Biography
Hemi Hemingway channels the sonic palette of 1960s girl group pop into the present decade by merging lo-fi guitar textures with classic pop melodies, yielding tracks that draw optimum qualities from both traditions. His material displays sharp intelligence without tipping into heavy-handed irony, adapting songs originally fashioned for young women through the lens of a more seasoned male sensibility so that chance alignments and inherent tensions serve the music. The project constitutes a side effort by a seasoned indie performer and surfaced in 2021 with the tuneful low-fidelity EP The Lonely Hunter.
Hemi Hemingway functions as the alias of New Zealand-born guitarist and singer Shaun Blackwell, whose early musical grounding came via John the Baptist, the alt-country group assembled in Wellington during 2009. The band delivered its five-song EP Bag O' Nails in 2013 before Blackwell departed New Zealand for London, England. After issuing the digital single "Song of Longing" b/w "Breakfast of the Revival," he aligned with Night Shades, whose hybrid style fused blues, garage punk, surf music, and psychobilly. The group followed with the cassette-only EP Evil Dreams in 2017 and the 2019 7" single "Dead Nerves" b/w "Katipo" and "The Desert."
Amid breaks from Night Shades, Blackwell immersed himself in 1960s pop and composed a set of songs modeled on the melodramatic girl group approach of the Shirelles, the Ronettes, and the Shangri-Las. He recorded a six-song EP partly on an analog four-track machine to evoke the desired period atmosphere, incorporating both his own 1960s-styled material and a cover of the early Randy Newman composition "Move Over, Darling." Released on PNKSLM in June 2021 under the adopted name Hemi Hemingway, the collection appeared as The Lonely Hunter.
Hemi Hemingway functions as the alias of New Zealand-born guitarist and singer Shaun Blackwell, whose early musical grounding came via John the Baptist, the alt-country group assembled in Wellington during 2009. The band delivered its five-song EP Bag O' Nails in 2013 before Blackwell departed New Zealand for London, England. After issuing the digital single "Song of Longing" b/w "Breakfast of the Revival," he aligned with Night Shades, whose hybrid style fused blues, garage punk, surf music, and psychobilly. The group followed with the cassette-only EP Evil Dreams in 2017 and the 2019 7" single "Dead Nerves" b/w "Katipo" and "The Desert."
Amid breaks from Night Shades, Blackwell immersed himself in 1960s pop and composed a set of songs modeled on the melodramatic girl group approach of the Shirelles, the Ronettes, and the Shangri-Las. He recorded a six-song EP partly on an analog four-track machine to evoke the desired period atmosphere, incorporating both his own 1960s-styled material and a cover of the early Randy Newman composition "Move Over, Darling." Released on PNKSLM in June 2021 under the adopted name Hemi Hemingway, the collection appeared as The Lonely Hunter.
Albums
Singles
