| Hospital Productions – none |
Sunday, February 20, 2022
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Tuesday, February 15, 2022
Monday, February 14, 2022
The Kiwi Animal - (2019) Mercy
DIGITAL REGRESS – DR41
Digital Regress's foray into the fabled NZ underground hops over to the North Island for two exquisite pieces of acoustic DIY and shadowy, cracked pastoralia. After a few years spleen venting at the front of Wellington art brutes SHOES THIS HIGH, BRENT HAYWARD struck out on his own, self-releasing a few EPs as SMELLY FEETt before forming THE KIWI ANIMAL with JULIE COOPER in 1982. The duo released their first album, Music Media, on Massage Records (their own imprint) in 1984. With the addition of PATRICK WALLER on cello and sundry other instruments, 1985's Mercy finds an augmented Kiwi Animal trying on what at first glance is a more refined, melancholic sound. But the group's experimental bent, largely restrained on Music Media, soon shows its hand. Pinprick ur-folk guitar themes, blinking on and off, buffeted by radio interference and toy piano; woozy bedsit slow-burns; the arresting croak of Hayward's penpal, William S. Burroughs; even a foray into dosed synth-pop: MERCY presents a unique yield of fraying, autumnal DIY songcraft. The music of The Kiwi Animal, moody and intelligent and often abruptly gentle, works subcutaneously, propelled by guitars that churn and weave – no jangle here – and a his 'n' hers vocal delivery for the ages. Digital Regress is happy to make these essentially perfect records available again.
Midnight Mines - (2019) Create Disturbance In Your Mind 2xCD
| Independent Woman Records – I.W.R C.D 005 Midnight Mines started between 7 and 10 years ago. Neither of the core duo of Sorrow & Saturday can remember now. Both endure busy lives in the tunnel hive, so the concept was hatched of occasional meetings to record spontaneous compositions, subsequently chopped up and dubbed into shape. Improv attacked with a primitive garage band mentality and a love of the endless prism of the JA version excursion - the same material re-purposed and looped to make something new. We’re grateful to Independent Woman Records for this opportunity to present a selection of tracks from our tiny universe of homemade fun. |
Scorched Earth Policy - (2020) Keep Away From the Wires CD
Medication – 004
SEP followed the Victor Dimisich band and lasted from '82-'86. Stapleton and Mary Heney continued on from VDB but the most important new element was Brian Crook... Brian Crook's guitar playing sounds like the result of a thirty day wander through a desert. It's psychedelic in the way that alchol poisoning and sunstroke are. I don't even think they have desert in New Zealand, but if they do - even 10 square feet - I'd wager Crook has toured it extensively, and frequently on hands and knees. The Scorched Earth Policy sound wasn't quite as obvious as the name - a baked, churning mixture of punk rock, 60s garage and psychedelia and a tinge of country. The lyrics began taking a turn from the arty to the bad trip and horror movie side of things. Male/female vocals and some of the most excellently raw production in my memory gave the music a sound that is somehow 1960s, somehow timeless. Not "paisley revival" bullshit, this, but an atavistic rebirth, a slavering and weird new thing from old roots.
Alastair Galbraith - (2020) Seconds Mark III
A Colourful Storm – ACOLOUR028
Seconds Mark III is the third iteration of a unique work within the remarkable, ever-sprawling discography of Alastair Galbraith: poet-dilettante, improvisor extraordinaire and one of the most important figures of New Zealand's storied DIY underground.
Commencing his collaborative musical activities in the early 1980s as part of Flying Nun outfit The Rip (with Jeff Harford and Robbie Muir), it was almost a decade earlier when Galbraith first invested in the violin, an instrument that would accompany him throughout the rest of his career. "I think it was much like the kind of thing I do now, because it was a solo occupation". Established at the end of the decade in response to The Nun's growing affiliations with major music labels, Xpressway - a relatively short-lived operation formed together with Bruce Russell (The Dead C) and Peter Jefferies - proved to be crucial in exposing the trio's activities to the rest of the world, forging relationships with US-based labels Siltbreeze, Drag City and Ajax while releasing seminal sides by the likes of Sandra Bell, Scorched Earth Policy, This Kind Of Punishment and The Terminals. It was during this time that Galbraith honed-in on his intimate, intricate style of songwriting detailed on Morse (Siltbreeze, 1993), Talisman (Next Best Way, 1995) and the first Seconds tape (1994).
Gathered from source material recorded during a fertile period of touring and collaboration and re-imagined as a brand new work, Seconds Mark III elucidates Galbraith's hushed yet commanding presence felt on Mirrorwork (Emperor Jones, 1998), Cry (2000) and Orb (Next Best Way, 2000), culminating in Mass (Siltbreeze, 2010) - his last solo album. Despite being rooted in psychedelic traditions of narcotic time-dilation, Galbraith's dealings are distinctively out of time, out of tune; dismantling and eschewing notions of song and structure for small, affecting gestures and fragmentary glimpses. The result is a world of fragile, quietly enveloping poetry embracing fleetingness and intimacy, undulating between hope and pain.
