[{"id":261186781335,"handle":"alastair-galbraith","title":"Alastair Galbraith","updated_at":"2021-07-17T15:42:03+12:00","body_html":"","published_at":"2021-03-06T14:26:30+13:00","sort_order":"created-desc","template_suffix":"","disjunctive":false,"rules":[{"column":"tag","relation":"equals","condition":"Alastair Galbraith"}],"published_scope":"global"},{"id":211726106775,"handle":"alec-bathgate","title":"Alec Bathgate","updated_at":"2021-06-05T17:06:20+12:00","body_html":"\u003cspan\u003e\"50,000,000 Elvis fans can't be wrong, I guess they knew it all along\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cspan\u003eIf you want to be a star, go today - buy a suit of gold lamé.\"\u003c\/span\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003ci\u003eIn 1956, Elvis Presley burst upon the music scene. Within two years he had produced 14 consecutive million-selling records. In the course of doing so he had changed the course of popular music and culture forever. His spectacular success, popularity amongst music fans and notorious sex appeal remain unparalleled in American entertainment history. Elvis's $2,500 gold lame suit was created by Nudie's of Hollywood, tailor to the stars. First worn by Elvis on his 1957 tour performances, the gold suit is one of the most famous costumes in rock'n'roll history.\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eAlec Bathgate's musical career hasn't exactly led him to buy a suit from Nudie's, but 19 years after The Enemy burst onto the unsuspecting Dunedin music scene in 1977 (a spectacular and ground-breaking arrival in its own right, we might add) with young Alec on guitar, it is about bloody time that we had an album full of his songs and voice.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eRight from the moment that Alec formed The Enemy with fellow art student Mick Dawson and talented misfit \u003ca href=\"https:\/\/web.archive.org\/web\/19990225095814\/http:\/\/flyingnun.co.nz\/bands\/knox.html\"\u003eChris Knox\u003c\/a\u003e, he's been involved with Chris in one of this country's most enduring and original songwriting partnerships. Alec and Chris were the Enemy's songwriting core and after the group evolved into Toy Love in 1979, they were hammering out classic tunes for a band who were rapidly becoming the most highly-rated act in the land. Toy Love was over less than two years later, but Chris and Alec were straight into a new project, Tall Dwarfs.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eAfter one EP on the Furtive label, the Tall Dwarfs hooked up with Flying Nun and ten records later they remain creative stalwarts of the label. The duo are now legends in the world of four-track home-recording — they were invited to headline the inaugural Fast Forward home-recording festival in Holland where they were joined by the likes of Sebadoh. Of course, since Chris bought an eight-track, they're practically a regular studio band now....\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eMost Tall Dwarfs recordings occur in Chris Knox's Auckland home, with Alec travelling up from Christchurch to work for a few days on songs which are built up from guitar riffs, vocal melodies or rhythm loops made from whatever is at hand and sounds interesting enough. Alec has brought that same attitude to the solo album that people have been bugging him to make for years.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe 16 songs that make up \u003cb\u003eGold Lamé \u003c\/b\u003ewere recorded onto a four-track over the space of a year by Alec alone in his garage. Away from Chris Knox, Alec still gives us many of the great stylistic touches at the core of the Tall Dwarfs on his own album, from crunching riffs over rhythm loop rumbles to fairground psychedelia. \u003cb\u003eGold Lamé \u003c\/b\u003eis stacked with good moods and undeniably sweet sixties melodies right from the moment its first track, \"Win Your Love\", descends into something like a Beach Boys' \u003ci\u003eSmile \u003c\/i\u003eout-take. Later we get Alec picking up the voice of Velvets-era Lou Reed on \"Ain't It Strange\" and the Knox-Bathgate Beatles touchstone appears nicely-done on \"Slow Parade\". As with the best of Tall Dwarfs' output, \u003cb\u003eGold Lamé \u003c\/b\u003eso often feels like a gem left out in the forest in 1969....