Debate | Issue 5 | Music

ISSUE 5

debate MUSIC

Issue 5 | Music | May 2022

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ISSUE 5

MUSIC

MAY 8, 2022 T ’ N A C O H W E S RUN FOR TSHAMOE TIME ALL OVER THE WORLD TOGETHER AT THE JOIN US NOW

EDITOR Nam Woon Kim

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From the Editor

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Two Uni Associations Vote To Leave NZUSA In The Past 10 Months

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“It Was AUT Or Bust,” Says Aotearoa’s First Pasifika Vice-Chancellor

NEWS WRITER David Williams

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Giveaways

CONTRIBUTORS Liam Hansen, Catalina Nuñez Elevancini, Reece Skelley

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I Listened to Every Björk Album in One Sitting

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Meet Always Be Grateful: your local Korean Indie collective

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Open Home timetable

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Music Snobs: gatekeeping assholes, or just as insecure as the rest of us?

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Locals Spotlight

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Where West Auckland meets Midwest Emo: An interview with Melanie

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My Mum’s Marae in Mt Eden

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Aeroplane Spoons and Pop Tunes From 2000

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The ‘Bohemian Rhapsody Effect’ in K-pop

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Dad Rock: By Dads, About Dads, For Dads

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Puzzles

ASSOCIATE EDITOR Vivien Whyte FEATURE WRITER Petra Shotwell LIFESTYLE AND CULTURE WRITER Briar Pomana CHIEF NEWS REPORTER Justin Hu

ILLUSTRATOR Yi Jong SOCIAL MEDIA MANAGER Zainab Mustafa GRAPHIC DESIGNER Charlie Ratahi McFarland ADVERTISING Jesse Jones jesse.jones@autsa.org.nz PRINTER Nicholson Print Solutions

DISCLAIMER Material contained in this publication does not necessarily represent the views or opinions of AUTSA, its advertisers, contributors, Nicholson Print Solutions or its subsidiaries.

This publication is entitled to the full protection given by the Copyright Act 1994 (“the Act”) to the holders of the copyright, being AUT STUDENT ASSOCIATION (“AUTSA”). Reproduction, storage or display of any part of this publication by any process, electronic or otherwise (except for the educational purposes specified in the Act) without express permission is a break of the copyright of the publisher and will be prosecuted accordingly. Inquiries seeking permission to reproduce should be addressed to AUTSA. Debate is a member of the Aotearoa Student Press Association (ASPA).

Follow Debate! debatemag.com debate_mag autsadebate debate@autsa.org.nz

ISSUE 5

MUSIC

Is that really the Editor of Debate next to Carly Rae Jepsen?

You betcha. International gigs are coming back, which means it was time to dust-off this vintage memory from December 2019.

Carly returned to the stage in Coachella the other weekend alongside countless other artists that were patiently waiting to perform. Knock on wood, Big Thief will finally make it here! These gigs are already selling out so get in quick! And as much as we love our big-name musicians, you’ll find plenty of fresh local talent in this issue with some interviews and mini-spotlights that span Mid-West-Auckland Emo to Korean indie. Show the latter some love at Hikuwai Sessions this Friday the 6th!

THE BEACH - Vince Staples This might be one of my favourite Vince Staples songs. Clocking in at just over a minute, he shares this space with only a bass guitar and a deceptively uplifting organ to begin his album.

Vince’s delivery is relentless and resigned, his signature combo that’s met with a brief appearance from one of my favourite cadences of his, taken from ‘ARE YOU WITH THAT’, another iconic album opener.

I love music. From going to see the Gorillaz with my mum when I was twelve (none of my friends were allowed to join), to singing with some of the coolest choirs from around the world in Germany at the end of high school, music has always been an important part of my life. I’m still only scratching the surface. Not exactly a scorching take here, but good taste in music is overrated (talk that talk, Petra!). It most often just comes down to listening to a lot of different shit, and that’s not exactly everyone’s cup of tea. I can think of many perfect ways to start a day. Near the top of the list? Lying in bed, listening to something new. If that’s also you, here’s some of my favourite songs from this year so far, in no particular order: MURDER DEATH KILL - HEALTH, Ada Rook, PlayThatBoiZay True story: this song cured my headache the other day. I probably wouldn’t recommend trying the same, but check it out anyway if you’re partial to aggressive experimental hip-hop.

Clockwalk Around The Ache - Asian Glow, Weatherday Endlessly replayable as I await that dreamy melody at 1:50 which serenades us out. This is your sign to romanticise your life! Check out the rest of this collaborative tape for more quality lo-fi rock.

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All My Pretty Dresses - Destroyer I’m sorry, but our time together’s coming to a close, sings Dan Bejar over one of the prettiest dance tracks the band has put together. As if I wasn’t already in love, vocoders make an appearance in-between the groovy instrumental breaks. Pop perfection.

Angel - Python Serene house music with some tasteful xylophone-type percussion to keep you grooving, what’s not to love?

GingaMingaYo (the strange world) - Billlie Although I have a sneaking suspicion that my appreciation for K-pop is correlated with feeling stressed, I will continue to mosey down the runway of life to 'GingaMingaYo'. I’ve been aespapilled and STAYC-fied, now it’s Billlie’s turn to take the wheel.

Note: Ginga minga, or 긴가민가, refers to when you’re not sure about something, like when you think you recognise someone like is that really my lecturer moshing at the JPEG concert?

Maneki Neko - WEDNESDAY CAMPANELLA hans. put me on at the end of my interview with the ABG camp.

Admittedly I had slept on this group because Spotify kept pushing them to my front page, but it turns out the algorithm is getting too smart for its own good because this is my shit. The beat is so much fun as it bounces across an entire percussion section while Utaha’s vocals never get lost in the action either.

Two Uni Associations Vote To Leave NZUSA In The Past 10 Months

By Justin Hu (he/him) Only six out of 11 university student associations could be left as part of the national union of student associations if earlier plans to leave proceed at Auckland and Victoria Universities.

The New Zealand Union of Students' Association (NZUSA) has existed in forms since 1929 and more recently has had a rocky path with membership following the introduction of voluntary student membership in 2012.

In March, around 4 percent of Victoria University students ended up voting in a controversial referendum as to whether its student association, VUWSA, should give notice to leave the national body.

Around 29 percent of the 985 voters abstained from deciding with only 36 percent of voters supporting the move and 35 percent opposing.

NZUSA president Andrew Lessells told Salient Magazine that the organisation could see budget cuts if the Wellington student association left.

"I'm obviously disappointed [there has been a referendum called] but I'm also aware that they've had a number of longstanding concerns, we also have concerns and are committed to addressing these as well as reforming NZUSA," he said.

However, VUWSA's constitution requires 5 percent of enrolled students to vote in order to make a referendum result binding, and its president told Salient it could ultimately stay "if our concerns are addressed" during the 12-month notice period.

The potential to leave was criticised by some on-campus groups, including VicLabour who condemned the referendum as "union-busting" on its social media.

Meanwhile, the University of Auckland's student association, AUSA, agreed to give notice for leaving the national body in a vote at its AGM in May 2021. At the time, Craccum Magazine reported the vote was based around a perceived lack of value for money.

Other current members include student associations at Massey University's multiple campuses (they count for four), Lincoln University, and University of Otago. There are also a handful of other polytechnics and tertiary institutions that are also NZUSA members.

Meanwhile, AUT, University of Waikato, and University of Canterbury student associations are not members of NZUSA.

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“It Was AUT Or Bust,”

Says Aotearoa’s First Pasifika Vice-Chancellor

By Justin Hu (he/him) and David Williams (he/him) AUT’s new vice-chancellor Dr. Damon Salesa says he wants to regularly meet with students, while his “underestimated” university could be entering an era of “maturity” after years of growth and pandemic uncertainty.

With the university’s former VC, Derek McCormack, having taken on the job in 2004, the new appointment is a major sign of change at the top of AUT. Last month, Salesa spoke to Debate about his background, his plans for the years ahead, and why he felt his new job was a case of “AUT or bust”.

Salesa, who is Samoan, is notable in being the country’s first Pasifika vice-chancellor, having previously been the University of Auckland’s first Pro Vice-Chancellor Pacific. He acknowledged the “enormous responsibility” that cames with his new job.

“You have an identity that shapes who you are and you can't perform a role without being who you are,” he said. “You carry a different kind of burden when you're in a role, and people like you haven't commonly been in that role.”

