Surf City is a young quartet from New Zealand. They used to be called "Kill Surf City," but there's an unfortunate band in England with the tag, so now the Jesus & Mary Chain reference isn't as obvious at first sight, though sonically, it remains. More than that, though, you'll hear the various jangling/darkish lo-fi pop bands of their homeland -- the Clean, Straightjacket Fits, the Terminals, the Chills. When we talk about Crystal Stilts, we say they have a kind of Flying Nun vibe -- Surf City taps into the more uptempo, but still melancholic (or at least dusky) take on that label's signature sounds. But the band makes good on their citations of the Zombies, Sonic Youth, and Animal Collective, among others, as influences, so don't expect straight-up aping -- for instance, you should hear the Wilderness (in extreme pop mode) in the guitar tone of "Mt. Kill" and Avey Tare and friends in the group chants. All that said, the guys have a very promising, impressively assured 6-song EP forthcoming on Morr

Bachelorette is a one-woman band consisting of Annabel Alpers, who recorded her astonishing songs of loss, longing, astronomy and physics phenomena during a long winter in a remote South Island cottage. Right from the get-go, it's clear that she's a special talent. … Alpers never lets her cleverness with a lyric or her playfully nostalgic-sounding synthesisers get in the way of the emotional core of these great songs, which ring with a certain universality while claiming a genuinely new corner of New Zealand musical iconography. Drag City Records.<