\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eAlec's experienced recording hand is immediately evident in arrangements like \"Carl's Arrows\", where the four-track recording is not necessarily \"lo-fi\" and encompasses voice, guitars, toy xylophone and piano. There's extensive use of casio keyboard tones and rhythms on many songs including a cover of reggae classic, \"Train To Skaville\". Deft backwards sounds punctuate \"Run\" alongside a nice electric guitar melody. Elsewhere, songs make room for Alec's big guitaring — his fantastic strumming on acoustic at the heart of tunes like the title track and a burr of solid electrics on others like \"Pet Hates\".\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe latter is one of two \u003cb\u003eGold Lamé \u003c\/b\u003esongs released on a seven inch vinyl single late last year by Flying Nun. \"Pet Hates\" and \"Happy Hound\" drew an excellent critical response, no better than in Wellington's \u003ci\u003eSalient\u003c\/i\u003e, who said \u003ci\u003e\"This sweet slab sounds exactly like the Tall Dwarfs without Chris Knox. Surprisingly. And some would like that. His vox put him up as a chipper Bing Crosby to Knox's more croonful Frank Sinatra.\"\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eFor those of us who've loved the handful of tunes Alec has managed to get his tonsils round in the Tall Dwarfs, \u003cb\u003eGold Lamé \u003c\/b\u003eis an album full of White Christmases. We should add that it also cost less to make than Elvis's suit, which means that in recording craft and creativity value, Alec Bathgate is a home-recorded rock'n'roll king in our book. \u003cb\u003eGold Lamé \u003c\/b\u003eis a long overdue item and all us Tall Dwarfs fans can't be wrong — Alec Bathgate is the star.\u003c\/p\u003e","published_at":"2020-08-09T18:39:24+12:00","sort_order":"best-selling","template_suffix":"","disjunctive":false,"rules":[{"column":"tag","relation":"equals","condition":"Alec Bathgate"}],"published_scope":"global","image":{"created_at":"2020-08-23T22:27:34+12:00","alt":null,"width":1333,"height":1333,"src":"https:\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0450\/3165\/3527\/collections\/0012660518_10.jpg?v=1598178454"}},{"id":211727286423,"handle":"bressa-creeting-cake","title":"Bressa Creeting Cake","updated_at":"2021-07-16T10:20:17+12:00","body_html":"\u003cp\u003eAll too rarely does a musical group come along with all the right bits intact and just enough of the wrong bits there to make you sit up and really take notice.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cspan\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Apple-converted-space\"\u003e\u003cbr\u003eHaving already made serious wobbles in the airwaves over student radio with a string of demo recordings, Bressa Creeting Cake laid it out a couple of months back with the four songs making up their debut Flying Nun release, \"Papa People\". Now stretching their prodigious talents into a full album's worth of tunes, this young band revel in the chance to show us exactly what they're capable of. And that, my friends, is a lot.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eRight from the opening calypso swing of \"Palm Singing\", Bressa Creeting Cake kick into the playful pop inventiveness that stands as the album's major mood. The vast array of styles on the album include plenty of psychedelic tinges and a hint of progressive rock, but the band don't get stuck in any one place for long over fifteen songs. And those frivolous moments like \"Rocky Mountain\" (complete with that much-maligned staple of English 80s pop, the Simmons drumkit) are balanced out by more earnest tracks such as \"You \u0026amp;I;\" and \"They Write Words To People Who Are Dead\".\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLyrically, both Ed Cake and Geoff Creeting string words together with no small amount of flair. Whether it be the Hungarian\/ Mongolian hybrid language in \"Zenax\", the imaginative leaps of syntax and imagery in \"Rocky Mountain\" and \"Egyptian Tanker\", or the strange tales told in the likes of \"A Chip That Sells Millions\" or 'An Early Microscope\", the use of words and meaning adds depth to the tunes here.