For all of our comprehensive NZ Music Month coverage, head to the Rolling Stone New Zealand homepage.
Tāmaki Makaurau’s K M T P, aka Keria Paterson (Te Arawa, Ngāti Raukawa, and Ngāi Tahu), wasted no time in making waves with their long-awaited debut album, With Love, K M T P.
It shot straight to the top of the Student Radio Charts, earning last year’s SRN Award for Favourite Solo Act with its emotive indie rock-meets-pop sound, co-crafted with Peter Ruddell (Wax Chattels, Sulfate) and released via Sunreturn.
But even before Paterson emerged as a promising solo act, they were already entrenched in the music scene, drumming for groups like Polyester, Dirty Pixels, and lately Dead Famous People. They found their groove scouring the racks at local record store Flying Out, where one EP in particular caught their ear – Fazerdaze‘s breakout release.
Find out why Paterson calls Fazerdaze the ultimate escape artist below, and catch K M T P performing at JUNK FEST on Friday, June 7th (more info here).
I remember walking into Flying Out when it first opened in 2015, perusing the local releases as a fresh faced uni student. My friends pulled out a handmade CD cover and pushed it into my hands; it was the breakout EP from local artist, Fazerdaze.
Ever since then, I’ve been obsessed with her lo-fi-bedroom production style, and nostalgia-tinged pop hooks that make me feel like I’m living in a mid-90’s teenage fantasy. It felt like an absolute dream when I was able to see Fazerdaze live, opening for Unknown Mortal Orchestra at the St James Theatre in Auckland (#savethestjames).
I was standing right at the front, singing the lyrics as loud as I could. When her debut album Morningside came out, I felt like it was so gracefully built upon the initial EP, evolving the bedroom pop production style into something that felt completely larger than life.
I usually find I listen to this album when I’m needing to escape from the world around me, and I feel like her latest release, Break!, has taken over those reigns nicely. Crunchy pop hooks and distorted guitars; grooving drum beats and funky bass licks that make you dance the night away in your room – can it get any better than that?