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“I'm conscious of it and reflective about it, but I think I’m also a little bit impatient about it [generally]. The leadership of our city and our nation needs to look like the people it's leading and we don't do a great job of that in New Zealand”.

The son of a Fisher & Paykel factory worker, Salesa grew up in Glen Innes as part of a large working class family that emphasised to him “the power of education”.

“Education has played a transformative role in my life where I've gone from being the son of a factory worker to a vice-chancellor, with parents who probably weren't really that sure what a vice-chancellor was, or did.”

He said many students from marginalised backgrounds, like his own, likely hadn’t had opportunities to truly fulfil their potential in education.

Salesa said universities had not done enough to ultimately address systemic equity issues, but that addressing them would be a “complicated piece of work” that universities had to first commit to working towards.

“A lot of the reasons students don't go into elite education are not educational reasons in their nature,” he said. Issues with university entrance, high school outcomes, tuition fees, and socioeconomic issues were part of the bigger picture in Salesa’s view.

VC Dr Damon Salesa and AUTSA president Sara Youssef

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“You have an identity that shapes who you are and you can't perform a role without being who you are,” - VC Dr. Damon Salesa

“We can't just rely on what we inherit, we have to make sure that we're actually making education available, not solely on some criteria, which we know are unequal. Otherwise, we will have unequal entry and then we'll have unequal outcomes.”

He said he wanted AUT to provide opportunities for every student rather than “only identifying those who can thrive under certain conditions”.

Salesa added that universities are formed to be learning “communities” and that, therefore, they should be “open to all those who wish to learn”.

“It is a real challenge on how you present a university for everyone. For the rich, for the poor, for everything in between, for every diversity that one of the world's most diverse cities has.”

Salesa said his own personal values aligned with the university’s focus on applied knowledge and industry, as well as the fact it had the most diverse university student body in New Zealand. “So for me, it was AUT or bust, you know,” he said.

Going into the role, he said his first priority was to get students back to campus. “We've got three campuses and we need them to be filled with energy, life, learning, and knowledge,” he said.

Meanwhile, his other priorities would be focused on making AUT sustainable from both an environmental and financial point of view.

A significant challenge for universities brought about by the pandemic has been funding.

While domestic student numbers remained strong throughout 2020 and 2021, the number of international students had drastically fallen as a result of border closures and student reluctance.

With international students bringing in more money through their fees than domestic students, universities like AUT were forced to consider redundancies and defer larger projects. When asked about this, Salesa said funding challenges were a symptom of larger, more systemic issues.

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“The deeper problem is that New Zealanders want and deserve world-class universities, [but] world-class universities are expensive,” he said. “New Zealand hasn't funded universities to produce that world-class experience, so we've had to look for other sources of revenue, and international students were a source that many universities relied on.”

The new vice-chancellor said it had been “enormously challenging” for AUT and other universities to “survive without international students” and that, generally, the sector could “do better” in ensuring foreign students had value from their university education.

Uncertainty around international student revenue at AUT had seen the delivery of projects like the North campus’s A1 building delayed for 18 months.

Meanwhile, Salesa joins as vice-chancellor after the university’s senior leadership faced what was the institution’s most visible scandal in years.

In 2020, reporting by Stuff’s Ali Mau sent shockwaves through the university after AUT was accused of mishandling allegations of harassment among senior leadership. Mau’s articles eventually led to the resignation of two deputy vice-chancellors (there were six deputy vice-chancellors) and the commissioning of an external review.

The review concluded with the university accepting 36 recommendations to improve its internal systems. It found AUT did not have an ongoing issue of sexual harrassment between staff, but that there had been a culture of bullying among staff and that some systems were inadequate. Salesa said he would continue to see through the implementation of “all the recommendations of that report” as vice-chancellor.

The review found AUT did not have an ongoing issue with harassment or bullying among students. But, amid the review, other universities across the country had been reckoning with misconduct allegations made between students.

In the last four years, allegations of botched disciplinary procedures at the Victoria University of Wellington and Dunedin’s Knox College made headlines. And in March this year, the University of Auckland was accused of mishandling investigations of their own.

Salesa said he believed there was “real vigilance” at AUT towards instances of misconduct and that it was an issue the university had “thought through quite deeply”, especially in its student accommodations.

“We have a very low threshold of tolerance and we expect our staff to do the right thing, do it quickly, and do it with student interest at heart — and to keep students safe immediately.”

“I've received assurance from our leaders that lead that part of the university, that they did sort of model tests of how they would deal with these challenges.”

When asked about ensuring students have a voice in AUT’s decision making, he said he would meet regularly with the AUTSA president and have informal meetings with groups of students on a variety of issues.

“I recognise that the campus experiences vary [and so] one of the things I value most about the job is spending time with students,” he said. “Knowing students, listening to them, spending time with them, and understanding them is an essential part of running a good university.”

Looking forward to the next five years, Salesa said the university had a clear strategic plan to focus on priorities like improving its Te Tiriti relationship, the climate, student achievement, growing its research output, and ensuring it was “singing its own praises” to become more visible.

“I think AUT is the most underestimated of the New Zealand universities. AUT’s contribution is kind of nation-defining in the sense that it has the most potential of any other New Zealand universities in terms of quality and impact,” he said.

Meanwhile, Salesa said he believed the university had seen “astronomical growth” in the past few years, but that it was time to be more “deliberate” about how it decided to grow.

“I'm sort of describing this next phase of AUT's journey as one of maturity… there was always a point where growth would need to be reassessed,” he said.

“I don't think this is a [line goes up] kind of situation for AUT, maybe [it is], but we need to consciously decide that as a community, because we're already New Zealand's second biggest university. If we're going to get bigger, it will mean many other things to us.”

He believed the realities of Covid has “awoken” people to new learning opportunities, and that the future could involve people shifting careers more often and retraining multiple times during their life, with a greater use of online learning.

“You might start off as a journalist and end up as a coder or programmer [and] AUT has a role both in that original journey and the second one,” he said. “We're working through collectively what it means to be in a post-Covid educational world.”

Looking forward to the next five years, Salesa said the university had a clear strategic plan to focus on priorities like improving its Te Tiriti relationship, the climate, student achievement, growing its research output, and ensuring it was “singing its own praises” to become more visible.

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ISSUE 5

MUSIC

Giveaways We’ve said it before and we’ll say it again: music streaming on big platforms is daylight robbery for artists. While Spotify pays millions to give a platform to your least favourite person’s favourite person, musicians get pennies for hundreds of streams (not literally but you get the idea). Support your faves by buying their music, digitally or physically! To enter this issue’s giveaway, follow us on debate_mag on Instagram and DM us your worst, or favourite, memory from a concert you’ve been to.

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$20 Bandcamp Voucher

$50 Marbecks Voucher

Although recently bought out by Epic Games, Bandcamp, for now, remains an important pillar of independent music.

More than just a place to buy music and merch, Bandcamp also features a generously stacked blog where you’ll find quality music-writing and quality music rec’s. From daily album spotlights to in-depth features covering specific labels, genres, and cities, it’s a musiclover’s dream!

We know vinyl can set you back so let Debate give you a hand with your next splurge. Whether you’re after some prime Brooke Fraser or Portishead, Marbecks has you covered. There’s also plenty of CDs for those of us who like their FLAC-rips despite listening to music mostly on their under-powered headphones.

ISSUE 5

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I Listened to Every

Björ k

Album in One Sitting

Matth e w Bar n e y - Dr awin g Re st rain t 9 [20 0 5 ]

B y Lia m Ha n s e n ( he /him )

Bj ö rk G u ðm u n ds dót t ir is somehow legendary without being a star. There isn’t a specific song you can point to as a big hit, nor a specific point in time where an album took off. Hell, I feel like I can’t remember when I wasn’t aware of her existence. Unfortunately, my actual introduction to her music came through BL anime, scouring through the songs referenced in the episode titles of Given and becoming enamoured by her ‘Like Someone In Love’ cover.

Tracks from her first three albums were solidified into my playlists from Year 11 onwards, but what about the rest of them? Are they better? Weirder? Worse? I have no clue, and I’ve always hated that fact up until now. Without any skips, I listened to them all.* Eight hours of pure, Icelandic, experimental art-pop. *Editor’s note: Only her studio discography was included, as much as we love the live albums too, Björk!

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DE B UT

1993 You know how drum and bass is shit? You don’t like it because it’s good, you like it because you remember being in the moment at R&V whilst off your fucking mind.

