Ha the Unclear

Ha the Unclear (an anagram for Nuclear Heath) is a band from the Gothic harbour town of ?tepoti/Dunedin, New Zealand.

After recording a run of lo-fi EPs, the band migrated northward to Auckland. While student radio peppered the national airwaves with singles like Growing Mould and Secret Lives of Furniture the band soon garnered wider reception with performances on prime-time TV shows 7 Days and Seven Sharp. More success followed with Invisible Lines reaching #9 on the NZ Album Charts and 2020 elevator anthem Strangers hitting #1 on the Radioscope Alternative Airplay Charts. Accompanying this, the band released a series of mind-bending music videos featuring a room full of furniture meddling in the life of their owner (Secret Lives of Furniture), an astronaut crash landing on a foreign planet (Kosmonavt), and the emergency delivery of a baby puppet in a broken elevator (Strangers). The latter track was later released on the Threads EP alongside the Sylvia Massy co-produced Julius Caesar and time travel lament Supermarket Queues.

Now signed with Paris-based label Think Zik!, the band has been warmly embraced by French audiences with playlisting on significant national radio including Europe 2, FIP, RTL 2, and France Inter and a milieu of college radio taste harbingers. 2023’s Handprint Negatives EP was recently released in the EU to critical acclaim with French press describing it as “a sweet madness” (Rolling Stone), “a real triumph…maybe confirmation of a major band” (Benzine) and a “spontaneous enthusiasm with a feeling of freshness” (Revue Pop Moderne).

With an album to be released during the French winter in January, the band will be celebrating with tours of their native New Zealand and promotional shows in the EU.

Photo Credit: Alex Lovell-Smith