postcards from new zealand
all albums written, performed, recorded, mixed and mastered by postcards from new zealand.
all artwork by postcards from new zealand.
phase i
pfnz
01. borderline I
02. postcard
03. drive III
04. love's last days
05. borderline II
2008
so many memories, all of them bad.
it all started here. it's very unlikely that you'll ever hear anything from this album. just acknowledge its existence, know that it's badly recorded, played and produced and that it's "out of print".
file under post-industrial-shit-core.
pfnz ii: love at first scythe
a. a killer's last stand
b. wish you were beer
c. your song (from hell)
d. just hook around
e. heartattack and whine
I. fuck-a-doodle-doom
II. cosmic jewish zombie
2010 with programmed drums, remixed with live drums in 2011, this was our version of eyehategod meeting my dying bride meeting king crimson, it was a horrible experience and that gave it a very hardcore edge. still sounds pretty bad.
file under post-sludge-mud-core.
x. imitation of lie
xx. me, myself and die
xxx. i have no mouth and you must piss
xxxx. breed over troubled water
xxxxx. wherever i may foam
pfnz iii: the way out
01. the way out
2010, remixed with new drums in 2012. the first suite, a single 30-something minutes song, written and recorded in deep depression, locked away underground far from society. it's the first album to really show an interest in melody, naif, but still. it doesn't even sound like shit for once. it's not much of a band effort since one of us came up with the whole thing already written, still it's not a one-man album.
file under post-prog-goth-metal-nope-core.
Sir Puke
01. Sir Puke
02. black barf
03. exhale on main st.
04. the hell of ages lost
05. basshole
06. void and sand
07. unearthed
08. with a little hell from my friends
2011, this was more of an experiment, introducing the sir puke character, trying new sounds, new stuff. it's probably the worst sounding album we've put out, compressed as shit to try and fix some bad issues we had in the studio. still has a couple of nice shots, among which 'black barf' is probably the best. but come on, 'unearthed'? 'hell of ages lost'? seriously, that's probably the worst stuff we've ever written. sorry for that.
file under post-shit-core.
pfnz iv: spare graves
01. the wind did mourn
02. and the trees broke
03. and the flies fell
04. and we buried our dead
05. and we lived to die another day
2011, one of our best albums. dark, bleak, depressed, hopeless and savage, everything we ever wanted to be, this represents a peak in our history. could definitely be recorded better. we might do that someday.
file under post-sludge-heavy-prog-funereal-core.
at dawn i saw the ashes of the old ones scattered on the ground and stolen from the wind by my blood
01. epilogue i
02. hiberna
03. the trench
04. fail and kill
05. указ
06. from the dust i rise
07. in the rain i fall
08. epilogue ii
2012, this is pretty bad. sounding in between a parody and an over-charged-ego-epic metal. this had little to no point at all, it was meant to keep the band together and instead it tore it apart. most of the material was underworked and the mix didn't help at all. some nice ideas here and there, overall absolutely negligible.
file under we-shouldn't-have-done-it-core.
sketches of pain
01. communion (east of eden)
02. crime of the century (supertramp)
03. hatred (manowar)
04. no quarter (led zeppelin)
05. dog eat dog (adam and the ants)
06. all the clocks are broken (cop shoot cop)
2012, not for sale 'cause we don't have permissions. this was really fun to do, we always liked doing covers and we found ourselves with almost 20 of them. we chose these because they came out pretty good, have fun.
phase ii
atlas moth
01. reel
02. drift
03. towards the flow
04. hellsinkin'
05. clutching fingers
06. five
07. farmakon
08. glass cathedral
2016, our big pop-rock sellout album. kind of. we had one hell of a time writing and recording this so we're pretty proud of it. it's somewhere in-between rush, nine inch nails, pain of salvation, motorpsycho and some west coast late 70s aor.
file under post-prog-pop-rock-psych-metal-core.
