NEWS: Feist & The Horrors Lead Lineup for 2012 Laneway Festival

The line up for next year's St Jerome’s Laneway Festival is officially out! Headlined by the ever wonderful Canadian songstress Feist and East London gothic rockers The Horrors, St Jerome’s Laneway Festival is set to be one hell of a kick start to 2012. The full lineup for 2012 is as follows:

FEIST, THE HORRORS, GOTYE, LAURA MARLING, PAJAMA CLUB, SBTRKT (Live), SHAYNE P CARTER, WASHED OUT, TWIN SHADOW, ANNA CALVI, M83, CULTS, GIRLS, EMA, YUCK, TORO Y MOI, WU LYF, GLASSER, OPOSSOM, THE PAINS OF BEING PURE AT HEART, AUSTRA, TRANSISTORS.

Wow-wee!!!

Now in its third year, the St Jerome’s Laneway Festival is one of the most unique musical events in New Zealand. This summer the festival is located at one of Auckland City’s newest sites, the newly revamped Silo Park, Wynyard Quarter, Beaumont Street. The recently developed Auckland Waterfront with spectacular views to the Harbour Bridge and the towering restored silos will provide the backdrop for 2012’s coolest indie line-up.

Over the last three years, Laneway Festival NZ has hosted many brilliant musical acts including Echo and the Bunnymen, Daniel Johnston, The 3Ds, Foals, Yeasayer, The Dirty Three, Deerhunter, Beach House, Blonde Redhead & Childrens Hour.  Other unknown acts that have gone on to have major international success shortly after the festival is announced: Florence + The Machine, The XX, Cut Off Your Hands, Ariel Pink & Warpaint. It’s an impressive record, one we’re determined to uphold.

Once again these ground-breaking, genre-bending musicians – some of which will be your recent discoveries and others soon-to-be your new favourites, will play this one day festival. And one thing unites them all: they are spine-tinglingly amazing live.

This year the Laneway Festival will host three stages as well as boutique pop up restaurants, food and market stalls and art installations by local Auckland artists.

About the Line up

FEIST Having gone underground for the past few years, Leslie Feist emerges with her new album, Metals, a typically gorgeous, acutely observational collection of tracks ranging from low rumbling and moody ambiences to those more brutal and intense.  It’s a worthy follow-up to her already classic, award-winning and much loved albums Let It Die and The Reminder.  This will be the first time Leslie performs in NZ as FEIST and with great reviews of her new album rolling in, this performance is something you wont want to miss.

East London via Southend-On-Sea band THE HORRORS have come a long way since 2005, when they graced the cover of the NME with eye-linered eyes, big hair, an eff-you attitude and barely a single (the spiky ‘Sheena Is A Parasite’) to their name.  Their live shows were a riot – often literally – but did what rock n roll is supposed to do: energise, excite, divide and polarise. Three records on, they’re all grown up and the hype has evolved into almost universal respect. Skying is a wide-ranging, shapeshifting album with an overarching pop sensibility (see: unlikely hit single ‘Still Life’). They headlined the Laneway-curated stage at London’s Field Day in July and we guarantee that they’re as thrilling as ever.

We are very pleased to welcome 3 x time Laneway veteran GOTYE, the moniker of multi-talented multi-instrumentalist, singer, songwriter andproducer, Wally de Backer.  Gotye has had an extraordinary career thusfar, with three widely acclaimed, award-winning albums and a reputation forvisually and sonically arresting live performances.  With the single ‘Somebody That I Used To Know (feat Kimbra)’ reaching Platinum status in NZ and his third album, Making Mirrors, garnering ecstatic reviews both in his nativeAustralia (where it debuted at #1 on the ARIA Charts) and right around the globe, this singular talent is on the brink of major international success. We can’t wait to see his debut performance in NZ this January.

It’s as though LAURA MARLING was born in the wrong decade.  Wrong century even.  Preternaturally wise beyond her 21 years, Marling inhabits an analogue world where she makes literate, timeless folk music.  Previous albums Alas, I Cannot Swim and I Speak Because I Can were both nominated for the Mercury Prize (the latter earning her a 2011 Brit Award and NME Award for Best Solo Artist) but her new album, A Creature I Don’t Know, is perhaps her best yet.

