Besser and Prosser - Dark Wind/Spring Rain (1986)

New Zealand Composer Edition: New Music For Violin and Piano, by Jonathan Besser & Chris Prosser.

Both artists have been involved with electronic music, though I've only heard Besser in Free Radicals. But this part of their practice is evident in the record's opening suite.

Extended techniques expand the timbres in the Three Impressions of 'Dark Wind': in Part One, reverberating wooden raps and clouts on bodies of piano and violin, strummed piano wires and whispery un-rosined bowing wheeze huff and heave like the sea; Part Two's tinkling keys ground the flutter and swoop of birdcalls/-flaps/-hoppings chivvied from the fiddle; whilst Part Three feels electronically augmented, with low piano strings struck odd-chiming like ring-modulation, and paper slipped 'twixt the violin strings sizzles and snaps 'midst buzzy sawtooth scything. Unambiguously bewitching.


Best Prose

Autumnal Jumbo Fun-Pak: The Unmatchable Robert Cardy (1987-88)

Continuing our Christchurch cassette excavations: home-tapes from the bountiful Bob Cardy (Axemen, Shaft, etc.).

Traditional EnZed bedroom studio stuff in the orthodoxy of Chris Knox or Kraus, Alastair Galbraith or Darcy Clay or Stefan Neville -- like The Residents recording The Basement Tapes or Jonathan Richman's Thinking Fellers tribute act solo-recorded on the dole, all dolloped in Strapping Fieldhands' sloshed slapdashery.

81 songs on six tapes over two short years! Cheesy preset synths and sound effects, home organ, drum machine and double-tracked vocals, guitar and bass and banjo. Riffs and raffs, Velvet earworms, effortless songcraft out the metaphorical wazoo, plus jokes 'n' puns & drones 'n' gems a-poppin'.

Down- and overload on this underlooked ol' wunderkind! Unreservedly recommended.


Fat Spring Coal & Diamonds In The Lava (1987)

The Untouchable Farmhand Blarney

Lallapaloosa (1987)

Hindsight Scrambler

Public Address (1987)

Young, Gifted & Broke

18 Milky Bar Odes (1987)

Return Of The Horse That Bit Me

A Thousand And One Stag Nights (1988)

Tape Angels

Gloss (1988)

Grindstone Noseboy

Visions (1980) & Prisms (1985)

A couple more contemporary classical records, each of which has at least one electroacoustic piece. Well, Prisms actually just has a (seriously gorgeous) Ross Harris choral piece with synthesizer drone (and I don't think that really counts), but to make up for it, I've included a bonus Jack Body piece from another record, which is full-on electroacoustic. John Rimmer does the choir with electronic tape thing. Gillian Whitehead and Jenny McLeod represent the two polar opposites of seriousness. Full disclosure, these are all choral music. But by New Zealand composers! And they are gooooood.

I was going to include the New Zealand Composer Edition Vol. 3 - Choral Works -- mainly because it has the pink version of that funky cover, but also because it has works by Jack Body, Gillian Whitehead and more -- but was disappointed by how kind of ye olde fashionde it seemed. But if that one was less than impressive, the record that I lifted the Jack Body bonus track from was appalling, proving that electroacoustic music is a format which gets little respect. This live concert record by the National Youth Choir of New Zealand (which is imaginatively titled 'The National Youth Choir of New Zealand In Concert') features the premier of Jack Body's 'Vox Populi', which was written for the National Youth Choir. As if embarrassed for having performed this gorgeous mixture of choir, electronic and bird sounds, the concert -- and the album -- close with The Rainbow Connection.

These two LPs pop ('Visions' in more way than one: it's a wee bit scratchety at times but not too bad); they do some amazing things with harmonisin' on the inside o' mah brain.

