Falafel Fiesta is the third single from Niko Ne Zna's debut album "Renegade Brass Bandits".

Niko Ne Zna are New Zealand’s very own authentic Balkan Gypsy brass extravaganza. With a history that goes back 7 years, this 8 piece band has evolved into a true Gypsy juggernaut stunning audiences everywhere they go with their thrillingly energetic and dynamic performances. Now, finally their long anticipated debut album Renegade Brass Bandits is here.

After a few lineup changes over the years and the introduction of additional brass the current lineup is undoubtedly the best yet and has been driving audiences wild for the past 2 years. There’s even some more authentic Eastern-European blood in the band with percussionist Vlatko Materic joining bandleader and founding member Frankie Curac. After years of being instrumental, the addition of vocalist Nikkie Rich a couple of years ago helped take it to a new level and here she sings in Serbo-Croatian, Roma Gypsy and Greek. The album consists of seven originals and three traditional songs that will take you across the Balkans with a kiwi flavor.

Falafel Fiesta

The Margaret St Project is about Roma Gypsies, Newtown neighbours, psychic premonitions, a Texan oil baron, a Bosnian postman and an enchanted bar deep in the heart of Rockdale. They proudly play authentic Roma Gypsy melodies infused with Tango, swing and Mexicana and original songs inspired by life in Inner-Western Sydney.

Rollercoaster is one of the stand-out tracks from the Gypsy Fever compilation released earlier this year. Check out the whole album here: http://monkeyrecords.bandcamp.com/album/gypsy-fever

Rollercoaster

In Still Have Time, The Mung Beings address the most pressing issue of our times, the climate crisis. Lyricist Saadiah Fowlkes was inspired by Naomi Klein’s book, This Changes Everything, to pen the words. While condemning the “fat cats in the back of the Benzes” and noting that “we’re tipping towards extinction” the song also offers hope with the message that “we still have time if we make the commitment”. As Klein concluded in her book we can’t reply on government or corporations to take the necessary steps so we need to come together and take collective action to save our future.

Special guest on the song is Saad’s father, Curtis Fowlkes, an internationally renowned jazz trombonist and in demand session musician who has worked on records by Glen Hansard, Sheryl Crow, Iron and Wine, Horace Andy, Elvis Costello and Lou Reed.

The EP features four remixes and two instrumentals.

The Mung Beings are producers Allan Thomasson and Nigel Braddock (from Australia and New Zealand respectively) and vocalist Saadiah Fowlkes from New York. The three met in Berlin where they recorded their debut album, soon to be released on Monkey Records.

Braddock is the founder of Monkey Records and has produced many albums for the label over the last twenty years.

Thomasson has played in iconic New Zealand bands Cloudboy and Mink.

Fowlkes is a rapper and singer and has performed at venues all over the world, mostly in his hometown NYC and Berlin, his home for nine years. He was a member of the rock/hip hop band Natural Selection and has shared the stage with Wyclef Jean and Mark Ronson. 
credits

Spotify

It's Not Over

Another stand out track from the Gypsy Fever compilation featuring the best East European/balkan/klezmer music from Australia and New Zealand.

The Jews Bothers are well-known for their exhilarating foot-stomping hand-clapping repertoire, both original and traditional featuring wild Eastern-European dance medleys, neo-40s' New York swing, gypsy "hot club", schmaltzy waltzes and funky dance grooves. If you can't dance to this band you gotta problem! 

Gypsy Fever available here: http://monkeyrecords.bandcamp.com/album/gypsy-fever or here: https://itunes.apple.com/us/album/gypsy-fever/id677248672

My Yiddish Swing

Hailing from the slums and ghettos of Auckland (the Prague of the South), The Benka Boradovsky Bordello band is a highly theatrical musical group specialising in music of Eastern European, Gypsy and Jewish flavour, along with some Western European influences. With music ranging from old to new, originals to standards, vocal to instrumental; they are remarkable in their ability to get everyone up and dancing, regardless of age, musical taste, or level of drunkenness. 

