With Kimbra and Lorde making the headlines all over the place recently, New Zealand is no longer uncharted territory on the global map of pop music. Still, many of the local voices stay shut within the islands. Lontalius, as his moniker suggests, doesn’t want to be one of them.

Eddie Johnston, nicknamed Lontalius after a butterfly genus, has never hidden the fact that he’d wanted to spread his wings and fly into the mythical pop realm. Since 2012, he’s been offering a few collections of bedroom covers focusing on the likes of Beyoncé, Kendrick Lamar and Justin Bieber.

On his debut, album the 19-year-old took this adolescent frankness and made a step further towards maturity. Tracks from “I’ll Forget 17” mix many shades of emotions. At times bright, on occasion they take us to dark places. But not for a moment we lose the feeling of youthful hope which underscores the record’s vibe.

The colours are plentiful also on “Kick in the Head”, not only metaphorically – in sounds, but also in the accompanying video. The clip for the song was filmed with an infrared camera that exposes only “the essence of light”.

For just over 3 minutes Johnston’s calm delivery combines beautifully with the “essence” of the New Zealand’s landscape. With a lot of talent clearly on display, it could very well capture Lontalius’ last moments in his cozy, but pretty narrow Wellington cocoon.

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Lontalius on Facebook, Twitter, Soundcloud, Bandcamp, www.