After a decade of Twisted there are bound to be stories of people who have come through, been inspired, and gone on to do incredible things. We caught up with Sara Nikšić AKA Inner Child to hear hers – a tale of how a love for marine biology and music festivals led her to create a series of critically acclaimed albums incorporating whalesong with electronic music that have been performed across the world. Ahead of her performance and lecture we got the lowdown on her journey, the lives of whales, and what she has prepared for us on the dance floor. Check it out here:



I believe that artists and scientists are like kids that never quite grew up, and I am a bit of both. I grew up next to the sea and I learned to swim before I learned to walk. I was always fascinated by the underwater world and nature in general, which is why I went to study biology, and eventually earned a master’s degree in marine biology and nature conservation. I worked on countless projects as a marine mammal scientist and bioacoustician, as well as a scientific diver. As a kid I also grew up surrounded by music. Alongside regular school I went to music school where I learned music theory, piano, and singing. During my teenage years I went to heaps of music concerts and while I was at Uni I discovered the wonderful world of electronic music, parties and festivals.


After finishing my studies about a decade ago, I came to Aotearoa – originally just for a short visit, but I loved it so much that I came back and stayed for a whole year. During my time there I worked on a couple of very interesting projects with the University of Otago studying whales and dolphins, and went to several music festivals. I came to Twisted for two years in a row where I had the most wonderful and inspiring times. It was during my stay in Aotearoa that I felt the urge to start producing music and combine my scientific and creative work, which eventually led to the creation of my Inner Child project. It is also the place where the idea for making music with the whales came to me, which later evolved into a global music-art-science collaboration project I called Canticum Megapterae.


From Aotearoa I went to Australia to work on a few whale and dolphin research projects. After that I travelled to California to work with The Ocean Cleanup as part of the first-ever aerial expedition mapping the Great Pacific Garbage Patch. From there I headed back to Europe, where I worked on some pretty cool music festivals and took a course in electronic music production. I spent a few years at University of St. Andrews in Scotland doing a PhD on the evolution of humpback whale songs. For various reasons I didn’t complete my PhD, but I released two Canticum Megapterae albums about my research which, in my opinion, were much more valuable than a PhD.


The albums ended up getting some amazing feedback, winning several awards and being covered by the global media such as the BBC and the New Yorker, and in the process I also got to collaborate with some of my favourite artists. I was invited to present them at numerous scientific conferences and institutes, as well as some of the biggest music festivals like Boom and Ozora, and I can’t wait to share them with you all at Twisted!


The ocean is my home, and one of the very few places on land where I get this feeling is the dancefloor. Both of these environments get me fully immersed in the moment and my true nature comes out. I feel absolute freedom to be who I am and connecting with others in this state is nothing short of magical.


Working with whales also holds precious and surreal experiences. Thinking of my times in Aotearoa, one of the highlights was definitely working with the sperm whales off Kaikoura. We acoustically tracked the whales by listening to them with a hydrophone, and were pretty good at approximating where they would come up for air just by listening to their sounds – on a few occasions we were so on point the whale would come up right next to our boat! Being in the presence of such a huge animal (almost 3 times bigger than our boat!) is truly something exceptional! Over the years I worked with several species of whales and some of the most humbling and cherished moments of my life are being up close to them. 


I feel honoured spreading their songs and stories through which I hope others can also get a glimpse into their extraordinary lives. I have been studying whales for over a decade now, and yet, the more I learn about them, the more I am aware just how much I don’t know. This journey of exploration has been humbling and eye-opening in many ways. We can learn a great deal from these magical creatures, about their cultures, the ways they communicate and learn from each other, how they collaborate… We still don’t know exactly how they do all of this, but my feeling is that they are much more advanced than us in many ways.


I am stoked to be coming back to Aotearoa, it will be a full circle! Twisted was such an inspiration to me and some of the people I met there have been following and supporting my journey ever since. I am really excited to share all that I’ve been up to since my last time there and I look forward to seeing how the festival and its community grew over the last decade. 


For the upcoming Twisted I am preparing a lecture about my journey which took me across the oceans to some remote places very few people have been to, from top universities and institutes to the biggest dancefloors in the world. It will focus on my work on humpback whale songs, both as a scientist and a musician, and how these two professions came together in my Inner Child project. I will also play a special set through which I wish to take people on an underwater journey to dance with the whales. I will play some of my own tunes and some from the wizards who made tunes for my releases, perhaps also a few others with watery vibes. So excited to meet you all at Twisted after all this time!


Kia ora Sara, we’re stoked to have you back in the field after more than eight years away and can’t wait to hear your whalesong through the big rigs! Don’t miss her lecture at Twisted and be sure to check their incredible tunes in the comments below.

