, humour, and their ability to adapt to all environments, making them an act well-loved by all ages. This led them to playing on festival stages and opening for legendary Kiwi artists such as Bic Runga, Julia Deans, Mako Road, The Narcs, and Albi & The Wolves.
Oh, and remember to always strive to be a Bonafide Lover!
Spirit Boy release debut single ‘Adolescence’
Lyrically, ‘Adolescence’ speaks to finding contentment in your current surroundings. Oscillating between the perspectives of a frustrated teenager and their adult self, the song is a call to not just accept but celebrate where you’re at, both in space and time.
Ōtautahi-based indie-rock outfit Spirit Boy released their debut single ‘Adolescence’ on 25 November.
‘Adolescence’ brings together frontman Ethan Mead’s Americana-style vocals with an anthemic 80s-inspired soundscape.
Lyrically, ‘Adolescence’ speaks to finding contentment in your current surroundings. Oscillating between the perspectives of a frustrated teenager and their adult self, the song is a call to not just accept but celebrate where you’re at, both in space and time. While not entirely autobiographical, the track is partly inspired by Mead’s journey of having a child at 17.
“I’ve spent a long time wishing I was older, or wishing I was somewhere else, and when I got there I realised I was still just wishing for something else,” says Mead. “Finding that moment of clarity can be truly life-affirming.”
‘Adolescence’ is available to stream on all digital platforms, and provides a taste of the band’s nine-track album, to be released in mid-2023.
To celebrate the release of ‘Adolescence’, Spirit Boy played a sold out show at Christchurch’s Darkroom on Thursday 1 December, with support from Leah Kelsey and Holly Kimber.
Shot in Lyttelton by Caleb MacDonald of Kita Films, the song’s accompanying video shows the joy of living in the moment. The video was released on 16 December.
Spirit Boy are: Ethan Mead (vocals/guitar), Regan Barker (guitar), Sam Burt (keyboard/piano), Talon Adams (bass), and Mason Head (drums).
Adult Friends Release New Single: Brittle
Brittle is a post-punk belter, but with more emphasis on the “post” this time, drawing from legends Echo and the Bunnymen, Gang of Four and Bauhaus. The song details a failing relationship where one partner mistakes the effects of their own controlling behaviour as weakness in the other partner
Brittle is a post-punk belter, but with more emphasis on the “post” this time, drawing from legends Echo and the Bunnymen, Gang of Four and Bauhaus. The song details a failing relationship where one partner mistakes the effects of their own controlling behaviour as weakness in the other partner. A brooding track with its spiteful lyrics, it’s heavy groovy, focus on texture and witty song writing that makes it more than just angst. Andy Gill of Gang of Four’s influence can be heard most in the wild lead guitars that spot the track with colour. Brittle is a mature release with grander production, structure and a greater understanding of their own strengths as a band.
“It was a weird time for the band given we’d lacked a drummer for almost a year at that point. We were all listening to goth leaning music at that time and could only write moody songs. The bassline came to us almost immediately after setting off the drum machine. The rest came naturally. We knew we had a solid song, all we needed was a drummer.” - Jackson Kidd
Brittle was released on December 9 on all major platforms.
Proteins of Magic remix of Neil MacLeod
Proteins of Magic are excited to share with the second instalment of Te Whanganui-a-Tara songwriter / producer Neil MacLeod's EP ‘We Have Known Lost Days' Remix EP, with Proteins of Magic reimagining ‘Mouthshut’.
Proteins of Magic are excited to share with the second instalment of Te Whanganui-a-Tara songwriter / producer Neil MacLeod's EP ‘We Have Known Lost Days' Remix EP, with Proteins of Magic reimagining ‘Mouthshut’.
Mouthshut, as MacLeod explained in his feature on BBC Radio 6 Music, is a track with ‘beautiful complex sonic artefacts’, that sits in the ‘space between the genres’, and it is in this liminal space where Proteins of Magic thrives.
Living between Tāmaki Makaurau Auckland and Nashville, Tennessee, Proteins of Magic is a multi- faceted artist who blurs the boundaries between innovative alt-pop and contemporary art music. Her recent single ‘Lethal’ on Particle Recordings, was Number 1 in the Radioscope Alternative charts, Number 2 in the bFM top 10, and had radio support across the airwaves in Aotearoa.
