Lips is a four-piece musical project led by Steph Brown (she/her) and Fen Ikner (he/him) based in Tāmaki Makaurau. Lips' music finds its roots in the familiar melodies of homegrown Indie, the tender embrace of Synth Pop, and the humorous side-eye of American New Wave. Ultimately resulting in a sound that's a celebration of feeling awkward and embracing it anyway.
Today they share 'Heave Ho', the second single from their upcoming album I Don't Know Why I Do Anything (out July 16).
Heave Ho! storms in with blistering bass, that's quickly followed by splintered guitar, crunchy synths and whacked out drums. The post-punk protestation is grounded by Brown’s voice, standing off to one side, back against the wall.
The music video was directed in-house by drummer Fen Ikner, who asserts "In making the video for Heave Ho, we wanted to introduce the new four-piece version of Lips as a live entity, but do something with a bit more visual impact than your standard "live" video. So I went for almost an early MTV type of thing, using animated visual effects to fly band members around these colourful Atari-y backdrops. And Steph definitely brought it in the moves department!"
To celebrate the release of I Don't Know Why I Do Anything, Lips are hitting the road, traveling the length and breadth of Aotearoa throughout Hōngongoi (July) and Here-turi-kōkā (August).
The tour is a co-headline event, with Lips sharing the van with Tāmaki Makaurau group Phoebe Rings. The band centers around the songwriting of Crystal Choi (she/her), a sought after keys player who has toured with Princess Chelsea, Chelsea Jade and A.C. Freazy. The band's dream pop echoes are further aided by the playing of Alex Freer (he/him, A.C. Freazy), Simeon Kavanagh-Vincent (he/him, Lucky Boy^), and Benjamin Locke (he/him, Sea Views). Their debut single Cheshire Cat was a favourite on the SRN stations.
The co-headline tour begins on July 24 in Te Whanganui-a-Tara (Wellington) at Moon. The following weekend they'll travel to Te Waipounamu (South Island) to perform in Otautahi (Christchurch) at Space Academy on July 30, then Ōtepoti (Dunedin) at Dive on July 31, followed by Waihōpai (Invercargill), a the Tuatara Cafe on August 1. They'll travel back to home base in Tāmaki Makaurau (Auckland) to perform at Neck of the Woods on August 5. Tickets for the show are available through Undertheradar.
While their debut album I Don't Know Why I Do Anything has been a long time coming, it's not like Lips haven't been busy. Since their inception in the late 00's they band have released a handful of singles and EPs, won the Silver Scroll Award in 2012 for 'Everything To Me, toured internationally as musical directors and performers in award winning musical stage play Daffodils, which they later went on to music direct and score as a feature film.
Eager to re-engage with playing original music Steph and Fen enlisted the help of Ruby Walsh (she/her, Dateline, Trip Pony) and Maude Morris (she/her, Lexxa). In 2019 the band released Guilty Talk (mixed by Unknown Mortal Orchestra and Silicon’s Kody Nielson), which went to Number 1 on NZ’s Student Radio Network. In 2020 the Covid-19 lockdowns led the band to finally finish their long awaited debut release.