NZ Shapeshifter

A question asked after a Grooverider set

Shapeshifter started with an argument about instruments. In 1999 a group of students from the Christchurch jazz school went to see the London DJ Grooverider, and Devin Abrams came away wondering why nobody was playing drum and bass live. Drummer Redford Grenell was immediately in; the pair pulled in two more jazz-school players, Nick Robinson and Sam Trevethick, with sound engineer Tiki Taane around the early sessions. The first line-up set Grenell's kit and Abrams's saxophone against a Roland Alpha Juno and a pair of Korg MS synths — a rhythm section playing a genre built on sampled breaks.

Their debut, Realtime, came out in 2001 on Kog Transmissions, trailed by the singles "Tapestry" and "Move With Me" with Ladi6, and took Best Electronic Release at the 2002 bNet NZ Music Awards. The band moved to Melbourne in 2002 to get out of New Zealand's small underground circuit, and in late 2003 the vocalist Paora Apera — P Digsss — joined the live line-up, which gave the instrumental machinery a front man and a song structure to hang off. Riddim Wise followed in 2004, peaked at 29 on the New Zealand album chart and was certified gold, and gave them enough leverage to start their own label, Truetone Recordings.

Crayfish, a borrowed house, and Soulstice

The record the band are still touring was made in a house in Kaikōura. P Digsss told the NZ Herald in May 2026 that they set up a studio there and stayed roughly half a year, fishing and diving between sessions, with the fisherman who owned the place turning up with crayfish. The band describe the writing period as the "lush, sun-drenched transition from bright summer to deep amber autumn", which is a fair account of how the album sounds: the drums still move at 170-odd beats per minute, but the chords underneath them are slow.

Soulstice was released in 2006, went gold inside three weeks, reached number four in New Zealand, was eventually certified twice platinum and won Album of the Year at the bNet awards. "Summer Haze", "New Day Come", "Electric Dream" and "One" came off it, and all four are still in the live set twenty years later. The album also unlocked the band's odd second career as an orchestral act: they toured New Zealand with orchestras, and the resulting Shapeshifter Live reached number six in 2007.

Number ones and a rotating back line

The decade after Soulstice brought the band's commercial peak and most of its personnel turnover. Grenell left in September 2009 and was replaced by Johnny Hooves, who stayed until 2013. Abrams, the founding saxophonist and synth player, walked away mid-European tour in 2014; Dan McGruer took the synth chair. Darren Mathiassen now plays drums, alongside Trevethick, Robinson, McGruer and P Digsss.

The System Is a Vampire went to number one in New Zealand and was certified platinum, and was shortlisted for the inaugural Taite Music Prize in 2010 — the year the band signed to the London drum and bass label Hospital Records in July. Its companion remix record reached number ten and also went platinum. Delta, in 2013, repeated the number one and the double-platinum certification and won the Tui for Best Electronic Album. Stars reached number two in 2016, the same year the band sold out Auckland's Vector Arena for the first time. Rituals, their most recent album, arrived in July 2021 and reached number six, preceded and followed by a run of standalone singles: "Lightspeed" in 2020, "Ritual (Under Your Spell)" and "Found in You" in 2021, "Crystal Eyes" in 2022, then "Runaway" and "Amokura" in 2023.

Two other markers are worth recording. In 2018 the then prime minister Jacinda Ardern gave Prince Harry and Meghan a copy of The System Is a Vampire and the Stars vinyl during a South Pacific tour. And in June 2024, in the wake of the band's 25th anniversary run, six Shapeshifter albums charted in the Official Top 20 New Zealand Albums in the same week — something no New Zealand act had managed before.

The 2026 roadie

This year's work has been the anniversary, handled as a long drive rather than a stadium cycle. The band opened the year with a six-song festival set at Synthony at Auckland Domain on 21 March. The Soulstice 20th Anniversary Roadie was announced days later, with a Waitomo app presale on 25 March, a general presale on 26 March and public tickets through Ticketek from 27 March; Waitomo sponsored the run and Invercargill seats went for between $71.90 and $91.90.

Eight dates followed, split across three trips: The Civic in Invercargill on 7 May, Dunedin Town Hall on 8 May and the Lake Wānaka Centre on 9 May; Christchurch's Isaac Theatre Royal on 19 June and Methven Memorial Hall on 20 June; then Meow Nui in Wellington on 23 July, the Royal Whanganui Opera House on 24 July and New Plymouth's TSB Theatre on 25 July. Several were all-ages and fully seated, in theatres and halls the band had not played in years, with the Wānaka, Methven and Wellington shows R18. The liquid drum and bass DJ and vocalist Pearly supported the whole run. P Digsss, talking to the NZ Herald on 11 May, put the band's 27 years in blunt terms — they are "stepping into the Sir Dave Dobbyn arena" — and said they drove to most venues rather than flew, as they had early on. On new material he was non-committal: "everything goes in cycles and we're still learning how to make music together."

The Auckland date took the longest to land. Steinlager Centre Court Sounds, a one-day festival that converts the Mānuka Doctor Arena — the ASB Classic tennis court — into a concert floor, was originally set for 21 February with a lineup headed by SACHI. It was postponed, and on 22 April the promoters confirmed a 31 October rescheduling with Shapeshifter as the new headliner, playing their only Auckland Soulstice show, alongside Bag Raiders, Bontempo and SIN across a 3pm-to-11pm bill. It is the first time the band have played on a tennis court, which P Digsss noted would suit Trevethick and Robinson, both keen players. After that, the album crosses the Tasman: 170 Russell in Melbourne on 19 November, the 1,500-capacity Metro Theatre in Sydney on 20 November and The Triffid in Brisbane on 21 November, billed as the Soulstice 20th Anniversary Australian Tour.