pfnz v: lifeache
01. lifeache I: swivel throne
02. ikh (one hell of a soldier)
03. letgo
04. never look back
05. letgo II: cold
06. lifeache II: room42
07. and we bent ourselves to survive pt.I
08. and we bent ourselves to survive pt.II
2016, the fifth chapter is a strange one, with strong bonds with chapter iv. this was very important for us because it's the album that got us back together after a one-year hiatus; even though it's not among our best, it's very personal music for all of us. if we ever went on the road, 'never look back' and 'we bent ourselves' would definitely make the setlist.
file under post-lethargic-depressive-core.
on a night like today
01. on a night like today
2017, this counts as an ep, a single 20 minute composition for drums and baritone sax versus electric bass and guitar. and it may also count as our first live release ever, since it's... live.
file under post-jazz-rock-psych-tribal-core.
cold, and far away
01. cold
02. pigeon
03. home by the sea
04. we watched them devour pt.i
05. we watched them devour pt.ii
06. we watched them devour pt.iii
07. and far away
2017, the original lineup came together almost 10 years after the first album to record something wicked, noisy and dissonant. all of the 'industrial' influences we lost over the years came back and led to this... thing.
file under post-industrial-psych-noise-core.
we watched them devour
01. we watched them devour iv
02. we watched them devour v
03. we watched them devour vi
04. we watched them devour vii
05. we watched them devour viii
2017, while rehearsing for our first live concert, we found ourselves jamming to some ideas and ended up recording this instrumental weirdo. it tells of desolated, post-apocalyptic places where everything was devoured by unknown creatures.
file under post-industrial-noise-electro-core
pfnz live
01. postcard
02. never look back
03. pigeon
04. and the trees broke
05. cosmic jewish zombie
06. from the dust i rise
07. in the rain i fall/we watched them devour iii
08. and we bent ourselves to survive
january 6th, 2018, our first live gig ever. well, kinda. though we already played once for the 'on a night like today' project, this was the first time we played songs from our catalogue in front of an audience. being the freaky nerds we are, we thoroughly recorded every second of this abomination and have the balls to present it to you all, including past smashing hits such as 'postcard', 'cosmic jewish zombie', 'black barf' and even the complete 'the way out' suite.
09. the way out
10. sad cocoon
11. black barf
12. cold
13. and we buried our dead
14. borderline ii
33
01. happy birthday
02. wakey wakey
03. a good reason
04. bend
05. donnie
may 3rd-5th, 2018, and then, for a while, there were three. left alone in the studio during the recordings of the 'rope' saga, a pfnz trio recorded this beast in 3 days straight, a perfect example of out most rough and savage side. if we ever became a live band, there'd be a lot to choose from here. too bad, we're staying home.
file under post-post-hardcore-core.
rope i: ce n'est pas la guerre
01. ce n'est pas la guerre
02. מצדה
03. herod
04. wake the dead
05. i كوم الشقافة
nov 2017-sep 2018, this was a nightmare. we had big problems with the double drums, we struggled with the songs, we worked for months to get the sound we wanted, we even decided to put the album to rest, after a fight that almost took the band apart. and then, one day, it all clicked, we changed perspective and got it working in a couple of days.
it's a heavy beating creature, somewhere in between death metal, hardcore, noise rock, industrial... pretty much anything noisy and annoying that we could think of.
file under post-bellic-noise-metal-core.
rope ii: k'nyan
01. ii كوم الشقافة
02. portal i
03. k'nyan: turquoise
04. k'nyan: exile
05. portal ii
jan-mar 2018, this was so much fun, we had a pretty precise idea of what we wanted and got it in a relatively short time. it's the sound of the alien world of k'nyan (yup, thanks howard), it's made up of weird synths and heavily processed guitars and bass guitars with few but quite important percussion/drum machines, we tried to go for an ambient album that could keep up the tension and be unsettling most of the time, we think we kind of nailed it.
file under post-alien-ambient-psych-core.
rope
01. rope
02. and rain fell down on he who challenged the gods
aug 2017-sep 2018, we said 'guerre' was a nightmare but this was on another level of fucked up, this was pure masochism. have you ever worked on a 36-minute song with more than 60 tracks? if you have, then you know what we're talking about.