Stoned he was with stones great

O let the fire burn, Hotter the better

Summertime Super-Fun-Pak! NZ Electroacoustic on CD -- Part Two

The final three CDs in the Jack Body-curated 'Electroacoustic Music by New Zealand Composers' series on CD Manu. All of the entries in this series, barring the Kim Dyett album, have covers taken from photographs by Theo Schoon of geothermal curiosities. I've been a bit cheeky here and designed a replacement cover for the Dyett album from the same series of photographs by Schoon.

David Downes - Saltwater (1988-1992)

Five of these eight works were composed as soundtracks to dance pieces, and as such contain more aggressively rhythmic content than the other albums in this series. All were composed when Downes was between the ages of 21-25. ‘Valley Mine’, ‘A Green Piece’ and ‘Saltwater’ use effected field recordings, white-noise wind and other classic and eighties cutting-edge synthesis techniques, but pick up some live-sounding percussion and midi-beats halfway through. If you are hoping for more traditional electroacoustic composition, skip right ahead to ‘Disquiet’, a conversation between what feels like improvisatory digital synthesis and a recording of a housefly buzzing round the room; for me the standout track on the album.

Black Noise 

Kim Dyett - Wallpaper Music (1982-1986)

The title track is not. at. all. what one would expect from a piece called ‘Wallpaper Music’, considering that term’s association with Satie and Eno. Jittery jumpcut sampling and synthesised horns, squeaks and burps, lead into John Cousins-esque spoken-word sections, tape-speed effects, shimmering Eventide crystals and quite lovely live guitar and singing. So maybe it’s wallpapering in the sense of that unintentional collage which one finds along heavily postered walls and bollards. ‘Song Cycle Nocturne’ uses the poems of Hone Tuwhare sung and spoken by soloist Rosalund Solas, with atmospheric electronics often mimicking the birdsong of the kokako, which sounds like traditional instrumentation mimicking electronic music! Very beautiful, very NZ. The final piece, ‘Flute Music’, is entirely constructed from recordings of the composer playing his own, self-carved koauau. Ghostly whistles, fragments of tunes, with little processing other than looping, stereo separating, and delay; much more what Satie and Eno had in mind, I believe. 

Making Small Holes in the Silence

Denis Smalley - Tides (1974-1984)

‘Pentes’ (1974) is, according to whoever wrote the Denis Smalley article on Wikipedia, one of the classics of electroacoustic music. But it's no joke. These are serious, complex soundworlds imagined by a rigorous master of the form. Sophisticated timbres are created from instrumental sounds in the isolation of the synthesiser, and in other sections, snatches of what sound like tapes of orchestral warm-ups mixed with white noise are slowed to a halt. There are also, as in many NZ electroacoustic works (like Dyett's), references to native birdsong, and even (like Downes') to bagpipe music. ‘Tides: Pools and Currents’ is a perfect audio accompaniment to Theo Schoon’s cover photograph of Rotorua mud pools, or an evocation of autochthonous echinoderms and cnidarians in their rocky puddles. Its sequel, ‘Tides: Sea Flight’ is uttered in the same tongue, but describes magnetically shifting immensities, rather than the small and self-contained. ‘Vortex’ jumps around like Dyett’s ‘Wallpaper’, then coalesces into skirling winds and distant chimes. Denis Smalley has been, for me, the greatest discovery from this series. New Zealand born and trained, his award-winning body of work has been entirely electroacoustic, and he deserves more recognition here both for what he has produced musically, and academically through his teaching and articles. 

Invisible Kinetic Sculpture

John Rimmer - Soundweb (1982)

Finally!

Been waiting to hear this one for ages, and it has truly been worth the wait.

Damn! It's that good!

Recorded between 1972 and 1979, this record documents the development of one of New Zealand's most important electroacoustic composers. From tape experiments to pure computer synthesis, and from electroacoustic sympathy back to tape experiments.