Buy 

The Dance of Death

Another standout track from the Gypsy Fever compilation featuring Wellington based band Bella Cajon and a story about a kiwi guy learning to speak some Russian.

Bella Cajon incorporates the dancing grooves of gypsy music, driven by hand powered percussive beats, punctuated by horn licks and sweeping string arrangements. Through multiple songwriters and singers come several styles of delivery, with the lyrics utilising a mixture of humour, storytelling and common sense with the topics being based upon everyday experiences.

Gypsy Fever available here: http://monkeyrecords.bandcamp.com/album/gypsy-fever or here: https://itunes.apple.com/us/album/gypsy-fever/id677248672

Bella Cajon EP available here: http://bellacajon.bandcamp.com/

Valentina's Papa

Ludwik Zamenhof is a one-man musical project and the alter ego of Polish-based producer Andrzej. The music on his new album, Balkan Error, is created using a mandolin and a computer. All recordings and samples are destroyed and deconstructed. Ludwik Zamenhof is inspired by Bulgarian, Polish, Balkan, Indian and Syrian music. Folk and Ethno samples are mixed with new electronic music such as Dubstep, Drum and Bass, IDM, Breakcore and Glitch Music.  

Preorder Balkan Error (out 15th September) here: https://itunes.apple.com/de/album/id910944162

Balkan Glitch Step

Cinema 90’s story begins in 1999, with Auckland based producer Jamie Newman creating electronic dance music on a basic tracker program on his home computer.  After having dj’d electronic dance music of every genre (house, techno, electro, breaks, trance, dnb, hip hop and downbeat) since 1996, his initial direction in writing music was very much four-to-the-floor focused.  In 2001, under the moniker dj me, he released an ep of tech-house and breaks entitled ‘Shake Your Shit’. 

In 2003, after music equipment began to seriously dominate his apartment, Jamie set up a studio in central Auckland, under the fledgling community radio station Fleet FM.  With the constant thoroughfare of artists, musicians and creative types, Jamie fast began incorporating live recording into the mix.  With this change in process came a different sounding music, heralding the beginnings of a sound now recognizable as Cinema 90.  Fusing elements of hip hop, electro, soul, electronica, house, downbeat and folk, Cinema 90’s focus is on quality music without the limitations of an umbrella genre.

Six years and three studios later, Cinema 90 is on the cusp of releasing their debut EP through Auckland based record label Monkey Records.  Cinema 90 are currently working on their debut album, and cooking up ways to present their multi-layered music to dance-floors across the globe!


Sunny Day Juice

Take me Home (feat. Make Like a Tree)

The Return (feat. Chris MacGregor)

Not a Lemur (feat. Jumps)

Apocalypse (feat. Derrick Jensen)

Just a Clown (feat. Nigel Braddock)

Moving Cake (feat. Jumps)

Alles Wird Gut (feat. Brooke Singer)

Pushkar (feat. Tui Mamakl)

Maicho ne znaesh is the third single from Ludwik Zamenhof's debut album Balkan Error: https://monkeyrecords.bandcamp.com/album/balkan-error

The music video features footage from the short film Migration of the Hearts by Magdalena Wyszynska, a documentary about the phenomenon of big love migration of Polish women to Yugoslavia in around 1960-1985. https://youtu.be/VuLoZunnSRo 

Ludwik Zamenhof’s new solo album Balkan Error is inspired by Bulgarian, Polish, Balkan, Indian and Syrian music. Folk and Ethno samples are mixed with new electronic music such as Dubstep, Drum and Bass, IDM, Breakcore and Glitch Music to create an intoxicating and exotic brew guaranteed to get your feet moving.

Balkan Error

Maicho ne znaesh

Happy B Song is the first single from Make Like a Tree's forthcoming album, Animal. Preorder here: https://monkeyrecords.bandcamp.com/album/animal-preorder

Make Like a Tree is a representation of travels expressed in music and photography created by Sergey Onischenko, a wanderer from Ukraine who has been hitchhiking around the world spreading his indie-folk tunes whilst exhibiting his minimalistic landscape photography along the way.

