Fever (2016)

Michael Morley doing disco tapes didn't surprise me, but it did worry me- with Fear of Music he aped rock riffs so as to belittle and destroy their 'power' and I hoped to god he was not going to try and give disco the same treatment. As it transpires I should stop being defensive and second-guessing people because there is nothing but affection for disco here and any way Morley at this stage in his career samples rather than mimics- it's soaring strings and repetitive grooves (the latter will not surprise, the former might) processed into 4 x ~10 minute songs where as is customary with Gate the sounds become a single oppressive texture, the songs deteriorate, the voice and guitars are exhausted from the start and either dissolve into the fabric of the song, or collapse along with it. What the uplifting/catchy structures do is reconfigure the guitars as an assault when that is necessary, which is exciting on its own, but I am more driven to the moments where the samples win out- the final stretch of Licker for example sends the heart soaring as the body disintegrates. as weary as it is hopeful

mie / -o- / juno

(Dead) 2013

Oooooh I don't know, I put it up there with The White House!!!! Challenges and forces its audience to react while maintaining a level of admittedly unconventional entertainment and payoff. No senseless (noise philosophical) migraines, all mindsplit feels.

mega / buy

Wreck Small Speakers on Expensive Stereos - River Falling Love (1987)

It's all very young and hopeful- Morley'd go on to destroy rock with The Dead C and examine the leftovers with Gate- but man is it ever depressing 'cause the thing just sounds like a damn haunting. He's singing to nobody at all and the 'experimental' elements just tease and distract, all broken and falling apart.

here

The End (2013)

Campbell Kneale (Birchville Cat Motel) farewells Black Boned Angel, his less prolific (only (at least) an album or ep (or both) a year!) genre project (whereas BCM seemed to deal nonspecifically with anything 'abstract'), the genre being drone doom metal. He employs a three step process to let it go without freaking him or his audience out too much- summarization, play, open-ended conclusion. All three components head toward the same point, that being mental/emotional transcendence. Even its most oppressive sounds let the hopeful ones escape and flourish, not competing but working together as they knowingly build Black Boned Angel's final work and ode to the coexistence of beauty, ugliness, hope, sadness, lightness, and heaviness in the best music of this kind.

try / thrill jockey

JESUS (1997)

BARGAIN BIN CD BUY #1

Darcy Clay is like a cult nz legend and I didn't know who he was until two weeks ago. I went to a friend's house to watch Gravity Falls and drink Pure Blonde and there was a shitty 90s anthem playlist thing on TV and Clay's Jesus I Was Evil came on and I was like holy shit the lo-fi-ness and retarded bassline this is the best thing and my friends were like you're stupid how have you not heard this his version of Jolene is the best version of Jolene. Jesus I Was Evil is an EP of bizarro musical characters and styles. What About It is like the character from Beck's I Get Lonesome (or actually any song on Mellow Gold) came to life and made a song. Jolene is a pseudo disco genderfuck masterpiece. I don't know what's going on with In the Middle but it has a good feeling and I like it. The title track is obviously the best. The live stuff on the second half of the CD is confusing and really good. Opening for Blur, his English Rose is a self-aware mess and although things sort of come together afterwards, they also totally don't. His raw vocals offer a more physically real angle to the glorious bedroom recordings of the EP. Any distinctions between beauty and retardation and self-awareness and sincerity are all ignored by Clay, and his songs effectively transcend any one feeling or conclusion that the listener might feel/make from them.

Jesus I Was Evil is fun and happy and self-conscious opposition rock and it's so fucking painful that it can and should bring a tear to your eye. RIP.

