To celebrate NZ Music Month in May, Rolling Stone AU/NZ asked a selection of musicians to name their favourite Aotearoa artists and explain what makes them so unique.
“The album is a gutting, a purging,” Ingrid and the Ministers said of their latest album, the thrilling Boofhead.
“A last bastion of old-fashioned blues rock, a rugged and ready four-piece that maintain the unrestrained spirit of the old guard, Ingrid and the Ministers are one of Wellington’s very best and most reliable bands,” Rolling Stone AU/NZ wrote about the band at the time (read their track-by-track breakdown of Boofhead here).
So when we recently asked them to choose their favourite local artist, it’s little wonder that they chose a band whose live show they describe as being “dangerous and difficult to pull off.” All musicians are playing on the edge down in Wellington, by the sounds of it.
Below, the blues rock outfit’s lead singer Ingrid Saker explains why acid rock trio Linen must put out more music:
Emerald is the guitarist and vocalist. I reckon she’s one of the most original players in the country. Her guitar is like another voice. Some songs don’t even have many lyrics but all these different guitar parts, riffs and rhythms that hook you in. It’s so fun to watch live because it feels dangerous and difficult to pull off.
One of my favourite recent songs of theirs has Emerald screaming angrily “I’m so fucking happy!” over and over. I just love that juxtaposition of emotions. There’s something so relatable about the contradiction. So yeah, I hope they put some more music out at some point. I know they’ve been working on something…
