The Ribbon is a new music project with Luke Munn and Campbell Birch based in Auckland, New Zealand, incorporating keyboards, drum loops, guitar, vocals, and live visuals.
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Teenage Crown just released! Several months in the making, it features a range of new material - from the percussive stabs of 'Teenager' to the bouncing, afrobeat 'Mirage' and the closer, 'Basement House' which builds over 5 minutes to a pummeling climax. With dense layers - from airy vocals to recorded rain - the result is a shimmering, celebratory and light compilation of five new tracks.
Auckland, New Zealand: Available at Marbecks (15 Queen St) and Real Groovy (438 Queen St). Outside Auckland: You pay by bank deposit, we mail it to you. Same process as TradeMe or eBay, with no middleman - 100% of your money is supporting new sustainable music and the artists who make it. Just Email us your name and address and we'll send you instructions.
"...thrilled to hear this from New Zealand. Seriously, frighteningly good." - Duncan Grieve, Real Groove Magazine
Get the debut. Featuring 11 tracks, from the giddy, electric pop of "Angels, Elders, Animals", to the brooding glitches of "Dark Heat", and pulsing beats of "Clikclikclik" and "Field". Packaged in recycled cardboard with original artwork in an extremely limited run and released through our own label.
Australia/New Zealand: You pay by bank deposit, we mail it to you. Just Email us your name and address and we'll send you instructions.
Digital download via iTunes
North America/Europe: Order from CD Baby
"...As beautiful as it is dark as it is deep. Soundscapes are woven around and trough quasi-onomatopoeic vocals while muted tribal rhythms dance in musical shadows. Dark Heat is eerie and conjures images of a swamp at night as unidentified creatures scuttle past you; DNA has an eastern tribal celebration feel to it while Floor Me opens with a perverse techno-rave crescendo like no other. I solidly recommend getting your hands on this album." - Andrew Tidball, Cheese on Toast
"This album made me shiver....But scaring isn’t really The Ribbon's intention. It is to kind of knock you a little to the left and make you listen just a little harder. Fans of Pig Out, TV On the Radio and anything dark-dance-electro will like this." - Under the Radar
"there is an authenticity to The Ribbon's sound and a level of consideration in the build up of music that demands your attention....vibrates plenty of warning about just how disarming this band can be..." - NZ Musician
"creep[s] forward quietly remaining together as a complete body of music....striking....beautiful but jagged debut" - Einstein Music Journal
MAY
Live video for 'Basement House, from the new EP. The video was entirely shot in 3 hours in 3 environments: next to an artificial lake, in an industrial district, and inside an underground parking garage. Cut, graded, and displayed on screen, then reshot manually and re-cut.
Flew down to the Windy City last week to play a set at Cuba Street's Good Luck Bar, opened by a great set from DJ Lotion. Thanks to all who came out for a great night.
Our song 'Basement House', which will be featured on our upcoming EP, is on Awesome Feeling III, the latest compilation from music magazine Real Groove. The compilation "is the result of our staff and contributors trawling the venues and myspaces of New Zealand to find the best of the next generation of New Zealand artists. For the third in our annual series we looked at literally hundreds of artists before settling on these 24, which run the gamut from folk, indie, metal, electronica and pop." It's in the form of downloadable MP3s, and mastered by Nick Roughan, formerly of Skeptics and producer of Dimmer, Shihad, and Die!Die!Die! Download it free here
APRIL
Blistering set to a packed crowd at Whammy Bar in Auckland. We joined Teacups, Street Beat, and Surf City to say 'au revoir' to friend and musician Jacob Perkins.
Shot of last nights headlining slot at the Golden Age club night at Cassette Nine. We debuted several new songs, including sparse new track with distorted vocals called "Bruins". We were assisted by gold painted greek dancers on several tracks. Completely packed club night so thanks to all who came out.
MARCH
We've been hard at work on a new EP, mixing tom drums with field recorded rain, vocal harmonies, and synths for four new songs. Also look out for one on the upcoming Real Groove compilation.
FEBRUARY
Photographs of last night's show at Cassette Nine.
We headlined last weeks fortnightly 'Sohomo' club night at Coherent, mixing dance beats with some tribal drumming, pop vocals, and looping synths for a fantastic night.