The title track, 'Soundweb,' in all its glory is like the big, sophisticated brother of Brent Carlsson's 'Gaga Who?', with its stereo-separated electric bumblebees blowing kinda blues, and laughing tin fairground clowns. The liner notes say that visiting trombonist James Fulkerson 'sparked off a wave of creativity wherever he went,' and it's fair to say this collaboration is inspiring. Fulkerson anticipates and reacts to treated tapes and loops of his own trombone: booming ring-modulated Rileyisms dropping back to lone Frippertronicised blerts. The electronics for this piece were recorded at the Recording and Electronic Music Studios at the University of East Anglia, where fellow Kiwi Denis Smalley was lecturer in music and later Director of the Electroacoustic Music Studio. More on him in a later post.

'Poi' is the only purely electronic work in this collection, and was created using early digital synthesis technology at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Experimental Music Studio. It is also documented on his CD Manu collection, 'Fleeting Images'.

'Colder Far than Snow' was recorded at the University of Toronto Electronic Music Studio, where Rimmer -- like Lilburn -- studied under Gustav Ciamaga. This considered work makes use of very spare early-electronic tones and textures, with mic'ed, amplified, and treated found object sounds.

'Compositions' '6' and '9' (for 'Piano and Electronic Sounds' and 'Soprano and Electronic Sounds' respectively) are amongst the most balanced of Rimmer's 'Compositions' series. Both electronic and acoustic sources are beautiful in themselves, and integrate naturally. For these works, as in the title piece, much of the electronic material is derived from treated tapes of their acoustic counterparts. '6' gets its kicks in electronic reverb sympathising with piano sustain, while soprano Heather Macdonald creates huge psychoacoustic spaces with her multilayered voice in '9'.

Highest recommendation, and thanks to contributor Tim for this.


Ground Bass of Hope

Music Players 70 (1971)

Two percussionists, two pianists; called '70' but recorded in '71.

Bartók's 'Sonata for Two Pianos and Percussion' is a later-period, three-movement composition, and one of the composer's most performed works.

New Zealand composer Edwin Carr re-scored and paraphrased his 1955 ballet, 'Elektra', for the Music Players 70 ensemble, presented here in four short parts.

John Rimmer's 'Composition 5 for Percussion and Electronic Sounds' was written for and is performed by solo percussionist Gary Brain, with electronic tape.


Contemporary Classics for Contemporary People!

New Zealand Composer Edition - Chamber Works Vols. 1 & 2 (1972)

Starting off this set, the first track of Vol. 1 is my man John Rimmer, carrying the electroacoustic torch on his 'Composition 2 for Wind Quintet and Electronic Sounds'. When the first quardle oodle ardle wardle doodle barges in from the antique analogues, the cleverly clunky clash belies an eventual merging, which becomes so subtle that I'm sure even the players aren't sure who's making which sound.

David Farquhar is so restlessly inventive, and relentlessly inviting. He skims along the outer guard, never fully abandoning tunefulness. From the liner notes: "Although he does not appear to have been involved to a great extent with electronic music, ... David Farquhar [is] the most versatile of the composers represented on this record..." Here he experiments with a bit of extended technique on the 'Three Pieces' on Vol. 1, and has written new settings of traditional Scots ballads for voice and piano on Vol. 2 (see below, "Lilburn").

Jack Body's 'Turtle Time' is a dramatic, breathless, electroacoustic freak-o-delic mindblower.

'Capriccio for Four Saxophones' by Robert Burch carries a bit of the spirit of New York's Lounge Lizards in parts, and reminds us -- no matter that this is a contemporary classical work -- the history of Jazz is inseparable from the tuning, timbre and physical structure of the saxophone.

Lilburn. My enjoyment of much classical music stalls when it comes to vocal works involving the mannered, affected, clenched-throated warbling of classically trained -- usually male -- soloists. Listening head-tilted, trying hard, with a forced grin, to Lilburn's settings of three poems by JK Baxter, RAK Mason, and Ursula Bethell, my philistine ears can at least hold on to some exciting string-work. Mercifully, on Vol. 2, piano-champ Margaret Nielsen plays on both the extraordinary and deservedly recognisable Sonata for Violin and Piano, and the equally gorgeous Sonatina 2 for Piano.


