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Last week we looked at 2025 music from the Bay of Plenty. Let’s cast the net wider...
It was easy last week – aside from Te Puke punks Punktuation who have removed their music from the platform it was on, Spotify. This week it’s all over the place. I’ll start with some blues.
Off to a flying start from Whanganui is BB & The Bullets with their debut album ‘High Tide’. The powerhouse electric guitar trio fronted by Brian Baker reinvigorate retro blues standards but what impresses ultimately are Baker’s original songs which sit comfortably in such august company.
Immaculate
There were two immaculate acoustic albums out of Wellington: ‘Darren Watson Sings John Hiatt’ saw the bluesman convert nine of Hiatt’s songs into tough, often anguished, country blues; tastefully underplayed and focused, it rises well above the “tribute album” moniker.
The other is a bit hard to find but available via download and CD from Bandcamp. It’s ‘Lost And Found’ from Bill Lake’s Slow Bake, a trio led by the former Windy City Struggler, largely recorded live, containing what you could almost call a song cycle – 10 songs musing on ageing and mortality. And life. There are heavy themes but Lake approaches them with a lightness of touch that allows for moments of pure joy amidst reflection.
Hooked
I could write a whole column and more about this album: the skill of the songwriting – including final songs written with the late Arthur Baysting – the strange resonance of Lake’s ageing voice, Alan Norman’s beautiful accordion, just everything really. After the second listen I was hooked and I expect that to last for a long time.
Grant Haua. Photo / Supplied
Back to Tauranga blues-wise, Grant Haua, now spending significant time annually playing in Europe, released a collaboration with French musician David Noël under the band name Atua Blues. ‘Two Roots’ is a soulful collection of funky acoustic blues with lovely harmonies and a couple of well-chosen covers.
Grant Haua and David Noel. Photo / Supplied
For the first time recently local blues stalwarts Kokomo failed to release anything, but their guitarist Santiago Rebagliati produced one of my favourite 2025 songs, ‘Mi Casa Es Tu Casa’. It’s on YouTube. Expect an album this year.
Santiago Rebagliati. Photo / Supplied
History
Meanwhile, Shane Davies from Whakamarama’s Soundtree Studio continues to create music at a dizzying rate. His 16-song album ‘Silence’ dropped last year and he’s already released two songs this year, the latest being ‘Who Are We’. It’s all on his Facebook page.
Shane Davies. Photo / Supplied
Finally two reissues. Seventies’ prog-rock band Think, featuring mercurial Tauranga stalwart Ritchie Pickett, made one album, ‘You Give Me A Buzz’. Now re-available it is a thing of wonder.
And 30 years after recording it as a demo, nineties Tauranga outfit From The Dark had their ‘In The Last Days of The Sun’ album re-released worldwide by Australian label Charnel Sanctum, who say “it marks a pivotal moment in the history of New Zealand’s Black Metal scene... this demo was one of the first to capture the essence of pure Black Metal from this location”. That’s history mate. Made right here.
Hear Winston’s latest Playlist:
