Music Industry News

The Beatniks make a bold and triumphant return with their latest single ‘Another Day’. Listen to the track here.

‘Another Day’ marks the first release for the Dunedin-based alternative rock band since their 2023 debut album Archetype, and with it comes a new breath of sonic maturity. The track meditates on themes of depersonalisation and derealisation, musing on the trials and tribulations that everyday life has to hold.

Moving away from standard chorus-structured songwriting, the single is defined by the hauntingly melancholic guitar refrain which sings out across the track, and frontman Sam Charlesworth’s hypnotic vocals; shifting between pulled back spoken-word poetry to full blown surf-grunge intensity. Though this is a step in a different direction for the band, the song’s ultimate climax shows they can still give it all when they need to, delivering an intense but controlled outro that lingers on in true Beatniks fashion.

Lyrically, it was patched together collaboratively, with Sam asking each of the members to write down a short poem similar to his original first verse

“Everyone handed in their assignments, I read them, butchered them, and rearranged each and every line into a narrative that read well in my head, which then became the second verse. But we still didn’t have the third. I stumbled upon a poem I wrote years before and just spoke it instead of singing, it seemed to fit so we kept it. From there the bridge and outro were freestyled at a few practices. So the lyrics ended up being kind of a frankenstein of thoughts stitched together. Which ironically goes with the themes of the song.” – Sam Charlesworth

The track was recorded at Seaward Sounds in Port Chalmers with the incredible Tom Bell who both mixed and mastered the single, and his lovely assistant Rory Humm. The single cover was shot outside The Crown Hotel in Dunedin, by Kyra Coupland.

The single is accompanied by a music video available to stream now.

The accompanying music video was shot by photographer Derek Morrison (Box Of Light) across multiple Ōtepoti Dunedin locations, including the beautiful St Clair Esplanade and scenic Tunnel Beach. With the assistance of videographer Lily Jane Knowles, who edited the video alongside other promotional material for the release.

It focuses on those themes of depersonalisation; jumping between reality and a claustrophobic,  ungrounded mental state, building in tension as the song progresses, until the distinction between the two can no longer be made and reliability falls away. Visually, there is an almost painting-like quality to the performance shots that complements the beach-based natural imagery throughout.

“The song feels like an artwork already, the video paints the visual picture to the band – balancing both their surf rock and garage influences at once.” – Lily Jane

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Known for their electrifying and engaging live performances, The Beatniks have quickly become a ‘must see’ in the Aotearoa New Zealand music scene and acknowledged for perpetuating whilst redefining the ‘Dunedin Sound’. 

Formed in 2021, as university students, they first grabbed New Zealand’s attention after making headlines for infamously holding an underground gig at the abandoned Dunedin music venue ‘Sammy’s’, as a rebellion against a string of council-regulated venue closures. The band’s attempts at resurrecting NZ’s live music scene led to their role as protagonists in the documentary series ‘Tribal: Inside NZ’s underground music scene’. The Beatniks garnered further attention in 2022, being featured in the Abbey Road Studios World Music Photography Competition, as finalists in the “Undiscovered” category. This has seen The Beatniks acquire a loyal fan base and media attention before having any released material. 

Their 2023 self-produced, debut album ‘Archetype’ spent multiple months on NZ student radio charts, and since its release the band have been continuing to build their fan base playing large scale festivals such as Rhythm & Alps and the Dunedin Craft Beer and Food Festival in 2024. This year, they gear up to release a larger project in August that will continue to demonstrate their renewed sound.