The new year will bring a new album from Wellington band The Nudge, five years after their last release.
In the meantime a spooky yet groovy new single is due this month, just weeks after Halloween.
Dark Arts - a mindblowing five minutes of rock pschedelia - will be released on November 18.
The Nudge will follow this with live dates in Auckland (Whammy Bar, November 26, Raglan (Yot Club, November 27) and Wellington (San Fran, December 2. Auckland and Wellington tickets are available from www.cosmicticketing.co.nz.
The album, also called Dark Arts, will be released early next year.
Decades also have a new single. The quartet, who last week signed with Warner Music New Zealand, have released If It Kills Me, a breathless, hard-out slice of electro-rock.
Frontwoman Emma Cameron says the track is a mantra for anyone who has ever been told they are incapable of achieving their dreams.
"It was written out of frustration with someone close to me, who was meant to lift me up, but crushed any hopes that I had; and how I found the strength within myself to say, 'I will not only achieve this, I will do it better than you even could have imagined." The song is produced by Tom Larkin.
Also new to the Warner roster, Jupiter Project have released a cover of the Temptations' My Girl.
The electronic R&B duo - Gavin Correia and Marty Rich - have put together a really summer-friendly, dancefloor-friendly version of the classic in collaboration with producer Daniel Richard.
Jupiter Project
The beauty of Louis Baker's soulful singing voice is matched by his lyrics. Baker's new single Fade, the follow-up to the wonderful Rainbow, is a haunting, sparse, love song.
"How many more days must I wander from lost to found, how many more tears must fall to the ground, before I'm next to you...," he sings.
At times accompanied by a lone piano, the song adds layers of warm instrumentation and backing vocals reminscent of Motown classics.
The track was co-written with Bradford Ellis and Jemma Cooke and was recorded at Red Bull Studios in London.
Revisit a classic Robert Cray's Strong Persuader was his breakthrough album, introducing the bluesman to a whole new audience.
The 1986 release showcased Cray's outstanding guitar playing, with catchy songs about infidelity among other things, and was a Top 5 charter in New Zealand.
Check out the brilliant Right Next Door (Because of Me), Nothin' But a Woman and Smoking Gun, which oddly enough opens like an early REM song.