And First He Played the Notes of Annoy

And Then He Played the Notes of Joy

Springtime Super-Fun-Pak! NZ Electroacoustic on CD

It's Springtime for Electroacoustic Nerds in New Zealand! And there is no better soundtrack for that garden party, barbecue, or kegger than the classic period of NZ academic electroacoustic. These four albums are from a series of six or seven CDs released in 1993 by CD Manu. All feature gorgeous cover photography from Theo Schoon, the Java-born Nederlander whose appropriation of Māori artistic techniques and ham-fisted destruction of historic rock art have left a complicated and controversial impact on the New Zealand visual art world. 

Jack Body - Suara: Environmental Music From Java (1978-1990)

Jack Body was often considered the most accomplished of late 20th century NZ composers, in terms of his national and international standing. His work has remained experimental from the beginning, though not relentlessly intimidating to the public, as shown by his most enduring composition: the theme song to the soap opera 'Close to Home.'  His work never seems to stray from celebrating the beautiful in  sound. Like John Cousins, many of his compositions involve manipulated field recordings and human voice, but rather than devising from these an unsettling alien soundtrack, Body finds lyricism and musicality in his sources.

Balloon Squeaker


John Rimmer - Fleeting Images (1979-1991)

Of the artists in this post, Rimmer was most devoted during this early time period to the integration of electronic and traditional musical instruments. His 'Compositions' series include works for wind quintet and electronic sounds, percussion and electronic sounds, piano and electronic sounds. On this CD of entirely electroacoustic compositions, Rimmer employs analog, digital, and computer synthesis, short-wave radio, percussion, guitar, field recordings and voice. This is a rich and thought-provoking set of experiments by a composer driven by the leading edge of synthesis technology.

Religion Without Science


John Cousins - Sleep Exposure (1979-1986)

John Cousins' work consistently stupefies me. His main instrument is the oldest of all -- the human voice -- but he employs it in a way which is utterly jarring. With a dictaphone, a delay, some filtering and panning, and maybe a few other toys, he creates unsettling non-linear narratives which are almost more like dance or theatre than sound art or music. Funny, frustrating, and plain old f'ed up, these tracks are as fossilic and foreign as this other f-word: fremd. Highly recommended, difficult stuff.

Don't Stop The Tape, Don't Stop The Tape!

Ross Harris - Inner Worlds (1978-1990)

Ross Harris' practice is aligned with Jack Body's in his pursuit of beauty, and through the use of non-Western instrumentation combined with electronic techniques. This CD comes closest of this group to approaching the dreaded designator, 'New Age', but it retains enough tension and complexity to completely disallow for a lazy chill-out. His 1978 track 'Syndrum', included here, deserves to be sampled by a knowing NZ electro producer.

Twilight Fleeting

Flame Tree - New Zealand Composer Edition (1979)

Much of the language of classical music is a mystery to me, so I approach this material perhaps backwardly, through my love of experimental, improvised, and electroacoustic music.

This LP is a sort of brother to the previous posting, Horizons. Firstly, it has the second of John Rimmer's literal companion pieces 'Where Sea Meets Sky' parts 1 & 2, but it is also a showcase for the more traditionally instrumented works by two of his fellow prime movers of New Zealand's classic period of electroacoustic music, John Cousins and Ross Harris.

The works of Cousins with which I am familiar are fascinating constructions of dictaphone-style voice recordings, carefully copy-edited and minimally filtered and delayed, sitting somewhere between Alvin Lucier's heavily self-ornamented 'I Am Sitting In A Room' and A Handful of Dust's 'Masonic Inborn (Parts I & II)'. Here he offers a completely different exploration of the human voice, with mezzo-soprano Anthea Moller's vocals set amongst spare piano direction.

Harris's work is the most richly evocative. It suggests a bush walk, with synthesizer-simulating birds themselves mimicked, koauau-like, by the flute; while harp and viola construct knobby tracks beneath deep blue-green canopies, letting in occasional tendrils of sunlight amongst irregular patterings from heavy moisture.

