New Zealand Survival Songs

Amanda Palmer, who spent over two years waylaid in Aotearoa (New Zealand) with her young son during the pandemic, returns to the Antipodes for a very special and intimate run of shows in Australia and NZ.

Palmer has lovingly collected the material she wrote and recorded during her accidental Kiwi pandemic period into a EP titled “New Zealand Survival Songs”, which was funded by the 10,000 patrons who support her unusual, fully-crowdfunded career as a touring songwriter and recording artist.

Read more about it on the Patreon here.

“It is still shocking to me that I wound up living in Aoteroa New Zealand – unexpectedly – for over two years of my life, and that my young child was raised in a foreign country while Covid raged around the planet. I came to New Zealand at the end of a world tour and was supposed to be in the country for four show dates and eight days total. I wound up living within the borders for two and half years. Sometimes I wake up in New York and find myself short of breath and cannot believe that this all happened. I wanted to come back for a short tour – not only because I’m homesick for my Kiwi friends, but because I’d like to share the music – the handful of songs – that emerged from this unbelievably strange period of my life.

I’m usually a prolific songwriter, but this period that I spent during lockdown and pandemic-times – ten months in Havelock North, a year and a half on Waiheke – was anything but prolific. I was a solo mother for much of the stay, and most of my days were spent simply scared and disoriented, figuring out how to navigate normal Kiwi life, and trying to figure out my – and my son’s – place in the world. I spent much of the day, every day, wondering when we would go home. It took a very long time to accept what was happening, and there was almost no time for reflection or music-making.

I did, in the end, wind up writing about four songs in total over those few years, and they were mostly songs of catharsis and abject survival. One of them – “The Man Who Ate Too Much”, was written right after the first lockdown and inspired by the kindness of Kiwi strangers, my horror at Donald Trump, my collapsed marriage, and the local landscape; I’d been gazing at the outline Te Mata peak in Hawke’s Bay, and the lyrics draw on the Maori Myth of the Taniwha who tried to eat through the mountain and choked to death. “The Ballad of The New York Times” was written on Waiheke to try to describe my desperate relationship with the isolation of motherhood and doom-scrolling. “Whakenewha” is a howl of emotion inspired by the beautiful and haunting preserve of the same name on Waiheke, and “Little Island” is my complicated and heartfelt love letter to New Zealand and to the people who held and took care of me, as well as a pondering about our collectively difficult relationships with the past, and what “home” really means.”

CREDITS:

THE MAN WHO ATE TOO MUCH

Producer: Amanda Palmer & Jherek Bischoff

Mixer: Jherek Bischoff

Piano & Vocal Written by Amanda Palmer
Extra arrangements by Jherek Bischoff

Musicians:
Amanda Palmer – Vocals and Piano 
Marta Sofia Honer – Violins and Viola
Caleigh Drane – Cello
Korum Bischoff – Drums
Jherek Bischoff – Bass

Arranged, mixed and mastered by Jherek Bischoff at Sweethaven, Los Angeles.

Vocals and piano recorded by Simon Gooding at roundhead studio in Aotearoa New Zealand
Studio Assistant – Alexandra Corbett  

Violins and viola recorded by Marta Sofia Honer at home in LA.
Cello recorded by Caleigh Drane at home in LA.
Drums recorded by Korum Bischoff and engineered by Calder Bischoff at home, Suquamish Washington.
Bass recorded by Jherek Bischoff at Sweethaven in LA.
Waves recorded by Xanthea O’Connor, Haumoana, Aoteraoa New Zealand.

Year Recorded: 2020

Year of First Release (if a re-release): 2020 (First limted release was Patron only)

Country of Recording: New Zealand

Ballad of the New York Times

Producer: Amanda Palmer

Mixed live by Paul Jeffery of Gentle Audio Ltd.

Live recording post-mix by Steve McGough at Stebbing sound.

Engineer: AS above

Mastering: Colin Wynne at Thirty Mill Studios.

Year Recorded: 2021

Country of Recording: New Zealand

Recording Venue: Recorded at Morra Hall, Oneroa, Waiheke, Aotearoa, July 31^st , 2021

Whakenewha (with Aura Torkington)

Producer: Amanda Palmer

Mixer: David Wernham

Engineer: David Wernham

Mastering: Jherek Bischoff

Year Recorded: 2022

Country of Recording: New Zealand

Recording Venue: The Piano Museum, Waiheke Island, Aotearoa NZ.

Little Island (with Julia Deans)

Producer: Amanda Palmer

Mixer: David Wernham

Engineer: David Wernham

Mastering: David Wernham

Year Recorded: 2022

Country of Recording: Aotearoa (New Zealand)

Recording Venue: Stony Batter Tunnels

TWO PROPHETIC & HAUNTING NEW ZEALAND SONGS LIVE ON UKULELE

Producer: Amanda Palmer

Mixer & Editor: Jherek Bischoff