Described most often as ‘dreamy’, this award winning dream-pop project is produced by Annemarie Duff out of Ōtautahi, in the South Island of New Zealand. Beats-driven and shimmery, the tracks come with a classic twist from the 90s shoegaze scene.

A modern, nostalgic vibe for lovers of “lush, twangy guitar-pop”. These tunes have been regulars on the Alt NZ charts and Student Radio charts over the last few years. In 2023, “Cinnamon” took out the best EP at the NZ student radio network awards.

“Scenes” attempts to layer various concepts like observing the warm routines of communities, being ok with not feeling connected to those natural rituals, absorbing the feeling of a long hot summer day as it fades into the concrete.

Beginning its life as an acapella poem, the track has been meticulously crafted to uphold the integrity of its lyrics. “Some of the core detail came about in the first recording session. I ended up keeping a lot of the rough vocals in there, as I think it’s important for the soul of the song.”

The track, like all of T.G Shand’s discography, was entirely self produced by Annamarie at her home studio in Ōtautahi, with additional mastering done by Bevan Smith in Pōneke.

Coast street
Lights up (blue)
Scenes come (like cinema)
Eager, it’s calm, easy grouping

Time set aside
Level hours carved out
Silo’d beside cinemas cut up

Unlit concrete got warm yolk in me
They stayed whole the whole way through
Into Sunday
Be calming

Time set aside
Level hours carved out
Silo’d beside cinemas cut up

The visualisation is alive, controlled by real-time weather data from Lyttelton in the South Island of New Zealand via the MetService Point Forecast API.

Learn more further down the page and view the live stream here.

Made with the support of NZ On Air, the video features animations from visual artist Spencer Hall, based on the concept of “flying over the hills from the perspective of the wind,” says Annemarie. “It doesn’t judge or perceive, it just passes over physical scenes.”

A stunning result of Spencer and Annemarie’s reflections on perspective and community, the video follows the abstract imagery of an egg dissolving into the world around it, and ends with “pieces of houses floating around as if they’re crystals in the middle of space.”

“To me, that conveys the song theme - the observing of community and family, and home, and despite feeling separated from it like many of us do, fondly watching it, and appreciating how nice it is that they seem to take it for granted.”

The most common reaction to this float-inducing animated creation is “brain tingling”. Brought to life by the incredibly talented NZ based animator Spencer Hall, he dove into the concept and equally humoured the abstract yet 3D landscape concept, and the cosmic egg.

The process involved his own custom brushes in Blender, the import of 3D Google Earth data and exceptionally technical flight path techniques. You can view his process video on his Patreon here.

Conceptualised and developed over the last year, the technology behind the visualisation has been created by Cusp Art Studio, the launch coinciding with the “Scenes” release.