Sloer Announce Single Release + National Tour
Wānaka indie alt-folk band sloer are hitting the road this spring, taking their riveting, emotionally charged live show to Auckland, Waiheke Island, Wellington, Wānaka, Dunedin and Christchurch.
The six-date national tour comes as sloer release their new single shame, building towards the release of their debut album in Autumn 2027. It follows a series of intimate South Island shows that have seen the band steadily build a reputation as one of the most intriguing acts to emerge from the lower South Island.
For those who like their music raw, atmospheric and deeply felt, sloer sit somewhere between the emotional directness of Julia Jacklin, the dark, cinematic textures of Portishead, and the slow-burning country-folk melancholy of Cowboy Junkies.
But sloer are best experienced live.
Their songs move from sparse, intimate passages into expansive full-band arrangements, with piano, synth, guitars, bass and drums creating a sound that can be both delicate and quietly overwhelming. Vocalist and lyricist Sophie Askin’s distinctive voice sits at the centre of it all, delivering songs that are unflinching and evocative.
Founded in Wānaka by Askin and guitarist Jacob Smith, sloer began as a stripped-back collaboration built around sparse, spacious live performances. The arrival of pianist Sophie Omer-McWalter, drummer Mark Orbell, bassist Aaron Hosking and guitarist/synth/percussionist Aria Nader-Turner has added cinematic layers, pulse and momentum.
The result is a band that doesn’t rely on grand gestures. Instead, sloer build tension carefully, allowing their songs to unfold and linger.
At a recent Dunedin show, the band’s growing reputation was summed up by musician and music writer Jeff Harford rather more simply:
“There’s something special going on here.”
Two songs in, knowing glances ripple through the room. Whispered critiques between punters and music cognoscenti alike share a common theme: there’s something special going on here.
Songs keep coming, layered like shards of Central Otago schist, their bronze-brown and deep-grey tones speckled with glittering flakes of mica that briefly catch the sun.
Unflinching, evocative and starkly beautiful, sloer’s music is to be experienced as much as listened to. In that moment, prepare to feel stuff and to have it sit with you a while.
And that’s a good reason to come to a sloer show.
These aren’t gigs to drop into merely to hear songs you already know. They’re an opportunity to see a band at an exciting point in its development – before the debut album arrives, while the songs are still finding their shape in front of live audiences.
From Wānaka to the national stage
sloer released their debut single crawling in October 2025, a haunting slow-burn song about shame, honesty, fear and finally being “effing fed up”, according to Askin.
The track was recorded at Sublime Studios in the Waitaki Valley and established the band’s signature combination of atmospheric sound, evocative storytelling and emotional weight.
Their second release, slaughter, continued that trajectory, while third single shame, scheduled for release on Friday 25 September, points towards the territory explored on the forthcoming album, recorded with producer Tom Bell at his Seaward Studios in Port Chalmers.
Along the way, sloer have played intimate shows throughout the South Island, including at Wunderbar in Lyttelton, Pioneer Hall in Port Chalmers, Pearl Diver in Dunedin and the Grainstore Gallery in Oamaru.
They have also appeared at YAMI Festival, opened for The Broken Heartbreakers and Fiona & The Glow, and played Wānaka’s Festival of Colour.
Now they’re taking the songs north.
sloer – National Tour 2026
Thursday 8 October @ Whammy Bar, Auckland
Friday 9 October @ Artworks Theatre, Waiheke Island
Friday 23 October @ Vogelmorn, Wellington
Saturday 31 October @ Rhyme & Reason, Wānaka
Saturday 7 November @ Pearl Diver, Dunedin
Saturday 21 November @ Space Academy, Christchurch
Supports: TBA
Tickets: Undertheradar.co.nz
Photo Credit: Matilda MacAndrew
