Niko Ne Zna are New Zealand’s very own Balkan Gypsy brass extravaganza. Formed in Wellington five years ago, the band has been stunning audiences ever since with their exuberant, dynamic performances. Comprising trumpet, saxophone, accordion, trombone, sousaphone, drums and percussion, Niko Ne Zna are a truly authentic ensemble. They can roam while playing, and enchant [...]
Cinema 90’s story begins in 1999, with Auckland based producer Jamie Newman creating electronic dance music on a basic tracker program on his home computer. After having dj’d electronic dance music of every genre (house, techno, electro, breaks, trance, dnb, hip hop and downbeat) since 1996, his initial direction in writing music was very much [...]
Since their inception in late 2005, Auckland band An Emerald City have strived for musical experimentation and liberation. Organic instrumentation and sounds of the east meet psychedelia with guitars and violin are at the centre of this original and unique 6 piece.
The summer of 2007/2008 unleashed an array of summer performances that included the likes [...]
The artist, Meera Raghu, was spiritually inspired after listening to divine melodious songs called Arka Geetha, composed by Srinivas Arka, a renowned philosopher, author, inspirational speaker, developer of meditation method called Arka Dhyana and founder of global spiritual organisation Centre for Conscious Awareness. Being a musician and Veena artist, Meera, through her inspirational experience, selected [...]
Bond Street Bridge is the creation of Auckland-based multi-instrumentalist and songwriter Sam Prebble. Sam has been playing music for as long as he can remember, and ‘probably before that as well,’ as he puts it. Bond Street Bridge is currently a solo project, but Sam has always played in bands, orchestras and choirs. For the [...]
Renee-Louise Carafice is a dark-folk-pop songstress born in New Zealand based in Chicago. With a bitingly honest and brutally fragile voice, she sings of her “messy rollercoaster ride” of a life, over rich and complex melodic structures.
Carafice sings with an alarming openness about desperation, love, loss, homelessness and longing, all the while maintaining a sense [...]
The sensational Benka Boradovsky Bordello Band have just released their first ep, Danse Macabre. Please buy it so that they can send money some back to their poor families in the old country.
Hailing from the slums and ghettos of Auckland (the Prague of the South), The Benka Boradovsky Bordello band is a highly theatrical musical [...]
Monkey Magic II is a CD and DVD (Monkey TV) showcasing contemporary independent New Zealand music to be released on the 19th May.
10 of the tracks on the CD are from artists signed to genre-defying indie record label Monkey Records including Tim Guy, The Hot Grits, An Emerald City, The Benka Boradovsky Bordello Band and [...]
What do you get if you mix a pound of Fela Kuti’s Afrika 70, two cupfuls of The Meters, 250g of thinly sliced early James Brown and a level dessert spoon of psychedelic rock? -you get the heaving, convulsing powerhouse of soul music that is The Hot Grits.
For over five years, The Hot Grits have [...]
