Jim Nothing

Day 7 of our 31 Days of May/ Month of Madness Music Marathon comes from Jim Nothing, representing Christchurch’s lo-fi DIY music scene and continuing a long tradition in that damaged city of murky, menacing, fuzzy obscure sounds from the margins.

“Raleigh Arena” is from a 4 track cassette EP called “Zig Zag Blues” recorded on a 4-track Tascam cassette recorder and released in February. It’s the brightest light on this EP. Although only 1 minute 18 seconds of jangly discordant fuzz-pop, it manages to coalesce the entire essence of The Clean in their earliest incarnation so perfectly you’ll be hitting ‘rewind’ (figuratively-speaking) repeatedly.

The other 3 tracks on the EP are also great – the two-paced menacing post-punk-meets-fuzz-pop of “What Can I Say?”, the over-the-top thrash-skronk of “Doubt” and the crunchy psychobilly punk distortion of the title track, which, at almost 5 minutes long, is half the EP’s running time.