Neil Finn is a national treasure and thus, we are thrilled to present PAJAMA CLUB, the new project by Finn and hiswife Sharon. Borne out of a post-dinner jam to fill their empty nest, the coolest parents in the history of the world joined forces with friend and neighbour Sean Donnelly to create a mesmerising self-titled album that embraces electronica, krautrock, soul and is positively brimming with chemistry.

Don’t let SBTRKT's aversion to vowels put you off. The anonymous producer’s self-titled debut album (released via our friends at Young Turks) pulls off a series of impressive feats: it's bursting with fresh ideas, and yet it sounds immediately familiar; it’s warm yet gritty, playful yet seriously powerful. SBTRKT’s nuanced, purposeful production is augmented by the silky smooth guest vocals of Sampha (accompanying SBTRKT at the festival), Roses Gabor, Jessie Ware and Little Dragon. It’s a record that marks SBTRKT as a standout of the pervasive dubstep scene and an artist worthy of a mainstream audience.

SHAYNE P CARTER has established himself as one of New Zealands most successful alternative musicians. This performance by Shayne Carter and band will dig deep into his incredible back catalogue, playing songs from Straitjacket Fits and Double Happys and maybe even some tracks from his first band Bored Games. The recent ‘Last Train To Brockville’ tour received brilliant reviews: “Carter has just got better and better…If he was good then, he's great now..” Gary Steel (Metro Magazine), "A career that has produced some of our most beloved underground favorites..” Bridget Jones (stuff.co.nz). We’re excited about this one.

GIRLS (who are not actually girls) have upped the ante with their stunner of an album, Father Son, Holy Ghost, a release marked by classic song-writing and classy production. Critics everywhere have praised the San Fran natives’ follow-up to their 2009 breakout debut:  Pitchfork stamping it with a 9.3 and Clash mag proclaiming it a ‘quiet, understated triumph’.  Taking cues from the likes of Alex Chilton and Elliott Smith, frontman Christopher Owen’s loverlorn lyrics are perfectly complemented by deft instrumentation and a refusal to get anywhere via just one musical avenue. The album is a slow-burner and, dare we say it, a masterpiece.  Spend some time with it and you will be rewarded many times over.

‘Easy to like’ says Pitchfork of GLASSER, the one-woman orchestra of Cameron Mesirow; ‘easy to love’ say we. On Ring, the L.A. native’s universally praised debut lp, ethereal vocals swirl above an intoxicating mix of tribal percussion, lush electronics and orchestral flourishes. It’s mystical, yes, but without any of the put-on eccentricity or pretension those words sometimes imply. Glasser’s music, like her beguiling, beautifully restrained live shows, is the real deal: generous, direct and free of any gimmickry, all of it built around Mesirow’s formidable pipes.

We’re calling it. M83’s new LP Hurry Up, We’re Dreaming is the Album of The Year.  It’s an ambitious, sprawling, epic 22-track double album and it’s outstanding.  We were massive fans of French electronic dream-pop artist Anthony Gonzales’ last album, Saturdays = Youth, (as was, um, everyone) but this is next level.  Buy it, put it on, turn it up.  We are very privileged to be streaming it exclusively this week.  Head over here for a listen.

OPPOSSOM is Kody Nielson's new project Self produced and recorded. OPPOSSOM will release a debut album in early 2012.

It’s not hard to get your head around the appeal of THE PAINS OF BEING PURE AT HEART. Belong is their second album and it’s classic indie pop: jangly guitars, sun-soaked melodies, themes of heartbreak, redemption and so on. Produced by genii Alan Moulder (By Bloody Valentine, Yeah Yeah Yeahs) and Flood (PJ Harvey, Smashing Pumpkins, Depeche Mode), Belong is an album that both revels in and transcends its palpable Nineties influences. Also, they have a song called ‘Anne with an E’, which is appealing if you are an Anne of Green Gables fan.