One of NZ's undefeated champions of the genre, Rimmer unravels his acoustic chamber ensemble, squeezing an impressive amount of electroacoustic timbres and tropes from them.

This collection is also favoured by a rare (for this time period) contribution by then-expatriate Gillian Whitehead, a sometimes turbulent but sensuous piano piece in which the listener is thrown about in parallel with the pianist's motions, while it paints traces of gesture across the open ear.



Or Between Earth & Sky

Horizons - New Zealand Electronic Music (1977)

The arts in New Zealand's late-arriving modernism were unusually cross-disciplinary. In any minuscule regional arts scene, the best ideas came from sharing across specialties. The pairing of painting and poetry is the most visible (for instance, in the works of McCahon/Caselberg and Hotere/Manhire) but poets also worked with musicians (e.g. Sam Hunt and Mammal), and musicians with painters. 'Horizons' features the grand-daddy of all New Zealand electroacoustic music, Douglas Lilburn, whose lifelong conversation with painter Rita Angus fired his practice, and whose collaboration with poet Alistair Campbell birthed the first major electroacoustic work in New Zealand music history ('The Return', 1965). 

On this LP, John Rimmer's piece 'Where Sea Meets Sky 1' is "a musical image of... Ian Wedde's poem 'Those Others'", and Ross Harris's 'Horizons' was commissioned by synaesthete painter Michael Smither (who also provided the cover painting for Human Instinct's 'Stoned Guitar' LP). 

Jack Body takes it to the (Indonesian) street with 'Musik Dari Jalan', a transportative wedge of ethnomusique concrete. However, it is Rimmer and Harris who are probably the most comfortable with electroacoustic music as their primary medium; the sounds are complex, alien, metal-organic frameworks of crystalline compounds. Lilburn's work here is much more based in classical traditions; 'Carousel,' is lyrical and narrative even amongst its jarring timbres. As proof of his status amongst his peers, 'Musik Dari Jalan' and 'Where Sea Meets Sky 1' are both dedicated to Douglas Lilburn.

There is only a small handful of electroacoustic music available on LP from the 'classic' period of New Zealand's electroacoustic development (1965 - 1985): the 3xLP box set 'New Zealand Electronic Music', the solo LPs 'Soundscape' by Douglas Lilburn, and 'Soundweb' by John Rimmer (if anyone has this one, please let me know), and this compilation. 

So, I'm making a bit of a sharp left turn for awhile here. In future, I will be posting LPs (and the occasional out-of-print CD) of New Zealand modern classical and avant-garde music (some of these records include electroacoustic works amongst works scored for more traditional instrumentation), and possibly New Zealand poetry. This blog has always been about digitising my own collection of NZ vinyl -- if it's not already available digitally, and so that I can have more opportunity to listen to it myself -- and promoting and preserving artefacts of New Zealand's cultural history which do not deserve to remain obscure. 

They Kiss Only In Our Minds

The Orange - Fruit Salad Lives (1985)

Nice tight little Dunedin pop outfit, with Andrew Brough of Straitjacket Fits and Jonathan Moore of Bored Games. Loads of reverb and that chimey jangle you love to love. Much less playful than most of the better known Dunedin Sound bands, though in that regard probably more akin to the Sneaky Feelings than the Verlaines.

I've posted this mostly to make up for the terrible rip that used to be up on kiwitapes -- it's been driving me crazy for a few years, so here is a nice quality rip for yez.


And Are You Going To Fly?

The Puddle - Live at the Teddy Bear Club (1991)

 

Overlooked for a long time and currently enjoying a well-deserved comeback, George D Henderson's The Puddle released this bootleg-ish live recording during a period when the band included two of the Look Blue Go Purples (before they, most Chills-ishly, began changing line-ups regularly). 

