Suitable Alternative

Auckland indie mainstays Ghost Wave has ended a year of relative silence by announcing a new album and touring the new songs around the country.

Young Dunedin bedroom musician Jack Brosnahan has just released his debut EP under the moniker Yesses, and it's DIY psych-pop of the highest calibre.

Dunedin powerhouse sonic rock group Idiot Prayer is making a welcome return to the stage tonight, ending a nearly three-year musical hiatus.

Wellington throat, turntable and drum trio The All Seeing Hand is embarking on its annual traverse of Aotearoa this month. Included are two stops in Otago.

Auckland experimental post-punk four-piece HDSPNS (pronounced Headspins) has just released its debut album / 'E N (D) , G A M /, and are in Dunedin tonight as part of a national support tour.

Fazed on a Pony is the home recording project of Dunedin singer-songwriter Peter McCall.

A new Dunedin electronic pop duo is courting music industry hype and taking a different approach to announcing itself in the local music scene. Called ROCIO, the pair of Anderson Romero and Sean Railton met in August last year while studying music at university and have been working on music together since.

Radio One is teaming up with the New Zealand Young Writers Festival to present Blast Off!, a free show headlined by Emily Edrosa.

Mick Harvey, founding member of legendary Australian punk act Birthday Party, takes to the stage at Chick's Hotel tonight.

Auckland two-piece Carb on Carb are one of my perennial favourites, and it's a pleasure to see them returning to Dunedin to celebrate the release of their self-titled debut album.

Miss June, one of the most engaging new names in New Zealand punk music, is releasing its debut EP next week and kicks off an album release tour in Dunedin.

Dunedin electronic duo Strange Harvest has finished the follow up to its excellent sophomore album, and celebrates the release with a show tonight at Chick's Hotel.

Listening to the dark and shadowy debut album from Dunedin trio Death and The Maiden, the mind wanders to exaggerated images of songs constructed by hooded figures in candle-lit near darkness, drug-fuelled jams slowly turning hypnotic program loops into languorous, melancholic and explorative electro.

With a new album on the way, satirical Auckland five-piece the Eversons visit Dunedin next week on the back of a couple of shredding lead singles.

Bass-heads rejoice: it's the mid-2000s again! Well, no. Not quite ...

The New Jersey-born, Brooklyn-based Sharon Van Etten writes and sings about the pain of love and heartbreak with an exactness and openness few can match.

Though perhaps still best known as the laconic, nonchalant vocalist and cryptic, hyper-literate songwriting mind behind '90s era-defining lo/fi alternative legends Pavement, for more than the past decade Stephen Malkmus has been releasing a string of solid albums under his own name, and with his band the Jicks.

An action-packed March for local venue Chick's Hotel starts this weekend, with the first of a slew of international headline acts set to hit the intimate stage over the next 31 days, beginning with two alternative rock guitar heroes, J Mascis, leader of Dinosaur Jr, and Mick Turner, of the Dirty Three.

New York art-rock absurdist King Missile is on its first tour of New Zealand this week, and next Thursday it makes a stop at Chick's Hotel.

Fourteen months ago, at the request of their label Far South Records, Dunedin indie pop band Two Cartoons made the move to London.