New Zealand Music Features — Brendan Moran

Under The Influence (FNCD021) came about through 12 months of loose talk, six months of intensive planning, three changes of date and two final weeks of very late nights. Indeed there were many times we questioned the sanity and feasibility of even attempting to record the Flying Nun 21st Anniversary album in one day... and without the faith of many around us we simply wouldn’t have been able to pull it off! As the Flying Nun label had recently been incorporated, alongside Festival Records and Mushroom Records, into the larger independent company called (deep breath) Festival Mushroom Records incorporating Flying Nun, we had created a strong...

Described by music afficionado Grant Smithies in his 2007 book ‘Soundtrack. 118 Great New Zealand Albums’ as a "brisk, exciting, highly addictive record and a classic of the Nun canon", the 2000 release of the Subliminals debut (and only) album ‘United State’ was the realisation of the musical vision of an unlikely collaboration who bonded as a formidable unit, albeit for a far too brief period of time. The Subliminals were a natural product of Flying Nun in the second half of the 1990's. Three of the band members had been in or were currently in other Flying Nun bands...