The Puddle probably wallowed in obscurity due to exceptionally muddy production on their studio releases ('Pop Lib' and 'Into the Moon') and the loose 'n' lo-fi vibe of this set. It didn't help that they never made it to any Flying Nun compilations, and George waited fourteen years between his last Flying Nun release and his first on Powertool, the long-thought-lost 'Songs for Emily Valentine' (recorded in '92 but not released til '06), which includes the thrice-comped anthem, 'Southern Man'.

To my ears, this is by far the best of the three early-era Puddle albums in terms of listenability. These songs are absolute classics -- so good you will swear that you already know them -- and it's a shame that there are no 'definitive' versions.  

The Puddle is touring again, and they are bloody terrific. Go see 'em.

It Was You That Was Makin' Me High [Link removed]

Blerta - This Is The Life (1975)

 

A crucial chapter in NZ's alternative lifestyle, music, film, and visual and performing arts histories, the legend of Blerta's four years on Earth (and probably other planets) possibly outweighs their actual recorded output. Others have written plenty about the significant influence of the troupe, including Roger Booth's excellent Bruno Lawrence bio, and a Radio New Zealand audio documentary.

The cover art -- and the image of muddy hippies that the Blerta story conjures up -- has little to do with their sophisticated, finely-honed music. I expected fuzz guitar, sloppy lyrics about peace, and possibly bongos. Their debut album is jazzy, silly, bawdy, and above all well-crafted. Side one really captures the theatrical side of the touring band, with suggestive story-songs for the grown-ups (no "Dance All Around The World" here), and Beaver's joyful ballad "This Is The Life." Side two starts with the short Bruno-sung "Superman", then another ballad, then quickly moves on to nearly 20 minutes of tight pop-psych-jazz instrumentals. 

Essential.

Lyin' in bed, right out of my head [link removed]

Sneaky Feelings - Send You (1983)

 

Look, I'll be the first to admit that it took me a long time to really get the Sneakies. As a latecomer to the Flying Nun and Dunedin Sounds, I actually read Matthew Bannister's memoir Positively George Street before I heard any of the Sneaky Feelings' music. Bannister does his band no favours in his juicy, gossipy, bitter book with his continuous sad sack whinging that all the "cool people" thought his band was "wet."

I dug their contribution to the uniformly excellent Dunedin Double EP, but always fourth out of four. A mate sent me Send You several years ago, but it always seemed just as wimpy as Bannister's perceived detractors complained. 

But it's a way homer, this one. It's excellently produced, jangles and chimes with the best of the F'Nuns as it moves between Shoes-y power pop ("Someone Else's Eyes") and growling Baroque garage ("P.I.T. Song/Won't Change"). Give it a chance. If you don't get it at first (as I sure didn't), keep trying.

Facing The Sad Sunrise [Link removed]

Children of the Generator (1988)

Great comp of the late 80s NZ industrial/electro scene. Utterly dark stuff, but none of it gloomy.

Headless Chickens kick it off with their driving reductionist chant/drone 'Throwback'.

Two tracks from Straw People: the danceable 'Full Power' and the Gavin Bryars marching music of second-sider 'Surface'.

The classy Black Girls Machine's industrial pop 'Asking' on side one is a great a-sider to side two's THX-1138-sampling trancer 'Heaven Hell.'

F.T.W. share their Scared Straight samples with basic beats and bass, and side one ends with Factotum's industrial symphony 'Miasma'.

Side two starts with some Gutteridgesque surfkraut from Graeme Humphreys and Bevan Sweeney, and ends with Greg Johnson's 'Hall of Heaven', which wouldn't sound out of place in some early '70s flower child's freak out before coda-ing with what sounds like Philip Glass played on a Casio borrowed from They Might Be Giants.


I just feel that I need something stronger

Massive Stereo Sellout - By Now (1988)

The only recording by duo Ben Hayman and Steve Roach, 'By Now' by Massive Stereo Sellout is colder and simpler than Fetus Productions, less aggressive than the Skeptics, and without the pop sensibilities of the Headless Chickens.

