30/11/2025

HDU – Double Whammy: November 28, 2025 (13th Floor Concert Review)

It’s was the night before Tamaki Makaurau’s premier locally produced music festival, The Other’s Way, and Double Whammy was graced with creative royalty, High Dependency Unit or HDU, playing a much anticipated sideshow, further ennobled by the addition of avante garde violinist, composer and producer MOTTE, 13th Floor reviewer Simon Coffey was there to capture the taonga!

The Avant-noise group HDU, hold a mythical place amongst Flying Nun aficionado’s, particularly those of the noisier clan. While tagged as being from Ōtepoti, the three Tristan Dingemans (guitar, vocals), Neil Phillips (guitar, bass) and Constantine (Dino) Karlis (drums, percussion, synth, samples) were Hawkes Bay (bogan) originals, drawn (and somewhat cajoled) to the South island town’s creative notoriety (and pomposity) in the early 1990’s. Once the three met Dale Cotton and Natasha Griffeth, taonga was in the pipelines, there was a cassette, or two, and when 1995’s Abstinence: Acrimony CDEP and subsequently, their 1996 debut album Sum Of the Few (both on Flying Nun) hit record stores their legend was born.

Motte
Bravery and creativity act in tandem, Anita Clark, originally from Te Waipounamu, now Tamaki Makaurau based, goes by the moniker MOTTE when alone onstage. Tonight she is very alone at first, as few have arrived early, and the room is cavernous. It is glorious as her ambient synthesis of electronica, violin and vocals swirling around and washing over the favoured few. The year 2022 when I first saw MOTTE opening for Danish artist Agnes Obel (another glorious show) and purchasing her third album Cold + Liquid, was a revelation, as the ancien fanboy in me was reignited.

Fear not, as Anita Clark aka MOTTE, formed, reformed and created from magical boxes of electronica, looping and relooping her violin made sounds and melodies. The whare filled, drawn by the ethereal emanations seeping into the adjacent Whammy Public Bar, the waiting room. Espousing (more than once) her shared excitement at seeing HDU shortly, come to her last piece, and the room was filled, a sense of joy in her voice, her bravery and our punctuality rewarded.

HDU
DJ Stinky Jim is packing up, he’s been a musical maestro this evening, his whakapapa to HDU go way back, and a scene-setting electronic sound-bed, a drone forebode. HDU last played in Tamaki Makaurau at 2016’s Laneway, during the day, at the awful Silo Park, so to see them in an inner city bar, late at night, feels ka pai. Dingemans’ stack is impressive, two Sovtek amps and Marshall cabinets, and a rack of guitar to one side. HDU were renowned, are renowned for their voluminous playing level and content, but truly, live, the bands dynamics were always much more finessed, creating space as well as composition.

As they kicked off with Babaya, from their recently reissued on vinyl, 1997 EP Higher, the dynamics within the band’s artistry was showcased, and room’s inhabitants swayed forwards. As layers of riffed melodies, bass rhythms and beats scattered, Visionson (from 2001’s Fire Work) showcased their links with Stever Albini, HDU recorded it at his Chicago studio, erupts into the room, Phillips bassline leads in, and Dingemans’ guitar counterposes, battles over Karlis’s heavy beats, a then lulls back gently before launching back to controlled mania.

The crowd swayed and consumed, a few were more expressive. Onstage, Dingemans every-so-often was caught up in the emotion and animated his nga kupu wero – visually, expressing forcefully, with mana. Phillips, swung back and forth, caught in the moment, a little more restrained, focussed on playing true. Meanwhile, Karlis, a little more caged, nevertheless reaches and strains to insert the extra beat, crash and grind.

Midpoint, highlights, onwards: a guesting by Julia Deans (Fur Patrol) and a Shellac cover – Crow, which Dingemans preceded with words about Albini, Shellac and camaraderie, sung by both Dingemans and Phillips. A mighty experience. Later a new waiata is shared, possibly another added to the set (there is a quick word) Glory from 1996’s Sum Of The Few, is a gentler insight into HDU’s metal, almost (John) Cale-ish. A final song comes, a return to the characterized HDU surge(s) of noise, and impromptu elements. Tonight was like, felt like being back at The Kings Arms Tavern in the 1990s or early 2000’s – wonderful, e rawe!!

HDU teased of new songs to come (on Flying Nun), hopefully, though in the meantime, band members continue to create. Karlis with Great Barrier, a Berlin based trio which also features fellow Aotearoan Jason Kerr (My Deviant Daughter), they have an EP out – Repetition, meanwhile Dingemans’ current project is Kāhu Rōpū, both have music on Bandcamp.