Castaway have bottled a moment and cracked it open for all of us. Today, the Ōtautahi-born five-piece drop their sophomore EP Nondual, alongside Teihi—a te reo Māori reimagining of their 2024 track Daisy, and a song already carrying heavy meaning for the band.
If there’s one thing Castaway have nailed, it’s crafting songs that feel like live moments. Big choruses, tangled emotions, lyrics that hit you in the chest but still make you want to shout them in a crowd. Their sound lives somewhere between The Killers, Coldplay, Inhaler and The 1975, but it’s also got a uniquely local heartbeat, shaped by friendship, flat-life, and figuring stuff out together.
The five of them, Austen, Jack, Jackson, Joe and Rhys, built this EP the way they’ve always built everything: in a Christchurch flat, between dinners, dryer queues, and late-night D&Ms. Nondual captures that messy, brilliant transition from uni-life jam sessions to a band properly finding their footing.
The title comes from a philosophy class, of all places—Nondual, the idea that everything is connected, that opposites aren’t separate, they’re part of the same thing. That concept shows up in every track: heartbreak and love, distance and closeness, loss and memory. Each song is a different take on what it means to feel everything at once, and still come through it with your people.
The EP tracklist goes like this:
- Daisy
- It’s Not Your Fault
- Move On
- Pretty Little Liar
- Satellite
- Supernova
- Teihi
They recorded with Greg Haver (Manic Street Preachers) and Scott Seabright at The Lab in Tāmaki Makaurau, but the roots of these tracks go all the way back to 2020: kitchen chats, heartbreaks in real-time, and that dizzy feeling of growing up too fast and not fast enough.
Then there’s Teihi. Originally written after Rhys lost his grandmother, Daisy grew heavier when Austen lost his mum to cancer the same year. It became a song about grief, memory, and those sudden absences that leave a seat empty at the dinner table. Reworking it in te reo Māori felt like a natural next step, and a personal one.
Inspired by the likes of Lorde, Six60 and Drax Project, the band wanted to connect more deeply with te ao Māori and bring a new level of meaning to the track. They worked with reo expert and translator Regan “Kupu” Stokes (who also teaches Austen) to make sure the language was handled with care, intention and respect.
Teihi isn’t just a version, it’s a new layer. A moment of pride, and a reflection of where the band are going as both musicians and New Zealanders.
With Nondual, Castaway aren’t just building an EP, they’re carving out their identity. From playing student halls to lighting up festival stages and getting national airplay, this release feels like a milestone. One that says: we’ve lived some things. We’ve felt them deeply. And we turned them into songs so you could feel them too.
Nondual and Teihi are out now.
0 Comments