‘A Pebble & A Paper Crane’ by Kane Strang

Young Dunedin musician Kane Strang (currently in Germany I think) has been self-releasing self-recorded music for a few years. His acoustic songs released over the past few years were interesting and hinted at potential, but didn’t really grab me. However, his recent music – as assembled on ‘A Pebble & A Paper Crane’, recorded either with a band or a lot of multi-tracking, is spectacular at times. And utterly individualistic.

I presume Kane Strang records on a laptop, but his bedroom psychedelia has the woozy wobbly saturated warmth of a 4-track cassette porta-studio recording. He’s a dandy in the underworld; songs ripe with fruity indulgence, baroque melodies, overwrought imagery & scruffy but fussy elegance.

It’s a bit of a grower too. It’s always a good sign when something doesn’t reveal all its charms on first listen but slowly invades your subconscious over time & you find yourself humming these ambitious melodies while out walking in Dunedin’s sunshine & rain.

Favourite tracks here are the opening ‘Love Letter for a Trend Setter’ and ‘Winded’ which I first heard (and featured here) in April, but it’s all a fine collection any lover of psychedelic flavoured folkie pop weirdness should check out. The album is available to download from Kane’s Bandcamp page and is also available on CD – there are some copies in Portil music store in Dunedin for $15 right now.

Update 2015: Kane has removed “A Pebble And A Paper Crane” from his Bandcamp. You can still hear “Winded” from this album here on TEMPORARY – Selections From Dunedin’s Pop Underground 2011 – 2015

There’s also a couple of tracks someone has uploaded on YouTube too.