Shocking Pinks

Christchurch, New Zealand’s Shocking Pinks craft an invariably close-knit fusion of indie pop and electronic textures as the vehicle for singer, songwriter, and multi-instrumentalist Nick Harte. A prodigy from the outset, Harte took up the piano at six, added bass, drums, and guitar by eight, and at ten immersed himself in jazz and contemporary composition while learning saxophone, viola, violin, and cello. By thirteen he was tracking his own material and appearing as the solo project Z, an endeavor a New Zealand music magazine likened to Brian Wilson; he also lent his talents to Pig Out, Solaa, Montessori, Laudanum, the Incisions, and the Brunettes, for whom he played drums on When Ice Met Cream.

Following a half-year residence in London, Harte launched Shocking Pinks in earnest, choosing the name to evoke Pretty in Pink’s emblematic adolescent turmoil while signaling his intent to keep audiences off balance. The project’s first full-length, Dance the Dance Electric, arrived in 2004 with a complete band configuration and revealed a style that echoed the lean, melancholic approach of the Clean and the Bats alongside My Bloody Valentine’s experimental pop and the pulse of dance-punk. Positive notices, among them a Pitchfork review, caught the ear of DFA, prompting Harte to join the historic New Zealand roster Flying Nun. There he issued two 2005 albums, Mathematical Warfare and Infinity Land, both written and executed solo. DFA subsequently enlisted him for a run of limited-edition singles featuring reinterpretations by the Glimmers, Deerhunter, Eluvium, and Arkitype, then compiled the remastered collection Shocking Pinks—drawing from the prior pair of Flying Nun releases—in autumn 2007.

Signs that Harte had begun fresh work surfaced in 2012 with the announcement of a forthcoming EP, Guilt Mirrors, shaped by and partly captured amid the 2011 Christchurch earthquake. Upon its February 2014 appearance, however, the project had grown into a triple album spanning dance, dream-pop, and indie-folk while incorporating contributions from Arkitype, Gemma Syme, and Ashlin Frances Raymond.