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Astigmatic! EP Release Tour.6 November – Crown Hotel – Ōtepoti | Dunedin *
13 November – Whammy – Tāmaki Makaurau | Auckland *
14 November – Space Academy – Ōtautahi | Christchurch *
4 December – Meow – Pōneke | Wellington ^
* Tickets from undertheradar.co.nz
^ Tickets from meow.nz
In 2024, Ha the Unclear released their amalgam album A Kingdom in a Cul-de-Sac (Think Zik!/Virgin) and played their debut European headline show where they were received warmly by French press and radio, described by FIP as "a kaleidoscopic and surreal pop journey." On their new EP Astigmatic!, the first release since, the band shares five new songs. The lead single 'Cumberland Street (Astigmatic)' extols the joy of hitting a run of green lights on the titular Ōtepoti street. The cry of "Astigmatic!" for which the EP is named, serves as a central optical metaphor; the line "staring at the stars, no they were streetlights leaking in a row" comes, Cathro says, from "a very early memory of pointing out stars to my parents on a Dunedin evening, not realising they were just streetlights on the opposite hill." While 'The Good Times Always End in Tears' is a nostalgia-tinged goodbye-for-now to the old hometown, levity abounds in songs like 'Earth Grazer', a jittery pop number where a missed encounter devolves into a reflection on existential brevity. In the upbeat, frantic 'The Cold', the creative process is likened to gold panning in what must certainly be Gabriel’s Gully or a braided Central Otago river. A meta backing vocal refrain exclaims “the story that I tell myself / the wood with which I build my house.”
The band tours New Zealand across four dates in November and December:
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Event venue
Space Academy, 371 St Asaph Street,Christchurch, New Zealand
Tickets
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