NEGATIVE NANCIES
EMILY FAIRLIGHT
TIDAL RAVE -
BAD SAV - Bad Sav is the band that refused to be left behind. Although featuring Death And The Maiden guitarist/vocalist Hope Robertson and bassist/vocalist Lucinda King, plus Shifting Sands guitarist Mike McLeod (on drums here), Bad Sav is the primary strain from which both of those bands sprang. When asked to describe her band’s sound in a 2010 interview, Hope suggested “...a missed punch and a grazed fist. Sad, heavy, unpredictable loud pop". Indeed, Bad Sav deliver a far more guitar-oriented hard attack than DATM; their distinctive filtering and reassembly of influences from shoegaze, psychedelic noise-rock - and goodness knows where else - conjure up Dunedin's unique sonic alchemy, bursting with colossal, majestic, melodic noise. Their first album may have taken them 10 years and a few attempts to record, but it is worth the wait.
https://fishriderrecords.bandcamp.com/album/bad-sav
STEF ANIMAL - Stef is a Dunedin based musician/ composer/ producer and - judging by the creation of her debut solo release "Top Gear" - also an avid digital music technology archaeologist. Stef is also part of Wellington fuzzy 'shoe-gaze' band The Golden Awesome and sometimes exhibits digital art created on the same primitive old computers used to create some of the music on "Top Gear".
https://fishriderrecords.bandcamp.com/album/top-gear
ÉLAN VITAL - Èlan Vital formed in 2015 in Dunedin’s None Gallery, an artist-run creative community in a former pharmaceutical factory, which is also the home of Death And The maiden, with whom they share a member. The sound of Èlan Vital - A dense claustrophobic swirl of dark, grainy cold-wave synth-pop - blends keyboards evoking psychedelic organ sounds of 1960s garage rock together with contemporary European synth-pop dance music, layered on analogue drum machines. Distorted, overdriven bass guitar adds a further element of chaos into the mix. The songs of their debut "Shadow Self" are gloomy melodic and uplifting catharsis about memory, longing, and obsession.
https://fishriderrecords.bandcamp.com/album/shadow-self
DEATH AND THE MAIDEN - While traveling through Berlin in 2012, Lucinda King ripped a sketch of a skeleton and a woman from a book, and stored it in her wallet. It was Death and the Maiden, a 19th Century engraving by Edvard Munch, an artwork steeped in mythology, exploring the dark bounds between love and death, frailty of beauty, and beauty of decay. On her return to New Zealand, Lucinda began to make music with Danny Brady. Lucinda’s vocals and basslines melded with Danny’s synth and drum programming to create something much darker than the hazy take on Italo-pop they had started experimenting with. Soon, the duo welcomed guitarist and drummer Hope Robertson to the fold, and Death and the Maiden was born. https://fishriderrecords.bandcamp.com/album/death-and-the-maiden
THE PROPHET HENS - Melodic jangling guitars, swirling Casio keyboards & the voices of Penelope Esplin and Karl Bray singing uplifting melancholic songs about hope & despair, joy & regret, ambition & reality, coming together & drifting apart. https://fishriderrecords.bandcamp.com/album/the-wonderful-shapes-of-back-door-keys
THE SHIFTING SANDS - The Shifting Sands create Southern symphonic psychedelia, alternating between slow lush lullabies and almost space-rock psychedelic noise songs. They update & subvert the Dunedin jangle-pop template with synths too.
https://fishriderrecords.bandcamp.com/album/cosmic-radio-station
MALES - A hyper-melodic guitar-pop trio with ear-worm hooks, mesmerising precision guitar riffs, propulsive bass, impossible falsetto vocals and sing-a-long choruses. Celebratory, summery 'garage-pop' or 'beach-pop' with a heart of darkness for all that, because it's Dunedin & the garage is cold & wet and the beach cold & windswept.
https://fishriderrecords.bandcamp.com/album/run-run-run-malesmalesmales
THE PUDDLE - With their 1986 – 93 Flying Nun Records catalogue long out of print, The Puddle finally re-emerged in 2006 with 4 acclaimed albums released on Fishrider Records. The Puddle were the most stubbornly underground of the bands associated with the Flying Nun imprint and continue to be defiantly obscure. Literate, melodic, articulate, intelligent guitar pop with a still-beating heart of scruffy DIY immediacy. http://thepuddle.bandcamp.com/ https://www.facebook.com/thepuddlenz
THE DARK BEAKS - The Dark Beaks grew from the Dunedin tradition of guitar pop; their sound shaped by the city’s DIY attitude, indifference to musical trends and the isolation of living on the edge of the world. Their one and only album was the catalyst for Fishrider records to start in 2006. Releasing the underground pop goodness of Dunedin no-one else will release - and getting the world to notice - is what we've been doing ever since. https://fishriderrecords.bandcamp.com/album/spill-your-heart
OPPOSITE SEX - The music of this trio ranges from oddly poppy carnival waltzes through to manic and melodic post-punk, art-pop and no wave weirdness. Or, as they describe it, “an absurdist-logico mix of Euro pop, Beat poetry, and subterranean lo-fi adventuring." Their extraordinary first album album is a unique genre-defying trip through the experimental pop underground of their imaginations. https://fishriderrecords.bandcamp.com/album/opposite-sex
TRICK MAMMOTH - A 'Flower Cult' pop band from Dunedin with intertwined voices and guitar parts, playing perfect jangling pop about flowers & knives, life & death. https://fishriderrecords.bandcamp.com/album/floristry
EMILY FAIRLIGHT
TIDAL RAVE -
BAD SAV - Bad Sav is the band that refused to be left behind. Although featuring Death And The Maiden guitarist/vocalist Hope Robertson and bassist/vocalist Lucinda King, plus Shifting Sands guitarist Mike McLeod (on drums here), Bad Sav is the primary strain from which both of those bands sprang. When asked to describe her band’s sound in a 2010 interview, Hope suggested “...a missed punch and a grazed fist. Sad, heavy, unpredictable loud pop". Indeed, Bad Sav deliver a far more guitar-oriented hard attack than DATM; their distinctive filtering and reassembly of influences from shoegaze, psychedelic noise-rock - and goodness knows where else - conjure up Dunedin's unique sonic alchemy, bursting with colossal, majestic, melodic noise. Their first album may have taken them 10 years and a few attempts to record, but it is worth the wait.