Each concert is played with new members and all songs are created and recorded in different parts of the world. Experiments with sounds and collaborations with the audience can turn this one-man-band into a duo or into quite a large improvising ensemble. The soundscapes of Make Like a Tree will bring you to an inner world of nature, woods, mountains and windswept tropical beaches and the sense of freedom that comes with life on the road.

The Animal album is a result of Sergey’s two and a half year hitchhiking journey through 13 countries from Ukraine to New Zealand. In June 2013 he left his hometown Kharkiv in Ukraine with his guitar in hand and headed to the East chasing the rising sun. It was the beginning of a vagabond trip that he had always dreamed about. Since then he’s done about 250 gigs in around 200 cities in Russia, China, Hong Kong, Macao, Lao, Vietnam, Cambodia, Thailand, Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia, Papua New Guinea, Australia and New Zealand. In late 2015 he will be touring Russia and Ukraine to promote the release of his new album with touring plans for Europe and who knows where else in 2016.


Animal

Buy album

Happy B Song

Lifted from Freddy Fudd Pucker's latest album Hourglass Wine, this song sees him in a more reflective mood as opposed to some of his faster foot stomping, thrash folk numbers. Available on vinyl or CD with a handmade 16 page zine hand-drawn by Freddy himself. The digital version also includes a pdf of the booklet to download. https://monkeyrecords.bandcamp.com/album/hourglass-wine

Freddy Fudd Pucker (Tom Young) is originally from a small city at the edge of the earth called Dunedin, New Zealand. However, he has spent the last five years or so touring the world, playing hundreds of shows across Australasia, the USA and Europe. The last two years have seen him based in Berlin, Germany, focusing on a nearly constant European tour schedule. Freddy looks at touring as a way of cultivating not only a growing and loyal fanbase but the very experiences and characters that make up his songs. 

Hourglass Wine is a 10 track offering of break-neck speed, emotive, folk songs. The bulk of the which revolve around the simultaneous, multi-instrumentation of one boy and his high-gain acoustic guitar, bass drum and voice. 

Lyrically, the songs seem to be born out of a desire to restructure and rebuild dialogues often over-simplified in mass media. When listening to the album one picks up the fury and disillusion Freddy perhaps feels in this modern age of disinformation that shapes conversations around issues such as ecological catastrophe and the politics of international migration. Freddy pleads with the listener, and perhaps with himself, to search for a sense of self-worth beyond simply that of a consumer within an unmerciful, global economic system. The heavy lyrical content of Freddy’s songs proves he is not afraid to explore complex ideas within his high-energy, strangely fun, punkrock influenced, folk music.
credits


Buy LP/CD

Black Honey

In late January 2010, Niko Ne Zna unleashed their debut self titled ep which consists of delicious arrangements of five traditional and original Gypsy tunes. Now sold out on CD, it is only available digitally.

Comprising trumpet, saxophone, accordion, trombone, sousaphone, drums and percussion, Niko Ne Zna are a truly authentic ensemble. They can roam while playing, and enchant the audience into dancing, singing, clapping and stomping all night long. The band consists of some of Wellington’s finest instrumentalists who come from a wide array of musical backgrounds that unite together to produce a cocktail that will make your ears rise to attention and your feet move in a frenzy. Their music is high energy with dark undertones and sexy gypsy style. Niko Ne Zna are a world class act with exotic tunes, fantastic grooves and exciting solos.

The band have played extensively around New Zealand with performances at The Wellington Fringe Festival, International Jazz Festival, Cuba Street Carnival, Wellington Summer City Festival, Prana Festival and Taranaki Arts Festival to name but a few and have been a staple of the Wellington music scene with regular performances all over the city.

