![\"Teeks](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/01a1806f-e8fe-738e-a965-ba3dead6d5a4.webp\")
Teeks performs at the Auckland Town Hall in 2025. (Image: Tom Grut)<\/p>\nTo get there, he had to emerge from \u2018some of the darkest points of my life\u2019.<\/p>\n
He was travelling, taking time out, exploring the world. After his first album came out in 2021, \u201cI didn\u2019t have much to write about,\u201d says Te Karehana Gardiner-Toi. He needed a break, to go live life for a bit. \u201cI usually write from lived experience,\u201d says the artist otherwise known as Teeks.<\/p>\n
So Gardiner-Toi went to the UK, then around Europe, and spent some time in Japan. When he came home, he realised he\u2019d returned with something unexpected: a long-distance relationship.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was just a hot mess,\u201d and a complicated one at that, sighs Gardiner-Toi. He\u2019s sitting out front of his favourite Ponsonby caf\u00e9, sipping slowly at his coffee, as thoughtful and poised as always. \u201cIt was a situationship,\u201d he says. \u201cI would travel. They would come here. It was always blurry.\u201d<\/p>\n
That relationship pushed him around, tested Gardiner-Toi\u2019s limits. \u201cWe just weren\u2019t compatible,\u201d he says. \u201cIt lasted probably a lot longer than it should have.\u201d Toi pauses, chooses his words carefully, as he does often across the hour we spend together. \u201cIt took me to some of the darkest points of my life.\u201d<\/p>\n
He\u2019s not bitter about it. Today, Gardiner-Toi (Ng\u0101puhi, Ng\u0101i Te Rangi, Ng\u0101ti Ranginui) chuckles frequently. That\u2019s because his relationship woes \u2013 a period that included, \u201ca lot of growing, a lot of learning, a lot of pain\u201d \u2013 have been turned into a brand new Teeks album, his second after his award-winning 2021 debut, Something to Feel.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Lovers Comet explores Gardiner-Toi\u2019s yearning for something just out of reach, examining a relationship that didn\u2019t become exactly what he wanted it to be. \u201cI kind of like it, all the drama, it makes it worth the while,\u201d he sings over acoustic guitars on \u2018Poetic\u2019. \u201cAre we pathetic? Or is it poetic?\u201d<\/p>\n
But this is not a soundtrack for those suffering the break-up blues. Lovers Comet sizzles and smoulders as a sultry, sexed-up summer soundtrack. You can feel the condensation dripping down the window on \u2018Narcotica\u2019 when Gardiner-Toi sings to a new lover: \u201cI don\u2019t even know your name”. Then there’s the first single, \u2018My Boy\u2019: \u201cCan I practice on you? You can practice on me too.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
That side of the album represents how Gardiner-Toi felt once he\u2019d made his way through to the other side of that relationship. \u201cI surrendered to the whole experience,\u201d he says. \u201cI needed clarity and that didn\u2019t happen until after it ended. When I finally got [over it], I just wanted to enjoy myself and have fun.<\/p>\n
\u201cI got through it \u2013 that\u2019s when I was ready to make music.\u201d<\/p>\n
Since the release of his first EP, 2017\u2019s The Grapefruit Skies, Gardiner-Toi has become one of Aotearoa\u2019s most cherished singer-songwriters. That EP introduced an artist blessed with powerhouse vocal talents that seemed to co-exist with an almost painful shyness \u2013 and a sharp collection of suits.<\/p>\n
He made tentative steps forward, with music arriving sporadically. His first album landed four years after that EP; his second, released yesterday, comes five years later.\u00a0Gardiner-Toi’s never rushed things, instead building his career slowly, on his own terms.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Patience has become a virtue for Teeks fans. As a result, when Gardiner-Toi commits to something, it\u2019s always worth the wait. I last saw him perform at the Auckland Town Hall in 2025 at a one-off show with just a string sextet and a sold out crowd for company.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Gardiner-Toi considers his live performances as a way to \u201copen portals to somewhere that\u2019s not here,\u201d and that night felt like we were getting a livestream of raw emotion. Tears flowed often, not just among those in the crowd.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Teeks performs at the Auckland Town Hall in 2025. (Image: Tom Grut)<\/p>\n
The show came just a few months after the death of Gardiner-Toi\u2019s Sony Music mentor Taryn Kljakovic. He dedicated \u2018Never Be Apart\u2019 to her and once he started singing, emotion hit him. \u201cI don\u2019t cry often, so that\u2019s never happened to me before,\u201d he says. \u201cI couldn’t sing properly. Those types of things I think are nice for people to see,\u00a0because we’re human beings.”<\/p>\n
It\u2019s a sign that Gardiner-Toi is opening up to new ways of doing things. When he wrote \u2018My Boy\u2019, the first single from Lovers Comet, he felt a need to get it out into the world as fast as possible, which went against everything he’d done up until that point.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Suddenly, he was on a plane, flying to Sydney for a video shoot, feeling anxious about the speed he was operating at. \u201cEverything was very much down to the wire, last-minute,” he says. “I was like, \u2018What am I doing?\u2019 I felt sick \u2026 you don\u2019t know if it\u2019s going to work out or not.\u201d<\/p>\n
Soon, the world got to see why Gardiner-Toi felt the need to rush things. \u2018My Boy\u2019 introduced a new, buff Teeks to the world, one who was out and proud about it. That June video, filmed in a male gym locker room full of rippling muscles, confirmed what those close to him already knew. \u201cI \u2026 got tired of explaining or correcting people on my sexuality,\u201d Toi told fans at the time. \u201cI thought, \u2018Fuck it. It\u2019s now or never.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
Lovers Comet continues that spirit, with songs that are playful and more confident than anything he\u2019s made before. Some songs are beatless, Toi\u2019s voice floating over the simplest of melodies. \u201cIf you trust me, take my hand, I\u2019ll take you to the promised land,\u201d he sings on \u2018Promised Land\u2019.\u00a0<\/p>\n
For longtime listeners, it feels like all their patience has been rewarded by the emergence of an artist living more in the moment, open to a bit of mess, ready to embrace all facets of himself.\u00a0<\/p>\n
It\u2019s the last song on Lovers Comet that comes closest to capturing that vibe. Called \u2018Feel My Love,\u2019 it\u2019s a slow, sultry meditation that wraps up the album’s themes. \u201cIt feels like a prayer, a healing balm type thing,\u201d says Gardiner-Toi. \u201cThe intention of it was yearning for someone to recognise the level of love I was willing to give.\u201d<\/p>\n
Once he\u2019d made it, Gardiner-Toi realised he\u2019d finally come out the other side of everything he’d been through. \u201cI have a much deeper understanding of what it means to love somebody and to be loved,\u201d he says.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The coffee\u2019s gone, a meeting at Sony beckons, then a gym session. This is Teeks as he is right now, \u201creal, and vulnerable\u201d. \u201cIt\u2019s the purity, the light, but also the shadows of the whole thing that I was going through.\u201d<\/p>\n
Lovers Comet is out now.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"To get there, he had to emerge from \u2018some of the darkest points of my life\u2019. He was…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":646702,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[156,111,139,69],"class_list":["post-646701","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-entertainment","tag-entertainment","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/646701","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=646701"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/646701\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/646702"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=646701"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=646701"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=646701"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}