https://fishriderrecords.bandcamp.com/album/bad-sav
STEF ANIMAL - Stef is a Dunedin based musician/ composer/ producer and - judging by the creation of her debut solo release "Top Gear" - also an avid digital music technology archaeologist. Stef is also part of Wellington fuzzy 'shoe-gaze' band The Golden Awesome and sometimes exhibits digital art created on the same primitive old computers used to create some of the music on "Top Gear".
https://fishriderrecords.bandcamp.com/album/top-gear
ÉLAN VITAL - Èlan Vital formed in 2015 in Dunedin’s None Gallery, an artist-run creative community in a former pharmaceutical factory, which is also the home of Death And The maiden, with whom they share a member. The sound of Èlan Vital - A dense claustrophobic swirl of dark, grainy cold-wave synth-pop - blends keyboards evoking psychedelic organ sounds of 1960s garage rock together with contemporary European synth-pop dance music, layered on analogue drum machines. Distorted, overdriven bass guitar adds a further element of chaos into the mix. The songs of their debut "Shadow Self" are gloomy melodic and uplifting catharsis about memory, longing, and obsession.
https://fishriderrecords.bandcamp.com/album/shadow-self
DEATH AND THE MAIDEN - While traveling through Berlin in 2012, Lucinda King ripped a sketch of a skeleton and a woman from a book, and stored it in her wallet. It was Death and the Maiden, a 19th Century engraving by Edvard Munch, an artwork steeped in mythology, exploring the dark bounds between love and death, frailty of beauty, and beauty of decay. On her return to New Zealand, Lucinda began to make music with Danny Brady. Lucinda’s vocals and basslines melded with Danny’s synth and drum programming to create something much darker than the hazy take on Italo-pop they had started experimenting with. Soon, the duo welcomed guitarist and drummer Hope Robertson to the fold, and Death and the Maiden was born. https://fishriderrecords.bandcamp.com/album/death-and-the-maiden
THE PROPHET HENS - Melodic jangling guitars, swirling Casio keyboards & the voices of Penelope Esplin and Karl Bray singing uplifting melancholic songs about hope & despair, joy & regret, ambition & reality, coming together & drifting apart. https://fishriderrecords.bandcamp.com/album/the-wonderful-shapes-of-back-door-keys
THE SHIFTING SANDS - The Shifting Sands create Southern symphonic psychedelia, alternating between slow lush lullabies and almost space-rock psychedelic noise songs. They update & subvert the Dunedin jangle-pop template with synths too.
https://fishriderrecords.bandcamp.com/album/cosmic-radio-station
MALES - A hyper-melodic guitar-pop trio with ear-worm hooks, mesmerising precision guitar riffs, propulsive bass, impossible falsetto vocals and sing-a-long choruses. Celebratory, summery 'garage-pop' or 'beach-pop' with a heart of darkness for all that, because it's Dunedin & the garage is cold & wet and the beach cold & windswept.
https://fishriderrecords.bandcamp.com/album/run-run-run-malesmalesmales
THE PUDDLE - With their 1986 – 93 Flying Nun Records catalogue long out of print, The Puddle finally re-emerged in 2006 with 4 acclaimed albums released on Fishrider Records. The Puddle were the most stubbornly underground of the bands associated with the Flying Nun imprint and continue to be defiantly obscure. Literate, melodic, articulate, intelligent guitar pop with a still-beating heart of scruffy DIY immediacy. http://thepuddle.bandcamp.com/ https://www.facebook.com/thepuddlenz
THE DARK BEAKS - The Dark Beaks grew from the Dunedin tradition of guitar pop; their sound shaped by the city’s DIY attitude, indifference to musical trends and the isolation of living on the edge of the world. Their one and only album was the catalyst for Fishrider records to start in 2006. Releasing the underground pop goodness of Dunedin no-one else will release - and getting the world to notice - is what we've been doing ever since. https://fishriderrecords.bandcamp.com/album/spill-your-heart
OPPOSITE SEX - The music of this trio ranges from oddly poppy carnival waltzes through to manic and melodic post-punk, art-pop and no wave weirdness. Or, as they describe it, “an absurdist-logico mix of Euro pop, Beat poetry, and subterranean lo-fi adventuring." Their extraordinary first album album is a unique genre-defying trip through the experimental pop underground of their imaginations. https://fishriderrecords.bandcamp.com/album/opposite-sex
TRICK MAMMOTH - A 'Flower Cult' pop band from Dunedin with intertwined voices and guitar parts, playing perfect jangling pop about flowers & knives, life & death. https://fishriderrecords.bandcamp.com/album/floristry
