Why Are Some of New Zealand’s Best Artists Joining New Streaming Platform Lume?

  Spotify has not had a good week of publicity, although, in fact, it rarely does these days.

When DJ and producer Josh Fawaz stormed the Australian charts with his ‘cover’ of Madonna’s “Like a Prayer”, he was quickly forced to add clear credits for generative AI vocals and AI drums to his song on Spotify. Over the span of 12 months, Spotify has removed an astounding 75 million similarly “spammy tracks” from its database.

AI has infiltrated Spotify in a major, dystopian way. Perfect playlists, personalised music recommendations, even an AI DJ that ‘talks’ to you about your music tastes — it’s all happening, and it’s all depressing.

As Fawaz added his AI credits, Lorde took to social media to call out Spotify over another problematic feature, ‘About the Song’, accusing the streaming behemoth of sharing inaccurate information as well as overstepping artistic boundaries. According to Spotify, ‘About the Song’, which is reportedly in beta, pulls from “third-party sources to surface interesting details and behind-the-scenes moments.”

In an Instagram Story, Lorde shared a screenshot of a Spotify AI description of her song “Current Affairs”, which read: “On her Ultrasound World Tour, Lorde turns Current Affairs into a full-on performance piece, stripping down to underwear while a dancer pours water over her stomach so the song plays out like the shower scene she talks about on stage.”

Nope. Wrong. “[…] i’m gonna go out on a limb n say we don’t want this,” Lorde commented on her Instagram Story, tagging Spotify for good measure. “Not only is this inaccurate (not the song i did that in) but reducing a song to an ai generated meaning right at the source feels like it limits free interpretation imo. At least make it possible for artists to opt out please.”

It’s long been difficult to trust streaming platforms like Spotify — increased subscription fees, pitiful payouts for musicians — and the rise of generative AI in music is only muddying the waters even more.

It often feels like convenience is the only reason we stick around these platforms. (I’m guilty of this myself, with fussy playlist pedantry — how could I give up all my carefully curated playlists?) In this frictionless era of ours, having almost every single song ever created just a stream away is… daunting. Overwhelming. Much too much.

“As a music fan, I realised I don’t want access to every piece of music ever released. I want to discover things, understand them and become obsessed with them. I really hate what streaming has done as an artist as well,” Andrew Wilson tells me. He’s the lead singer of much-admired Aotearoa New Zealand punk band Die! Die! Die!, who believe there’s a different, better way to do things.

Wilson and Die! Die! Die! are among the first artists signed up to Lume, a New Zealand music startup with big backers and even bigger ambitions. Founded in October of last year, it’s an album-centric music app supported by investors including Substack’s Hamish McKenzie, Letterboxd’s Karl von Randow, and, most interestingly of all, the Spotify-deriding Lorde.

  A press release about Lume first came through my inbox on a busy day in June, and I initially paid no mind to it — I rarely do with tech-cum-business emails — but then I saw the first artists confirmed for the platform.

Earth Tongue, Vera Ellen, Geneva AM, Dick Move, all included in our most recent Future of Music series; iconic names like Troy Kingi and Bic Runga; great independent acts like Swallow the Rat, Theia, and Fazerdaze — I listen to these artists, I write about these artists, and, more crucially, I respect their opinions on music. Looking at the list of the first 20 artists partnering with the platform, I didn’t see one musician who would attach their name to a quick cash grab.

“I would like to imagine a heathy carrier in music where my success didn’t orbit around streaming services and social media. Lume feels like a big step towards that,” Fables, another of the initial artists, says.

“Lume made perfect sense to me from the get-go. I am a natural archivist (read, hoarder), so to have a platform outside of social media to showcase all of the extra supporting elements that go into a body of work is such a great idea,” the Auckland-based singer-songwriter adds.

“I love how the app works like a virtual record collection, with extra content that lets you dive deeper into the world behind the album,” Erny Belle, who took out the top spot in our 2023 year-end New Zealand albums list, agrees. “I finally have a place to put my crappy demos and unused footage that would’ve otherwise ended up lost forever. I’ve never really valued stuff like that, but maybe other people do, and maybe one day it’ll be nice to look back on. It’s a time capsule of an era.”

  Spotify and similar platforms might work for the upper echelon of artists, but the 99% need to get by instead on other income streams such as touring and merch.

Last year saw the arrival of Boycott Spotify NZ, a collective of independent Kiwi musicians who joined the growing transition away from the platform. Dismayed by the perennially low payouts, Recitals, Carb on Carb and more followed the principled example of overseas acts like King Gizzard & the Lizard Wizard and Deerhoof in leaving Spotify behind. As the collective noted in its artist statement, “Spotify treats the majority of its working artists as free labourers, selling access to their musical output with virtually none of the profit returning to the creators.”

“Generally, each stream generates around 1/20th of 1 NZ cent. Hence, even artists with hundreds of thousands of streams are receiving poverty wages. Even worse, because artists must crack 1000 streams in order to receive any money, smaller artists earn absolutely nothing from their work,” the statement added. 

