SMERZ - WEDNESDAY 4 MARCH - DOUBLE WHAMMY
This genre-bending duo from Norway have been causing a beautiful stir this year, with the likes of Pitchfork going ape over the “retrofuturist warehouse pop” of Smerz’s 2025 album Big city life. While the pairing of Catharina Stoltenberg and Henriette Motzfeldt is impossible to pin down to a single sound, Boomkat labelled them “a sort of genius missing link between Astrid Sonne, Cibo Matto and Luscious Jackson”, and The Quietus placed them “in the zone where club music, art-school minimalism, and emotional confession overlap”.

Grab your 2026 calendars and put a big red cross through the month of March, because Banished Music and Strange News have teamed up for a phenomenal series of shows in your favourite venues across Tāmaki Makaurau.

Ladies and germs, introducing Strange Universe - Autumn Edition, featuring the return of American psych lord Ty Segall and his scorching band, Norwegian duo of the moment Smerz, Swedish noise makers Les Big Byrd, Anatolian psych-folk sensation Derya Yıldırım & Grup Şimşek, and eternally excellent Flying Nun favourite The Bats celebrating their 2025 already-classic album Corner Coming Up!

‍“I knew we were crazy, but I didn’t know we were this crazy”
- Reuben Bonner, CEO of Banished Music

‍Having both run their own shows separately for two decades or more, independent Tāmaki Makaurau-based promoters Banished Music and Strange News put their heads together in 2022 and realised that by their powers combined they could throw on shows beyond either of their wildest dreams. Since then, the dynamic duo have brought us the likes of Pavement, Amyl & The Sniffers, Lucy Dacus, MJ Lenderman, Vieux Farka Touré, Parquet Courts, Bikini Kill, Weyes Blood, Tinariwen, and countless more.

Now, it’s time to ramp things up and really get the party started! The full line-up across March is yet to be unveiled, but this first announcement is enough to melt our minds and have us looking forward to the new year like never before… And you better believe we are planning Strange Universe WINTER Edition already… 
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