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… 

‍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”.

THE BATS - SATURDAY 7 MARCH - HOLLYWOOD AVONDALE

The local legends of our line-up, The Bats scarcely need any introduction, but just in case you’ve been living under a rock. For over forty years this reliably delightful Flying Nun quartet have been responsible for soothing us, getting us dancing, and creating some of the most note perfect South Island sound you’re ever likely to hear. With their eleventh album Corner Coming Up just released to audience acclaim, there’s no finer time to catch this perfect pop band for their first Tāmaki Makaurau headline show in yonks.

TY SEGALL - TUESDAY 10 MARCH - POWERSTATION‍

We couldn’t be more hyped to finally announce the return of guitar hero Ty Segall and his band, hot on the heels of his demonically radical new record Possession. Packed with an arsenal of his usual tricks - insane riffs, big noise, non-stop rawk - the album also incorporates shades of the 1960s, and what Mojo referred to as a “strutting glam-baroque”. Bringing with him his riders of the apocalypse Emmett Kelly, Mikal Cronin, Evan Burrows and Benjamin Boye, Ty is all set to shake the foundations of the mighty Powerstation with one all-powerful show.

‍DERYA YILDIRIM & GRUP ŞİMŞEK - SUNDAY 15 MARCH - DOUBLE WHAMMY
‍One of the latest signings to Big Crown Records (Lee Fields, Surprise Chef), Derya Yıldırım & Grup Şimşek are making their way down for one very special Aotearoa show only. German-Turkish singer and bağlama player Derya Yildirim leads a quartet of international players to create a sublime blend of Anatolian folk with psychedelia, pop, soul, and funk thrown in the mix. The band’s latest album Yarin Yoksa was produced by Leon “El Michels Affair” Michels, and had The Guardian swooning over their “fuzzy, hypnotic beats, soulful saz-funk and emotive balladry”. If you’re not already a fan of this truly unique sensation, you soon will be.

LES BIG BYRD - TUESDAY 24 MARCH - DOUBLE WHAMMY
Rounding out the month is the cosmically charged sonic Swedish force that is Les Big Byrd. Launched into cult stardom in their early years when Brian Jonestown Massacre's Anton Newcombe championed their sound, the band have gone on to become a revered entity in the world of psychedelic rock. Local critic Graham Reid recently sat them alongside the likes of Spiritualized, Can, and Tangerine Dream, while one blogger evoked quite an image, inviting the listener to imagine “the Pixies playing in a subway station on LSD opening for Enigma”.
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