Skip to content

a artists

Armatrak

Mid 1980’s hardcore punk band from Auckland. Released a split EP with Five Year Mission in 1986, released on Positive Youth Promotions, who exclusively released the two groups music.

Their frontman Stephen Moore and original bassist Simon Blendall put together a punk zine called ‘Anarchy, Outrage and Serious Intent’ which lasted a few issues and garnished the group some international interest. German underground label Gift of Life released the groups final release (of their original run), the 1987 EP ‘Inner Space’.

#nzmusic #armatrak

Peter Arnold

Jangly drum-machine propelled indie pop from Christchurch multi-instrumentalist and member of The Jumblies Peter Arnold, who put out an EP (also with Claire Timings) on Flying Nun Records in 1986.

#nzmusic #peterarnold

Alpaca Brothers

The Alpaca Brothers were a short lived noisy post-punk band from Dunedin formed by Bruce Blucher and Nick Wilkinson in 1984, with a young Steve Cournane soon joining as drummer. The group disbanded after releasing a single EP for Flying Nun, but miraculously resurfaced recently (after a 36 year absence) with a new album.

#nzmusic #alpacabrothers

The After Dinner Mints

Celia Mancini’s ‘lounge band in the ’80s.’ A Christchurch-based group that played a variety of upmarket events with Mancini fronting a killer backing band. Unknown for many years, a recording of Bobby Hebb’s ‘Sonny’ on the excellent ‘The Celia Mancini Tapes’ posthumous release in 2018.

#nzmusic #celiamancini #theafterdinnermints

The Axel Grinders

The Axel Grinders were a hard-edged rock’n’roll group with touch of humour, formed by future King Loser members Celia Patel (aka Celia Mancini), Pat Faigan (Duane Zarakov) and Martin Henderson (Brother Love), with John Markie (John Segovia) and Phil Ascott. Their recordings were finally made freely available in 2014.

#nzmusic #theaxelgrinders #kingloser

Ansi

Biography Haunting improvised soundscapes of dueling bass and guitar with brief smatterings of samples thrown in at just the right moments. Sumac Records Members Discography Links

A Flight To Blackout

Excellent instrumentalist trio from the garden city formed by Matt Craw (guitar), James Musgrave (bass), and Jared Kelly (drums) in early 2005. Taking cues from a variety of informed directions, the group were prolific features of the local live scene, and attached themselves to both R18 and all-age crowds with varying success. Playing an involved instrumental sound heavy on dynamics.

Airport

The very wayward guitar/electronics duo that eventually gave birth to Birchville Cat Motel.

Beguiling atonal plonkery and profound multi-stringed shingle slides by two irrepressible young guns utterly oblivious to the fact that most people wanted to stone them to death with spare change. I can’t believe we did this in public.

The And Band

The And Band were an outgrowth of influential but undiscovered Wellington punk-oddities The Spies. When feed up with the limitations of the Wellington scene, the band, along with several of their friends relocated to a small Christchurch flat, sharing a recording space (and the actual 4-track) with Perfect Strangers.

a million lights

In 2004 I (Chris Andrews) compiled a 4-song EP of original recordings and got them pressed in the very limited capacity of 20 copies through Peter King, down in Mt. Somers (in a single day!, June 24th 2004), each with a unique cover and hand-numbered. The music contained within varies between low-key melodic trembling’s on the a side, to caustic, but carefully controlled feedback-entrenched drones and shards of sound (extracted with the help of Cubase’s many distortion tools – from a bass guitar) on the b of an 8″ lathe-cut.

A Handful Of Dust

One of Bruce Russell’s (Dead C) and Alastair Galbraith’s darkest outfits, often dealing with distinct imagery and motif’s in their music and especially pronounced in their liner notes (most of which are distributed through Russell’s Corpus Hermeticum label).

Formed by the duo in Dunedin in 1984, and primarily a free noise group. Though primarily a duo, Peter Stapleton had been a regular contributor from 1993 until his passing in March 2020.

Avant Garage

Ira Robbins (Trouser Press): “A jazzy-cum-classical nine-person ensemble with clarinets, cello, tuba and bassoon (in addition to guitar, bass and drums), New Zealand’s determinedly oddball Avant Garage sounds like something Zappa might have done in his Dada orchestral phase.”

Alchemy

Biography Christchurch hard-rock-with-female-vocals type group from the mid 00’s. Members Discography Links  

Angelhead

Biography Dark Xpressway post-punk outfit featuring Rachel Shearer (Lovely Midget), Michael Morley (The Dead C, Wreck Small Speakers on Expensive Stereos), Stella Corkery and Deborah Hinden. Pretty much in the same vein (and influenced by) other port-chalmers based bands of… Read More »Angelhead

Angel Hammer

Biography Mysterious pseudo-metal outfit on Hawkes Bay based Hit Your Head Music. Their details and album names all seem to be written / described in rune-style letters – not exactly documentation friendly. The Hammer has crafted a live set which… Read More »Angel Hammer