Some of Debut is like that, except better. It really feels like it should be experienced whilst in a dingy Icelandic club full of strangers, where everything is woozy and slightly off-kilter. Unfortunately, I listened to it alone in my bedroom, making the off-key synths and vocals a bit harder to swallow. Since I’m normie scum, I think the weird-ass dance tracks can take away from the generally good album at times when they’re interspersed with beautiful tracks like ‘The Anchor Song’ and ‘Venus As A Boy’. It’s great, but I wouldn’t recommend it as your first Björk album. I appreciate her pulling a “crying in the bathroom at a party” edit 25 years early though.

PO S T

1995 Have you ever gone back to an album you liked a lot a few years ago and discovered that it had a WAY bigger effect on you than you remember? That was Post for me. This album is damn near perfect. All of my issues with Debut are almost completely rectified: the art-poppier tunes are what this album focuses on, with expansions into the trip-hoppy sounds that would later define her career, and the avant-dance songs on here compared to Debut contain newfound confidence in her performances and production. Plus, I was down bad as FUCK in 2020 and ‘I Miss You’ hit a bit too hard for my liking. 11/10.

HO M OG ENI C

1997

BJöRK'S ENTIRE

Sound design. Holy shit, sound design. What the fuck did Björk go through to pull some of these ideas out of the ether? Every single aspect of these songs is so crisp and clear, with tiny aspects in the mix that are borderline ASMR inducing, and her lyrics are the most mature they’ve been yet. Also, the DRUMS! A big stylistic benchmark for Björk is her glitchy, rapid-fire drum beats that end up almost providing their own melodies to the rest of the song through various effects. This is her most well-produced album, and the next time you buy fancy new headphones, chuck this on and have a fun time ascending.

VES P ER T I NE

2001 This was the first album that I hadn’t heard before, and I’m incredibly mad about that fact. The individual sounds and stems on this are fairly similar to Homogenic, but they’re oftentimes isolated without the layers of sound that the former album excelled at. Her vocals, my God, she turned herself into a choir and a half. There are SO many “oooooh's” in this record and it is glorious. She continues to break new ground with her voice, using more soft tones, which lead to some of the best screams in music history. Her breaths have been compressed to be so loud and close to your ear and it’s just insane to listen to an album like that. What on earth can that strange little woman do with her voice that she hasn’t done yet!?

M ED UL L A

2004 Oh… She can become Pentatonix, I guess? To be fair to Medulla, I gave it the short end of the stick. It was doomed to become my Lunch Record™, so half listening to it while eating leftover butter chicken probably wasn’t super fair. Medulla is an a capella album, but they just kinda gave up on a couple tracks and added in standard glitchy instrumentals. It’s a cool enough idea, but half of these songs are underwhelming and the other half are unintentionally hilarious. What was going on in the background of ‘Ancestors’? I don’t think I want to know. Far from terrible, but not her best.

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VO LTA

MUSIC

2007 There is a limit to the number of horns I can take in one album. Volta goes over that tenfold, and also Timbaland is there for some reason? She plays around with chants and hooks more on songs like ‘Earth Intruders’, which is cool, and she replaced her usual orchestral/electronica mix with traditional instruments and too many goddamn horns. I like her screams of “RAISE YOUR FLAG!” on the finale and how she seemed to become in touch with dubstep years before it hit the mainstream, but there’s really one main issue with this album other than the fucking horns: it’s the mixing. Björk has the best track record when it comes to amazing sound design, but the album just constantly sounds flat and dull. ‘The Dull Flame of Desire’ is beautiful though, and I really wish she did duets on her studio albums more often!

BIO P H I L I A

2 0 11 This is Björk’s Hail To The Thief: not the most boundary-pushing work but good music regardless. This is where her style of dreamy, experimental pop largely surfaced, mixed together with some great political and environmental messages.

So much of this album takes place with silence or a single instrument behind her vocals, and her ongoing experiments with new media art also largely stemmed from this era. A lot of her great modern ideas were clearly formed in this record, but maybe not yet in their most impactful state.

2 0 15 By this point, I had had Björk playing for about six and a half hours straight, and I had long earlier realised that this was not a great method to review a discography.

Vulnicura repackages a lot of ideas from Biophilia and makes them much, much better. I mean, it’s the breakup album in her discography. Seldom do we see women in their late forties create a breakup album, let alone do it so well (still love you, Adele). This is driven by its narratives, both auditory and lyrical. It’s slower-paced, oftentimes ambient, and overall, bloody gorgeous. The issue was, my brain felt fucking fried by that point and the rapid-fire drum beats that were still a staple at this point in her career were getting to be a bit much.

U TO P I A

STUDIO DISCOGRAPGHY

V U LNI C UR A

2 0 17 This was what I needed. Maybe Biophilia was about nature, but Utopia is nature, running through an enchanted forest with magical beings surrounding you. Up until this point I kept thinking - “Is she ever gonna do a folky album?” and by God, I Got My Folky Album! It collects everything I love about her former albums and calms them down in a lovely acoustic manner. I had gone through so many hours of harsh sounds and rapid drums that a slower-paced album like this - which may not be for everyone - was just so seamlessly beautiful that I can't help but believe it was her best since Vespertine.

The moment I put my headphones down, I immediately had the urge to start over. Go back to Debut. Explore some of her Sugarcubes work. After eight hours of weird-ass music, all I wanted was more. Even her lesser albums had spectacular highs, and on each consecutive new release, she keeps the goal of trying something new. Björk speculated earlier this year that her tenth album would be released in the summer, with a sound described as emulating “a man who was headbanging, then sat down again and had another glass of red wine, and everyone is home by ten o’clock, done with the dancing and everything”.

Nothing sounds more incredible.

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From left to right: Hanbee, Taebz, hans.

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Always Be Grateful

Meet Always Be Grateful: your local Korean Indie collective

By Nam Woon Kim (he/him)

Friends, food, and having a supportive team are just some of the things the new music collective are grateful for as they reflect on the start of their journey together.

“It feels like it’s been longer,” Taebz remarks as I put together a quick timeline. Joining me over Zoom on the eve of their second band camp are the three artists that make up Always Be Grateful: Taebz, Hanbee, and hans., who also manages the team. The group has been together now from just the start of this year, but everyone feels like they’re on the same page with the same type of sincere, yet tongue-in-cheek energy you would expect from a group that goes by Always Be Grateful, or ABG for short.

“We were thinking of collective names for so long. And with [my single] ‘Be Grateful’, I was like… what if we were just be grateful,” says hans.

Further workshopping with ABG’s producer, Owen, and a friend assisting with the single, Joon, resulted in the final name. “ABG is like ABG, but it's also ABG. You know?” is how hans. sagely puts it as I nod along.

“Joon was there for a lot of it, and [Joon] just dipped and absolved themselves from the mess that he created,” hans. laughs. “He’s my homie who does fashion - he went back to the army like two months ago.”

Korean indie may not be the first thing that comes to mind when you hear their name, but it’s what defines this collective backed by a team of friends, family, and fellow creatives.

As well as the artists themselves, the full team also encompasses DJs, designers, and more. From high school mates to Taebz’ own brother, Luke, aka woo!, ABG is a close-knit crew that’s keeping busy. It’s been an eventful year for the Korean trio who are set to complete their respective roll-outs by the end of this month.

Taebz, who navigates a blend of hip-hop and alternative R&B as a vocalist and producer, just released his debut EP, Gloss, last week - the second ABG project after de-facto group leader hans., released kimyuntak earlier in March. Perhaps the veteran of the group, hans. continues to find new ways to make the hip-hop he creates uniquely his own with the introduction of Korean electronic influences. Rounding out the lineup is Hanbee, the singer/songwriter of the group who just released ‘Odd’, in anticipation of her upcoming album: Odd One Out - a project she says is a departure from her bedroom pop roots.

2022 is by no means their first step into music, but it does represent a new chapter.

Hanbee, having graduated from Yonsei University, returned to New Zealand earlier this year with her eye set on making more music which ABG provided an apparatus for.

Meanwhile, over last year’s August lockdown, the rest of the collective had begun to work on the records that would become ABG’s first step into the world. From what hans. describes, kimyuntak was something of ground zero for ABG - and not just for its name.

“Owen bought a MIDI keyboard because it was on sale at the Rock Shop; he’s always been making beats but never really committed to it. Ableton came with the keyboard, and he knew that the trial version was going to run out in like two months. So it was just this onus of like now or never, like there was literally nothing else to do. We never planned for it to happen.”

Nevertheless, hans. emphasises that ABG wasn’t ABG until all three came together.