Created in the woods of Nashville, Proteins of Magic leads the track through the back of the wardrobe into another parallel world. The electronic textures and fragments are replaced with lilting flute and piano, while the stuttering beats are transformed into cymbals, drums and percussion, it is only MacLeod’s delicately processed vocals that bears any resemblance of the original, creating an otherworldly genre-less composition.
"Kelly Sherrod puts her own ineffable spin on 'Mouthshut' — reimagining the electronic soul ballad with playful instrumental arrangements, downtempo screwed / vaporwave vocals and colourful synthetic swirl. - Under The Radar
Get to know Zoe Moon "In Person"
With her new liberating and playful single, this budding Artist/Producer/Powerhouse brings to us a fantastic fusion of Hip Hop, Pop, and R&B, positively stacked with her trademark Vocal Kung Fu. Inspired by 90’s Hip Hop & video game nostalgia, Zoe lets her guard down in an all-too-relatable song depicting her struggle "translating" her true self in this digital age.
Zoe Moon
shares upbeat R&B single "In Person"
Listen to "In Person"
Watch "In Person"
Zoe Moon is better off "In Person".
With her new liberating and playful single, this budding Artist/Producer/Powerhouse brings to us a fantastic fusion of Hip Hop, Pop, and R&B, positively stacked with her trademark Vocal Kung Fu. Inspired by 90’s Hip Hop & video game nostalgia, Zoe lets her guard down in an all-too-relatable song depicting her struggle "translating" her true self in this digital age.
Zoe says, "The heart of this track is the voice, the drums and the bass. I was curious just how high or low I could go, testing the scope of my range in the mammoth stacks of harmonies and vocal Kung Fu. I had fun channeling my Barbershop Choir kid days. It’s funny 'coz I played "In Person" live with my beautiful band a healthy amount before I got the opportunity to record it, so it’s grown so much!
"In Person" is an expression of self love, a celebration of identity conveying the craving for up-close and personal human connection - a feeling all too familiar in recent years. Zoe says, "My Blackness, my cultural identity, my personality, is better understood ‘up close and personal’ rather than through a lens often tinted with the reductive tropes of tokenisms and schisms of mainstream TV. So in this song and video I let go of all of that, I peel back the layers and let myself be me, unapologetically. I’m really excited and proud to share my true joy!"
"In Person" is just the uplifting anthem we need to unleash our true joy this summer.
"In Person" is Zoe Moon's first release since 2020, the first single of several that herald the upcoming album With Love, Miss Moon, dropping in 2023.
Zoe has always known she wanted to shoot a music video at Clifton Carpark in Wellington, and "In Person" was the perfect video for the location. She noted the echoes of the cars on the motorway above, the cable car, those striking pillars when she lived nearby for 2 years whilst working towards rebuilding her music career in Aotearoa and writing for her upcoming releases.
The video is a love letter to the 90’s Hip Hop and video game nostalgia that plays a huge role in the artist and person Zoe is today. Zoe also lived in Aro valley "when I was young wanna be a B-girl, so we shot some of the video there to infuse that 90’s Hip Hop flare. I actually hunted high and low for whoever did the graffiti but couldn’t find them. I wanted a world of colour and that intercity concrete jungle goodness."
Co-directed, co-produced and edited by DOP Paascalino Schaller of Little Universe Productions, whom Zoe has worked with on ‘Sister’ with Deva Mahal. Dana Leeming was the AD and producer for the video. And about the wardrobe, Zoe says "Styling and crafting the outfits with my partner in fashion, Beth Tibbo, was like a hybrid mind dream! Especially since we both seem to own an unnatural amount of denim."
Miriam Clancy shares cathartic track "Velveteen"
"Velveteen" is a musically rich track, dense with layers of instrumentation and vocal crescendo; lyrically, it delves into heavy terrain, exposing the emotional fragility of the years of childhood abuse that Miriam suffered. This song is Miriam reckoning with trauma, exposing us to the fine line that separates recovery from falling into the abyss. Yet Miriam has risen, a phoenix from the ashes, refusing to be consumed by a bleak existence.