The Chills - (2013) Somewhere Beautiful CD
Fire Records – FIRECD298
For a band who haven’t released any new material since 2004 (the apparently 'stopgap' EP Stand By) and haven’t issued a full length album proper since 1996, a triple vinyl recorded live at a private New Year’s party and issued in collaboration with artist Shane Cotton may seem a slightly esoteric way to reintroduce New Zealand’s finest pop band to the world.
Yet the erratic prince of the Dunedin sound, Martin Phillips, has never been one for ease of travel when it’s come to The Chills' scattershot career. Comparable only to The Fall in terms of personnel turnover and with a tendency to allow drug issues to trip up musical talent, his, and therefore The Chills’ story is one of early tragedy (in the form of the death of their original drummer Martyn Bull in ’83), homeland successes, international cultdom and, as Phillips so brilliantly depicted on Soft Bomb’s ‘Song For Randy Newman Etc.’ a lifetime’s work doomed to be celebrated more by critics than by the public at large.
Somewhere Beautiful holds 20 songs pieced together from a ramshackle performance from the band’s current line-up (five years and counting - impressive). It’s not of the highest sound quality, nor is it perfectly played – it’s clearly a nicely brushed up bootleg and the band, in the finest Dunedin tradition, play with looseness and feeling rather than precision and directness – yet regardless, it is absolutely, unquestionably wonderful.
When Phillips cries out “I’ve no patience for anyone, anyone, anyone but you”on ‘Wet Blanket’ backed by the most glorious, tin-can guitar sound in the world it’s instantly evident that you’re dealing with a songwriter that understands yearning and desperation almost as well as he grasps melody and instrumentation.
That song’s original 7-inch b-side ‘Nothing Else To Think About’ crops up a few yards down the road and opens the gates wide – frantic, bafflingly tuneful, unerringly gorgeous and weirdly moving it’s like REM in their prime, shorn of Stipe’s veil, emotion openly presented rather than listener inferred.
If you’re after three and a half minutes of unutterable heartbreak (Christ knows what kind of New Year party this was) reach out for this here version of ‘Submarine Bells’. Led by a crushing, how-much-can-you-take piano line, Phillips whispers sonorous poetry like “I can watch in wonder as your gaze shifts past my shoulder / Just a glimpsed abyss that flashes at me”. More? Try the chorus on: “I know deep down hidden in you submarine bells chime / Gold and groaning, sunlit toning, submerged sound sublime.” It’s a mid-album moment of reflection that ranks with all-time showstoppers like John Cale’s ‘Dying On The Vine’ or The Go-Betweens’ ‘The Wrong Road’.
The 1992 nearly-hit ‘The Male Monster From The Id’ thrashes wildly and tunefully, a rampage of self-deprecation and frustration, next to the band’s iconic ‘Pink Frost’, its ‘Love Buzz’-like bass riff as rousing as it was in 1984, its woodsy, almost gothic pop sensibility as unsettling as it gets – a murder ballad slathered in regret, tarted up with tune.
‘February’ offers the rackety, rickety kind of pop that Darren Hayman used to belt out in his Hefner days – all smart, sweet and damaged. The choice to throw in a cover of Cat Stevens’ ‘Matthew And Son’ that could best and most generously be described as ‘energetic’ is perhaps the only mis-step on the whole record.
In the last quarter we get the majestic double of ‘Heavenly Pop Hit’ and ‘I Love My Leather Jacket’. The former is as jaw-dropping as it was the first time you heard it and will leave you with the same sense of wonder, joy and confusion at just how it’s possible to write a piece of pop music as perfect as this. The latter absolutely thunders – a roaring, garage-glam stomp that pays tribute to the aforementioned Bull.
Let’s not overlook the glorious packaging and prints involved in the vinyl version of this release – they are genuinely impressive and great care has clearly been taken to present the album as a document of great import both to the band and to Shane Cotton. You’ll lose no points here for trying to give your fans something special.
In the final assessment what we’ve got here are a set of pop songs that are almost uniformly brilliant, captured in a fashion that harks back to the band’s beginnings, presented beautifully and with pride. If The Chills never do get around to releasing that new album, Phillips never does get recognized as the master of melody that he is, the world never does collectively stand up and realize this band’s greatness – at least there’ll be this to play out endlessly, marvelling, eyes fixed on the stereo as another tune rises, thinking wordlessly – how the fuck does he do that?
Pumice - (2020) Table LP
| Soft Abuse – SAB 093 |
Pumice--now the duo of Stefan Neville and Jade Farley--stretch time further out, leaning heavily on drones and moans in making their modern day Aotearoa folk-rock masterpiece. The fruits of their time together as a pair has come to bear in the buzzing, swirling epic: Table.