Tiki Taane also left Spotify last year. If you go to his profile on the platform now, just one song remains: “Bye Bye Spotify”. (It’s a stone-cold banger.) He’s now reissuing his classic debut album, Past, Present, Future, on Lume, as are Fur Patrol (Pet), The Phoenix Foundation (Give Up Your Dreams), The Reduction Agents (The Dance Reduction Agents), and Die! Die! Die! (their 2006 self-titled debut).

“I’ve always thought in terms of EPs and albums as complete pieces of work,” Wilson says. “Music has become increasingly shaped by algorithms, playlists, and tech companies rather than artists and music fans.” Already a fan of Bandcamp, another music platform that has generally been kinder to independent artists than Spotify, Wilson was all in when he heard about “something similar being built here in Aotearoa.”

“It felt like something worth championing,” he adds.

Independent touring band Swallow the Rat tell me they’ve struggled to find platforms “that genuinely respect the economics of making music.”

“Lume’s model is a massive step forward for artist sustainability,” they say. “We joined as partners because Lume isn’t just trying to tweak a broken system; they’re building a fairer, community-driven eco-system that changes how bands like us can survive and share our archives.”

  Here’s the most attractive thing about Lume for partnered artists: it sounds like they get a genuinely fair share of each sale.

80% of net revenue is reportedly “reserved for artists and their partners.” Albums are priced at $24.99, meaning artists will get just under $20 per sale.

Lume works on a “buy once, own forever” model, rather than a subscription, and co-founder Sacha Judd told RNZ that they chose a one-off payment system as they felt music fans were tired of traditional subscription services.

“We feel like there is a bit of subscription fatigue now, everyone is a bit tired of being asked for a monthly fee for everything, so our thesis is that people would be supportive of the idea of going back to buying to own,” Judd told the publication.

Wellington indie rock band The Phoenix Foundation have been active since the ’90s, which means they’ve had to navigate several distinct eras of music consumption: CDs, the ill-fated MySpace and Napster, the return of vinyl, and now the increased domination of singles in the streaming age. Founding member Luke Buda likes how album-centric Lume is. “We’ve always focused on albums,” he says. “It’s our favourite way of listening to music too. So I was really happy to have a platform that focuses on albums and all the bits and pieces that come with one: the b-sides, the videos, bootlegs of the live shows… It’s cool shit to have if you’re into the album.”

Image: Fazerdaze’s ‘Soft Power’ on the Lume app Credit: Supplied

Buda’s fellow Wellington musician Lontalius says he joined Lume “mostly because I’m curious about it.”

“Everyone agrees that streaming, while convenient, is a fairly unsatisfactory experience when it comes to enjoying the music you love most,” he says. “I really believe there’s room for something that gives you a deeper connection with the music without having to buy a physical disk or download some MP3 files.” He always wanted demos and studio cuts from his album 2025 album Heavy, for example, to “sit alongside each other,” but no platform had allowed him to achieve that. “I’m excited to see how it all works.”

  Isla Noon has the freshest release on Lume.

She shared Out of Body (REDUX), a reworking of her well-received debut album from last year, on the platform’s launch day. The redux version sits alongside the original album as well as some unreleased content, including intimate studio videos. It turns out she was one of the first artists to sign up, too. “I believe in the vision both as an artist and a music fan,” she tells me. “I also think it’s time to take bold steps in the direction of a music industry landscape that actually works for artists and fans seeking a deeper experience. It’s refreshing to feel like you can trust the platform you’re making your music available on, because the values align with your own.”

A cursory glance at the other artists’ offerings reveals a variety of additional content: if you buy Dick Move’s acclaimed 2025 album Dream, Believe, Achieve, you’ll also receive behind-the-scenes photography, bFM live sessions, and several official music videos; Theia is offering a new reimagined version of “Holy War II”, a standout track from her Girl, in a Savage World album (2025); Lips’ debut album, I Don’t Know Why I Do Anything (2021), is accompanied by remixes and outtakes, with the Silver-Scroll winning band also willing to exclusively reveal the meanings behind their songs; Vera Ellen’s new album Heaven Knows What Time comes with a manifesto.

There’s a lot of early goodwill coming Lume’s way, and not just from Kiwi artists. It has already confirmed a partnership with Recorded Music NZ (RMNZ), “ensuring chart eligibility on day one.” Paul Kennedy, the organisation’s Director of Data and Analysis, wrote to me in an email that he thinks the first week “is likely to just be a clue as to future potential rather than immediately radical impact.” Lume has secured “critical music publishing arrangements with APRA AMCOS, and respected indie labels such as Flying Nun, Melted Ice Cream, and Lil’ Chief Records have signed deals with the platform.