Press Quotes

“It’s easy to forget where you are when you listen to these hypnotic melodies. It’s like being dropped amongst the hot and spicy lands of a country far away - to a place where you can free yourself with these infectious and wild beats that take their influence from the gypsy-soaked Balkan States.” wellingtonlivemusic.com

“Niko Ne Zna serve up authentic and twisted gypsy goodness on this eponymous EP. Complete with sax, sousaphone, trumpet, trombone, accordion, percussion and drums, this is a band that came to party. Balkan time signatures, funky brass bass lines, exotic melodies, it's all good.” NZ Musician

“The group's jaunty carnival-style sound translates surprisingly well to disc, with trombone, sousaphone, sax and accordion all vying for attention as the songs spiral riotously outward from a core riff before being reined back in again.” Otago Daily Times

“Driving rhythms… an intoxicating effect” Taranaki Daily News

“Gypsy good times…” Rit It Up Magazine

“ … this is straight to the dancefloor” Elsewhere
credits



Kustino Cupeck

Not a Lemur is the first single from Broad Oak's debut album to be released mid 2018. 

Broad Oak aka Nigel Braddock, set up Monkey Records in 2000 to release a project he was working on and then got a bit distracted with running the label, producing and managing/touring with bands. His forthcoming debut album has been some twelve years in the making. 

Not a Lemur was originally recorded as a piano piece in 2006 one stormy night when he was living out at Karekare in New Zealand. 
In 2014, John White came to stay with him in Berlin (where Braddock is now based) and they recorded his Henry Green album. 

Although John White is well known in New Zealand as an indie folk/dream pop musician thanks to his band Mestar and his own solo albums, not many people know that he also raps as "Jumps". 

In between sessions working on his new album, White sang, rapped and played viola on a couple of tracks Braddock had been working on including Not a Lemur. Not long after that Brooke Singer, from French for Rabbits, was in town with her band and contributed some backing vocals. 

Says Braddock, " I really like John's stream of consciousness rap and silly word play. There's no posturing or macho nonsense. In fact he sometimes describes it as twee rap, which I believe is a genre he's invented. Despite the whimsy in this song though, at the heart of it there is a love story about a girl he met on a train in Berlin, although unfortunately he lost her number and never saw her again." 

Not a Lemur will be available on 12" vinyl from February 5th featuring a remix by Berlin-based producer Boxroom Rebel. 

Digital release to follow on the 9th March.

Buy 12"

Broad Oak - Not a Lemur (feat. Jumps)

Cinema 90 is a classic Onelung track from the album Binary Pop Songs, here getting a dust off and a reissue. In the month of its release, this was the most played track on independent radio in New Zealand, beating out Gnarls Barkley. This tune inspired fellow electronic musician Jamie Newman who went on to release an ep on Monkey Records under the Cinema 90 moniker. 

Buy album on Bandcamp

Cinema 90

Burken is the second single from the debut EP by Niko Ne Zna, New Zealand’s very own Balkan Gypsy brass extravaganza. 

With a line-up of two trumpets, saxophone, vocals, accordion, trombone, sousaphone, percussion, Balkan bass drum and snare drum, Niko Ne Zna are a truly authentic ensemble. They can roam while playing, and enchant the audience into dancing, singing, clapping and stomping all night long. The band consists of some of Wellington’s finest instrumentalists who come from a wide array of musical backgrounds that unite together to produce a cocktail that will make your ears rise to attention and your feet move in a frenzy. Their music is high energy with dark undertones and sexy gypsy style. Niko Ne Zna are a world class act with exotic tunes, fantastic grooves and exciting solos. 

The band have played extensively around New Zealand with performances at The Wellington Fringe Festival, International Jazz Festival, Cuba Street Carnival, Wellington Summer City Festival, Prana Festival and Taranaki Arts Festival to name but a few and have been a staple of the Wellington music scene with regular performances all over the city. They are currently gearing up to record their debut album due out early 2013.