Review by ANBAD
"You get the feeling that Today's New Band, The Ribbon, won't ever get stuck in a rut. Their brilliant ephemeral songs are too light, too deft and too pure to ever get dull. Sometimes you can catch glimpses of the home-spun qualities of The Knife in The Ribbon, which is as good a start as you could hope for really.
Songs like Clikclikclik start small, a cluster of clicky loops, and then build and build until a whole song has appeared piece by tiny, twitching piece. Angels Elders Animals hovers so lightly and temptingly in your ears that it leaves you flustered. Attaching tiny bells to a hummingbird's wings might replicate the sound.
Displaying a delicacy, sureness and sense of fragile grandeur that a hundred two-bit 'electronic' bands would kill for, The Ribbon are several agile, artful and well-placed steps ahead so many others, it's silly." (A New Band A Day)
"Delicate electronics that are embellished, here and there, by always-welcome dissonances. The right way to be reconciled to the night." (UtopicMusic, Italy)
"(Field)... is practically hypnotic...vocals are practically an instrument themselves...builds and builds upon itself, going where you don't expect before turning yet another direction...one of the best euphoric crescendos ever at about 2min 30 that just keeps going till you die. Or push repeat." (Andrew Tidball, Cheese on Toast)
NOVEMBER
A couple suitably dark, atmospheric shots from the album release show - big thanks to Pig Out, Boyfriend, Street Beat, and everyone who came out for a fantastic night.
NZ music site Under The Radar asks us about collaborations, high school music, and recording horror stories. Read the full interview here.
Shots from our show at Box Wars, a 'cardboard carnage' event held at artist run space Cross Street Studios. We played a short set, debuting a couple new tracks from the upcoming album, including live toms on "ClikClik" and stream of conscious vocals on "Basement House". To book us for upcoming shows, or if you're a band interested in playing some dates, email us at luke dot munn at gmail dot com.
OCTOBER
We've spent the last couple months in makeshift studios, recording the cascading vocals, echoing guitars, and arpeggio lines that will become our 10 track debut album. We've recorded and mixed the densely layered album ourselves, and we're putting the finishing touches on in the next few days before sending it off to be mastered. The album will be released independently in an extremely limited run - so if you'd like to reserve a copy, email or message us now.
SEPTEMBER
On Saturday The Ribbon were featured on Andrew Tidball 'Bands on the
Rise' segment on National Radio's "Music 101" show. Andrew talked a
little bit about how the band started, how we create songs, bring
electronic music to the stage, and future plans for the band.
Hear a cover of Newsoms 'Peach Plum Pear'
Peach Plum Pear (Joanna Newsom cover) by theribbon
AUGUST:
Photograph from our recent show at The Whammy Bar. Over the next few months we'll be recording an EP of new material.
JULY:
JUNE:
We've finished our first single - "Field" - a shimmering dance number that builds up steam, and "Beat Beat", a strange concoction of tribal rhythms, cascading vocals and climate disaster. Recorded and mixed in basements, mastered by friends and packaged and distributed ourselves in recycled cardboard, this is 100% independent music from start to finish. We've made these available to download for our mailing list subscribers, but you can stream them from our MySpace player above.
MAY:
Three live shows coming up in the next few weeks, ranging from dance mayhem at Newcall Gallery's afterparty to an EP release show for Knives at Noon, as well as some of Auckland's newest bands at a new venue, The Basement (ex Silo). See above for details.
APRIL:
Images from our recent Wine Cellar show, beginning with a short series of pieces from experimental composer/violinist Johnny Chang, and followed by a 45 minute set of new material from The Ribbon. We also gave away complimentary copies of "Fifty" a rough demo limited to 50 copies, recorded, packaged, and distributed by the band.
Public domain footage cut, spliced, and looped to DNA
MARCH:
Burned, packaged using recycled cardboard and numbered, "Fifty" is a short record of some of our recent material, ranging from the ethereal "Cities", to a sinister, pulsing "Room", and the afrobeat/xylo mashup of "DNA". This will be available for free at a special show we're planning. Press, labels, or other media wanting to promote the band can simply contact the band directly for a complimentary copy.
FEB: We're actively looking to play shows. Parties, gigs, galleries, etc. For booking or bands wanting to collaborate for a set, drop us a line at luke dot munn at gmail dot com. Shown below are images from a show at the Kings Arms.