\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cspan\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Apple-converted-space\"\u003eBressa Creeting Cake was heralded as a young band \"brimming with ideas\". Their self-titled 1997 debut album - made up of 15 tracks swinging between psychedelic and progressive rock (including single 'Nervous Wreck') received acclaim, but then the trio went their separate ways. Geoff Maddock (then going by the stage name Geoff Creeting) and Joel Wilton, went on to form pop-folk band Goldenhorse alongside Kirsten Morelle. Ed Cake has released two solo albums and produced for various musicians. \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","published_at":"2020-08-09T18:50:00+12:00","sort_order":"created","template_suffix":"","disjunctive":false,"rules":[{"column":"tag","relation":"equals","condition":"Bressa Creeting Cake"}],"published_scope":"global","image":{"created_at":"2020-08-24T20:49:45+12:00","alt":null,"width":670,"height":671,"src":"https:\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0450\/3165\/3527\/collections\/Bressa_Creeting_Cake_Flying_Nun.jpg?v=1598258986"}},{"id":211727974551,"handle":"chris-knox","title":"Chris Knox","updated_at":"2021-07-21T13:20:20+12:00","body_html":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cspan\u003e\u003cimg src=\"https:\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0450\/3165\/3527\/files\/Chris_Knox_Flying_Nun_1024x1024.jpg?v=1598260692\" alt=\"\"\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cspan\u003eI first met Chris Knox in my shop Records Records, where he would come after he had finished his postie run. He would usually denigrate some of the vaunted albums in the Recent Arrivals bin, always with a smile, lovely teeth, and then drift over to the One Dollar Cardboard Box, where, in those incredible days, he was able to buy Pip Proud for just that one dollar. I had tried to sell Pip Proud for more, but nobody wanted it.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cspan\u003eChris also worked, variously, at the Cadburys Chocolate Factory and Brian Snell's Hi Fi Shop. He flatted behind Snells, and shop manager Ron Esplin was fond of telling people later on when Chris' musical stature grew, that one morning when Chris didn't turn up for work, he went over there to yank him out of bed, only there was someone else in the bed as well. Ron, with the highly developed Presbyterian moral ethic so common to those of us who live in the south, was shocked. But he liked Chris, he kept him on.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cspan\u003eThe Enemy was put together a year or two later. I knew Chris quite well by then, but didn't go to any of the practices, unlike others in our group, who reported back breathlessly that the songs were amazing. Like a number of others, I was asked to come and try out for the band with my Diplomat copy guitar, but I knew my limitations and said I was busy that night.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cspan\u003eThe Beneficiaries Hall debut confirmed The Enemy had amazing songs. Talk turned quickly to getting them down on tape. I had a good reel to reel, a Revox A-77 (which I later sold to David Kilgour, his song Tape Machine is about that) and a bad microphone, so I hauled the two along to the old Cellar Club in Manse Street to record a gig on Alec Bathgate's birthday. Chris had given me a tape I could use - \"Don't worry about what is on it, just wipe eberything off, they're just really old songs I used to write, they're crap.\"\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cspan\u003eNone of us had a sense of history then, not even me, who was older, and should have understood history. So I didn't even play the tape before I erased it with The Enemy at The Cellar Club. This would rank as one of the top ten studpiest things I have ever done in my life.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cspan\u003eUnfortunately the cheap microphone had the final say that night. The band dutifully came up to our house on the following Monday and we listened to the tape through a big Jansen valve amplifier to try and get that raw rough live sound. Everyone got very depressed, tape recorders can be cruel when you have only performed in public a couple of times. But Chris was great all the way through, trying to pull the project up from under the water in much the same way he tried to rescue the Toy Love album years later, singing his heart out. Talk turned to doing covers. Yes please, said Mick. No, never, said Chris.