Biography
Mermaidens are a Wellington trio formed in 2013, comprising singer-guitarists Gussie Larkin and Lily Paris West, and drummer Abe Hollingsworth. The band’s origins trace back to Larkin and West’s final years of high school, where a shared love of artists including the Pixies, Sonic Youth, PJ Harvey, and Patti Smith drew them together. As Larkin has recalled, the pair bonded over a mutual sense of indie sensibility — West’s Pixies t-shirt on a mufti-day was apparently the clincher.
We probably became friends because we saw that one another was a bit indie. I remember Lily had a Pixies t-shirt on mufti-day so I clocked her as a very cool art girl. That’s how we became friends and through discovering music together like the Pixies, Sonic Youth and PJ Harvey. Patti Smith was a big one too.
Gussie Larkin, AudioCulture
An early influence on the band’s formation was seeing Amelia Murray — later known as Fazerdaze — perform in her high-school band. Larkin cited this experience of watching four girls play together as making “a massive impression.” In 2013, Larkin and West released an acoustic demo EP, and Hollingsworth, a school friend, joined them on drums. Their immediate goal was to perform at the 2014 Camp A Low Hum festival. They played at friends’ parties and Wellington venues including Mighty Mighty and Puppies before recording two three-song EPs in 2014: the psychedelic prog-folk-tinged Bones — which includes the Jefferson Airplane-influenced track ‘Stoner Battles’ — and O.
If you took a dash of stoner rock, sifted in a bit of classic 60s surf, added a pinch of dark dream psyche pop and then stirred through a healthy dose of mood punk, you’d get the tall, long-limbed glass that is Mermaidens.
Maddie McIntyre, New Zealand Musician
Defying easy categorisation from the start, the band took a pause when Larkin travelled to Britain for six months in 2015, and Hollingsworth spent three months in South East Asia and Japan. They resumed and self-released their debut album Undergrowth in March 2016, recorded over three days at Blue Barn Studio in Wellington’s Newtown by engineer James Goldsmith. The eight mostly live tracks attracted widespread attention, leading Flying Nun Records to sign the band. Their 2017 Flying Nun debut Perfect Body — a post-punk and psychedelic rock record that closes with the six-minute ‘Fade’ — earned a Taite Music Prize nomination. The band opened for Death Cab for Cutie, Sleater-Kinney, and Mac DeMarco during this period. Their 2019 follow-up Look Me in the Eye saw West win an Aotearoa Music Award for Best Album Art, with the band nominated for Best Alternative Artist.
In November 2020, Mermaidens opened for The Beths at the Auckland Town Hall, a performance that drew comparisons to the legendary San Francisco psychedelic venue Fillmore West for its expansive, dynamic psych-rock energy. After Larkin’s planned relocation to Berlin was halted by lockdown in 2020, the trio retreated into home studios and wrote new songs. For their self-titled 2023 album — released independently after departing Flying Nun — they enlisted Samuel Flynn Scott, founding member of The Phoenix Foundation, as producer and co-writer. Recorded at The Surgery with engineer Lee Prebble, the album is widely regarded as their most accessible work, blending indie rock, shoegaze, early 1980s post-punk, and crafted pop. Larkin is also a member of Earth Tongue.
Life is pulling us apart now, but that is the greatness of this album being named Mermaidens. This is the statement. This is the magnum opus.
Abe Hollingsworth, Rolling Stone Australia, 2023
Members
- Abe Hollingsworth (drums, Mermaidens)
- Gussie Larkin (guitar/vocals, Mermaidens, Earth Tongue)
- Lily Paris West (bass/vocals, Mermaidens)
Discography
- Demo EP (2012, self-released)
- Bones EP (2014, self-released)
- O EP (2014, self-released)
- Undergrowth LP (2016, self-released)
- Perfect Body LP (2017, Flying Nun Records, FN577)
- Look Me in the Eye LP (2019, Flying Nun Records, FN586LP)
- Mermaidens LP (2023, self-released)