Writer and musician Gareth Shute, who works at the latter label, which is home to Princess Chelsea and Jonathan Bree, notes that Bandcamp has been kind to Lil’ Chief’s roster, but he thinks “that the serious fans would like ways to dig even deeper into the albums.” The Lil’ Chief team used to attempt to achieve such deep dives through live videos and social media posts, but those can be time-consuming. Instead, Lume will, Shute says, “make it possible to bring all that extra content together and really create an online version of the boxset experience.”

Another Lil’ Chief artist, Mainard Larkin (read his recent Rolling Stone AU/NZ interview here), is signed up, and Shute says it’s “been fun seeing the personal touch” that Larkin has been able to provide. Larkin created “special lyric sheets” for Lume, and there are further plans to host live recordings there. Shute drops another big teaser. “[Princess] Chelsea is currently in the process of recording, so we are definitely trying to collect Lume material along the way!”

  Lume being New Zealand-made seems to be a point of pride for many of the artists — it launched with a roster of 100% Kiwi musicians.

This country’s music community is the ideal testing ground, I think, for Lume’s “digital collection”: New Zealand artists give a lot of themselves to their fans, always going above and beyond. (This relationship is, emotionally and communally, a good thing, but perhaps has been less financially rewarding.)

“Releasing digital music on Lume offers artists like myself the opportunity to build a universe around the body of work, there are so many digital assets and memories that are connected to each project,” Geneva AM, winner of Best Independent Debut at this year’s Taite Music Prize, says. “I feel optimistic about the future — I think authenticity is always rewarded through genuine connection between the artist’s work and their fans who support their vision.”

Judd said the decision to start off with an all-NZ lineup was deliberate. “We think New Zealand is a great test market for us to test a lot of things about which artists this is going to succeed for, so whether that’s new releases or legacy re-releases,” she told RNZ.

Interestingly, Judd made it clear to RNZ — New Zealand’s national broadcaster is also a Lume partner, according to the press release I seen, allowing artists to “have free access to audio and video across their interviews and live performances” — that the Lume team doesn’t view it as a director competitor to Spotify et al. Instead, the company views itself as an additional revenue stream for artists alongside the more established streaming platforms.

“We are focused on a small group of an artist’s fan base and those are the fans who are already followers of those artists, they are already people who want to spend to support those artists, so we are not trying to compete with Spotify or Apple Music, we are complementary to that, it’s really a product for a superfan,” Judd told the publication. The press release I received in June really honed in on this “superfan” point. It’s clear that the Lume team views the platform as being for the true diehards, rather than the general listener.

“We’re trying to bring the best properties of vinyl and streaming together into one digital product,” co-founder Duncan Greive shared in a statement. “You can think of it as a record store and a record collection, which you access like streaming, but own like a record. But along with the core audio, you get much more alongside it – while also meaningfully supporting the artist.” Another co-founder, Tim Harper, sees Lume as having “more in common with physical media than streaming.”

Launching a new streaming platform, let alone in a small music market like New Zealand, was always going to be hugely risky. There were always going to be teething issues.

The company raised around $1.3 million in its first round of fundraising, and Judd told RNZ that they’ll “be going out to investors to try to raise more capital to really accelerate our growth” in the coming months.

Australia is the next target market, with the rest of the world to follow afterwards. Lorde is slated to bring Virgin (2025) to the platform later this year, complete with demos and rarities, and Lorde has more “superfans” than most. More artists are expected to be announced on a monthly basis.

Some of Lume’s partners are already thinking deeply about the platform. “Moving forward, I will definitely be shaping my next project around how it may be presented on Lume,” Geneva AM says. She’s also curious about how it will work for each individual artist. “We are all quite diverse,” she notes. Shute suggests a “fan club”-type element could be a welcome addition, giving fans a way of messaging their favourite artists via the platform.

  Earlier this year, the Norwegian Consumer Council took on a major issue: the enshittification of the internet, the gradual deterioration of online products and services. 

The council shared an absurd video, which showed a man making holes in someone’s sock and purposefully shortening table leg, as he declared, “My job is to make things shitty. What I do is I take things that are perfectly fine and I make them worse.”

“Another internet is possible,” said Finn Lützow-Holm Myrstad, the council’s director of digital policy, after its release. “The status quo is not acceptable for anyone.”

It’s been impossible to not feel dismayed about the enshittification of, well, everything in recent times. Netflix helped kill Blockbuster, replaced television, and spawned what feels like a hundred competitors, all increasingly offering background slop. Spotify started out as an impressively bulky song library, only to never improve its treatment of musicians or offer safeguards against algorithmic decay. The world’s cringiest billionaire bought Twitter as a vanity project, inexplicably renamed it X, and transformed the app into an endless chain of right-wing tweets and invasive ads.

“In an age where the artist is grappling with the perils of AI and social media, it’s affirming to have a new platform that aims to provide an insight into the human experience of making music,” Theia, who recently represented Aotearoa at the United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues, shares.

The future is wildly uncertain for Lume, but at least it seems like it’s trying to offer a more egalitarian streaming alternative for artists.

As Belle says, “Things have to change, and someone’s got to do it.”