From Wayne Wang, the director of The Joy Luck Club, comes another melodrama based on female friendships that span generations.

"I wasn't born a beauty queen but I'm okay with that. Maybe radio won't mind if I sing a little flat" Gin jibes on album opener and first single Black Sheep.

Hanni El Khatib whips up a sound that has the propulsive slacker punch of the Black Keys, the distorted blues-infused power of Jack White, and a wild Jon Spencer wail.

It's been four years since Puffin's album Show Pony which was impressive for its folk-rock-cum-pop.

A packed Powerstation saluted three New Zealand groups with roots in the ’70s on Saturday night.

The Naked and Famous worked the Powerstation with all the passion and torment and joy that their songs deserve on Friday night.

After almost a decade with no new material it's a surprise to find California indie-rockers Primus (who did the original theme to South Park) still around.

They want to be big. They want to be huge. Midnight Youth are trying so hard to become New Zealand's biggest rock band you can almost see it etched into their foreheads.

Janis Joplin would scare the daylight out of most sleeve-sucking, infantile women pop singers cluttering the charts and few have taken her as a role model.

On his fifth album proper, quintessentially British hip-hop artist Roots Manuva has gone all out. The first thing you notice is that it's 19 tracks long, stretching to almost an hour - which is lengthy in the age of 35-minute, no-filler wonders.

John Rowles, the half-Maori/half-Irish Kawerau Kid blessed with a commanding stature and physique, film idol looks, dandy style and that voice, skyrocketed to the top of the world music scene in 1968.

Reading Airini Beautrais' new collection, Western Line, fills me with joy - through what words can do and through the avenues poetry makes available.

Towards the end of his rambling diary of a road trip through his native country, Garth Cartwright engages in a sly piece of critic-proofing sophistry.

Oddball troubadour Tom Waits remains a singular voice in music after all these years - as can be heard on his new album. He talks to Graham Reid.

Mostly-silent lonely guy takes a shine to apparently solo mum in apartment next door and her young son. Except her hubby comes back from prison.

Though she's been releasing albums for 20 years, stretching the boundaries of jazz and blues, fusing them with traditional Maori song forms and te reo, this is Whirimako Black's first album entirely in English.

Justin Timberlake and Amanda Seyfried are a futuristic Bonnie and Clyde in this stylish sci-fi action thriller from New Zealand director Andrew Niccol.