Essential New Zealand Albums

For a band whose underlying mission was to address ideas about what this country could be, there could not have been a more apt name than Aotearoa. This Wellington band made just two albums: Tihei Mauriora and He Waiata Mo Te Iwi, released in 1985 and 1987, and which have since been combined on a single CD. In this episode Nick Bollinger talks to Aotearoa’s founder Ngahiwi Apanui and explores the background to these essesntial New Zealand albums.

Shihad, New Zealand’s best-known hard rock band, made ten albums during a 37-year career, but ‘Killjoy’ stands out amongst them. Nick Bollinger explores the reasons why in a special episode of Essential New Zealand Albums.

Chris Knox was one of New Zealand's most prolific and provocative music makers, before he suffered a serious stroke in 2009. In this episode of Essential New Zealand Albums, Nick Bollinger discusses Knox's life and work, with a particular focus on his 1989 solo album, Seizure.

Bressa Creeting Cake came of out of West Auckland in the mid-1990s with an album full of sonic and songwriterly surprises. Nick Bollinger takes a close listen and talks to members Geoff Maddock and Edmund McWilliams in this episode of Essential New Zealand Albums.

With his choirboy background and unusual palette of chamber instruments, Dudley Benson presented a unique artistic vision on his 2008 debut album The Awakening. Nick Bollinger talks to Benson about the album and reveals some of its hidden themes in this episode of Essential New Zealand Albums.

If any New Zealand band captured the synth-pop zeitgeist of the mid-90s it was Auckland’s Strawpeople. In this episode, Nick Bollinger takes a close listen to their 1994 album Broadcast, which served up such hits as ‘Sweet Disorder’, ‘Trick With A Knife’ and ‘Under the Milky Way’, and talks to Strawpeople’s Paul Casserly and Leza Corban.

The Only Game In Town launched Kiwi country institution The Warratahs on a career that has spanned four decades. In this episode, Nick Bollinger revisits this debut, talks to some of the people involved in its creation, and discovers that it wasn’t originally intended to be an album at all.

Shona Laing was just seventeen when she had her first national hit in 1972. Fifteen years later, she was reintroducing herself as a different kind of artist. In this episode, Nick Bollinger looks at Shona’s journey from folkie singer-songwriter to synth-pop pioneer, with a focus on her definitive 1987 album South.

New Zealand funk band Collision only ever made one album, but it is now regarded as an Antipodean classic of lost 70s funk. In this programme, Nick Bollinger dusts off his precious vinyl copy, and talks to former Collision members Hira Morgan and Mike Booth.