For those for whom the word Ladyhawke conjures up images of Michelle Pfeiffer and Rutger Hauer exchanging lusty glances in a medieval fantasy adventure that could have only been conceived in the eighties, we say ‘where the f**k have you been for the last two years?’

And furthermore, if this poetic infusion (a lady and a hawk… beautiful) has put you in mind of the Canadian indie rockers (called Ladyhawk, minus the E), we say: ‘think again!’
For in 2008, Ladyhawke means just one thing. Yes, New Zealand’s premier one-woman electro trailblazer, Pip Brown.

With the June single ‘Paris Is Burning’ (re-mixed by Peaches), and a debut album due for release later this month, Browne looks set to own 2008. Her homage to eighties electro pop couldn’t be more catchy or, err, ‘now’ (sorry)… She likes retro video games, she’s well fit, and, hell, she’s even got a keytar!

We caught up with the winged mistress of the night (Pfeiffer/Hauer reference) to find out what - exactly - is ‘up’…

“I actually played on the Friday and I left straight away,” says Brown with all the enthusiasm of a Somme survivor (she just got back from a wind and rain-swept Bestival). “We’d actually been booked to leave straight after but it was a bit flexible. “We could have stayed if we’d wanted to but the weather was terrible. We got stuck in the mud twice and had to be pulled out, and then the van crashed into a car. It was just a nightmare and I ended up being just like ‘get me outta here’ you know. I felt sorry for lots of the people: there were a few drowned rats.

“The show was really good though. We were in the tent and because it was such shit weather outside the place was just rammed from front to back. It was huge and just really fun.”
Brown’s Bestival show is part of a world tour - that sees her supporting Black Kids for a number of European dates - to promote the self-titled debut album.

With obvious reference points ranging from Stevie Nicks to Cyndi Lauper, Brown’s debut is an unashamed take on catchy eighties pop with a more modern electro twist.

On it, the New Zealander worked with a number of different writers and producers. The numerous collaborations were, says Brown, something that led to the album becoming a real learning process and taught her that she writes better with a partner than on her own.

“It wasn’t so much that I wanted to work with lots of producers,” she says, “it was more that I wanted to work with all those different writers. I really wanted to collaborate on the record and it ended up being about four, five people that I collaborated with, and they were all kind of producers in their own right so it just kind of happened that way, it wasn’t a totally conscious decision of mine.

“I started writing on my own but I realised that I got so much more out of myself when I collaborated. This album for me was quite a discovery process because I kind of had to meet a lot of people and work with a lot of people to discover exactly what I wanted.

“The oldest stuff on the album was recorded three years ago in Sydney, and then all the other tracks are recorded over the past year and a half. I was kind of going back and forth between London and Sydney to get it done, and because I was working with all those people it was done in a lot of different studios – their own studios mainly.”
And of all the people you worked with, did any one stand out?

“Yeah, Pascal Gabriel (S-Express, Kylie, New Order),” she says. “Me and him clicked really well and I ended up doing about five or six tracks off the album with him. He’s someone that I would really love to work with next time around.”

Pip Brown grew up in a musical family. Her mother was a singer and her stepfather a drummer. Having “always been encouraged – though not pushed – and never told off for making a noise” she now plays ten different instruments.

Beginning her musical career as a guitarist in the New Zealand band Two Lane Blacktop, she went on to form the duo Teenager, after a move to Sydney, with friend Nick Littlemore.

“It was always kind of like more of a collision of two people rather than a band or a project,” says Brown, on the break-up of Teenager. “It was always kind of more his (Littlemore) baby than mine and I just wanted something that was more like my own thing, so that’s why I started Ladyhawke. Teenager was Nick’s really.”

Wanting to move her music forward and feeling like it was “just the right time”, Brown moved to London where she began to develop Ladyhawke as a solo project – choosing to use the name as a kind of alter-ego that would combat the shyness she felt on stage.

One of the first breaks to come was her collaboration with Peaches, who re-mixed the single ‘Paris Is Burning’ and who has become a good friend.

“I met her a while ago,” says Brown. “She kind of found me online after a mutual friend told her about me. She said that she was a fan and then she came to London for some art exhibition or something and we just met up and became really good friends.

“I went to Berlin this year in March and we just hung out and worked together in her studio and got on really well, and then when I got back I was just bringing out ‘Paris Is Burning’ and I just asked her if she wanted to remix it and she did. She’s great to work with. She’s such an inspiration. She’s just really onto it and she really knows her way around a studio. I really aspire to be like that. She’s really cool.”

Indeed she is. But so is Ladyhawke…