Came with an 'interactive CD-ROM' I've made into an iso if anyone's interested

A

v0 / flac / buy

∞ dolphins! (2011)

to say they were better than radiohead when i saw them would be weird and untrue, but i would happily hear 'forever dolphin love' jammed out for ~90 minutes by these guys rather than see the main act come up with their screens and pedals and laptops and serious faces whining because i paid my hundred(s) of dollars to hear them whine and i'll be damned if they don't whine for like three hours for all the shit i went through to pull extra hours to save those hundred(s) and then sit politely to let the whining commence and let my back go cold and shivery when they touch on something personal which may or may not resonate well beyond their politics and conceptual nihilism.

there's something creepy and icy about this, but it's also affectionate like being in love. i didn't realize it at the time, but it was easily one of the year's better albums when it was released. not that this little rating means anything to anyone, but check this out:

A

1 / 2 / buy

II (2013)

Ya know, it was always The White Album. It wasn't just the percussion, though the percussion mattered then and still does now, it was the pop, the smog, the subversive experimentation (or was it subversive pop?), the sounds sounding different every time and then disappearing into the haze. I didn't realize then, though it's clear now, that the self-titled record's songs retained a sense of physicality in spite of this, and for all its proficiency in the field of awesome/kooky/indie lo-fi psych revivalism, it was an experiment. A good one, but an experiment nonetheless.

II's all there 'cause Nielson doesn't sound like he's all there. That was the magic of The White Album- the mix of sleepy nostalgia and discomfort in its haze. I don't know if I missed it back then, but every time I listen to II, I begin to worry about dude. Like good lo-fi and downer pop bros, his songs are all half a minute too long where it counts, and his album's about 10 too vague where it matters. It's all fleeting enough to drift by, but it's repetitious enough to control attention. Disembodied, his sounds float around like a dream while his words contrarily evoke sleepless nights worrying about death and loneliness (it's not the Stones, it's Yer Blues). [warning] Well done, but surely that's not the reason people got excited about a followup in the first place [warning]. Contrary, dizzy, non-physical (that is, not real), and relatably so. Whether he knows it or not, the music keeps telling us, and the music's right, I think: it's all in your head.

A

flac / buy / stream

The Garbage and the Flowers - Stoned Rehearsal

Thanks person who suggested this when I posted Silvery Branches! Legit fuckups and conversations (broken strings (it's a rehearsal after all, and a stoned one too)), loose lo-fi, with something I'm not used to in NZ noisy indie lo-fi, though it's all undercut by that d.i.y./don't-give-a-fuck attitude, and that's happy sounding chords, happy enough sounding songs, and tangible melodies/appeal. So often records of its kind contain a familiar overarching narrative of (geographical, cultural, historical, personal) isolation and existential dread, but with Stoned Rehearsal the don't-give-a-fuck attitude extends to such angst, producing a profound indifference to anything other than spontaneity, rehearsing stoned with one's dogs (weird), broken strings and all. Awesome

A-

sample

then buy it here or here (can't remember which one I got it from, the first one, I think)

Gate - The Dew Line (1993)

Harsh 70s Reality was punk rock in the wake of rock's destruction (no idea who managed to destroy it but they seem to believe it happened!), Gate's The Dew Line is folk in the same spirit. Either detached or more introspective than we're used to, I choose the second 'cause it sounds like he's trying to tell us something however impenetrable his songs may be. Lo-fi end of the world/hermit vibes bum me out like not many other albums/artists, I count The Dew Line as almost a companion piece to On the Beach with shared aimless alienation/desolation/staring-at-the-sea-when-the-world's-dead-concepts, just a warning though: Morley's rendition is almost entirely abstract

B+

vinyl
here

Wammo (1995)

Often criticized for its lack of raw edginess given the band's origins, Wammo has Bailter Space opening up their sound and emphasizing melody more than ever. I think I'm in the minority that thinks that by this stage, they might as well have written 10 pop songs instead of every now and then trying to remind us of their roots such as in We Drive At Five. When they're not wanting to split the listener's head open, they're writing songs like Splat which are incredible. The angularity of the guitars recall Shellac, again reminding of Gordons' immense influence, while the little moments where a sweet melody is cut short and the distortion is left to ring out recall Justin Broadrick's work in Godflesh's underrated Hymns. Mostly though, Wammo is spacier, leading to Failure comparisons. The scope of Failure by way of Shellac and Godflesh? Yeah, in places it's that good! Again, I feel let down whenever the band return to their Sonic Youth, or worse, post-punk/industrial influences, like why'd you do that to Zapped?!, but those moments are fewer than I'm making out. Check D Thing for a Neu!-ish driving rhythm with noise pop over the top, and Splat 'cause that song is SO GOOD. Critics noting the half-pop sound here give it something like a 3/5 'cause there's still the Skeptics/Fugazi/Sonic Youth pretensions underneath it all. I'll do sorta the same, but the opposite, like get that shit out of my Shellac pop!