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cspan\u003eThe Enemy took all those good songs into Toy Love and records were finally made, chart positions achieved, and then came Flying Nun. When the label produced a pack of cards on their tenth anniversary with drawings by Chris, he did one of me, calling me The Godfather Of The Dunedin Sound. Wrong. Chris was always that. Everyone deferred to him, hung on his every word and piece of advice, and used his evaluation of their performance as a barometer of where they stood. Most of all, Chris helped so many of them, often reserving his most fulsome praise and material assistance to the ones who were at the bottom of the totem pole, the Pip Proud One Dollar Cardboard Box ones.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cspan\u003eI went up to see Chris in Auckland this year, well after his debilitating stroke. I had been told a variety of distressing stories, I didn't know what to expect. But the old Chris was still there, wordless maybe, but the eyes and the smile and the expressive face said so much. As it always did. I had always meant to mention that silly story about him not making it to work that morning at Brian Snells, somehow it had just never come up. Probably because it was silly. It seemed the time now, the moment was ripe for something right off the wall. But Chris was getting tired. I saved it for another time, and used the extra few minutes it would have taken to tell to hug him that much longer.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cspan\u003eChris would have laughed though, he would have really laughed.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","published_at":"2020-08-09T18:56:44+12:00","sort_order":"created","template_suffix":"","disjunctive":false,"rules":[{"column":"tag","relation":"equals","condition":"Chris Knox"}],"published_scope":"global","image":{"created_at":"2020-08-24T21:18:30+12:00","alt":null,"width":1000,"height":1000,"src":"https:\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0450\/3165\/3527\/collections\/Chris_Knox_Flying_Nun_Square.jpg?v=1598260710"}},{"id":211728072855,"handle":"cloudboy","title":"Cloudboy","updated_at":"2021-06-05T16:43:01+12:00","body_html":"","published_at":"2020-08-09T18:58:48+12:00","sort_order":"best-selling","template_suffix":"","disjunctive":false,"rules":[{"column":"tag","relation":"equals","condition":"Cloudboy"}],"published_scope":"global","image":{"created_at":"2020-08-26T21:17:11+12:00","alt":null,"width":1000,"height":1000,"src":"https:\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0450\/3165\/3527\/collections\/Cloudboy.jpg?v=1598433432"}},{"id":211579109527,"handle":"flying-nun","title":"Flying Nun + Related","updated_at":"2021-07-23T14:15:17+12:00","body_html":"","published_at":"2020-08-08T18:17:51+12:00","sort_order":"created-desc","template_suffix":"","disjunctive":false,"rules":[{"column":"tag","relation":"equals","condition":"Flying Nun"},{"column":"tag","relation":"equals","condition":"Vinyl"}],"published_scope":"global"},{"id":268276400279,"handle":"flying-nun-vinyl","title":"Flying Nun Vinyl","updated_at":"2021-07-23T14:15:17+12:00","body_html":"","published_at":"2021-06-03T19:09:24+12:00","sort_order":"created-desc","template_suffix":"","disjunctive":false,"rules":[{"column":"tag","relation":"equals","condition":"Flying Nun"},{"column":"tag","relation":"equals","condition":"Vinyl"}],"published_scope":"global"},{"id":211731087511,"handle":"graeme-downes","title":"Graeme Downes","updated_at":"2021-06-05T19:34:47+12:00","body_html":"","published_at":"2020-08-09T19:20:24+12:00","sort_order":"best-selling","template_suffix":"","disjunctive":false,"rules":[{"column":"tag","relation":"equals","condition":"Graeme Downes"}],"published_scope":"global"},{"id":211731546263,"handle":"high-dependency-unit","title":"High Dependency Unit","updated_at":"2021-06-05T19:34:47+12:00","body_html":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cimg src=\"https:\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0450\/3165\/3527\/files\/HDU_Flying_Nun_1024x1024.jpg?v=1598524839\" alt=\"\"\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe Dunedin-based trio of Tristan Dingemans (guitar\/vocals), Neil Phillips (bass) and Dino Karlis (drums) join forces with long-standing sound recorder Dale Cotton and pick up the thread of their muse in five extended songs, drawing each into a taut epic of alternating light and dark.