“It’s like when Earl was in Samoa for Odd Future, that missing link.”

The rest of our conversation, edited and abridged, follows below.

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Debate: What’s the story behind how everyone actually met? hans.: I met Hanbee first and I became a fan of her music and just thought it was cool. Pretty shortly after I met Taebz and his brother, Luke. I guess us three knew each other, but there wasn’t that seed to make the collective until a few more months down the line. Even though Hanbee was in Korea it just made sense as well to be a part of it because we all fucked with her music. I kind of wanted to get into artist management regardless.

Taebz: hans. saw a video that my brother, Luke, directed, and hit him up for his own video. He didn't have a car at the time so he was like “can you please drop me off?” I drove him over, but then there was a protest going on the bridge that day. I think it was like a cyclist protest or something like that. Because we’re in central Auckland whereas hans. is on the shore, I was like, fuck, I don't want to go back so I just ended up chilling at Hanju’s house while they were doing the video. That's how I met hans. properly.

And then later on while I was working on [my single] ‘Vices’, I sent him the beat and hans. hopped on it straightaway. When we were filming the actual video we just became homies and then it blossomed from there. And Hanbee we knew her first via online.

Hanbee: The timing was really lucky ‘cause my sister goes to uni here; I was gonna move back to New Zealand to live with her anyway. I was talking to Hanju and one day he said, “I've got this plan and would you like to be part of it?” I thought because I hadn't met them in person it might be a little awkward [laughs] but we get along so.

I noticed in the credits, Taebz, that each video is co-directed between your brother and yourself. Could you go into what that process is like?

Taebz: Each project is pretty different, so we've always tried different approaches. ‘Retro’ was very guerilla style, just improv everything. Find cool locations, create an aesthetic, and figure out the anchor scenes that we wanted and then just flesh it out from there. But for ‘Shadows’, it was more of a loose narrative. I wanted to have each scene written out and scripted, so that approach was more like [using] Google Docs; me and my brother would put in ideas and just completely flesh that out and then go into what kind of shots we want to actually do. My brother, because he was a film student, he knows all the technical shit so it was just about, “Oh, can we do this?” For ‘Retro’, there was that Stanley Kubrick movie 2001: A Space Odyssey [homage] with that pencil shot. Luke referenced that.

Is there anything that inspires you both creatively, Taebz?

Taebz: Me and my brother, when we produce beats and stuff, [although] we don't intend to, the sound design ends up being very similar. We attribute it to Pokémon and RuneScape and all these other games that we played growing up.

It’s certainly not just the music that stands out - I notice your cover art always have a lot of personality in them, Hanbee, who does them?

Hanbee: Some of them I made, but some of them my friend drew for me. A very old friend! My upcoming ones, Chris, who does the visuals in our group, took the photos. I'm really excited with those as well.

Could you tell us a little about what that next project is like?

Hanbee: There’s lots of different new producers from overseas, and some just like, within ABG like, Luke, Taebz’ brother. I think I'm really excited for it because it transitions from the whole very bright, happy, upbeat [style] to something different.

As a highlight of your EP last year, in and out, the sequencing is one thing I’m looking forward to as well. How do you approach tracklisting?

Hanbee: I like to make a tracklist quite early in the process. There are certain songs that I feel should be really at the end. Some of them just seem to be a second song and one of them, like the middle. It does come together at the end, I like to think.

So what does an ABG band camp look like anyway? hans.: I like the concept of [where] in the music industry in general, the way that they do A&R is they're always chucking artists together in rooms who you’d think don't work together. I like that at camp we can work together with no boundaries, like all we have is each other. We do a lot of interchange at camp where we work in different combinations to see what we can make. At the end of the day, it's all just for the creation of it, just seeing what we can make. I think that's the coolest part especially when you're thrown into settings that you're not familiar with as well. I feel like the environment does play a huge role in creation.

‘Odd’ single - Hanbee 16

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Since this is our music issue, what is everyone listening to at the moment? hans.: His name’s 이오공 250, like the number. He's a dance producer/DJ but shit's crazy, it’s experimental house music. And Vince Staples’ new album, I think it might be album of the year contender - I just can't stop talking about it.

Hanbee: I listen to a lot of stuff at the same time, but then I’ll start digging into one album and then keep that on repeat. Recently I’ve been listening to Rex Orange County’s new album.

Taebz: I've been listening to JMSN and The Blaze a lot. And hans. and Hanbee actually, I've been listening to Hanbee a lot lately because we're covering each other’s songs at band camp. We're trying to get out of our comfort zone so we've matched each other with like, completely different styles. I'm doing ‘Buttercup’ so I’ve been listening to that a lot.

This camp does sound real methodical. hans.: Oh we got timetables.

Are you camp mum, hans.? hans.: Nah not really, we’re not like 군대 gundae [army] level.

Everyone kinda manages themselves anyway.

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To wrap it up on a cheesy note, any advice for people wanting to give music a go? Or anything creative really.

Taebz: Just do it. [Hanbee and hans. laugh] Nah but I mean it holds true, because I only just started doing it, like actually releasing it out into the world last year. If I didn't do that, I wouldn't have met Hanju or Hanbee. I never thought that I would have made these friends - it just takes you to different paths and branches out into different avenues.

Hanbee: Kind of on the same note, but, start early. Sometimes I think it would have been cool if I had started doing more earlier.

I think I spent a lot of time trying to do other things - just thinking that this was kind of unattainable. If you really like to do it, just start. hans.: If you're gonna do it, you should be devoted to taking care of your health, like in terms of eating right, but also mentally, making sure that you're feeling right. There's that whole tortured artist [concept] and maybe it holds true that if you're, you know, feeling depressed and shit, you might make better music. But at the end of the day, people won't care that much. kimyuntak and Gloss are out now available to stream.

Hanbee’s album Odd One Out drops May 13

Gloss EP - Taebz

🐰

kimyuntak - hans.

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Monday 2 May

Tues

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Interest Group Day

North

11am - 1pm Hikuwai Plaza A exhibition of our newest and upcoming student groups and AUT services to help feel more at home on your return to campus.

12p AUT Nort Want to me with similar i and find ou

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Mini Campus Kai

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12pm - 1pm Hikuwai Plaza There IS such thing as a free lunch!

Join us for some kai (vegan options available).

12p AUT Nort Join us for som available), g an AUTSA go Pointe

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Pick Up & Play Basketball

1pm - 3pm Te Āhuru Recreation Centre Grab some mates and head over to Te Āhuru to participate in your weekly social sports.

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Welcome Back!

5pm - Late Vesbar (R18) Vebsar is here to welcome you back to campus! Happy hour, food and drink specials.

Horizon.A

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sday 3 May

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Wednesday 4 May

Thursday 5 May

S

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South Clubs Day

City Clubs Day

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Friday 6 May S

Pick Up & Play Sports

11am - 2pm South Campus Sports Courts Want to meet some new people with similar interests? Come along and find out what is available.

10am - 2pm Hikuwai Plaza Want to meet some new people with similar interests? Come along and find out what is available.

1pm - 3pm South Campus Volleyball, Basketball, Badminton and table tennis!

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Campus Kai

12pm - 1pm South Campus Sports Courts There IS such thing as a free lunch!

Join us for some kai (vegan options available), giant games, and grab an AUTSA goodie bag!

Campus Kai

12pm - 1pm Hikuwai Plaza There IS such thing as a free lunch!

Join us for some kai (vegan options available), giant games, and grab an AUTSA goodie bag!

5pm - 8pm Te Āhuru Recreation Centre Scissors Room Join the AUT Boardgames Club for games, music and food!

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ACG Weekly Meetups

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Boardgames evening

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1am - 2pm AUT North c Health Association has created we have ellness extravaganza in ation with AUTSA.

DJ Dubhead

11am - 12pm South Campus Sports Courts Celebrate NZ Music Month with DJ Dubhead and a set that celebrates all that’s good in the NZ Music Industry.

pm - 1:30pm Recreation Centre Rock Room n for their free taster ance class!

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a with Remy

m - 12:30pm h Sports Stadium UT Gym for Zumba!

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Zumba with Remy

Animal Therapy

12pm - 12:30pm South Campus Sports Courts Join the AUT Gym for Zumba!

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3 Pointer Competition 12:30 - 1pm South Campus Sports Courts Join the Mature Student Representative for the SRC and test your 3 pointer skills!

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& Play Volleyball

1pm - 3pm Recreation Centre mates and head over to participate in your ly social sports.