"Velveteen", the third single off Miriam's forthcoming LP Black Heart,
New album Black Heart out 20 January 2023
"Velveteen" is a musically rich track, dense with layers of instrumentation and vocal crescendo; lyrically, it delves into heavy terrain, exposing the emotional fragility of the years of childhood abuse that Miriam suffered. This song is Miriam reckoning with trauma, exposing us to the fine line that separates recovery from falling into the abyss. Yet Miriam has risen, a phoenix from the ashes, refusing to be consumed by a bleak existence.
To arrive at the doorstep of "Velveteen" was a process. Miriam says, "I ripped my heart out and put it in a song. This is the weight of Complex-Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, it's a shit gift that keeps on giving and its hard, tiring work. So many people live like this and often they sail under the radar, but saying "I see the light underneath your door" is stating the precious obvious, for many are we. And I want to believe that I can live in splendor, wrapped in the beauty and security of velveteen. That it's close -I can feel it coming.
"I wrote this song crying into the keys of an old jazz-bar piano in our apartment in Queens, far away from Aotearoa New Zealand as I began a reckoning with my childhood abuse, neglect and mishandling by the authorities. All while attempting to throw water on the wildfire of justified anger burning in me.
"It is a tightrope walk, leaning on a mystery shoulder of faith just to tame that hunt for vengeance and to try to find a way through the valley. I had on loop the refrain "I'm living in splendor, I'm living in velveteen" ... hoping to believe it, fake it til I make it. I wrote this into Velveteen and my own manifesto that I may have been let down and abandoned - but I won't do that, I will break the chain. I might be a human torch blazing an endless raging flame, but I will break the chain.
Miriam recorded "Velveteen" with her band in their Brooklyn studio, drawing from the heyday of 90's female alt-pop songwriters. Musically, it was important for her to keep the feminine thread strong in contrast to the grunge of the droning middle 8 over the semi-industrial beat, and under the syncopated piano. Miriam says, "I'm stoked with the result. They were all the best guys to have around me when feeling fragile getting this song in the can."
Velveteen: The video
Armed with a huge recently-acquired file from the Wellington Police headquarters - after plummeting a hundred times over I decided to use this triggering trail of tears as an IRL art piece to pull the thorn out of my heart and to lean into the rage which all my life I had been conditioned to believe is undesirable and inappropriate. In this video, you see 20+ pages of evidence, reports and statements on a wall, in an old Pennsylvanian railway yard where old train parts are stashed. On the wall is a hand-drawn map of a house which I drew many years ago for my original statement to the cops when they asked me to show where some of the assault happened.
At odds with the stark industrial wasteland - the beautiful pink piano is my safe space, my waka - the vessel that carried me, for music has indeed saved me - it gave me a portal of hope, a door to walk through when it all hurt too much. The words on the wall hang large and invade my view of life with its bollocks 'logic', gendered victim-shaming, and overall big-man bias. So with my trusty sledgehammer I do what needs to be done for myself - and for those after me. Because I am a woman and this is the crossing.
Miriam's closing statement to this press release, and a message to the Police, and to greater New Zealand society are words written by her lawyer at Shine Australia/New Zealand to the Independent Police Complaints Authority: "it is unclear how a minor's complaint of such a serious nature could get so botched... Police owe it to the children who are brave enough to come forward with sexual assault claims to investigate them to the best of their ability."
Jordyn With A Why’s debut reo Māori single ‘Raumati’ released
Samoan/Māori artist and social media influencer ‘Jordyn With A Why’ releases her latest single ‘Raumati.’ The single was funded by Te Māngai Pāho as part of the ‘Waiata Reo Māori’ initiative.
Samoan/Māori artist and social media influencer ‘Jordyn With A Why’ releases her latest single ‘Raumati.’ The single was funded by Te Māngai Pāho as part of the ‘Waiata Reo Māori’ initiative.
Jordyn says the song is a celebration of the summer season. “Raumati is a salute to Hineraumati, the Atua wahine of Summer. “It’s about all the senses of summer - recognising the symbols of our favourite season.”
Accompanying the live recording is its music video which will also be released on the same day. Jordyn says the video visually captures the essence of the song.
“It was such a fun recording, I was really lucky to have Creative Nātives as the band and creating that live feel together was magic, I’m so glad we captured that visually.”
The release of ‘Raumati’ marks Jordyn’s third time releasing original music, but is her first single in the Māori language.
This single follows on from Jordyn’s earlier release of ‘Brown Melodies’ in May this year, which went on to be nominated for Best Single at the Waiata Māori Music Awards 2022.