funny thing, the structure of the song never changed during its evolution, what you hear is exactly what we've written in 2017 but it was recorded, re-recorded, taken apart, forgotten for a bit then re-recorded one last time.
it definitely shows our 'progressive' side, though it doesn't lack its moments of far-out shitstorming futile violence.
file under post-maximalist-egomaniac-opera-core.
rope iv: the damage done
01. dead man's clock
02. just not here
03. the land of rope and honey
04. sunset scenery
05. brother
dec 2017-jul 2018, well... this felt peculiar. a restricted group of people worked on this one so it was easier than 'guerre' or 'rope', we wanted to write on different synthesizers and we did, then we added drums (and some guitars on 'brother') and vocals. we really pushed on our love for nine inch nails, depeche mode, ulver, orb and peter gabriel and tried to get that 'not-so-happy pop' feeling.
file under post-electro-digital-psych-pop-core.
06. tower
07. clouds
08. once, a river
09. kvälssång
10. spoiler: rope dies at the end
hell is other robots
01. the droids you are looking for (are hidden from view)
02. primitive killing technology
03. the robodevil suite
i. robot hell: level five
ii. hell is other robots
iii.monolith, stereolith, necrolith
iv.beauty in the robodevil's hands
v. par.tay: robodevil deals with it
04. lightfields (and giant robots)
november 2018, some of us came up with a plan and a bunch of synth sounds they've created, we put them all together in a form that resembled songs and put them out for you. no guitars, no bass, no acoustic drums and no vocals, packed in a futurama-tribute concept.
file under post-electro-noise-glitch-dance-dream-core.
06. fright train
07. nfz
08. them dirt blues
09. pueblo
10. peace
phase iii
pfnz vi: red stain corner
01. crow
02. gn-z11
03. stain
04. macs1149-jd1
05. second mouse
06. egsy8p7
07. sleepnot
november 2019. the sixth chapter is a sort of closing of the cycle, a full narrative about the two main characters, named stain and crow. it's a coming together of all our different sounds and it opened up some new perspectives for the future.
file under post-industrial-noise-psych-acid-core.
pfnz vi: empty room
01. (and crow stood silent in an) empty room
02. just not there
03. cold hearth
04. rat in the drain ditch
05. contemplation
december 2019. the aftermath to 'red stian corner', it shows what happened when crow found himself alone in an empty room. purely electronic instrumental music. 'contemplation' is a reworking of 'home by the sea' from 'cold, and far away'.
file under post-minimal-electro-ambient-core.
08. a2744 yd4
09. skinless, boneless
10. egs-zs8-1
11. hearth
12. v645
13. yolo
the viral trilogy
march-may 2020. we all found ourselves in the middle of the coronavirus thing. we responded by working on so much music the we ended up with material for about ten albums. in the end we published three instrumental electronic works, each with its own specific sound.
vol.1: the viral variations
01. kovid xix
02. did everything just taste purple for a second?
03. bodycorrupt
04. somewhat human
05. quarantine day
06. city curfew
07. live.spread.fade
this goes back to our past electro works, lots of loops and inspiration from the early 90s scene. droning, industrial bashes and some four on the floor paranoia.
file under post-viral-electro-psych-drone-kovidian-core.
vol.2: 1'1701
01. 1'1701
this is probably the best of the three, it's something we're really proud of. still completely electronic instrumental stuff, it's a 30 minutes suite that deals with disorientation and searching for something worth protecting, we kept loops out of the picture this time to work more on dynamics and movement, this resulted in very cinematic music with moments of pure blackness.
this is a very important album for us 'cause it's the one that got us seriously into digital sound manipulation and synth programming, giving a big twist to our way of producing music.
we also produced a 30 minute video to go along with the music.
file under post-digital-electro-labyrinth-core.
vol.3: we watched them devour, vol.2
01. we watched them devour, ix: the morning after
we brought back the old saga for this one, a 30 minutes meditation on human extinction. still electronic, still without loops, this time with no rhythmic elements whatsoever, it's a purely ambient suite that gives off that wonderful and peaceful feeling that only absence of life can give.
file under post-kovidian-godot-ambient-core.
