The Giver
by Chappell Roan
From the Midwest Princess, an entertainingly innuendo-laced leap into country music proclaiming – like Shania Twain before her but for different reasons – she feels like a woman. Especially if they want to come back to her place later. “Girl, I don’t need no lifted truck/ revving’ loud to pick you up.” Words to live by. It’s a song that does sound it could have been Centrefold by the J. Geils Band in a former life, though The Giver comes with a lot of country fiddle. So yes, a consumer warning about it containing sex and violins. – Russell Baillie
Bonnet of Pins
by Matt Berninger
The baritone front-beard of The National, Berninger heads to his second solo album with a song that thumps along like one of the band’s more upbeat numbers but eventually stands out for its brass-powered bridge, wriggly guitar solo, female vocal harmonies, and its lyric – seemingly about an encounter with an old flame – which drops “Nabokov cocktail” into the story. – Russell Baillie
If Only I Could Wait
by Bon Iver, Danielle Haim
A lush, lovely and lusty ballad from Justin Vernon, that after wafting in on a combo of skittering drum machine and spluttering chunks of Stones-y guitar, becomes a duet with Danielle Haim of Haim. It sounds like on forthcoming album Sable fable, Vernon might be going through a kind of solo 1980s Peter Gabriel period. Meanwhile Haim returns with a new song Relationships this week too. – Russell Baillie
Face Unpopular
by Swallow the Rat
The Auckland post-punk group sound fantastic in this stripped back, garage-y new single. Raspy vocals sit below fuzzy guitars on the mix, delivered in a spoken word approach – much like The Fall’s Mark E. Smith. With two albums under their belt, the band’s also put in the hard yards as a live act – playing international festivals like SXSW Sydney in 2019, and NYC alternative five-dayer, The New Colossus. That’s served them well – giving their recordings a raw, angsty feel. They would’ve been a great local alternative to open for Fontaines D.C last week, and others down the line. Also, find their spooky camcorder music video below. – Sam Clark
Sangria (Demo)
by Vera Ellen
Winner of last year’s Taite Prize for her album Ideal Home Noise and clocking up air-miles with Crowded House and touring in China, Ellen offers this six minute, deliberately underplaying self-recorded and self-produced lo-fi folk-pop celebration of alcohol (the headache-inducing Spanish tipple) and fond memories. Comes with her handmade video of appropriately shaky snapshots from the touring. A placeholder in her career. – Graham Reid
What You Can Do
by Lisa Crawley
From LA-based Kiwi Crawley more hand-crafted, piano-based singer-songwriter pop with this bittersweet, baroque number muscling in, politely, on Aimee Mann territory. – Russell Baillie
Hold My Skin
by Jesse Will
A graduate of Sacred Heart College (the alma mater of Split Enz and Th’ Dudes) and MAINZ, the London-based singer-songwriter returns to attention after an absence with this breathy, intimate and dreamy slice of sensitive singer-songwriter wooziness. Comes with the kind of creative dance video which has the desired effect. It makes you stop and look. – Graham Reid
Glory
by Lontalius
After a couple of albums of brooding electronic art-pop, Auckland singer-songwriter Lontalius (Eddie Johnston) trades in the keyboard-led approach for guitars on a snowballing squall of a track over a motorik beat. Definite echoes of Wilco’s Yankee Hotel Foxtrot period, and definitely compelling. – Russell Baillie
This Conversation is Missing Your Voice
by Mark Pritchard and Thom Yorke
British electronica artist Mark Pritchard – prolific under many names and a serial collaborator – here teams up with Thom Yorke (do we say, formerly of Radiohead?) for four minutes of shifting beats, a backdrop of pastel synths behind Yorke’s soulful falsetto and rather glorious evocation of a holy choir towards the end. Lovely stuff that starts somewhere and takes you elsewhere, much like the video by Jonathan Zawada who is considered integral to the duo’s project. Check the clip. An announcement of their Tall Tales album due May 9. – Graham Reid
I Like Peaches
by Nice Girl
Lately, Melbourne Kiwi expat Nice Girl has simply been having fun – and this sugary, synth-pop track is a great example of that. Although this one’s more laid back than her high-energy Boiler Room sets – her dance roots are still strong, bubbling beneath the surface. Signed to the prestigious Munich label Public Possession (also home to Eden Burns) it will be exciting to see if there’s another album on the cards after last year’s Yummy. – Sam Clark
Trust the Feeling
by Hidden Spheres, Allysha Joy, Finn Rees
A Kaytranada-esque 808 groove from British deep house producer Tom Harris aka Hidden Spheres. Minimal production is a roomy backdrop for the sultry vocals of Australians Allysha Joy and Finn Rees. All three are known to dabble in the jazzier side of electronic music, making this a great collaboration. – Sam Clark
Héloïse Werner, ‘Mélancolie’
By Xuefei Yang guitar, Héloïse Werner voice
I went (Lady) gaga for Héloïse Werner’s Close-Ups last year, my favourite album of 2024. It comprised music from female composers spanning 1000 years and included Werner’s own compositions. Her latest piece, ‘Mélancolie’, for voice and guitar, is a gorgeous setting of a poem by Cécile Sauvage (1883-1927). Sauvage’s career as a poet peaked early, and she published just two collections, including La Vallon (1913), in which ‘Mélancolie’ appeared. It was the last work Sauvage released in her lifetime, though she is known to have continued writing. Some of her poems came out posthumously, thanks to her publisher husband, Pierre Messiaen. And if that name sounds familiar, yes, Cécile and Pierre were parents to Olivier Messiaen, one of the titans of 20th century classical music. – Richard Betts
