New Music Review - Bic Runga's 'Red Sunset' - 13th February 2026
Photo Credit - Aileen Chen
Review By - Faith Hamblyn
Artist/Band Name - Bic Runga
Album Name - Red Sunset
Label - The Orchard
Release Date - 13th February 2026
Bic Runga calls us from a winter in Paris with Red Sunset, and contemplative piano lines accompanied by the shush of rain, like on the first track, Glass Atrium. Bic’s voice is like smoky blown glass, her breath echoing as we watch the rain running down the panes of the Louvre Pyramid. This largely instrumental track has ambient ‘ah, ah,’ vocals by Bic, like a movie score, which leads into title track Red Sunset, a shuffling dancefloor earworm.
Against a funk beat, ‘A red sunset in an orange sky’ is retro electro, like hot-pink neon glowing against electric blue. She’s a siren, with every syllable slightly behind the beat to hook you in. The contrast of cold lips and the glowing setting sun is like early ‘80s synthesiser pop – it could be just an invitation to dance, or it might be the beginning of the rest of time.
Ghost In Your Bed conjures Simon and Garfunkel’s Hazy Shade of Winter – with driving bass and a spooky, ethereal vocal riding over the top, it’s like a chanted spell. Bic’s backing vocals underline her cautionary tale of ending up the lonely one, evoking the dark magic of Blue Oyster Cult’s reapers that we shouldn’t fear. The following whispery Paris In The Rain carries us on Hammer Horror organ into chill winter – beautiful, ancient as a ghost story, and sensual, with rumbling thunder and electro beat, like we’re headed to a gothic castle where something bewitching and fatal waits for us, and Bic’s trying to warn us – to no avail.
It’s Like Summertime is a ‘70s-style nostalgia trip, a reminiscence of summer romance and the floaty promise of slow dancing into the warm funky night together in each other’s arms. Bic teases at the edge of falsetto, in the style of Todd Rundgren, with her every breath measured, like the gasp of a kiss; the bridge in a sentimental French scat mode - la, la, la - where you can do slow twirls under the spinning disco ball. It’s enticing, evoking the drifting ambience of Air’s Moon Safari, and a natural track to have been released from Red Sunset.
Escape From Planet Earth conjures The Carpenters, with kitschy space rhymes and Karen-ish drum fills against the steady guitar like Space Oddity and theramin-y keyboard. You’re Never Really Here (Are You Baby) is whimsical indie pop about the trials and tribulations of a loving relationship, with an undercurrent of unease under the singsong lyrics. Won’t You Come Home is hand-clap rock ‘n’ roll like Phil Spector producing The Beatles in an upbeat mood – Bic has patched things up and just wants to play house again.
Bic Runga has developed a richness to her long-excellent imagery and a fullness to her sound with the passage of time, experience and growth of her family, and Red Sunset has a new emotional cachet that makes Hey Little One bittersweet, and the more dance-based tracks more assured. Gone is the wistful youth yearning for someone to take her out tonight, and now we have a woman who sees in full colour, with the vulnerability and melodic complexity of a maturing artist. The concrete-coloured skies of Drive have turned to the grey silver sky of Paris, which is much more beautiful.
Closing track Home Run sums up life at this stage for Bic Runga – the heat of the day is passing for now, but hope always abounds, with possibility always blooming with the coming of evening. Sunsets are beautiful, and Bic is ready to dance. Red Sunset is an album that’s both coolly electric and warmly funky; so Frenchy, so chic.
RATING: 4.5 Stars
Other Credits:
Production - Bic Runga and Kody Nielson
Mastering - Greg Calbi and Steve Fallone at Sterling Sound
Graphics - Kody Nielson
Photography -Kody Nielson
Mai FM and Fabrik Presents
Katchafire - UB40/Kingston Calling Tour
Navigation Homes Stadium, Pukekohe, Auckland