AGENCY ROSTER

Avantdale Bowling Club

The Avantdale Bowling Club genre isn’t easy to pin down – it is hip-hop, it is jazz, with soul and spoken word. Tom Scott’s ‘brutally honest, startingly raw” lyrics (NZ Herald) are delivered in “turn on a pin, rhythmic cadence’ (Metro). In his typically irreverent own words, Scott calls it “Irrelevant jazz from an island nation off the coast of Antarctica”.

The live show features an enviable cast of musicians. Joining Scott will be Julien Dyne (drums), Tonga Vaea (vocals, keys, trumpet), Guy Harrison (keys, trumpet), JY Lee (saxophone) and Ben Turua (upright bass and bass guitar).

The debut ABC album still feels as fresh as it did on release three years ago but with added credits – Album of the Year, Taite Music Prize Award, No 1 album and Hip-Hop Artist of the Year. And now there are murmurs that he is putting the final touches to the follow-up.

Scott’s other projects – Home Brew, Average Rap Band, @Peace – and his new label ‘Years Gone By, ensure that Scott continues to push boundaries across genres.

ESTère

Estère doesn’t play music - she creates sonic amalgamations that merge culture, language and legend. She breathes life into narratives that marry the acutely human to the achingly mythic. Her vocals soar and then swoon, beckoning sultrily and opening gates to new interpretations of age-old tales.

Estère plays ‘electric blue witch-hop,” as she calls her dimensions of electronic, folk and R&B. The New Zealand Herald called it “a beautiful mix of everything the music world is lauding and lusting after right now.”

THE BETHS

The Beths is a band from Auckland, New Zealand composed of vocalist/guitarist Elizabeth Stokes, guitarist Jonathan Pearce, bassist Benjamin Sinclair, and drummer Tristan Deck. Stokes, Pearce, and Sinclair started playing music together when they were in high school, while Deck met them through the local music scene and joined the band in 2019. 

The Beths’ third album, Expert In A Dying Field, released on September 16, 2022 via Carpark Records, explores the same noisy, cerebral indie-rock-meets-power pop of earlier records, but imbued with an electric shock of new confidence: a record meant to be experienced live. The album earned itself a place on numerous Best-Album-of-the-Year lists like Pitchfork, Rolling Stone, and Stereogum, to name a few, and appearances on CBS’ Saturday Morning and NPR’s Tiny Desk while on a nearly sold out tour of North America. Almost exactly one year later, the band will share Expert In A Dying Field (Deluxe) with bonus material, including singles “A Real Thing” and “Watching The Credits,” along with acoustic demo versions of album tracks and one never-before-heard demo “Keep The Distance.” All this is to come while the band is playing sold out shows across the world in 2023, including shows supporting Death Cab for Cutie, The Postal Service, and The National in the US.

HOME BREW

Home Brew are one of Aotearoa’s most beloved hip-hop groups, rising to equal parts greatness and infamy through their extensive run of EPs through the early 2010s and culminating in their now-classic #1 self-titled debut.

Their aggressively DIY ethos has endeared them to many in the New Zealand Hip-Hop music scene, and they have cemented their place in history as one of the country's most authentic, uncompromising acts.

EARTH TONGUE

Sometimes music is supposed to feel weird and indescribable. It’s the moments of clarity within the dense, sonic mess that often feels the most satisfying. That’s the space that Earth Tongue occupy. At times, their songs are shrill and disorientating, other times their reverb-washed textures and instantly- familiar hooks can wrap you in a warm, loving embrace.

The one consistent thread through their music, however, is the thick and all encompassing fuzz. Guitarist Gussie Larkin has become a master of the fuzz-smothered riff, and along with Ezra Simons’ off-kilter drumming, they’ve been sending punters into transcendental states since they began gigging in their home town of Wellington, New Zealand in 2016.

mermaidens

The earliest sketches of Wellington trio Mermaidens, follows the story arch of how most bands start; through long-term friendship and bonding over music that shaped their salad days. For Mermaidens, it was an eclectic melting pot of PJ Harvey, Warpaint and Fugazi to name a few.

Together, childhood friends Gussie Larkin (guitar/vocals), Lily West (bass/vocals) and Abe Hollingsworth (drums) form a powerful trinity of unwavering creativity and relentless work ethic. Their time together as Mermaidens has been a fruitful one; a timeline consisting of two critically acclaimed albums, being signed to iconic indie label Flying Nun Records, and a wide range of live supports that include Sleater Kinney, Death Cab for Cutie, Lorde, Mac DeMarco and The Veils.