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Pick Up & Play Futsal

1pm - 3pm Te Āhuru Recreation Centre Grab some mates and head over to Te Āhuru to participate in your weekly social sports.

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ames evening

pm - 7pm Recreation Centre ssors Room Boardgames Club for music and food!

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The Big HIIT

5:10pm South Campus Sports Courts City - Hikuwai Plaza Join AUT Gym for a HIIT session!

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5:30pm Dance Studio m for a HIIT session!

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6pm - 8pm esbar (R18) ne up of different nside the bar for some start and get into the ng of things.

1pm - 3pm Te Āhuru Recreation Centre Grab some mates and head over to Te Āhuru to participate in your weekly social sports.

5pm Te Āhuru Recreation Centre Scissors Room Have an interest in anime, comics or gaming? Meet other students with the same interests!

C

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ADP Dance Class

Pick Up & Play Mini Golf

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11am - 2pm Hikuwai Plaza ZooVentures are bringing some cute animals for you to pet! Come and relax with a fury friend.

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Art Gallery Tour

12pm - 2pm Hikuwai Plaza Join Zina from the SRC and other members in an Auckland Art Gallery Tour. Meet in Hikuwai Plaza and head over together!

Hikuwai Sessions 6pm onwards Vesbar (R18)

SAVAGE

Hillside BLVD DJ Yolanda Hanbee Taebz Ticket prices: AUT Student: $25 Public: $35 Multi Pass: $20 Purchase from moshtix.co.nz

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Horizon.ADP Dance Class 3pm - 4:30pm Te Āhuru Recreation Centre Rock Room Want to try out a dance class on campus? Join Horizon for their free taster classes!

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Karaoke Night

6pm - late Vesbar (R18) Come along and meet some new people, sing your heart out!

Star Wars Pub Quiz

6pm - 7:30pm Vesbar (R18) In a galaxy far far away there was a student quiz based on the Star Wars universe! Prizes for the top teams on the night.

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Music Snobs:

gatekeeping assholes,

or just as insecure as the rest of us?

WORDS | Petra Shotwell (she/they) ILLUSTRATIONS | Yi Jong (she/they)

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Pleasure should exist without strings attached, and honey, guilt is one of the longest strings there can be – cut it off!

If you were to ask, I’d tell you my favourite band is Bon Iver.

That’s not exactly a lie – they are one of my favourites, and I have pretty intense emotions associated with every delicate and soul-squeezing note in the album For Emma, Forever Ago. But realistically, I don’t think I have a favourite. I’m also stubborn and can’t help but think ‘I don’t have to pick just one, so I won’t.’

Picking a single favourite musician or band is near impossible for most of us, but even more than that, it’s actually a major source of stress and, for some, shame.

You see, when you ask me what my favourite band is, I automatically generate the same answer I’ve given since I was 14.

Perhaps because I’m a little bit afraid of thinking too deeply about a real answer. Music is personal. Music helps us to tell our stories and conveys our greatest joys and deepest traumas. The music we each connect with is one of the most intimate things we have.

With that perspective, I think that when you ask me about my favourite music, I’m subconsciously panicking, as though you’re on the verge of finding my diary from my dark and twisty high school days and are about to read all my dirty little secrets.

You might be thinking ‘but why would someone be ashamed of the music they like?’ Alas, you are quite right – there is absolutely no need for those dreaded shame spirals. But, because of those infamous music snobs (maybe you’re one of them, sorry), the shame is relentless. I admit: the depths of my Spotify ‘liked songs’ are filled with musical mortification. I still think Jordin Sparks slaps, and early, super country Taylor Swift was absolutely fire. Even so, I'm terrified of what the snobs would say if they scrolled across the 2010s pop hits hidden amongst the indie gems I usually listen to.

Whether you’re in a panic trying to answer who your favourite artist is, declining to request the next song at a party or plug your phone into the aux in a car full of people, or you’re making separate playlists that are either made for sharing with friends or absolutely not – you, too, may be a little bit protective over the music you love. It’s as sad and simple as describing a song you like as your ‘guilty pleasure.’ Pleasure should exist without strings attached, and honey, guilt is one of the longest strings there can be – cut it off! Crank up those Top 20 hits ’cause they’re in the top for a reason, and you’re allowed to love ’em. In fact, you and your music really aren’t the problem.

The favourite song of a music snob isn’t even the problem – they can enjoy their screamo on their own time, that’s fine. The problem, my friends, is the

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music snobs themselves. They are the reason we feel guilty about particular songs or panic when handed the aux. Let’s unpack that a little bit.

A music snob is a person who believes they have a superior and more refined taste in music than others, and a high level of knowledge in the music field in general. Not necessarily someone who has studied music or who knows legitimate facts about music, but who simply thinks their music taste trumps all. They also tend to think that if someone else happens to like the same music as them, they couldn’t possibly love it as much as they do. Usually, a music snob can be found listening to a very specific and unique music type – typically something few others know about, and absolutely never anything that would be broadcast on popular radio stations. The Edge? You’re dreaming. They tend to have a passionate dislike for pop music. Already, I’m thinking: well, ‘pop’ stands for ‘popular’, right? Meaning... lots of people like it. So, why do they think their music is inherently better than something enjoyed by most people? That’s one way of looking at it, although, I won't pretend I believe popular always equals good. I do, however, believe that popularity is probably part of what turns the music snobs off. Here’s the thing though... it’s not just music snobs.

We’re all subconsciously a little snobby about pop music. Don’t get me wrong, I love it. But there’s a pretty huge stigma attached to pop music: ‘it’s too catchy’, ‘it’s got bad lyrics’, ‘it’s not real music, it’s too mainstream’, ‘it’s girly’ - maybe you don’t even realise how often these thoughts pop up, but I’m sure they do. Even while I’m tapping my foot and reciting the lyrics, I’ll think ‘ugh, it’s a bit cringe’. Something is telling us we shouldn’t like it, even if we do.

Hence the existence of guilty pleasure.

The majority of people I spoke to about this confirmed that they do have a guilty pleasure, usually in the pop genre. People are convinced that liking Harry Styles will make others think they are a ‘1D fangirl’. Now, while there may be be some stigma associated with that title, it’s also undeserving of ridicule. It seems that most people have something in common here, whether they enjoy it or not: pop music is in some way ‘less than’. Those who don’t like it judge others who do and those who do are embarrassed about it. One person I spoke to expressed their fear that enjoying mainstream pop made them ‘a fraud who gave in to advertising’.

Others described pop as cringy, tacky, simple, easy, and even ‘less valuable’, even though they love it.

Every single person who confessed to having a ‘guilty pleasure’ song listed fear of judgement and ridicule as the reason they feel that guilt. Judgement from who? Why, the infamous music snobs of course! Most of these people also said they never volunteer to plug their playlists into the aux, stating anxiety as the main reason. Those who do, however, are also the ones who describe their own music taste as quite specific, obscure, or something that ‘most people don’t like’. Some of these people admitted to skipping songs occasionally, and maybe sometimes teasing their

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It’s all a bit weird and gatekeeper-y. Instead of showing off how good their music is, they hide it, because if you hear it, then they’ve suddenly lost their thing, you know?

friends about what they listen to, but they also acknowledge how judgey this comes across, stating that music taste is subjective, and there isn’t just one correct good song or genre out there.

These people might come across as a little snobby and particular about music, but is this really the behaviour of a real music snob?

In my own experience with the very worst of music snobs (the real assholes) they won’t even play you their favourite music.

They don’t want you to, God forbid, actually enjoy it. It’s far too cool and quirky for normal music listeners. It’s all a bit weird and gatekeeper-y. Instead of showing off how good their music is, they hide it, because if you hear it, then they’ve suddenly lost their thing, you know? Suddenly, they are no longer the special fella with the niche taste. There’s a lot to unpack here – this type of person clearly has some built up feeeeelings. Even music snobs have their reasons for not sharing their favourite songs with the world – it's like your dark and twisty high school diary, remember?

Many people I spoke to shared thoughts similar to this: music snobs are merely expressing their own insecurities, just a bit more aggressively than the rest of us. Really, they might be just as afraid of judgement as we are. Their music taste is unique, quirky, alty – but I bet after a couple of cold ones they’d still jump up and down to Lady Gaga in the gay bar if they had the chance (and no judgement there). For some reason, they’re embarrassed by their potential ability to enjoy those mainstream tunes; however, we’re all living with the stigma, at least a little bit. The most common thought among people I spoke to is that music snobs and those who skip other people’s music are simply impatient, judgey, rude, and that it’s just cruel to express negative opinions about someone else's taste. However, one person I spoke to says she thinks music snobs behave the way they do because of their ‘fear of projecting the “wrong” image of themselves onto the world’; another said they’re simply ‘trying to be cool’, and one person even admitted that they ‘skip songs all the time, isn’t that normal?’