This year’s line-up is crowded with over-achieving youngsters and Chaz Bundick, a.k.a TORO Y MOI, is one of them. Hailing from South Carolina, the multi-talented 24 year old musician, designer and photographer this year released the follow-up to his acclaimed 2010 debut Causers of This, which had him in the company of blogger favourites and chillwave proponents Washed Out, NeonIndian and Memory Tapes. A lyrically rich, stylistically diverse album, Underneath The Pine has firmly established Toro as an exciting and ambitious talent, one confident enough to move on from the scene that made him. His recent live shows, meanwhile, have been described as akin to ‘a flashy, sex-fueled 80s rooftop fiesta’, which is to say they require your attendance.

THE TRANSISTORS are a powerpop band from Rangiora, in the South Island of New Zealand. The three members met at Rangiora High School and due to a common interest in 70’s punk and 60’s pop and a lack of anything else to do they formed a band. Since then the band has released their debut album Shortwave in 2009, the Flux Pentaphile EP in 2010 and have played countless shows up and down the country with the likes of the Mint Chicks, The Datsuns, The Dirtbombs, Pierced Arrows, Crocodiles, Jeff the Brotherhood, The Situations, Street Chant, Rackets, BRMC and the Foo Fighters as well as numerous trips around both North and South in a car full of gear. The band has finished recording their yet to be titled second album with Bob Frisbee, it is due for release at the end of the year.

George Lewis Jnr aka TWIN SHADOW’s debut album is as intriguing as his upbringing. The troubled son of a hairdresser and a teacher ‘who lived many lives’ (semi-pro footballer, massage therapist, film maker and other things we’ll tell you about when you’re older), Lewis Jnr was born in the Dominican Republic and grew up in Florida. Forget is thesepia-tinged homage to his childhood, recalling moments from his youth in moods alternately sweet and sinister, but always compelling. Chris Taylor (Grizzly Bear) produced the album and he does a fine job of making Forget’’s 80s-tinged electro-pop sound altogether new. Grab a partner and pretend it’s your school formal: Twin Shadow’s slinky tunes and deep, velvety voice are made for this.

If ever there was an evocative title for an artist, it’s WASHED OUT.  Ernest Greene’s dreamy, melancholic pop denoted the arrival of a new scene when his first couple of EPs surfaced a few years back.  The poster boy for chillwave proves he’s not just a flash in the pan with his highly-anticipated/lauded first full-length (and Sub-Pop debut), Within and Without. Live, it’s less ‘chill’ and more ‘party’ as Greene and his full live band nimbly manoeuvre his multi-layered pop out of the bedroom and onto the stage.

Being ‘fiercely independent’ means nothing if your band is rubbish. Thankfully publicity-shy, record label-averse Mancunian four-piece WU LYF (World Unite LuciferYouth Foundation) are anything but. The self-described proponents of ‘heavy pop’ released their startling first record Go Forth To The Mountain to far-flung adoration in the middle of the year and it is indeed a corker: the explosive mix of organs, echoed percussion, chiming guitar and one of the most distinctive vocalists of recent years combining to utterly euphoric effect. Believe it.

Multi-national London four-piece (and occasional five-piece) YUCK take us straight back to the golden era of Nineties indie rock, a time where Pavement, Dinosaur Jr, Teenage Fanclub and Yo La Tengo ruled supreme. That the band were infants when thisera’s defining records came out is very much to their advantage: instead of reliving lost youth, Yuck instead reinvigorate the fuzzily charming sound of a now bygone era with an energy and verve all their own. Their self-produced,self-titled LP, released early this year, is, as Pitchfork put it, ‘a deeply melodic, casually thrilling coming-of-age album’ for a generation who weren’t around for Slanted and Enchanted and Nevermind.  If you can imagine that. 

Event Information
St Jerome's Laneway Festival
Monday 30th January 2012 at Silo Park, Wynyard Quarter, Auckland
Tickets on sale Wednesday 19th October.

For all the latest news and ticket information go to www.lanewayfestival.co.nz