Press Quotes

“It’s easy to forget where you are when you listen to these hypnotic melodies. It’s like being dropped amongst the hot and spicy lands of a country far away - to a place where you can free yourself with these infectious and wild beats that take their influence from the gypsy-soaked Balkan States.”  wellingtonlivemusic.com

 “Niko Ne Zna serve up authentic and twisted gypsy goodness on this eponymous EP. Complete with sax, sousaphone, trumpet, trombone, accordion, percussion and drums, this is a band that came to party. Balkan time signatures, funky brass bass lines, exotic melodies, it's all good.” NZ Musician

“The group's jaunty carnival-style sound translates surprisingly well to disc, with trombone, sousaphone, sax and accordion all vying for attention as the songs spiral riotously outward from a core riff before being reined back in again.” Otago Daily Times

“Driving rhythms… an intoxicating effect”  Taranaki Daily News

“Gypsy good times…” Rit It Up Magazine

“ … this is straight to the dancefloor” Elsewhere


Buy EP on Bandcamp

Burken

Monkey Records is proud to present Whatcha Got, the first single from a major new songwriting talent - Chris Hurn. In this infectious debut, Chris reminds us that despite all our day-to-day problems and worries, it’s important to appreciate the little things in life and that quite often “you just don’t know whatcha got”. From his debut album Too Busy Dreamin'.

LYRICS

it's too easy to tumble on yourself
comforting to hang on to old books on the shelf
with easy destinations, without weary knees
everybody knows what it looks like
but how does it feel

(instr.)

you give me wrongs
get you rights,
tell me everythin' you need
but you just dont know 
whatcha got

well you're busy flippin' papers thinkin' over what you're makin'
thinkin' over what you're not
it's your disease of the soul 
chippin' your mind of control
well these bones are for breakin'
livin' underneath your clothes
you got it all, you got a lot,
more than most people ever come to know

you give me wrongs
get you rights,
tell me everythin' you need
but you just dont know 
whatcha got

(bridge)

you give me wrongs
get you rights,
tell me everythin' you need 
but you jus don't know
whatcha got

Before the needle hits the sun
when you're countin' every step til the day is done
take your time, take it slow, drink your wine
well use your hands, use your eyes, hold someone

you give me wrongs
get you rights,
tell me everythin' you need x 3
but you just don't know
whatcha got

oh you just don't know whatcha got
mm you just don't know whatcha got
oh you just don't know whatcha got


Whatcha Got

Hailing from the slums and ghettos of Auckland, New Zealand (the Prague of the South), The Benka Boradovsky Bordello Band is a highly theatrical musical group specialising in music of Eastern European, Gypsy and Jewish flavour, along with some Western European influences. Benka’s globetrotting voice sings in a wide variety of languages, with lyrics in Russian, Greek, Serbian, Romani, Arabic, Hebrew, Spanish, English and more. If references are necessary, they sound like Tom Waits, Shane McGowan and Franz Kafka drunk too much vodka and thought they were in 1950′s Yugoslavia.

The Crack of Doom is a Tiger Lillies cover and features on the Benka Boradovsky Bordello Band's second album Polkapocalypse. Look out for Benka's trademark chest-slapping solo towards the end...

This track is also available on the Monkey Records compilation, Gypsy Fever featuring 12 of the best East European influenced bands in New Zealand and Australia. 

The Crack of Doom

Niko Ne Zna are New Zealand’s very own authentic Balkan Gypsy brass extravaganza. With a history that goes back 7 years, this 8 piece band has evolved into a true Gypsy juggernaut stunning audiences everywhere they go with their thrillingly energetic and dynamic performances. Now, finally their long anticipated debut album Renegade Brass Bandits is here. 

After a few lineup changes over the years and the introduction of additional brass the current lineup is undoubtedly the best yet and has been driving audiences wild for the past 2 years. There’s even some more authentic Eastern-European blood in the band with percussionist Vlatko Materic joining bandleader and founding member Frankie Curac. After years of being instrumental, the addition of vocalist Nikkie Rich a couple of years ago helped take it to a new level and here she sings in Serbo-Croatian, Roma Gypsy and Greek. The album consists of seven originals and three traditional songs that will take you across the Balkans with a kiwi flavor. 

Niko Ne Zna have played extensively around New Zealand having undertaken three national tours and performed for the Wellington City Council, The Wellington Fringe Festival, International Jazz Festival, Cuba Street Carnival, the Festival of Lights in New Plymouth, Prana Festival and Taranaki Arts Festival and have been a staple of the Wellington music scene with regular performances all over the city.