Almost everyone commented on how deeply and uniquely personal music is to each individual.

We’re all a bit protective over the music we love – whether that’s because we’re embarrassed, because it says too much about who we are, or because we don’t want other people to think they like it more than we do. Tell me, at the end of each year, do you share your Spotify wrapped results with everyone you know? Only on your ‘close friends’ story? Pretend you never read them? Why? What do you think your music says about you? Maybe there’s a snob inside and you don’t want anyone to steal the thing you love so much. The point is, we’re all a little anxious when it comes to music.

But I still think music snobs are kinda just assholes, sorry.

So that brings us to the most important question of all, and one I still don’t know how to answer: are music snobs really assholes, or are they just as insecure as the rest of us, trying to protect their own personal connection to music?

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Lukan Raisey

Locals Spotlight

By Briar Pomana (she/her)

An intellectual word-smith, Lukan Raisey represents a new generation of South Auckland prodigies. Lukan has been in the music game since he was a fresh-faced teen and his process is only getting cleaner with each new addition to his detailed body of work. His lyrics deal with themes such as family, culture, and authenticity, and his experiences as a young brown man in this country. His latest mixtape Free Game Vol 2, delivers on its promise of elevation and speaks to Lukan’s ability to stay fresh and acclaimed. To listen to Free Game Vol 2 from top to bottom is like a sunny Friday afternoon commute home – and I mean this in the best way possible. Lukan is one of the best doing it at the moment. His focus and control over his production quality is what keeps him A1 and it’s crazy to think what his discography will look like in the years to come. If you’re in the mood to think, to sink into yourself, to feel something, look no further than Lukan Raisey, voice of the southside.

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Nganeko Nganeko’s music and craft are taonga that need to be protected. Hailing from Tainui, the Hokianga, and Fiji, Nganeko is a tribute to the new heights of astro-nesianism and creativity being explored by a new wave of gifted rangatahi. Nganeko’s voice is angelic, not in a Christian way, but rather in the sense that there is something profound in play whilst listening to what is featured on their Spotify, SoundCloud, and Instagram. The influence of Black Jazz and R&B soulstresses is apparent in Nganeko’s sound and there are plenty of covers that fall within these categories. In particular I would recommend their song ‘Serious’ and especially if you’re the kind of person who has some sort of mood lighting in their bedroom (and if you don’t you should listen to it too). ‘Serious’ is the kind of song that will slow your breathing and have you lying on your bed watching shadows move across your ceiling.

It’s also the perfect addition to your nighttime shower playlist. Listening to Nganeko is guaranteed to make you a hotter person - we don’t make the rules, we just enforce them, so next time you’re with your friends who solely drink oat milk and refuse to shop fast fashion, throw on some Nganeko.

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Where West Auckland meets Midwest Emo: An interview with Melanie

By Reece Skelley (he/him)

Self-proclaimed semi-professional music guy Reece Skelley trekked to Morningside to have a chat with three-quarters of the boys from “Mid-West-Auckland Emo” trailblazers Melanie - specifically, Robin Davey Lusk (guitars), and brothers James (guitars/lead vocals) and William Dentice (bass/ backing vocals). This interview doubled as a special occasion, since it lines up with the second anniversary of their debut album ‘42 Losers’. DoBros were drunk and yarns were had for a good half-hour - here’s an abridged transcription of that exchange.

Reece: We’ll get a bit of basic band history down first; you guys met at SAE? James: Robin and I met at SAE with our first drummer De Stevens. In November 2017, Robin wanted to do a late 90s/early 2000s themed birthday party, and he wanted a band to play a whole bunch of shitty pop-punk covers… So you can imagine, like Elemeno P, we played ‘Basket Case’...

William: Didn’t you guys play ‘The Anthem’?

J: ‘The Anthem’, ‘The Sweater Song’, just lots of great singalongs…

Robin: ‘Stacy’s Mum’!

J: Stacy’s Mum! Max’s Mum! And Max’s mum’s name is Melanie?

R: That's the one!

The band’s lineup shuffled a little; while Jordan Randall-Whiu was in the party lineup, Will came into the fold when the boys were asked to open for Lookin’ Up at Whammy. Later on, De also eventually made way for current drummer Joe Gasparich.

J: We didn’t have any songs for the gig! We didn’t have anything sussed, and it was in two weeks, so we went to my mum’s garage R: and we got about 15 minutes of material (2018’s Melon EP) and yeah, it was sweet.

And now you’ve got way more! You’ve got 42 Losers, you’ve got the ABCD EP, they both absolutely slap.

J/R/W: Thank you, man.

What’s the challenge of making midwest emo in midwest Auckland?

W: It’s very American, I think we’re just very super inspired by that kind of stuff. We blend the pop-punky side and also some of the “sad boi” stuff, but not too much.

J: I’d like to think if we were over there, that’s the scene we’d fit into comfortably. And it’s hard to “genre-fy” a punk band these days.

R: So many niches.

J: But as soon as you get past the two-factor “emo or pop-punk” it starts getting really wanky and you gotta slap the vague “punk” label on it. Like, I tell work mates I’m in a pop-punk band and they go “wow, I was really expecting like, bubblegum, Blink-182” kinda things.

I can see the Remo Drive LP on the shelf, so definitely not bubblegum!

R: The challenge is there’s not really a midwest scene here.

J: And it’s hard to do it without sounding super derivative of what’s going on over there, there’s a lot of cliches you can fall into making that kind of music, and we try our best not to fall into a lot of them. It’s tricky to do in that genre.

W: Well James is the main songwriter and I think he’s doing a pretty good job of not falling into that.

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Are there any musical influences that would surprise your listeners?

J: I listen to a lot of hip-hop, probably more than I do poppunk these days. Just from a lyrical standpoint and coming up with, you know, a verse that flows really nicely… I talk a lot in metaphor and I think I get a lot of that from hip-hop. But I can’t name someone off the top of my head. It’s tricky when you say it like that!

R: Like yeah, let me get out my phone, check my Spotify.

I was gonna ask if there are any pop-punk tropes that you’re not keen on, but I think the “bukha” beat being contentious answers the question!

J: Yeah, like we were saying we’re not trying to fall into those tropes.

W: We don't wanna write a kitschy little pop-punk song, I really don’t wanna do that.

J: I definitely try not to say “again” or “tonight” in my lyrics (laughs)

After finishing recording, James did figure out a name: Beastie Boys.

The boys start riffing on a fake song, going like “leaving this town tonight… again… because we hate this town”

W: As a whole, it’s very surface level, like Remo Drive. Personally in terms of where I’m inspired with my bass parts, it’s very Joy Division, it’s The Cure, I think their bassists have a very distinct style. Lou Barlow (Dinosaur Jr.) is one of my favourite bassists of all time, it’s kinda like a blend of everything.

R: We’re very patriotic West Aucklanders. There you go! That’s the opposite of a pop-punk trope, we love our hometown.

You guys single-handedly redeemed the “bukha” drum beat for me.

(For those uninitiated: referring to the drums on ‘Cold Feet’ off the ABCD EP) J: I think we did that for me as well! (laughs) R: It was contentious - it was scrapped first! I don’t think you guys were very big fans of it, and Joe and I were quite big fans.

W: We just kept working on it, and eventually came back to it.

J: And then we had a cool song, short and sharp, with a ripping solo, and going really hard into it. And I think Joe’s ability… he’s a fucking machine on songs like that. He’s a natural, he’s got this really robotic but super expressive hit - he pulls it off so well.

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With most of you going to SAE, do you think having that knowledge makes it easier to record? Or do you get stuck on ideas?

R: I find that’s just an artistic/creative thing. You can have all the gear, all the know-how, but it’s still about whether you’re happy with it. Nothing’s ever finished, but it helps speed up recording for sure.

W: James and Joe are the two engineers, De still masters pretty much everything we do, Jordan does the music videos.

R: So it's all technically still DIY, within the band.

J: It makes the ideas come a little easier, because I’m generally coming up with the bones of the song, and after a few hours I’ve got a pretty good idea of what it’s gonna be. And then we can take a full demo to the band and jam that, so it definitely helps.

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Do you have any perfectionist tendencies?