Inner Child is BACK!

This week in our culture spotlight we caught up with poet, rapper, and general legend of the scene Dominic Hoey. We’re stoked to host a showcase from his publishing company, Dead Bird Books at Twisted this year so we took the time ahead of it to find out what they’re all about. We chatted about how Dead Bird Books started, the intersection of writing and music, performing as a poet at festivals and heaps more - read on and get amongst! 

“I became a writer from rapping, I was always interested in writing in general but rapping was how I started, because I didn’t really know any writers or poets but I knew rappers, and that was a way to use words. I didn’t read until I was about 8 or 9 because I’m dyslexic. So I started rapping when I was about 12, started performing when I was 16, got a record deal when I was 19, and the whole time I was writing really bad poetry – I always wanted to write a novel but it wasn’t really until my early 30’s that I actually attempted to do that and started taking that side of writing more seriously.

I was in the hip hop community in my teens, we didn’t really consider ourselves an art scene although I guess we were, so we were doing all ages shows at community centres and stuff. At 19 or 20, when I got that record deal we did some tours that were pretty crazy, we didn’t really know what we were doing. Now everything is way more streamlined – because of social media we can see how people are doing shit in the scene whereas we were just doing shit in the dark, we didn’t really know, maybe someone had a magazine or a VHS tape and that was the only way you could see how things were.

Dead Bird Books started because I had this manuscript for my first proper poetry book that I was shopping around and no one wanted anything to do with it – I think I sent it to every publisher in Australasia and got one email back saying “no thanks” and that was it. At the time I was doing shows and there were heaps of people coming and heaps of people who liked my work so I thought I’m just going to publish it. By that point I’d already done a zine that sold hundreds of copies and I thought ‘if this is happening to me, it’s obviously happening to other people’ so I talked to my mate Sam about publishing stuff and it just took off.

Running a publishing company is like having a label, we don’t really get paid for it, so I guess it’s future is up to how much more energy we’ve got to put in, but I think we’ll just publish more awesome writers who wouldn’t get published otherwise, people that we find exciting, and see what happens.

In terms of my music, I just made a new album with my friend Kāhu so in theory that will come out at some point, we’re trying to get it mixed and mastered at the moment. Music intersects with writing for me through rapping, because that was how I learned how to write, how to construct a metaphor, how I learned how to edit my work, all of that kind of shit - if it wasn’t for rapping I wouldn’t be doing what I’m doing now.

I’ve performed a lot at music festivals as a poet. I think if you’re a good poet you should really get up anywhere - I’ve opened for Homebrew, I’ve opened for punk bands, I’ve performed in pubs full of fucking maniacs - I’m not saying it always works, but if you know what you’re doing you should be able to take it anywhere.

I think we have an incredible concentration of talent in this country with basically no support for it. Obviously there are organisations doing things in general, but I think all the government organisations and funding bodies are largely incompetent if not corrupt, and the majority of them don’t have any idea what’s going on on the ground. But it’s not all doom and gloom, we’ve got a lot of incredibly talented people, a lot of great grassroots organisations. The more I travel and do shit overseas, the more I realise that what we have in New Zealand is pretty incredible. 

In terms of the future of the arts in this country, It’s hard to say what the trajectory is especially with this government, but people will always make art – if you have that in your blood there’s no stopping you.”

Have a scope below to learn a bit about some other incredible Authors that are representing Dead Bird Books at Twisted this year <3

https://twistedfrequency.nz/music/isla-huia-2025



https://twistedfrequency.nz/music/jenny-rockwell-2025



https://twistedfrequency.nz/music/liam-jacobson-2025

Big up to Dominic for being a huge inspiration to heaps of us in the crew and in Aotearoa’s creative community as a whole - be sure to give @deadbirdbooks a follow and get ready for the Dead Bird Books showcase at the Beat Bach this Twisted, we can’t wait!

Dead Bird Books

Today is line-up release day for Rolling Hertz 2025 so what better time to share the lowdown on this epic event! We asked the legendary Luan from Sound Delinquents about the history of their crew, their toughest and proudest moments, and what makes the underground festival circuit in Aotearoa so unique…



“The Sound Delinquents are a collective of passionate young bucks that host music and art events in the South Island of Aotearoa, predominantly in the Tasman region. With a love for getting the highest quality rigs in NZ paired with the best underground musicians, they are dedicated to creating immersive and unforgettable experiences. 

Back in June 2021, a group of our friends all had birthdays near the same weekend and decided to host a birthday party open to the public. The party was called “The Krusty Krab” as the friends were all Cancers. This event is how we (Luan and Bayley) decided that we wanted to continue hosting events together and started our journey. Incidentally, we share the exact same birthday, year, month, and day.