Due to the great response we've had to the posting of "Puti Puti Pai" by Ishta, here is another track from their debut self-titled album. 

Ishta's sound evolved over time into an uplifting blend of Eastern and Western influences with the funky bass grooves of Monsieur Escargot, soulful sitar playing by Rob Croft, stirring sax and flute arrangements by Ben Campbell and Trudi Lile, virtuosic tabla playing by Basant Madhur and the soaring, sensual vocals of Josephine Costain.

The two main songwriters, Josephine Costain and Rob Croft both have Maori ancestry and are firmly connected to this land and its people. Their uplifting songs bring a positive message of unity and celebration of life expressed not just in English but also in Maori, Spanish and Arabic. The other members of the band originally come from India, France and Israel and their respective contributions help make the Ishta sound truly international.

REVIEWS

Listening to this multiculti outfit from Auckland qualifies you for frequent flyer points: the line-up has musicians from Dutch, Kiwi, Israeli, Indian and French backgrounds; and the instrumental artillery on display includes sitar, saxophone, didgeridoo, guitar, flute and double bass. All of which could make for an unworkable implosion of world fusion, if it weren't for the keen sensibilities on display.
When the eight-minute second track - Butterfly - takes flight around the midpoint in a maelstrom of flute, sitar and tabla drums (with didgeridoo offering guttural sonic punctuation), it makes for a thrilling and heady brew. The interplay of sax and sitar brings to mind the most gutsy passages on Ali Akbar Khan and John Handy's 1975 album Karuna Supreme.
They are equally impressive in quieter moments (De La Tierra and Drop the Soap which suggest the Indo-jazz group Oregon, Muhashaba featuring the entrancing vocals of Josephine Costain) and the folk-pop of Ramjhula. * * * * (four stars) – The Herald

Ishta really is something else. They are a band shockingly reflective of New Zealand’s ever-changing and increasingly multicultural society. Picture an uplifting blend of eastern and western influences, eclectic world fusion music, styles spanning from down tempo to roots/dub and venturing through lounge. I was instantly entranced by this music. Sitar, double bass, flute, sax, guitar, didge, percussion and vocals wrap around each other and flow over then under like a strange musical waterfall. I could really go into detail on this release, but words are of the essence. Recorded at Monkey Studios in Karekare... Ishta is essential listening for fans of local artists such as Rhian Sheehan, Max Maxwell, Bluey and the whole NZ ambient/world music movement. – NZ Musician

Recorded and produced by Nigel Braddock

De La Tierra

Keeping It Moving On, the second single (out June 12th 2020), brings a much-needed positive message of hope that encourages people not to give up their struggles and to keep pushing forward. Sickness, oppression, dishonesty and hard times can be overcome by focusing on what is good and right in the world such as love, family, friends and community. The Mung Beings say, believe in yourself and others and keep it moving on.

The Mung Beings are producers Allan Thomasson and Nigel Braddock (from Australia and New Zealand respectively) and Saadiah Fowlkes from New York. The three met in Berlin in where they recorded their debut album, soon to be released on Monkey Records.

Keepin It Movin On

Australian-born Polish singer Nadya Golski spent time as a teenager in Papua New Guinea, living with the Gamuga Roglombo tribesmen. Her first release on Monkey is in a Papua New Guinean language with a balkan feel being remixed by Paris-based DJ Click.

Golski divides her time between Australia and Europe and Nadya and she and her musicians have performed at many festivals worldwide including Montreux Jazz Festival, Edinburgh Fringe, Sziget Festival, WomAdelaide and Woodford Folk Festival.

She has several albums to her name, some of which will be re-released on Monkey in the coming months. 

Woipa Woipa originally featured on her album Mezza Luna but is also included on the recently released compilation Gypsy Fever which celebrates the Eastern European music scene in Australia and New Zealand.


