This week Fat Freddy's Drop  will be performing at the Vodafone NZ Music Awards, Thursday 17th November at Vector Arena and screening live to air via TV3.

And in preparation for a long hot summer, the Freddys are promising to deliver extra sizzle with a super strong line up for their two only NZ summer shows in Auckland and Queenstown (see details below). And today, the tale of a magical fish in Fat Freddy’s Drop song 'Fish In The Sea' swims to life in a spellbinding new music video.

'Fish In The Sea' is Freddy's spin on an ancient Russian poem by Alexander Pushkin of morality and the song was first released on the band’s fourth studio album 'BAYS'.

Making his Directorial debut on the music video is Actor/Chef De Attache/Kaupapa Commander: Taungaroa Emile who strove to visually relate the story to our Maori and Polynesian tales of mythology by mixing actors in a fantastical animated world.

Actors Kerehama McLeod and Maria Walker star as 'The Fisherman' and his 'Wife' bewitched by 'The Magic Fish'. The world they inhabit was created from original analogue ‘Reality Art’ design by legendary Auckland aerosol artist Dan Tippett.

The video “Honours the Aotearoa creative movement” Tippett said.

His approach to animating the magic fish, sea birds, deep blue ocean sequences and an old hut transforming into a castle was an eclectic number 8 wire mash up of effects. The post production and VFX polish is by Lakshman Anandanayagam of Creature in Auckland.

Musically the song is one of the most diverse from ‘BAYS’ album, demonstrating its slow burn development over several years. It started as a demo jam of South African jazz and disco styles, took on a 70‘s soul train groove and a little bit of country before returning to Freddy's take on central African dance rhythms.

The inspiration for the lyrics came when Joe Dukie aka Dallas Tamaira arrived for a studio session after reading a version of 'The Magic Fish' by Freya Littledale with illustrations by Fred Arno, to his two sons.

The common moral of the story between the various versions linking back to The Brothers Grimm and ancient Greece is that virtue is rewarded and greed punished. For Taungaroa Emile his modern take is that we need to make more time to ‘Slow down and unplug’.

Fat Freddy's Drop

January 14th: Villa Maria,  Auckland - Tickets via Ticketmaster - with Ladi 6, Team Dynamite

February 5th:  , John Davies Oval, Queenstown - Tickets via Eventfinda - with Norman J, Ladi 6