‘Death & The Long Drive Home’ by Mavis Gary

Adrian Ng in The Attic

Day 30 of the song-a-day-May NZ Music Month madness comes from King of Dunedin’s Pop Underground right now – Adrian Ng – in the guise of his dark (‘how dark’) side project Mavis Gary & the grim ‘Death & The Long Drive Home’.

[If the player above defaults to track two please press << on the player to get 'Death & The Long Drive Home' thanks]

Adrian may be better known for his work recording/ mixing bands in The Attic, including the singles club this is released as part of, and also for his ‘flower cult’ pop band Trick Mammoth. He still has time for Mavis Gary – his mad science project laptop lab for not only developing new song ideas but also indulging in the darker side of his psyche. Beneath every pretty & colourful bed of flowers lurks a death-mask skull & a cautionary tale hinting at some darkness or depravity eating at the human soul.

‘Death & The Long Drive Home’ (that has to be a film and/or book reference but I’m not going to look it up) breaks from tradition though by placing melodic pop candy secondary to tone. As a result this is the most sinister sounding song from the Mavis Gary catalogue so far, recalling the kind of abrasive angular guitar-percussion-churn shapes of early Cake Kitchen.

“Death & The Long Drive Home’ starts heavy and weird, before losing control on a gentle curve in the darkness towards the end, leaving the road and rolling over a precipice into the dark of night, landing upside-down, wheels spinning while the radiator hisses steam and the radio crackles and dies. Take care out there on the winter roads this long weekend.

‘Astronaut’ by Strange Harvest

Strange Harvest (via their Facebook page)

The Attic is a collective-run arts/ culture/ music/ pigeons/ dust space in downtown Dunedin. It is the ‘incubator’ responsible for a big part of the happening sounds of young Dunedin right now. Trick Mammoth recorded their early demos there, Astro Children recorded their ‘Lick my Spaceship’ EP and album ‘Proteus’ there. Trick Mammoth’s Adrian Ng is one of The Attic partners and has recorded and mixed all the singles club releases.

Adrian Ng recording Strange Harvest recording in The Attic – photo Alex Lovell-Smith

The Attic is also a label – some cassettes, some CDR releases and a lot of digital releases via The Attic Bandcamp page..

The Attic has recently been running a digital Singles Club. One new song by the selected local artist, and one cover version selected by The Attic. The Attic choices often seem perverse, maybe even cruel. When I saw they’d selected a song by rapper Earl Sweatshirt for Dunedin darkwave electronic + guitar duo Strange Harvest to cover as their ‘B-side’ I was thinking this was the cruellest trick they’d pulled.

Turns out I needn’t have worried at all. This is my favourite of the singles club releases so far (and there’s been some very cool ones preceding it). The cover version is a highlight. But the main song ‘Astronaut’ is wonderful too.