B-

spotify
buy

The Chills - Kaleidoscope World (1986)

For all that I love The Chills' REM BUT NOT releases (Submarine Bells), I get bored like I do with other similar albums (Ocean Rain) about half way through, probably 'cause those heavenly/melancholy soundscapes eventually sound the same- not bad, but the same

And that's where I start loving collections like Kaleidoscope World- at almost twice the length of one of those REM BUT NOT albums (don't worry, I know who came first!), my attention is maintained (typing this as I start playing AC/DC 9 tracks in) because there's no focus on SCOPE, just writing the perfect 1-4 minute pop song. Pulled together from b-sides, EPs, and odd compilations, Kaleidoscope World is 18 tracks of perfect 1-4 minute pop songs. There's no continuity- every song is its own little story/idea/melody/lyric, and in my opinion a band like The Chills benefit from writing songs in such a way 'cause MAN I find the album-albums boring. They were obviously really going for their own thing 'cause not much sounds like them, so lazy music writers will say SYD BARRETT and the band probably dig Syd 'cause they're weird and also in love with pop (can't say that enough)

I recommend getting the whole thing (and also buying it (FLYING NUN)), even if the only reason you're here is Pink Frost- a rare 1-4 minute moment in pop music where a song so successfully chills (HA!) the listener to the bone (also Suffer Little Children, obviously)

B+

spotify

SCREENS

BARGAIN BIN CD BUY #2

These guys were my heroes when I was younger. I saw one of their songs on music TV when I was 13 and came my pants. I bought fabric paint and made a stupid little colourful Mint Chicks t-shirt that I wore until the colourful paint came off. The Mint Chicks played spastic punk and opened for every band that ever played because they were so good. They opened for The Blood Brothers and I thought they were better than The Blood Brothers. In 2006 they stopped playing spastic punk and became a pop band. They made a pop album about drug addiction and mental illness with little Ramones-y la-la-la choruses. They weren't my heroes any more but the whole country embraced their depressi-pop. They went away and became expatriates which is like the worst thing you can ever do in nz because everyone goes OH YOU'RE TOO BLOODY GOOD LALALALALA. Screens was released in that OH YOU'RE TOO BLOODY GOOD LALALALALA backlash and was ignored by the whole country. Even four years later with the success of UMO, nzers are like ah yes the mint chix *single tear due to reminiscence + feeling of extreme betrayal*

Screens is a semi-industrial (in the drums + melding of human voice w robot effect) synthpop album that sounds sad as fuck even when it's happy. It's like 808s for the indie pop/quasi-Beach Boys revival generation of the mid 000s. It's a swansong for the band and the era (they did something else but acknowledging that makes Screens less poignant). 3 of the tracks aren't that good but the rest kill poignantly. It's when everything heads in a single positive direction but sounds doomed that Screens works best.

Also just ps, UMO's II is still 2013's #1 for me

A-

v0 / lossless / buy

The Gordons - 1st Album and Future Shock EP (2002)

1. Spik and Span 5:00

2. Right on Time 8:50

3. Coalminer's Song 5:41

4. Sometimes 3:58

5. I Just Can't Stop 2:33

6. Growing Up 9:33

7. Laughing Now 4:06

8. Future Shock 4:56

9. Machine Song 3:27

10. Adults and Children 2:14

The Gordons played noise rock scarily forward-thinking for not only their musical isolation from the rest of the world (apparently it was hard to find even remotely alternative records in New Zealand up until the mid 90s so creating this kind of shit without any point of reference is just ridiculous), but their era- the last three tracks coming from a 1980 release.

