This feature is part of a new Scene Report on Dunedin. Check out the series here.
When we caught up with young Ōtepoti Dunedin band Vagina Dry last year, they had high hopes for 2026.
“To perform in the UK, but realistically it should be to actually release our album and do some physical releases too,” lead vocalist El told us. “Write new music and keep having fun while uplifting voices that need to be heard.”
As was revealed today, they’ve already achieved one of those goals.
Alongside Sivle Talk, Sogg, and U-NO JUNO, three other excellent bands from our Dunedin Scene Report series, Vagina Dry will drop 4EPS in July, a special release which follows the example of Flying Nun’s legendary Dunedin Double EP (1982).
Just like that legendary release, 4EPS is essentially four individual releases packaged together, with each band given one side each. There’s Sivle Talk’s CRYBABY, Freezer Thaw by Sogg, U-NO JUNO’s you know, and a self-titled EP by Vagina Dry.
The first taste of 4EPS is the brutal, searing “Brutalised”, Vagina Dry’s latest slice of explosive Riot grrrl energy.
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The young trio — El is joined by bassist Reef and drummer Caleb in the lineup — produced the single with help from Tane Cotton, aka Sivle Talk, at the latter’s WarPossum Studios (Hamish Waddell handled mixing duties).
Typical of a Vagina Dry release (see also “LIAR” and “WHITE FEMINISM”), the lyrics do not miss.
“Our bodies seen as property / Our sexuality, a prize to be won,” El bellows at the very beginning of the unrelenting song. The end hits just as hard: “You don’t even see us as people / We are your greatest commodity / Forced to give birth to your work force / Our vaginas are your factories.”
“Brutalised” is the sort of in-yer-face, to-the-point song that any of the best Riot grrrl bands of the genre’s ’90s heyday would have been proud to call their own.
It’s thanks to bruising songs like “Brutalised” that Vagina Dry have already played to Australian audiences, after they took to the stage at LOUD WOMEN Festival last year, playing alongside other “female, non-binary and trans badasses” from around the world.
It’s the South Island that’s next in their sights, though, as Vagina Dry and their collaborators will celebrate 4EPS at shows in Dunedin (of course), Geraldine, and Christchurch between July and August. Better luck next time, North Island.
Vagina Dry’s “Brutalised” is out now. 4EPS is out July 3rd via DUN Records (pre-order here).
