Late last year, while lauding Pikipiki, the spellbinding debut album by Geneva AM, we told Geneva Alexander-Marsters, the musician behind the project, the following: “Start getting your Taite Music Prize outfit ready…”
Four months on, at last night’s 2026 Taite Music Prize ceremony, Geneva AM won big.
She didn’t win the main prize, which went to Marlon Williams, but she did walk away with the coveted Auckland Live Best Independent Debut Award, seeing off stern competition from Bub and Babe Martin.
Credit: Supplied
Geneva AM triumphed thanks to Pikipiki, one of the best debuts in Aotearoa music in many years. Her win also represented another win for Tāmaki Makaurau label Sunreturn, which also helped MOKOTRON to win the main prize in 2025.
“Pikipiki is a joyous and uplifting celebration of Alexander-Marsters’ Māori identity; even when it’s dealing with thorny issues, as in “Urban Planning”, you can’t help but tap your feet,” we wrote last year, naming the record in the top 3 on our Best New Zealand Albums of 2025 list.
“What Pikipiki achieves recalls MOKOTRON’s dazzling work on his Taite Music Prize-winning 2024 album, WEAREA: Alexander-Marsters bends classic genres — chiefly disco and dance — to her own will, reframing and rejuvenating them, utilising them to explore and honour her heritage.
“And there might not be a better song than ‘Urban Planning’ in all of New Zealand music this year.”
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Other Kiwi publications were just as impressed.
“You don’t need to be fluent in te reo to feel welcomed by the Waiheke Island-based musician’s new album,” wrote RNZ in a four-star review.
“Geneva AM’s debut album Pikipiki arrives like a beam of light through the banal fog of current music – with bold arrangements, bilingual lyrics, grounded in whakapapa, history, brimming with mana,” wrote Muzic.NZ.
After her Best Independent Debut win, Geneva AM now has a $2,000 cash prize courtesy of Auckland Live; a performance opportunity with Auckland Live; and a studio recording package worth $1,200 courtesy of Parachute Studios.
It’s the latter prize that is most exciting from an industry standpoint: a second album from Geneva AM will be highly anticipated in Aotearoa music.
