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Hot on the heels of Australia Day, neighbours across the Tasman Sea, New Zealand, celebrate Waitangi Day today. I have a little intro story about this so bear with me, you know how waffly I can get.
My mother’s birthday is the day after mine; hers was last Thursday. On Saturday, my siblings and I spent the day in London with her, at galleries in the morning and then for afternoon tea at The Goring hotel (v. nice btw in case you have a special occasion to celebrate). On our walk back to the tube we encountered hoards of Kiwis dressed up in unrelated outfits, wandering the streets in huge groups, having a lovely time and pretty much all of them plastered. There was a police presence at Westminster underground, but the revelrie was good natured and seeing all these young Kiwis, clearly having a blast, made the crush on the tube worth it. On the train home we did some research to work out what it was all about. Here’s what we found: The expat New Zealanders of London celebrate Waitangi Day on the closest weekend to the 6th February by doing a pub crawl along the Circle line ending with a huge haka at Westminster. They’ve been doing this for 30 years. Waitangi Day is New Zealand’s national day celebrating the signing of the Treaty of Waitangi which is their nation’s founding document.
I thought we’d celebrate along with them, in a musical way, by sharing tracks by artists from NZ (there are some deliberate omissions to give you lot room to add songs).
The Beths – Happy Unhappy. It was a struggle to choose between this and Future Me Hates Me (or any of the others tbh). They are great, aren’t they?
Boycrush – Flirt. Boycrush is a creative project of producer, Alistair Deverick collaborating with some exciting vocalists and visual artists for the videos. Lovely electropop.
Yumi Zouma – Depths (pt 1). They feature on the Boycrush track too. I came across them a while ago (2014 – whaaat?!) when they released their track The Brae. Lovely dream pop with a Fleetwood Mac sound.
Fat Freddy’s Drop – Wandering Eye. My friend and gig buddy, Anne-Elise, is a huge FFD fan and sees them every time they are in London. They are difficult to categorise; is it soul? is it dub? is it jazz? is it funk? A bit of everything. They are well known for their fabulous live performances featuring masses of bass.
Flight of the Conchords – Business Time. Just because. I find them very funny and clever.
Btw; we had a great day out with my mum and I still got home in time for the 2nd half of Ireland – England which featured in last year’s St Patrick’s Day post.
Please share your tracks from New Zealand.
