Shayne Carter: Still in the Workshop

Written by Murray Crane

As long as I’ve been listening to music, Shayne Carter has been there. His tunes have been a constant force in my own journey – both personally and professionally – the kind of music that stays with you through good times and the more shit ones.

What I’ve always responded to is the darker current in his work. In his book, Dead People I Have Known he captures the South in a way I recognise – the shadows, the expectation, the pressure to fit a mould that never suited you. There’s a punk undertone too – that early instinct to push back, to resist whatever you’re handed. My own path was less creative, but the impulse was familiar – keep going, shape your own life, outgrow whatever held you back.

That restlessness has never really left him. He’s talked about avoiding the fate of becoming “a fading Xerox”, and you see that in the choices he keeps making – orchestral projects, ballet scores, collaborations that stretch the edges of what his music can do. It’s the same spirit that sat behind those early songs with their sense of being still in the workshop – unfinished, evolving, refusing to settle.

Recently we had the opportunity to dress Shayne again – this time in a suit, worn his own way of course. Nothing showy, nothing overworked. Just a clean, structured piece he could make entirely his own. It suited him – calm, direct, with that slight edge he always carries.

There’s a clarity in how he presents himself. No nostalgia, no decoration, nothing done by rote. His style is the same – minimal, assured, pared back to what matters.

When we dress him, the intention is simple: reflect that. Good cloth, clean structure, no excess. Pieces that hold their line without competing for attention.

He’s still moving forward. Still independent. Still in the workshop in the best sense – shaping, refining, never standing still.

REforms: A collaborative album with the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra.

Photo by Karen Inderbitzen Waller