the mare
01. mahr
02. marefloker
03. martallar
04. vegtamskviða
05. moros
06. myrkheim
07. kveldriða
08. brėkšta
october-november 2020, by the end of the fucked up year that 2020 has been, we realized we wanted some more heavy metal. this has a lot of black metal and sludge in it but also a shitload of reverb and distant weird sounds and even some melodies. it's all pretty nordic and we borrowed some stories from our viking friends.
file under post-oniric-shoegaze-black-doom-metal-core.
we watched them devour, vol.3: city islands
01. as the towers crumbled
02. snow and sand
03. tortuous unwindings
04. ocean avenue
05. it just kept coming
november 2020. still in the midst of the pandemic, we looked to the ocean and wrote this third chapter in the wwtd saga. t's all about layering and saturation and a handful of riffs that swing between neurosis, black metal and neil young, plus a shitload of synths. some of it was recorded live in the studio then edited, some was born piece by piece, it's a very meditative and easy listening experience. it's also our first album out on madrone records.
file under post-apocalyptic-sludge-dream-core.
city islands (devoured remix)
01. city islands (devoured remix)
december 2020. after we completed work on 'city islands', some of us thought it would be fun to produce a remix of the complete album. we stripped the songs to their synthetic bones, then fucked everything up with digital processing; the result is a weird trip, somewhat similar to the original but also pretty different.
file under post-devourment-ambient-core.
phase iv
blood at the root
01. death don't have no mercy
02. i'd rather be the devil
03. nobody knows you when you're down and out
04. oh death
05. see that my grave is kept clean
06. the thrill is gone
07. strange fruit
november 19-june 21. the idea of taking some blues classics and hurt them bad came about in the summer of 2019, we started putting down ideas in november, then came 2020 and everything was fucked up. in a time when everyone was going solo because of lockdowns and covid and shit, we thought to open up for the first time and invite some guests to record this thing with us, king bong, chris haskett, rosarita crisafi, aliceissleeping, they all recorded their parts and sent them over, we mixed them with our original tracks and this is the perverted result.
file under post-delta-black-noise-blues-core.
burn, witch, burn
01. who's wearing pants
02. on a silver plate
03. all the same
04. pinky swear
05. soccer mum
written and recorded in april/may 2020, released on april 15th, 2022.
first chapter of the 'betwixt and between' trilogy, we've had so much fun writing and recording this. we wanted pure aggression, both physical and psychological, so we dived deep into our passion for extreme metal, be it black, death, grind or whatever.
it's an album about discrimination, ignorance, stupidity and all those other things that define the human race. no actual witches were harmed while recording the album.
file under post-misanthropic-misogynist-death-black-core.
06. pill fight
07. dead skin care
08. holy bazongas
09. themiscyra
10. burn, witch, burn
nin-an-ak
01. e-ana
02. inana
03. ištar
04. ninsianna
05. nin-ana
written and recoded in may/june 2020, strings recorded in october 2021.
the second part of 'betwixt and between' is something we're particularly proud of, the first time we used strings in our music was born during lockdown in 2020. we came up with all the instrumental parts but we're left with a handful of melodies we didn't know how to use, so we started experimenting with sampled strings and then got an actual string quartet to record the parts. it's an instrumental prog-ish concept about inana, a sumerian deity, goddess of war and kinky love.
file under post-sumerian-chamber-death-prog-core.
pfnz vii: liminal space
01.taupō
02.tiresas
03.kitsune
04.da'at
05.hiranyakashipu
written and recorded between march and september 2021.
third and last part of 'betwixt and between', this is one album that we wanted to make for a long time. it's got something of everything we do, we wanted to have music that could be both balanced and out of balance, aggressive but not violent, dreamy but not to distant.
every song was born from a rhythmic pattern we stole from somewhere around the world (greece, bulgaria, israel, swaziland and more), then we painted scenes with only synths, then brought structure and rock elements to them. it was fun to make and it's still fun to listen to.
file under rhythm and noise.
06. niizh manidoowag
07. temenos
08. kunkunka
09. coshi wa ng'oma
10. incaba kancofula