Joel Little’s opening that new studio/venue!

J: For sure.

R: You listen to it five months later, and you’re listening back to it like “Ah, I don’t like that guitar tone.”

J: But I feel like at the end of the process we’re pretty stoked with how it is. It’s as scrutinised as it can be without sounding too squeaky clean, we know where to leave those cool little imperfections.

R: Just down the road! And we moved in here a month ago, so that’s really good timing. That’d be sick.

Because we’re in the middle of a pandemic, and this is a uni magazine with a lot of pandemic-affected students, you get pandemic-related questions!

Nervous laughter ensues.

Remo Drive?

J: After that first album I think the magic was R: Greatest Hits really was their greatest hits.

J: It was kinda gutting, I really liked the singles from that second album though.

Might be easier to answer for Robin, since you’ve seen them more… Ripship?

You guys dropped 42 Losers right in the middle of the first lockdown, which is a risky move! To have your first album out right at the start of NZ Music Month, and not be able to play shows immediately.

R: I’m trying to think of a good word! I respect them, because they’re all DIY as well and their sound is really unique. Nice people. West Auckland represent.

J: There’s always that kind of camaraderie.

R: We played a month or maybe two months after it came out, so not too long!

J: We just wanted it out! We’d been sitting on it for so long, we’d gotten sick of it. We didn’t expect the kind of response it got, and you do have to think “what if we had waited a little longer”, but I think at the time we were super proud of what we had, and we just wanted our friends to hear it.

Sell me on Title Fight.

When I look at the Auckland scene, I don’t see it as “these people are going 100%”. Like, the reality is you have to have a day job, you need that support. Does that affect how you approach Melanie?

R: I think it’s limiting in the fact that living in Aotearoa, when we’re booking a tour, you’re only playing a few shows in the major cities over a couple weekends, and you call THAT a tour. Whereas if you’re in a bigger country, even just going to Australia, you can commit to music a bit more, because there’s more places for you to go. The income aspect’s not really sustainable, but that’s the reality of it.

It’s not like everyone can be Carnivorous Plant Society, where you hit every town imaginable, set up shop in a library, and just play.

R: And heaps of bands used to do that 20, 30 years ago. DARTZ did a tour like that recently.

J: It’d be fun, it’s just tricky. You can’t be so certain of what’s gonna happen in the next six months, so hopefully this is the last big hurdle/uncertain period. You have to book shows, if you’re booking somewhere like Valhalla, a year ahead in some cases, so it’s a massive gamble.

I know that in spite of all your shit going on, you guys are consistently playing, which is impressive! So I reckon the forward momentum should take care of itself eventually.

W: Yeah, we don’t really say no to a gig unless we’ve got something going on.

J: Whenever we’re not locked down, for the past two years, we’ve been playing every weekend we can. As soon as we came out of the first lockdown, we played six weekends straight, two shows a weekend sometimes. Which is nice, so it’s nice to know when everything opens up again, we can hopefully get back into that.

I’m gonna rapid fire some names and you tell me what you think. Goodnight Nurse?

R: They’re one of my favourites for sure. When Joe and I were trying to push the “bukha” into the band, Title Fight was one of the leading influences.

W: I wasn’t super keen, I thought they were kind of too poppunky for me at the time? But I like them more now.

J: I think I was just trying to push Joe’s buttons, I was saying “this album’s just Blink-182”, being a dick about it. But they were definitely my most listened to band last year. And their live shows are something to marvel at.

On the more twinkly side of things, American Football?

R: That first album holds a special place in my heart.

W: Gorgeous.

J: I think that was the first band I got into when I was like, 15, where I thought “woah this is beautiful”... the gateway for finding all these other emo bands.

W: It’s always a special moment when you hear one of those albums like American Football, hearing Loveless for the first time…and then Neutral Milk Hotel, for me.

J: Those are like the three pillars of alternative.

W: But American Football was the pinnacle of that kind of thing.

I’ve finished this DoBro, so I obviously gotta finish with what the people wanna know: how’s progress with Album #2?

J: It’s well underway, we’re well into demoing. We’ve been saying, nothing serious yet, how at the end of the year we’ll start getting the ball rolling. I think we were talking about not doing it all ourselves.

W: I think sound-wise it’s quite different as well, I feel like it won’t be 42 Losers 2, you know.

Or 43 Losers.

J: But it’s still distinctly Melanie. I think it’s a comfortable progression, quite cohesive. We want to have a proper album cycle as well, not as messy as our last couple releases… we want to go through the hard mahi and make something really cool.

Well you’ve got me excited! Thanks for having me, boys!

You can stream Melanie’s music on Spotify, Apple, or Youtube Music or do them a big solid and purchase their music from their official Bandcamp page - Melanie for fun.

R: Hometown heroes.

J: Yeah, man.

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My Mum’s Marae in Mt Eden WORDS Briar Pomana (she/her) | ILLUSTRATION Charlie Ratahi (she/her)

My Mum’s apartment in Mt Eden is our marae My cousins and I use it as such At my Mum’s marae we practise our singing We spend one hour flicking through YouTube clips, (preferably with guitar chords included) One hour actually singing And two hours laid out marae style recovering.

My Mum’s neighbours at her apartment in Mt Eden don’t like us We wonder if they’ve ever done a pūkana We see them glaring at us from their balconies and decide to put on a show I grab my firmest poi and give them a spin How do you like that inconsistent beat?

We decide to do Ka Panapana just for the lols My Mum’s moving out of her apartment and possibly out of Mt Eden I just can’t imagine the walls without our toothless smiles Our makeshift ātea and atamira where we would dance silly The way Purea Nei on a shitty speaker would always make us cry Our cleanup crew putting away blankets, mattresses and cups of tea I think I’ll miss being a bad singing Māori at my Mum’s marae in Mt Eden

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Aeroplane Spoons and Pop Tunes From 2000 WORDS Briar Pomana (she/her) | ILLUSTRATION Charlie Ratahi (she/her)

Briar illuminates the pop culture timeline and its pioneers that have led us to the sonic and aesthetic world we call home today.

She knows the outline of her lips off by heart, spritzing a fun, fruity perfume over her shoulder.

The smell travels back to our car seats and her glitter-eyes watch on from the rear view.

She wears Juicy Couture and isn’t like regular mums - her steering wheel is fluffy and matches her fuschia-blushed cheeks. Her pinkalicious cellphone’s ringtone is by Nelly and it buzzes to the tune of 'Dilemma', but just Kelly’s part in the chorus. The 2000s mum isn’t fazed by how passers-by gawk at her femininity and Christina Aguilera-influenced box-dyed hair. Her brows are thin, but stare at her for two seconds too long and they’ll turn into pistols.

These mums are quick to defend Gwen, but only if we’re talking about her No Doubt days, because it was the 90s and no one knew any better. They wear their jeans low and heels wedged like they’re in a Mary J. Blige music video.

Fedoras for when they’re feeling like Ne-Yo’s Miss Independent and big face-swallowing sunnies like Mariah.

When we were kids we watched on as our mums strutted hallways to 'Crazy in Love', showing us what it took to be a Y2K baddie.

Studying them like our Jonas Brothers posters, we have perfected the 2000s mum era. We have manifested our future selves by the ritual of time-relapse and Britney Spears. We mustn't be blamed for the fabulous foxes we have morphed into, when we are the products of the OG bimbos. Mums in the 2000s era are as iconic as the music they fed us on aeroplane spoons and we, the glitter girlies, now grown, must carry on the tradition of catchy clothes and pop songs.

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ISSUE 5

The ‘Bohemian Rhapsody Effect’ in K-pop

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WORDS + SONG GRAPHICS | Catalina Nuñez Elevancini (she/her) ILLUSTRATION | Yi Jong (she/they)

When Queen’s ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ was released in 1975 it welcomed mixed reviews. But now it’s one of the most iconic songs ever written and a karaoke-must. It’s a glorious six-minute song that’s changed the face of music. With an unusual song structure featuring five different genres, three key changes, and a range of vocals, it feels like a mix of several songs put together. These elements are key when it comes to defining the ‘Bohemian Rhapsody Effect’, and K-pop has proved to be a genre that will always play with your expectations of what a popular song can be.

So, let me give you a little lesson on the best experimental bops in K-pop starting from 2010.

Nu ABO – f(x) Released in 2010 by girl group f(x), ‘Nu ABO’ would be the group’s first experimental hit. With a tense and textured foundation that carries the song, bubbly and boisterous vocals and chants, ‘Nu ABO’ makes for an interesting first listen.

