Music of the Month | Phoebe Rings

In May’s Music of the Month at Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tāmaki Auckland's dream-pop quartet Phoebe Rings – named after the Phoebe ring of Saturn - are set to dazzle us with their celestial songs, fittingly performing underneath Simon Denny's intergalactic commission Optimism, which reaches for the stars with dreamlike technology. 

Since announcing themselves in 2020 with the debut single Cheshire, which was one of 95bFM's top-10 most played songs of that year, Phoebe Rings have continued to win hearts, gently blow minds and build up a devoted fanbase. Citing influences as wide and varied as retro-futurist band Stereolab and Studio Ghibli composer Joe Hisaishi, the band began as the solo project of songwriter and pianist Crystal Choi, and has since expanded to encompass the stellar talents of Benjamin Locke (Sea Views), Simeon Kavanagh-Vincent (Lucky Boy), and Alex Freer (A C Freazy), with a self-titled five-song EP arriving in 2021.

Now, the band have released Mandarin Tree, a bubbly wonder of a new single which undertheradar's Samantha Cheong described as a ‘boppy haze of layered instrumentation’. Why not come and enjoy hearing Mandarin Tree before heading upstairs to the incredible Robertson Gift show to view Pierre Bonnard's Compotier des pommes [Bowl of Apples], circa 1930 afterwards, and make a fruitful occasion of it!

Photo credit: Frances Carter