Woipa Woipa (DJ Click remix)

The Mamaku Project is born from the collaboration of two Kiwi/French artists at Errobiko Festibala (France) in 2004. Tui Mamaki, evocative bi-lingual vocalist, calls on multi-instrumentalist/producer, Monsieur E. This collaboration sparks a vision for a music that could bridge their cultures and that could foster dialogue between European and South Pacific roots. In 2007, they produce their first critically acclaimed LP 'Karekare', weaving together French quirkiness, electro-jazz and dub and created in the breathtaking wilderness of West Coast Aotearoa.  Having quickly established themselves as favourites on the New Zealand festival/live arts scene, they have since released a follow-up album 'Mal de Terre' which has been similarly well-received and an EP, Electro-O-rganic Sessions, as well as touring the EU, Canada and playing in Korea and Singapore.

Originally featuring on Mal de Terre, Wedding Song was remixed for the Electro-O-rganic sessions by Monsieur E. and then re-released early 2013 as part of the Gypsy Fever compilation. A new album is expected from the Mamaku Project in September 2013. 

www.mamakuproject.com

Wedding Song (Monsieur E. remix)

Second single from Niko Ne Zna's debut album "Renegade Brass Bandits".

Niko Ne Zna are New Zealand’s very own authentic Balkan Gypsy brass extravaganza. With a history that goes back 7 years, this 8 piece band has evolved into a true Gypsy juggernaut stunning audiences everywhere they go with their thrillingly energetic and dynamic performances. Now, finally their long anticipated debut album Renegade Brass Bandits is here.

After a few lineup changes over the years and the introduction of additional brass the current lineup is undoubtedly the best yet and has been driving audiences wild for the past 2 years. There’s even some more authentic Eastern-European blood in the band with percussionist Vlatko Materic joining bandleader and founding member Frankie Curac. After years of being instrumental, the addition of vocalist Nikkie Rich a couple of years ago helped take it to a new level and here she sings in Serbo-Croatian, Roma Gypsy and Greek. The album consists of seven originals and three traditional songs that will take you across the Balkans with a kiwi flavor.

Niko Ne Zna have played extensively around New Zealand having undertaken three national tours and performed for the Wellington City Council, The Wellington Fringe Festival, International Jazz Festival, Cuba Street Carnival, the Festival of Lights in New Plymouth, Prana Festival and Taranaki Arts Festival and have been a staple of the Wellington music scene with regular performances all over the city.


Ajde Baba

A tender ballad from 22 year old New Zealand-based singer/songwriter Chris Hurn as featured on his debut album, Too Busy Dreamin': http://tinyurl.com/p8pdlt7.




All I Really Want

New Zealand based artist Graveyard Love creates a sound that exists somewhere between an 80s getaway car scene and the desolate mood of factories at dusk on the outskirts of the city. Nevertheless, Graveyard Love is somehow a transcendental experience – a blurry distortion between new wave, alternative and dance. 

Dance Dark at the Dead Disco is the second single to be released from Graveyard Love's debut EP, Dissociate. Listen/buy here: monkeyrecords.bandcamp.com/album/dissociate

Watch the video here: http://youtu.be/0KUMlFyCHIo

Dance Dark at the Dead Disco

Black Spider Stomp are a five piece from Wellington, New Zealand specialising in traditional Gypsy Swing Jazz original compositions in the style of Django Reinhardt and early swing jazz classics. 

This track features on the Gypsy Fever compilation, which showcases the surprisingly rich East European/Balkan/klezmer music scene in New Zealand and Australia. Check it out here: http://monkeyrecords.bandcamp.com/album/gypsy-fever

You'll find Black Spider Stomps debut EP here: http://blackspiderstomp.bandcamp.com/

Cee-lo Stomp

Monkey Records is a boutique independent record label founded in New Zealand in the year 2000 by Nigel Braddock but now based in Berlin. 

After working for twenty years with some amazing artists from all over the world, Monkey Records is no longer accepting any new artist submissions and Braddock is now focused on releasing his own music. Projects include his solo piano compositions under his own name, ambient electronica as Broad Oak and Choam Nomsky as well as collaborations such as The Mung Beings, The Tellurians and Cosmo and the Cosmonaut (with his own son).

Monkey Records

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