Hope, their 'hit', sounds like what Jack Nance might've danced to in an Eraserhead  nightclub.

Some of the sounds on here actually remind me of early Aphex Twin/AFX -- at his least self-indulgent -- as performed by Nigel Bunn.

'By Now' is an excellent and unexpected example of an underdocumented scene in eighties EnZed. Get some more info from BiFiM Magazine, October 1988, over at Club Bizzare.

Brain Dump

Mole Männe - Mole Männe (1983)

Can't really find out much about this album, so I'll just have to tell you what I reckon. Recorded in 1983 for Jayrem, Mole Männe's self-titled EP is caught somewhere between punk and post-punk: linear monotone vocals, minimalist superfuzz licking, big rumbling stereo-separated Gang of Four/PIL drumming, and "production values"; paired with teen-angst poetics.

It's dreary and adolescent, and feels like small-town-rock-band to me, and that's a recommendation.

And We Won't Live Long

Teenagers From Outer Space: Thirteen Christchurch Nuggets 1980 - 1983

Today is my birthday, so here is yr prezzie: the debut of this comp, TEENAGERS FROM OUTER SPACE! I'm very excited about this; having been sitting on it for far too long, it's time to share.

Very, very tasty tracks here, blended and rolled up for you by a true connoisseur, the inimitable Mr Andrew Schmidt. Here's his words:

Teenagers From Outer Space – Thirteen Christchurch Odds ‘n Sods – 1980 – 1983

Ballon D'Essai – False Projections – 1983
Three D covers, vividly coloured screenprints, insert comic books - Ballon D'Essai records were an arty treat. And while the music didn't always live up to the packaging both of their EPs threw up some worthy sounds. The most interesting of which is False Projections. Written by Stephen MacIntyre, you can hear early hints of his work with All Fall Down in the slow prowling beat and VU-like serpentine lead that evokes Mainly Spaniards, and predates Flex era JPSE. The Christchurch sound anyone? Simon Says from the same EP is also worth checking out giving the best example of their later funky post-punk sound.

The Builders – Alien / Bedrock Bay – 1982
Bill bounced these two from EST’s Songs From The Lowland after the first run which we had. Two rocked up versions of Alien and bedrock Bay that showed Bill coulda been a (left field) mainstream rocker if he wanted.

The Gordons – Quality Control / Mengus Fugit - 1984
This is The Gordons that dare not speak its name. The second Gordons - John Halverson (guitar), Vince Pinker (bass) and Brent McLaughlin (drums) – that emerged out of Sheep Effect to record The Gordons’ Second Album. Unavailable still its tracks are a fairly pale version of the Parker-era Gordons bar Quality Control, a wired must-hear Gordons rocker and Mengus Fugit, which is equally relentless but less linear twin. Two of their best.


The Great Unwashed - Bad News For Jesus – 1983
The Great Unwashed with Peter Gutteridge on board in Christchurch with an E chord strummer full of the same infectious swing he'd bring to his masterful contributions to Singles in 1984. Taken from The Clean/ The Great Unwashed - Oddities 2 – 1987. Check the lyric. "Bad news for Jesus today, God got married, and had another son. "Zombies at the door, zombies at the door, all dressed up, in Sunday chains, there's Zombies at the door."

The McGoohans – Psychedelic Texas - 1983
Christchurch pean to Pebbles heartland, Texas, that few would have recognised back then. Only available on 20 Krypton Hits (Onset Offset Records tape) - 1984

The Newtones – Christchurch Part 2 - 1981
The Newtones EP debuted on the NZ pop charts at number 19, sold out its first pressing quickly then dropped out the next week. This popular Christchurch trio, who featured ex-Vauxhall/Streets Of Flowers guitarist Mark Brooks on bass and vocals, and Vandals/Aliens/Streets of Flowers singer Tony Peake on guitar and vocals, needed no gimmicks on the fuzz propelled rocker, China, a Tony Peake song echoing the aggression of the punk years and hinting at Peake’s love of sixties psych. The flanged pop/ rock of Christchurch part 2 is a deliberate and effortless Christchurch anthem.