It’s a banger, nonetheless, that cemented f(x) as one of the most unique and experimental girl groups within K-pop.

Sherlock (Clue + Note) – SHINee While this 2012 banger is known for its iconic ‘marching dance’, ‘Sherlock (Clue + Note)’ is quite literally a mix of two songs – ‘Clue’ and ‘Note’. Because of this, it’s often considered K-pop’s first “hybrid remix”. These songs feel unfinished as separate tracks. But when layered together, it creates a confronting, brassy hip-hop and EDM tune. Paired with a Sherlock Holmes-themed video and a slick performance from SHINee, ‘Sherlock (Clue + Note)’ is always an exhilarating listen.

I Got A Boy – Girls Generation Most stans will instantly say ‘I Got A Boy’ is the ultimate ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ of K-pop, with 9 different genres making an appearance in four minutes. It is the final boss and patient zero of the ‘Bohemian Rhapsody Effect’ in K-pop. Without it, a lot of the songs below might not have escaped the demo stage. ‘I Got A Boy’ showed that unusual song structures with various key and tempo changes could be crowd favourites too. And of course, Girls Generation sold it like the rent was due. P.S. When you listen, take note of Jessica literally summoning a tempo change with “Lets bring it back to 140”, meaning back to 140 in BPM and 1:40 in time. Her power, undeniable.

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Tempo – EXO From the very first synth chord and Chen’s “I can’t believe”, ‘Tempo’ has you in a chokehold. Although they’re singing “Don’t mess up my tempo”, the song quite literally messes up the song structure in a controlled and chaotic way. This 2018 track is a treat, mixing contemporary R&B, funk, house, and hip-hop with multiple tempo changes and vocal layering along the way. Topped off with funky verses, suave R&B bridges, and even an a capella section, it’s a catchy one for sure.

Zimzalabim – Red Velvet Red Velvet is known as the successor to f(x), but even so, ‘Zimzalabim’ was an unexpected first listen for many. The song has a carnivalesque theme, but in the chorus it feels more like a haunted house which has since been memed for its hypnotic repetition. The unexpected twists from bubbly vocals to monotonous chants feel like jump scares at a funhouse. After all the ups and downs, everything stops for a heavenly solo on the bridge before whipping straight into a head-spinning final chorus. Once it ends you either want to have another turn on the ride or swear to never try it again.

O.O – NMIXX Last on this list you’ll find the track that caused the most uproar recently in K-pop: NMIXX’s debut track ‘O.O’. It’s a controversial track that has fans split, some calling it a flop, others calling it genius. The song’s attempt at experimentation is enjoyable when paired with the choreography and a handful of listens, but as a song alone, it feels disjointed. Despite this, each section is exciting enough to scratch my ADHD brain and get me listening to it on replay. Without a consistent theme to join the different sections, it feels like a missed opportunity at being an iconic song. Can Bohemian Rhapsody-esque experimentation like this only be pulled off by established groups?

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Dad Rock:

By Dads, About Dads, For Dads

By Reece Skelley (he/him)

Dad rock has always been a derogatory term.

I’ve hurled it more than my fair share of times at artsy-fartsy, fluffy, and stuffy, crusty old guys playing the pentatonic scale for decades on end. And yet, behind cliché hides warmth; behind the flock of stereotypical white-haired Gibson crusaders lies an under-appreciated - and underutilised - level of artistic merit. So, I’m here to appropriate the term and push the boundaries of what dad rock can be by reviewing albums that I believe embrace different fundamental pillars of the term.

It’s by dads, about dads, for dads, for sure - but that shouldn’t stop the music being for us as well. In fact, one day it has to be for us. We should at least get to choose what it is.

Hopefully, these three albums give you a head start.

By Dads Aeon Station - Observatory When all that you know / or believe to be true / goes wrong / hold on Observatory feels like a lecture from my dad. Not a judging lecture like “cut your hair and get a job” (although I did hear that a lot), but a motivational lecture; the world will kick you down, and not all your plans will bear fruit, but giving up is not the answer. It’s all the more potent coming from a 50-ish-year-old Kevin Whelan who hadn’t released an album in almost 20 years - that album being one of my favourites of all time, 2003’s The Meadowlands. Observatory also took a decade in and of itself - no matter how long the music gestated and aged alongside Whelan, its sentiment still rings true.

Observatory is also emotionally diverse in spite of how minimalist its structure is. ‘Hold On’ appropriately opens the album with a piano-led lullaby. On the other end of the spectrum, raucous rock anthems like ‘Fade’ and ‘Better Love’ soar to the stratosphere with nothing more than passionate power chords and Whelan belting notes as far as his vocal range can take him.

Ultimately, Whelan’s story embodies the reality of being a modern musician - and personally, the kind of musician I expect to be. Not just in the superficial similarities, like playing righthanded guitars upside down. Aeon Station, like The Wrens before them, embraces perseverance; working the 9-5 day job and using the little time you have at the end of the day to nurture your artistic calling, bit by bit.

Essential dad rock needs to be by dads. In the right hands, it allows them to impart their wisdom and experience towards a generation that struggles to be heard. We live in a wild-west cowboy frontier where video game companies own Bandcamp and local bands are lucky to hit double-digits at Whammy bar.

Who wouldn’t want a guiding hand?

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About Dads

For Dads

Gang of Youths - angel in realtime.

Electric Light Orchestra - Out of the Blue

I dunno what to feel / I dunno how to feel right / but I want to become my own man, I guess

Hey you with the pretty face / Welcome to the human race

angel in realtime. made me cry. Significantly. Like, a LOT. I thought I had reached the point where ‘spirit boy’ couldn’t affect me again, and then the live video with orchestral accompaniment came out, and Lord have mercy. Dave Le'aupepe takes the band’s “shed rock Springsteen'' reputation and shuffles in electronic polyrhythms, Indigenous and Pasifika vocal samples, an entire orchestra… the works! And it works! But it’s a hard album to stomach sometimes, because that musical density works in the service of an equally dense emotion: grief.

Dad rock has dealt with grief before - Roger Waters expressed grief for his lost father throughout Pink Floyd’s discography and through that, we inadvertently have to reckon with our own mortality. So how does angel in realtime. separate itself from the pack? By refusing to foster resentment, and instead fostering understanding. ‘brothers’ provides both conflict and resolution in a single couplet concerning one titular brother, Matthew: “our father left him at the hospital / but if he forgives him, then I should too.” In other tracks, Le'aupepe juxtaposes the tragic nature of the lyrics with upbeat songwriting. ‘in the wake of your leave’ encapsulates this perfectly; it’s hard to write about survivor's guilt or inadequacy, let alone after a funeral, and make it sound triumphant.

Essential dad rock needs to be about dads. Without them, it’s just rock. And “just rock” doesn’t roll off the tongue well, or sound as cool. On a serious note: without them, we have no baseline for where we’ve come from. It may not be all positive, or reflective of who we want to be – but as long as the backlight illuminates our way forward, it’s worthwhile.

In 1978, my dad lost his copy of Out of the Blue in a dastardly coup waged by his significantly older aunt, when he was a wee boy. They battled in the seas, the skies, and even the cosmos (you can probably see them in the background of the album cover), but it was to no avail; his dreams of sitting under the kowhai tree, listening to ‘Mr. Blue Sky’, had turned to stone. Until 2022, 44 years later, when a really cool son of his found a copy in an op-shop for twenty bucks and restored his lost youth.

At least, it’s more fun when I put it that way.

Make no mistake: ‘Mr. Blue Sky’ is pure cheese. British people writing piano ballads about cowboys? Undeniable boomer energy. But in spite of - or maybe because of - all that, Out of the Blue is effortlessly timeless. ELO cribs from the Beatles’ strong pop sensibilities, without falling into McCartney’s mawkish vaudeville or Lennon’s outlandish pessimism. It also serves as the peak of the band’s use of the orchestra, later albums cashed in hard on disco, synthesizers, and futuristic concepts - focusing on the ‘E’ and scrapping the ‘LO’ almost entirely. In short: it’s the best representation of the band.

Essential dad rock needs to be for dads - and I don’t just mean as a present. I struggle to connect to my dad because we're from very different eras and enjoy very different things - but we’ve always been able to bond over music because I’ve always had something to inherit from him. When it’s for him, it’s an heirloom, something that I can keep to my dying days - or pass on to whoever comes next. That’s the power of dad rock, baby.

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ISSUE 5

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to come

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