Each week, Rolling Stone AU/NZ highlights our favourite New Zealand music from the past seven days.
Check out last week’s picks featuring, Mousey, WHO SHOT SCOTT, Phoebe Rings, and explore fresh highlights from Lucian Rice, Jim Nothing, MACEY, Tusekah, and more below.
Lucian Rice – right now, forever
Lucian Rice’s debut EP right now, forever has landed, offering up six tracks of fuzzy, melodic guitar-pop goodness. Teaming up with collaborator Tom Verberne, the EP feels like a snapshot of Rice’s journey toward staying grounded and soaking up the present moment. “Appreciate what is in front of you right here,” Rice urges. The New Zealand songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, and producer has captured the messy beauty of right now.
Jim Nothing – Grey Eyes, Grey Lynn
Auckland’s Jim Nothing, aka James Sullivan, is back with his second album Grey Eyes, Grey Lynn, released via Melted Ice Cream (NZ) and Metitorio (Spain). The follow-up to his stellar 2022 debut In the Marigolds is packed with garage-pop treasures like the punchy “Raleigh Arena,” the dreamy “Easter at the RSC,” and the sun-soaked “Wildflowers.” It’s an album that feels both familiar and fresh, bound to attract a whole new crowd of listeners who dig Sullivan’s lo-fi, DIY charm.
MACEY – “Midnight Lover”
MACEY’s indie-folk track “Midnight Lover” marks an exciting new chapter for the singer-songwriter. “Are you gonna break my heart?” he asks on this stripped-back, brooding song that leans into simplicity and lets the emotion shine. It’s the first taste of his upcoming EP how to say goodbye, and MACEY’s “less is more” approach here really lands. The track comes from a place of vulnerability, as he explains: “I’d just been through quite a strange fling, where neither of us were able to be there for each other at the right time, sort of a hot and cold relationship.”
Tusekah – “Baby’s Breath”
Tusekah kicks off 2024 with “Baby’s Breath,” a swooning, romantic single showcasing her soulful, soaring vocals. It’s a lush, emotional track—pure love, wrapped in melody. But as she admits, it’s not all roses: “I feel like I don’t actually know that ‘Baby’s Breath’ is realistic,” admits Tusekah. “I wrote it when I felt the most genuinely in love I had been with a person, but I also felt the relationship was coming to an end for many reasons.”
Rita Mae – “No God”
Rita Mae continues her streak of powerful singles with “No God,” the final teaser before her Kiss the Sky EP drops on November 15th. The Auckland singer-songwriter dives deep into the fear of loving too much, of losing yourself in the intensity. “What if I fall too hard and never recover?” Mae wonders aloud. It’s a song that captures the all-consuming nature of love, the kind that feels like it could swallow you whole – and sometimes that’s exactly what it does.
Kirsten Morrell – “Avignon”
“Disco with a new twist” is how the Goldenhorse singer describes her latest track, and its upbeat, funky feel proves the point. “Avignon” follows the release of “Strawberry Fool” and is lifted from her upcoming album Morrellium.
Arthur Ahbez – “Sister”
Tirau-based songwriter Arthur Ahbez is making a mighty return with his first new studio album in seven years, set to drop on November 8th via SHAM Records. He’s teased us with the jangle-garage-fuzz epic “Sister.”
“I remember writing ‘Sister’ sometime around 2013. I was in my cottage, and I suddenly got a bout of moxie and wanted to sing something like Buffy Sainte-Marie would—loud, wailing, and with soul. I struck to two chords (which basically make up the whole song) and let rip. What I ended up with is ‘Sister,’ a kind of absurd song, a song about murder and jealousy, abandonment, unconditional love, and indifference,” Ahbez shares.
TOOMS – “Fox”
Tāmaki Makaurau’s TOOMS – the power duo of Dorian Noval and Nich Cunningham – are back with “Fox,” their first new single since 2022’s Classic Fake Teeth. They describe it as, “a tale of belief. Or perhaps more accurately a tale of others failure to share a belief and the difficulty of convincing them. Or the how hard it can be to move events from belief and into fact.”
