The Story
Born Connan Tant Hosford in Napier and raised in Te Awanga, New Zealand, he took the stage name Mockasin from moccasins he made himself as a kid, out of sheepskin and old motorbike tires. He first fronted the band Connan and the Mockasins, active between Wellington and London, before going solo.
His solo debut, Forever Dolphin Love (2011), introduced a woozy, pitch-bent guitar style built around loose, dreamlike song structures, followed by Caramel (2013) and Jassbusters (2018).
Jassbusters arrived paired with Bostyn 'n Dobsyn, a five-part surreal film Mockasin made with childhood neighbor Blake Pryor, reviving characters — a fictional music teacher and his student — the two had invented in home movies twenty years earlier as kids in Te Awanga.
He has collaborated widely, including with James Blake, Charlotte Gainsbourg, Dev Hynes on the Myths 001 EP, and his own father, Ade Hosford, on the 2021 album It's Just Wind.
