Listening Party Review - Robyn - Sexistential - Auckland - 26th March 2026

Photo credit Marili Andre

Presented Konichiwa Records and Young

Review By: Faith Hamblyn

Event: Robyn - Sexistential Listening Party

Venue/City: Public Bar (Whammy), Auckland, New Zealand

Date of Event: Thursday 26th March 2026

Robyn’s Sexistential listening party at Whammy in Auckland kicked off with a recorded Robyn welcoming us into her sexistential existence, which was largely peopled at the Public Bar with the very fabulous, the somewhat kooky and folks just wanting to dance. Zeki and Halfqueen were as cool as you’d expect the DJs for the night to be, and there were rain-shiny raincoats and hastily thrown-on layers to be discarded to dance, and an audience who’d braved the rain to hear what the Swedish pop icon has to say on new album Sexistential. She’s sassy, pens a killer stalker anthem and produces bangers on the regular.

Opening track Really Real is Robyn on online relationships, an indie-dance take on her straight-talking confessions. Dopamine has a range of electro calling cards; synthesised bass, the sound of computers and building basslines — the torchiness of soul music set in the future. There’s a thread running through Robyn’s latest album where it sounds like if Kate Bush had spent her time till now in E-fuelled electronica and now real life was knocking on the door. This has the distorted anthem chorus of French house music, but with an undercurrent of the emptiness of hedonism. It is ‘dope for me’ or ‘dopamine?’ Yes, I guess.

Blow My Mind is synthy too, in a contemplative mood, about motherhood and the funk and fun it entails. Behind the crazy cool-girl persona, maybe there’s a part of Robyn that’s just happy at home, and it makes a comfy, phat interlude. It’s like a simple, bold love song to this new person she’s found, and it’s sweet and primal; a bit hip-hop, a bit R&B and very funky.

Sucker For Love sounds like chiptune, like Tegan And Sara, but not as manic as Everything Is Awesome from The Lego Movie made them. The queer crowd at Whammy and their friends dug this one too, and it picked up the pace as a banger. It sounded like a heart that is dancing.

A few drinks later, it was time for Talk To Me, which is a slice of a sex-positive dance-pop. ‘I feel it building up; it’s exponential” sounds like ‘it’s sexponential,’ which is a neat bit of sneaky wordplay. It sounds like Pink’s Funhouse, but the tension is more playful, as it’s about phone sex, so it’s born to be a bit silly and fun. Well written, and fun in a ‘George Michael being extra’ kind of way.

Title track Sexistential is a welcome return to the mood of Konichiwa Bitches from Robyn’s excellent, self-titled, fourth album, with tales of how Adam Driver always did give Robyn a boner and how apps suck and modern life needs tearing down. It bounces, it’s fun, joyfully nonsensical, and ‘sexistential’ is a nifty neologism. It sounds like Die Antwoord, but not so much like vocals on helium that wants to hurt you; more your most fun, most honest friend.
Robyn is both in space and completely grounded; she’s ready for chaos at all times, and it makes for fun, fresh music, even nine albums in. Light Up stutters like a nitrous trip, with videogame laser-firing noises. Into The Sun closes the album, neatly electro-house.

Robyn is largely in an ‘80s-fuelled electro mood on Sexistential, which is fun for everyone. Now on her ninth album, she sounds self-assured, as boldly edgy as she ever was, but wonderfully comfortable in her skin, euphoric in her own power; happily having a sexistential crisis and owning it. She’s reflective enough, empowered to the hilt and knows her own worth. Preach.

Track listing

1. Really Real
2. Dopamine
3. Blow My Mind
4. Sucker For Love
5. It Don't Mean A Thing
6. Talk To Me
7. Sexistential
8. Light Up
9. into The Sun