This compilation has on it their first album (1981) and their Future Shock EP (1980). The Gordons has everything you could want from a noise rock album, with repetitive rhythms keeping things together, awesome riffs, and some of the most creative guitar work you'll ever hear. It's impressively melodic and jangly but also heavy and ear-bleedy- the sorts of opposites that other bands would play into with shoegaze, and The Gordons really focused on with Bailter Space years later. As good as The Gordons is, Future Shock is the reason most people get excited about the band. Less about big repetitive grooves with layers of guitar torture being improvised over the top as with The Gordons, and more quick tempo ear-splitting punk rock sounding like Wipers-y instrumentation and alienation meets something from the much celebrated no wave scene, but, you know, they couldn't've heard any of that shit and so they sound all the better for it

A

spotify

Peter Jefferies - The Last Great Challenge in a Dull World (1990)

1, Chain or Reaction

2. Domesticia

3. On an Unknown Beach

4. Guided Tour of a Well Known Street

5. The House of Weariness

6. Cold View

7. Likewise

8. The Fate of the Human Carbine

9. Catapult

10. The Last Great Challenge in a Dull World

11. While I've Been Waiting

12. Neither Do I

13. The Other Side of Reason

14. Listening In

An album I admire greatly but can't listen to often due to Jefferies' difficult arrangements and intentionally off-key drone singing.

Features songs you might recognize without having heard the album such as On an Unknown Beach and The Fate of the Human Carbine.

A-

vbr

This Kind of Punishment - A Beard of Bees (1984)

1. Prelude 2:08

2. From the Diary of Hermann Doubt 3:19

3. The Horrible Tango 4:36

4. Trepidation 3:56

5. East Meets West 3:51

6. Turning to Stone 4:30

7. Although They Appear 3:54

8. The Sleepwalker 3:36

9. An Open Denial 7:12

This Kind of Punishment was a band formed by Graeme and Peter Jefferies who both released fantastic albums before and after A Beard of Bees, writing songs which would be covered by people like Amanda Palmer and Cat Power.

The melancholy piano parts that would, in my opinion, make At Swim Two Birds as good as it is both introduce the listener to and close A Beard of Bees. It's lo-fi, it's post-punk, and it's experimental, but it's also just really introspective and dark. The two final tracks The Sleepwalker and An Open Denial are the best.

A-

320

The Dead C - Harsh 70s Reality (1992)

1. Driver U.F.O. 22:23

2. Sky 3:38

3. Love 11:51

4. Suffer Bomb Damage 3:40

5. Sea Is Violet 7:57

6. Constellation 6:43

7. Baseheart 6:53

8. Hope 9:23

The Dead C are a noise rock band from New Zealand who have been releasing albums since 1987. They tend to be very well regarded by critics and musicians alike for their focus on improvisation and their lo-fi sensibilities which leads some to call them free rock instead of just noise rock. Harsh 70s Reality is often considered their best album.

Love embodies the album's spirit of ambivalence- hazy indifference and latent violence. Hope is suitably the darkest track and the best way to finish the album- strummed detuned guitars and murmured vocals set the scene before frustration and violence emerge only to be drowned out by the sound of people talking. Even the 22 minute Driver UFO has its place- initially seeming like a way to weed out casual listeners, it becomes clear after a few listens that the band are masters at free-form noise jams.

There's a consistent atmosphere over the duration of the album leading some to declare it A rock opera for a post-nuclear war society which seems insincere or hyperbolic but it was only when I took the album as a whole and recongised its frustration, violence and apathy that it became a coherent story, which, yeah, is desolate and sometimes incredibly sad.

Harsh 70s Reality took something like three years to fully grow on me and I recommend those who don't completely love it persevere until it clicks.

A+

192 1/2

Parents - Parents II EP (2011)

1. XXIV 0:45

2. XV 1:43

3. XVIII 0:35

4. XVI 1:36

5. XIII 1:53

6. XXI 0:53

7. XXIII 0:42

8. XXII 2:49

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