The Newtones – My World – 1982
More flat street pop from the prolific Newtones. My World is a Mark Brooks song taken for a long stroll by Brooks’ bass, Martin Archbold’s drums and Tony Peake’s guitar. Second Top 50 single from early 1982.

The Pedestrians – Looking Out My Window – 1982
The Pedestrians – Kevin Stone, Stuart McLachlan and Peter Wood - were a Napier power pop trio who moved to Christchurch in 1981 then hit their stride in 1982 after picking up drummer Lloyd Morgan. This lineup played regularly at new club PJs, the Gladstone, and the Star and Garter, and released the only Pedestrians single. Guitarist McLachlan’s spry pop stroll down a cracked Napier street, Looking Out My Window, backed with bassist Stone’s Jam-ish The Boys and The Girls. Lisa Bouillir sang in a late version of the group.

The Terraces – A Place Like This - 1982
The spooked sound and feel of a chill bright morning rapping over the Canterbury Plains. Roland de Beer (vocals/ drums), Brendan Cheyne (vocals/ guitar), and Peter Brennan (bass) were The Terraces, a post-punk trio who later added sax. Flipside on The Terraces’ only single from 1982.

The Vauxhalls - Teenager From Outer Space - 1980
Thank god The Vauxhalls managed to get into Christchurch’s Orley Studios in late 1980. That the recordings included a song this good is a bonus and real meat to the myth. Unfortunately by the time they got to record The Vauxhalls were minus Scott Brooks, the bass player so Mark Brooks plays bass and guitar. Martin Archbold drums. On the best track Teenager From Outer Space Mark Brooks lets rip ‘bout a quarter of the way through a wild chunk of garage R&B lead that burns the carpet. Unreleased.

The World – Mystery - 1983
You don’t hear much about Christchurch’s The World (Charles Heyward/ Allen Meek/ Malcolm Grant/ Andrea Cocks/ Bridgit Mulcahy) these days but it seems John Campbell in his haste to big up the Scottish originals has overlooked a Kiwi Orange Juice. Wrap those ears around the first track here, John, Mystery, it’s an upbeat funky joy with scratchy VU guitaring. The World released a tape in their own right in 1983 from which this track was sourced.

When the Night Gets Long

Bill Direen and the HAT (1990)

Couldn't resist putting this up after the last post. This is perhaps my favourite Bill Direen album, only ever available on this South Indies cassette as far as I know. The HAT stands for Hamish Kilgour (The Clean, The Mad Scene, Mood Expansion Chamber, etc.), Allen Meek (Victor Dimisich Band), and Tony O'Blaney, with help from Liz Silver, Lisa Siegel and Steve Cournane. I know at least one of these songs (Nil-Nil) made it onto another album (Cut) in another form (and three others appeared on the 1994 CD version of Bilderine 'Split Seconds'), but this South Indies cassette presents a far better version, at least to my ears. The band just really gels, and the addition of atmospheric, sympathetic synth gives these songs an unexpected melancholy lushness.



I'd rather be a yellow hammer falling from the sky (link  removed -- buy it here!)

Bill Direen - Live at the Gladstone, Christchurch (1984)

Our man Bill Direen was recently selected as University of Auckland/Creative New Zealand writer-in-residence at the Michael King Writers’ Centre in Devonport from July this year. In honour of this award, here is a tasty little bootleg live recording of the man alone, from a 1984 solo performance in Christchurch. It's approx. one half Builders/Bilders/Bilderine/Soluble Fish songs, with a Doors(!) song, a couple of blues classics (Leadbelly's 'Red Cross Sto' and Ma Rainey's 'See See Rider [Easy Rider]'), and 'Mack the Knife' as murder ballad.

This intimate recording is taken from an old audience cassette, and as such is filled with stops and starts, crowd noises, pops and clicks (tho' it still sounds great, no worries).


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