All we wanted to do was host outdoor parties that we would want to go to ourselves. We saw such events as opportunities to showcase the musical talent and passion for art in the Tasman region and our friend group. We wanted to create safe, fun, and inclusive environments where every person can contribute what they are passionate about, a space for countless ideas and energy to converge, where people can unapologetically be themselves and have the time of their lives at the same time! 

Growing up going to Twisted, we knew that the Cobb Valley was the perfect spot to host our gatherings because it’s such a lush area with stunning nature and an awa right next to the site. This is where we host our main event, Rolling Hertz, the 4th installment of which is coming up in February 2025. We picked a pretty rough time to start out, because just as our first event was about to go ahead the COVID lockdowns hit and we were forced to postpone. After recouping some losses, the first Rolling Hertz went ahead in May 2022 when we were just 19 years old.

Six months after that we decided to host another festival, the infamous Galvanize (meaning to inspire someone into action). Absolutely torrential rain engulfed the Cobb Valley, and no amounts of hay could save us. That was by far the wettest we’ve ever seen the Cobb. Literal rivers were flowing through the site, people swimming and sliding everywhere. Litres of water were in the subs on the Discrete Sound stage, and we were so close to pulling the pin on the stage and packing up because we were afraid of damaging the equipment when suddenly skies cleared and we could continue on. 

We definitely shoved ourselves in the deep end with these early events, we fucked around and found out so to speak. With our ‘go big or go home’ attitude, we got into a lot of debt trying to make the vision happen, and had to work full time jobs and get loans to pay off the festival once it was done. But when you do it for the love of it, it doesn’t matter, the moments created are far more valuable. It was the support of our community and friends that made, and still makes it possible for us to continue these events - you know who you are <3

We have a lot of pride in the grassroots, community focus of our events. Pretty much every aspect of the art that is incorporated in our festivals, from the stage art to the event posters, is from Tasman/Tākaka locals. We have a focus on natural event builds, making all the stages from wood and re-using as much as we can. We also try to cover the whole spectrum of underground electronic music in our events, along with a hearty dose of hip hop and live bands. Aotearoa has such an amazing music scene, and being able to combine your favourite acts with gangsta bedroom DJs you haven’t heard before in one lineup is amazing. With hundreds of acts in just a few days, there’s truly something for everyone. 

Compared to larger commercial festivals, ‘doofs’ in Aotearoa have a more intimate vibe, which fosters an environment that allows people to feel more connected to the event and those around them. The parties feel real and genuine, with a strong sense of community and homegrown flavour. The outdoors is the perfect place to boogie, and when we do we take care of it by disposing of waste correctly and respecting the whenua. 

Community is the main reason we do this - festivals open up opportunities for creativity and growth by bringing together artists, musicians, and performers, creating a platform where everyone’s unique talents shine. The magic happens when everybody’s individual strengths combine, creating a seamless fusion of music, art, and atmosphere that wouldn’t be possible without the collective energy of the community. 

We’d like to give a massive shoutout to everyone who has supported us on our journey through the years, whether by buying a ticket, painting a sign, or digging a hole - thank you!

Special thanks to Clayton, having our backs since day one. Niwa Jongkind for creating the most insane artwork ever. Discrete Sound, passionate and onto it legends. Jakob Climpson, visual maestro. Amy Soulfire, the most gangsta genius out there. Biggup Pedwar. Charlie Brown the don. Cardi da master builder. Naomi the stage painting machine. Psycare and medic team holding it down.. And all the DJs, artists, and workers, the list goes on…

Community is what it’s all about. Aotearoa underground. Stronger together. 

Thank you to Twisted for being the biggest inspiration and GCs. 

We can’t wait to see what the future holds. 

Come to Rolling Hertz 2025, Feb 6-9th. See what the hype is about. 

With Love, Sound Delinquents.”



Phwoah - What a bunch of absolute legends, <3 We are so excited to see the new blood coming through and producing such phenomenal events and it is clear that this crew hold a lot of the same ethos and passion as the Twisted team. Make sure to get your tickets locked in and support these up and coming weapons in their noble cause.

Massive love right back to ya Sound Delinquents, you should be thoroughly proud of the effort and mahi you have put into your mission so far and we are looking forward to seeing your events grow and thrive in the coming years <3

Aotearoa’s annual home of Underground music & culture.

5 days of diversity and community in the heart of golden bay

LATEST NEWS

Inner Child is BACK!

Dead Bird Books

Sound Delinquents

Aotearoa’s annual home of Underground music & culture.

5 days of diversity and community in the heart of golden bayBuy Tickets

LATEST NEWS

Inner Child is BACK!

Dead Bird Books

Sound Delinquents

5 days of diversity and community in the heart of golden bay