“Heads in the Clouds” by David Yetton

Formerly bassist and one of three songwriters in NZ 1980s/90s band The Jean Paul Sartre Experience (subsequently known as JPS Experience, JPSE), David Yetton has cleaned out his computer hard drive with a wry-titled cassette album called “Move to Trash (Bits, Pieces, Offcuts & Stuff)” released on Hamburg-based cassette label Thokei Tapes. Here’s “Heads in the Clouds” from it.

Yetton went on to form Stereobus/ The Stereo Bus after JPSE split. The songs on “Move to Trash” sound to be Stereobus/ The Stereo Bus era demos, out-takes, and ideas.

However some of them also rekindle the sense of hushed melodic wonder of that very first EP by the Jean Paul Sartre Experience released on Flying Nun Records back in the mid 1980s. As “Teardrops” here does beautifully…

Thokei Tapes have released some intriguing oddities from the archives of other NZ artists associated with the Flying Nun label. They are not available for download, however you do get a free download if you buy a cassette. Postage seems to be reasonable so why not…?

“Clandestine” by Dear Time’s Waste

Dear Time’s Waste, Dunedin, 2009

Day 28 of PopLib’s 31 Days of May marathon for New Zealand Music month is a trip 9 years back in time to “Clandestine” from the first EP release of now-retired musical entity Dear Time’s Waste

“Clandestine” is the opening track on the 1st release by Dear Time’s Waste – the “Room For Rent” EP, released in March 2009.

It’s a song that transfixed then, and – as some music is inclined to do – transfixes still, nine years later, from the moment those two drum beats herald its start.

Following the “Room for Rent” EP, Claire Duncan, as Dear Time’s Waste – sometimes with a band, sometimes without – released two ambitious, excellent, and essential albums; SPELLS (2010) and Some Kind Of Eden (2012).

Afterwards came the intriguing slow development of a new and darker NZ Gothic enterprise, called i.e. crazy.

“Emerging from a mist of shoegaze in my early twenties, I yearned to discover a stronger mode of communication” explained Claire in this tribute to 5 of her favourite NZ songs published on The Wireless.

While i. e. crazy is certainly a “stronger mode of communication” it’s worth noting that the lyrics and atmosphere of the Dear Time’s Waste right from the start contained many hints of what was to follow, as a careful listening to “Clandestine” reveals.

That “mist of shoegaze” produced two of my favourite albums and this 5-song “Room for Rent” EP which is my equal-favourite 5 song EP along with the 1st Jean Paul Sartre Experience 12″ EP released in 1986.

“Shirley In The Sun” by Wurld Series

Wurld Series have an “Anthology” out on Portland, US tape label Voyager Golden Records. Hard to pick just one song from an absolutely stellar collection of DIY recorded guitar pop, but “Shirley in the Sun” here caught the ear with its homespun psychedelia.

“Anthology” is a cassette release. “Professionally dubbed” it says proudly, as if to differentiate itself from the home taping which was killing the music industry in the 1980s. (That’s a joke by the way. Anyone who made or shared cassette tapes in the 1980s knows this was how the music you didn’t hear on radio stations was shared around and discovered, and we cassette makers and sharers also hoovered up 7″ singles 12″ EPs and LPs like they were going out of fashion. Which they did by the mid 1990s. But they are back now. As are cassettes. It’s a long story.)

“Anthology”  ticks all the boxes for fans of lo-fi home-recorded pop, and triangulates its sound roughly within reference points like Pavement, Guided By Voices and The Clean. Of course, it’s not that simple and the undercurrent I hear most strongly here is a very NZ (or maybe Australasian) take on British psychedelic pop. So there’s a bit of The Kinks and The Who and even more obscure psych-nuggets. Have a listen and see what you reckon.

While we are on the subject of possible influences or inspirations, Wurld Series have recently thought about their Top 5 NZ songs for The Wireless. I can’t fault their selection or what they say about one of their picks – “Own Two Feet” by The Jean Paul Sartre Experience.

Oh, here’s a video for another song from the album. It’s called “Rabbit”:

“Across The Room” by The Moonlight

The Moonlight released their first album a few weeks ago and are touring NZ at the moment to alert the dozy rugby-obsessed inhabitants of the Land of the Long White Cloud of its existence. Here’s the opening track, the rather wonderful “Across The Room”.

“Across The Room” sounds like it could be a lost recording by the Jean Paul Sartre Experience as they transitioned from winsome melodic strum into peerless fuzzy shoegaze giants as JPSE. That good.

Listening through the album it also seems The Moonlight would also have fitted comfortably amongst the chiming pop of some of the 1990s/ 2000s Failsafe Records roster, which included bands like Springloader, Throw and Dolphin, and post-JPSE bands Kimo and Mulchzoid.

There’s something distinctly New Zealand about The Moonlight LP and it’s low key yearning existential strum. Or, as they so eloquently say on their Bandcamp page: “A pent up need to give permanent shape to the flux of experience. That kind of stuff.”

I’ll be getting a copy tonight at Chick’s Hotel, where they play with the PopLib endorsed Elan Vital.