If we were university students instead of punk rock idiot types who ran a record label, we could make an outlandish statement like "The 3Ds make pop music out of chaos" knowing what that theory meant. Instead we say it cos that's the sound of this Dunedin group throwing together true pop tunes out of elements like a backbeat, a ragged vocal or two and some very haywire guitars. That's what it must sound like, too, to the very nice Americans who run a little record label called Merge in Chapel Hill, North Carolina. Mac and Laura, who run Merge as well as playing in a cool punk rock band who you should have heard of called Superchunk, approached The 3Ds and Flying Nun a few months back and said "let's put out a seven inch". The 3Ds, who hadn't recorded anything since last year's smash-hit-that-shoulda-been, Hellzapoppin, were eager to oblige. Straight out of their favourite studio home, Fish Street, came two ditties penned by David Mitchell -- "Beautiful Things" and "Summer Stone" -- that make up a fine seven inch vinyl-only package wrapped in a gorgeous sleeve scrawled by the wizened Mitchell hand. The group's latest recording, a full length monster called The Venus Trail has been completed and released in New Zealand to ecstatic reviews.

It will be out in Europe in April and you can expect a 3Ds tour around that time. Recorded in a former Masonic Temple in Dunedin, The Venus Trail is The 3Ds' finest, strangest musical alchemy yet. Expect, uh, something very wild indeed from a band that have held their heads high alongside some pretty hyped musical company (Nirvana, Pavement, and most recently U2!) in the past year and still don't seem particularly bothered by all the fuss. But then that's just what things are like in the D Dimension. In the spirit of music made for enjoyment and the odd masonic ritual, we present these beautiful things...