how could you not sign someone with this much sartorial sense?Local lads The Phoenix Foun­da­tion con­tin­ue their well-paced rise to the top of the musi­cal pile, with the news that they’ve signed a deal with Fes­ti­val Mush­room Records (FMR). The band have appar­ent­ly been the sub­ject of a ‘bid­ding war’ amongst at least a cou­ple of the big­ger Auck­land-based labels, with some fine win­ing and din­ing action being laid down in attempts to woo the hir­sute quin­tet.

The guys are obvi­ous­ly pleased with how things have worked out. Gui­tarist Sam Scott is report­ed as say­ing: “We’re all so excit­ed to sign with FMR … ‘coz we are broke arse mutha fuck­ers. I am per­son­al­ly very keen on drink­ing beer at their office and steal­ing as much Fly­ing Nun stuff as I can until they call the cops on me for lift­ing those orig­i­nal Dave Mitchell 3Ds cov­er paint­ings.”

The first fruit of this deal is going to be a new sin­gle, the name of which eludes us at the moment. ‘Hitch­cock’ — the first sin­gle off the new album (enti­tled Pega­sus, and now sched­uled for an April release), was released a while back, and was a com­plete cork­er, so we’re expect­ing more of the same.

And if you don’t have the Phoenix Foun­da­tion’s first album — Horse Pow­er — in your col­lec­tion (it was nom­i­nat­ed for best album of the year at last year’s NZ Music Awards, would­n’t you know, so it must be good), then do your­self a favour and buy it now. And keep an eye out for some upcom­ing gigs by the band:

Fri 18th Feb — The Sawmill Cafe, Leigh
Sun 20th Feb — 11.30 am — The Lit­tle­weed Fes­ti­val, Katikati
Sun 20th Feb — 6.30pm — 95bFM Sum­mer Series, Albert Park, Auck­land
Sat 26th Feb — The Cuba St Car­ni­val, Welling­ton.