Table! Table primarily finds Pumice deep in a pastoral expanse, with Jade's violin lines and Stefan's organ drones serving collectively as guide. Elsewhere the dense fog of synth, guitar, F/X, chants and melodies create warm miniature zones to tuck into.
With each new recording, Pumice finds a way to achieve new levels of rugged grandeur. Table is the latest example.
The Clean - (1981) Tally Ho 7''
Flying Nun Records – FN002
Pitchfork described The Clean's “Tally Ho!” as “a classic of immense proportions, from its Velcro melody, absurdly mixed garage organ and motorik beat, to the crusty, hiss-laden home eight-track recording that embodies it.” Recorded in the middle of a New Zealand tour for a humble NZ$60, the song broke into the country’s Top 20 singles chart at #19, surprising everyone including the band. Its B-side “Platypus” was recorded live at a show just days prior, capturing the band’s buoyant and elastic sound on stage.
Purple Pilgrims - (2019) Perfumed Earth CD
| Flying Nun Records – FN589LP |
From there, Purple Pilgrims shared a 2013 split LP with the US-based twisted synth psych sculptor Gary War on Upset! The Rhythm and they followed that in 2016 with their proper full-length debut Eternal Delight on the Not Not Fun label. The songs on the split lessened the hazy drifty quality that could make ‘em seem like a byproduct of the Xpressway label in favor of dreamy glisten-glide, and all was well.
With Eternal Delight, the sound blossomed even more, all while retaining tangible but subtle edge in the delivery, so that folks who gravitated toward the lathe-cut debut could continue to relate. There was also an increase in attention to synth ambiance that underscored the association with Gary War. On Perfumed Earth, this connection persists, as War contributed bass and synth lines to the record from various US hotels while he was out touring with John Maus.
For this recording, the Nixons utilized the same rustic studio in Tapu where Eternal Delight was cut, augmenting the vibe with those above mentioned assists, which include drumming from Lorde keyboardist Jimmy Mac and guitar from Surf City’s Joshua Kennedy. But the moody lushness of the brief opener “How Long Is Too Long” puts the sisters solidly in the foreground.
And it’s not like they get lost in the proceedings as Perfumed Earth unfolds, but “Ancestors Watching” does register as a more collaborative affair, or at least more layered, even as it mingles vocal beauty with a gemlike glistening keyboard pattern. And speaking of patterns, those drums do add heft, but it’s not like Purple Pilgrims are standing on the precipice of rocking out.
And that’s cool. Pop splendor is increasingly the fruits of the Nixon’s artistic labor, with “Sensing Me” the sorta tune that will inevitably draw comparisons to Kate Bush. One crucial difference is the elevated vocal harmony; hey, it’s like having two Kate Bush’s on hand, and that circumstance blends well with the non-clichéd and often subtle synth-pop current that runs throughout the disc.
This synth-pop aura, with an emphasis on pop, intensifies during “I’m Not Saying,” the song reminding me a little bit of Stephin Merritt (like something he might’ve recorded with Susan Amway, or as part of the 6ths project), but just a wee bit, as the Nixons lack Merritt’s strain of eccentricity and his anachronistic qualities. That is, “I’m Not Saying” has nothing to do with the Tin Pan Alley. It’s just good pure synth-pop that calls out for chilly autumn weather.
To my ear, synth-pop and the fall season complement each other particularly well. A personal idiosyncrasy perhaps, but one not unworthy of comment. I’m also taken with how well the Nixonian dream-pop sensibility blends with the playing of experimental saxophonist Jeff Henderson. While his playing does flirt with free jazz a smidge along the way, the whole is much more about prettiness, courtesy of a vibraphone-like keyboard line. There is also a hovering synth.
But most notably, as neither Nixon sings it all holds up extremely well. The voices do return in “Two Worlds Apart.” Here, the tempo shifts. It’s now up, and it’s dancy, though there’s an instrumental ambiance reminding me just a little of very early Stereolab. Others may not hear this similarity at all, but hopefully it’s getting driven home that Purple Pilgrims are far from a typical dream-pop/ synth-pop scenario.
“Love in Lunacy (Saturn Return)” cultivates a touch of retro-futurist strangeness while keeping on the pop course. Closer “Tragic Gloss” heads wholeheartedly down that the same avenue and with some appealing synth cascades thrown in. However, it’s penultimate track “Ruinous Splendour,” in part through the guitar of Roy Montgomery, that stands as one of Perfumed Earth’s highlights.
As Purple Pilgrims assisted Montgomery on his very nifty Suffuse from last year, their association is a sturdy one. I’m also struck that the most enjoyable (if not necessarily best) Flying Nun record I’ve heard in quite a while features guitar from a member of the Pin Group, a unit responsible for the very first Flying Nun record, the “Ambivalence” 45. But I don’t want to stray from the point here; even with a handful of help, the core of Perfumed Earth’s goodness derives from Valentine and Clementine Nixon.
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