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cspan\u003eInvoking all the sound and the fury imaginable in the post-rock idiom, high dependency unit offer up another slab of sonic splendour to rival their two previous epics, \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cb\u003eAbstinence: Acrimony\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cspan\u003e (1995) and \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cb\u003eThe Sum Of The Few\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cspan\u003e (1996).\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eFrom the opening strains of the first track \"Babaya\" the adrenaline is rising until it's like drowning in an ocean of pure sound. Musical tension is coupled with a compelling sense of calm that allows you to just drift in the beauty of noise. The following track \"Fauxtekra\" unleashes the power of hdu live, drum and bass attempting to hold down a guitar hellbent on the deconstruction of all rock axioms.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe slabs of noise subside briefly with the third track, appropriately entitled \"Lull\". The drums relax into a shuffle beat alongside a more introspective guitar line before hdu return to their heavy duty as the apocalyptic journey of \"Dune\" unfolds. Dense and foreboding, the track just relentlessly drives on before its oppressive grind breaks like a wave.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eAnd so to the close where \"Space Is The Place\" winds out to uncover a reverbed soundscape of chilling beauty. In space, it may be that no-one can hear you scream, but with higher hdu make another passionate case for the quality of the dark emotions they express in music and sound. In ten years time, high dependency unit will be a name that resonates with the 'underground' prestige that groups such as the Gordons and Skeptics command today. Live, there's not a band around today that can touch them. This is the sound of the 'dark side' of Flying Nun in full sonic severity.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003ccenter\u003e\n\u003ci\u003e\"high dependency unit maakt namelijk psychedelica ten voeten uit.\" Rif Raf Musiczine.\u003c\/i\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\"Distorted, dangerous and often devastating, New Zealand band hdu journey headlong into free-form noise and sonic terror.\" Rolling Stone (04\/97)\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003ci\u003e\"hdu's mix of disciplined musical muscle and compelling sense of tension make them simply breathtaking.\" Russell Baillie, NZ Herald\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003c\/center\u003e","published_at":"2020-08-09T19:23:15+12:00","sort_order":"best-selling","template_suffix":"","disjunctive":false,"rules":[{"column":"tag","relation":"equals","condition":"High Dependency Unit"}],"published_scope":"global","image":{"created_at":"2020-08-27T22:23:55+12:00","alt":null,"width":1000,"height":1000,"src":"https:\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0450\/3165\/3527\/collections\/HDU_Flying_Nun-SQUARE.jpg?v=1598523836"}},{"id":211738296471,"handle":"pavement","title":"Pavement","updated_at":"2021-06-17T15:01:58+12:00","body_html":"","published_at":"2020-08-09T20:33:41+12:00","sort_order":"best-selling","template_suffix":"","disjunctive":false,"rules":[{"column":"tag","relation":"equals","condition":"Pavement"}],"published_scope":"global"},{"id":211746554007,"handle":"various","title":"Various","updated_at":"2021-07-02T14:48:25+12:00","body_html":"","published_at":"2020-08-09T21:30:58+12:00","sort_order":"best-selling","template_suffix":"","disjunctive":false,"rules":[{"column":"tag","relation":"equals","condition":"Various"}],"published_scope":"global"},{"id":262153961623,"handle":"various-1","title":"Various","updated_at":"2021-07-02T14:48:25+12:00","body_html":"","published_at":"2021-03-18T22:15:56+13:00","sort_order":"best-selling","template_suffix":"","disjunctive":false,"rules":[{"column":"tag","relation":"equals","condition":"Various"}],"published_scope":"global"}]
["1998","Alastair Galbraith","Alec Bathgate","Baiter Cell","Barbara Manning","Bressa Creeting Cake","Calexico","CD","Chris Knox","Cloudboy","Conray","Flying Nun","Graeme Downes","Gray Bartlett","Guided By Voices","Head Like A Hole","High Dependency Unit","ICU","Nodrog","Pavement","Peter Gutteridge","Rotor","Salmonella Dub","Scooter","Sugarbug","The Livids","Various","Vinyl"]
