Music Awards Finalists’ Bios

August 16, 2006

2006 New Zealand Music Awards
Technical Awards Finalists’ Bios

BEST ALBUM COVER

Chris Knox for As Sweet As Sin (Bleeders)

Chris Knox has been designing artwork for bands since his youth in Dunedin’s original punk band The Enemy. Thirty years later, The Bleeders are part of a new generation of New Zealand punk-influenced acts and they approached Knox to design the artwork for their debut album, As Sweet As Sin.

Knox’s graphic style, influenced by 20th century comic book art and horror and b-movie stylistics, is perfect for what The Bleeders wanted. A previous Album Cover Design Tui winner for the artwork on his album “Chris Knox – Polyfoto, Duck-Shaped Pain and Gum”, Chris has also contributed his Max Media comic strip to the NZ Herald for close to two decades and been a regular artistic contributor to The Listener. He has published two periodicals, Jesus On A Stick and Loose, designed numerous album sleeves and other pieces of commercial artwork and created dozens of music videos.

Joe Garlick for Fly My Pretties’ The Return of Fly My Pretties

Joe Garlick graduated from Massey University with a Bachelor Of Design in 2002 and worked as a freelance designer until 2004. In 2005 Joe began full time at Radio Active Design. The job involves 30% Radio Active Brand/Event design and 70% outside work including designing weekly publication 'The Package' and design work for LOOP Recordings Aotearoa, among other clients. Joe is also a DJ, Radio Active DJ, Promoter of Electroluxxe a new and popular bi- monthly Wellington event. Joe was nominated for a 2005 B-net design Award for 'Fly My Pretties- Live At Bats'.

Stephen Tolfrey for the cover of Blindspott’s End The Silence

Stephen Tolfrey began his design career in London initially working with major labels and groups before gaining experience on projects such as channel identities, title sequences, animated idents (for TV and Web), and commercials. This led to work with a leading international television branding specialist. He went freelance shortly before emigrating to New Zealand and joining forces with Marcus Ringrose at Heat. Achievements include Young Pioneer Design Award (1991), Best Belgium Record Sleeve Design (1995), 2004 CAANZ - EFFIE Awards - Gold 'Boost Mobile Hookup' - (Creative development and animation), 2004 - IFFF Digital Film Festival, Valencia Spain - 'Opshop - No Ordinary Thing' Music video selected for exhibition - (Direction/Post production), 2005 Juice TV Awards - Best Rock Video 'Blindspott - Yours Truly - (Direction/Post production).

BEST ENGINEER

Andre Upston, engineer on Birds by Bic Runga

Andre Upston has been a music engineer at Radio New Zealand for 12 years,
4 years at Studio Centre in Wellington, and 8 years managing the Helen Young Studio in Auckland. He has recorded many of the finest musicians in the country, for both broadcast on the Radio New Zealand network, and for commercial release. The artists include Bic Runga, Anika Moa, Scribe, Pacifier, Goldenhorse, and Dave Dobbyn. He has also engineered several feature-length film soundtracks including The Locals, The Irrefutable Truth About Demons, Magik & Rose, and Snakeskin.

Andrew Spraggon & Angus McNaughton, for their work on Moves On by Sola Rosa

Andrew Spraggon is the man behind Sola Rosa which he founded six years ago. Following the release in 2001 of debut album Solarized, Sola Rosa’s live presence has played been very much in demand with festival and club dates in Aotearoa, the UK and Australia. Moves On features the Sola Rosa band and a host of “top shelf brothers and sisters” including Nathan Haines, Manual Bundy, Tom Bailey and more.

Angus McNaughton has a production CV that includes groundbreaking industrial act Tinnitus, chart toppers such as DLT & Che Fu’s Chains and Three The Hard Way’s HipHop Holiday as well as production for The Headless Chickens, NRA, Moana & The Moahunters, Unitone HiFi, Sola Rosa and mastering for many others. Equally skilled and experienced in sound design, dance and soundtrack work, Angus is teaching Audio Engineering full time at the Music & Audio Institute of New Zealand (M.A.I.N.Z). He won both Engineer and Produce of the year at the New Zealand Music Awards 2005.

Lee Prebble for his work on the Fly My Pretties’ The Return of Fly My Pretties

Lee Prebble is the owner / operator of Surgey Studios. His track record includes engineering and co-producing albums for The Black Seeds, The Phoenix Foundation, Trinity Roots and more. Prebble also mixed Dave Dobbyns latest album highly successful Available Light.

BEST PRODUCER

Bic Runga for Birds by Bic Runga

Bic Runga’s third album Birds was released in New Zealand in November 2005. Talking with Bic on the Finn Brothers tour, Neil immediately warmed to Bic’s idea to record her new album as “live” as possible – and agreed to join as pianist/guitarist. Taking the role of album producer herself, Bic has produced a superb distillation of her own incredible songwriting talent and with firm grasp on the universal language of romance.

Bic Runga’s ubiquity in New Zealand music belies her relative youth. Three albums into her career, she demonstrates the artistic value in trying new ways to bring her songs out into the open and letting them soar on new wings. Bic will tell you that this album’s creation was a magical experience for her - and you can hear that magic in the songs.

Don McGlashan, Sean Donnelly & Ed McWilliams for Don McGlashan’s Warm Hand

Don McGlashan, Sean Donnelly & Ed McWilliams mostly produced the tracking sessions on Warm Hand with Sean contributing his many talents to the textures and detail of the album. Sean understands the difficulties of working as a solo artist and was instrumental in encouraging Don to continue his recording career and undertake recording the album. Final mixing of “Warm Hand” was done by Luke Tomes at Echo studios. The original concept for the album was a more minimalist stripped back project, but the album’s several years of gestation has meant it has grown into something fuller, richer, more ambitious. “Warm Hand” was mostly tracked in the isolated environment of “The Barn” at Te Papatipu - on the West Coast at Bethells Beach to provide an imagined world akin to the hazy shack photograph inside the Neil Young album “Harvest”. Ed McWilliams (Anika Moa, Ed Cake) did most of the album tracking, using some idiosyncratic and unconventional ways to capture the barn’s natural atmosphere. "Warm Hand" spent the first three weeks following release in the top 20 (peaking at number 11). The album received excellent reviews; Five Stars in Real Groove Magazine, Four Stars in the NZ Herald and a great review in the NZ Listener.

David Holmes for Like Stray Voltage by Gramsci

About eight years ago and with no formal training David Holmes spontaneously began recording local bands in a much compromised novice fashion in Hawkes Bay (Jakob, Looma, Gramsci) whilst paying the bills with commercial audio work. Three years later he decided to relocate to Wellington introducing him to some different sounds (Marystaple, Ejector, Autozamm) in an improved studio environment.

One year later he was asked to move to Auckland to work with Kog Transmissions as an in-house mixing engineer and moved into their building to run his own studio completely separate from Kog Transmissions. David also composes music, play guitar and bass and have quite a fetish for effects pedals.

ENDS

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