Auckland noise surf four-piece Invisible Threads is in town this weekend, booking out the Crown for an early show tomorrow night.
The band, which formed a few years ago around guitarist Sam Moore and drummer Melissa West, has undergone some line-up changes since its last Dunedin gig, with West leaving to focus on a career in photography.
The new line-up is touring on the back of Oxide, the group's sophomore album, a follow up to the fun synth punk of their self-titled 2014 debut.
"The guitar, bass and drum recordings were done under our house,'' Moore said over the phone from Auckland, coincidentally in the middle of moving house.
"We set up the drums under the house, the amps in the lounge, and ran cables to ourselves under the house. It's all dirt and concrete down there.''
It's a great image that: a punk band laying down cuts surrounded by exposed, ancient and probably rusting copper pipes, mounds of dirt and concrete foundations.
Oxide is the band's debut for Christchurch's DIY tape and vinyl collective Melted Ice Cream (MIC), a label carving out an important niche for itself in New Zealand's musical landscape, with releases from left-field punk acts, numerous eccentric excursions and holding the belief that R.E.M. is better than The Beatles.
In short, it's a great fit for the Auckland group.
"Last year, Joe Sampson [MIC head] got in touch after we released Machine is Dead and said he'd been listening to one of our songs on Bandcamp and was enjoying it,'' Moore said.
"He was actually just asking if we wanted to come down and do a show in Christchurch, but I knew that he was from Melted Ice Cream, so I asked if he wanted to hear the record.
"I'd been following Melted Ice Cream before he got in contact, so it seemed like quite a good connection. I thought we'd fit in quite well after we supported [Melted Ice Cream's] The Dance Asthmatics in Auckland. It's all quite fuzzed out, but still has that New Zealand sort of sound to it.''
Invisible Threads will be supported by Dunedin dark wave outfit Strange Harvest and the Old Psychiatrists Club.
JORDAN LUCK BAND
Kiwi songwriter Jordan Luck and his band will perform at ReFuel on Thursday as part of a nationwide tour promoting debut album Not Only ... But Also.
The album is the first to be released by Luck since the heady days of The Exponents.See it. hear it
SEE IT, HEAR IT
Invisible Threads' Oxide Album Release Tour with Strange Harvest and Old Psychiatrists Club, tomorrow, Crown Hotel. This is an early show, starting around 6pm or 7pm and wrapping by 10pm. Oxide is available digitally or on hand-made cassette tape via Melted Ice Cream, meltedicecream.bandcamp.com.
Jordan Luck Band's Not Only ... But Also Album Release Tour with support from Ekko Park, Thursday, May 26, ReFuel, Dunedin. Tickets from undertheradar.co.nz and Relics, Dunedin. Doors 8pm.
