BRANNAVAN GNANALINGAM calls The Ruby Suns’ new album Sea Lion “riotous”, “celebratory” and “fun”. He talks to Ryan McPhun about influences, self-production, and musical tourism.

BRANNAVAN GNANALINGAM attempts to break Wellington-based artist Sarah Jane Parton (and co-director Ellen Loui August) into revealing the mystery contents of their sci-fi multi-media cross-genre event, Belonging, part of Fringe 2008.

François Séguin’s stage designs range from Cirque du Soleil spectacles to stage adaptations of Kafka to contemporary oratorio. He has been the production designer on award winning films such as The Barbarian Invasions and The Red Violin. At the New Zealand International Arts Festival for the double bill staging of Bertold Brecht’s The Lindberg Flight / The Flight Over the Ocean and The Seven Deadly Sins, directed by François Girard, Séguin talks with CATHERINE BISLEY.

From his early beginnings with the now legendary Neutral Milk Hotel, to collaborating with Beirut and Bright Eyes, to mining the music of the world, Jeremy Barnes has been at the forefront of musical experimentation over the last decade. He talks to BRANNAVAN GNANALINGAM about Balkan music, being accused of cultural appropriation, In the Aeroplane Over the Sea, and his brilliant band A Hawk and a Hacksaw, in Wellington for the New Zealand International Arts Festival.