TEMPORARY – Selections From Dunedin’s Pop Underground

The idea with PopLib blog was to exclude all the stuff released on Fishrider Records and draw your attention to other unheard goodness, mostly hidden away on Bandcamp. The main focus of PopLib has been on uncovering NZ underground pop sounds, with occasional excursions over the Tasman and around the world.

The next Fishrider Records release creates a dilemma for the self-imposed ‘nothing from Fishrider’ rules here though. It’s a compilation of 13 songs and only 5 are Fishrider-released artists. Almost all the others have featured here on PopLib in the past year.

The compilation is called T E M P O R A R Y, in reference to the transient nature of young musicians, bands and the music scene here in Dunedin in general. It is an extension of what PopLib is about – drawing attention to the stuff you may never know exists. It even comes with a ‘zine (actually a pretty classy words music, writing & art magazine) to help immerse you even more and to kickstart your discovery of each band included.

It’s out in early September here in NZ, has a US co-release on Ba Da Bing! Records and will be also available in the UK with the assistance of Occultation Recordings. You can pre-order it now in a variety of formats at ridiculous pre-order prices from Fishrider’s Bandcamp here. As well as an immediate download you’ll also get into the release shows at Chick’s Hotel on 5th & 6th September (if you are in Dunedin).

As you’ll see if you visit the page there’s only two tracks available to stream at the moment – “All Over The World” by The Prophet Hens and Winded” by Kane Strang .

Another 7 can be found on the Bandcamp pages of the bands. As a quick guide just for the loyal readers of PopLib, here’s a shortcut to some more of what’s what on the compilation. So have a look around, discover more from the ones you like the most… but if you like some of them and want to hear them on vinyl & read about them in print, grab that compilation LP & ‘zine while it lasts.

Side One:
1 Mavis Gary – Dim the Droog

2 Death & The Maiden – Flowers for the Blind

3 The Prophet Hens – All Over The World

4 Males – Dead Aware

5. Mr Biscuits – My Plums Are Ripe

6. Opposite Sex – Supermarket

7. Strange Harvest – Amnesia

Side Two:
1 The Shifting Sands – All The Stars

2 Astro Children – Gaze

3 Kane Strang – Winded

4 Bad Sav – Buy Something New

5 Scattered Brains of the Lovely Union – Party To Your Om

6 Trick Mammoth – Home Video

‘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.

PopLib Top Ten songs for 2013

Here are PopLib’s Top 10 songs for 2013.
Most of these have been featured here during the year, but a few have not. And, yes, all but one are from NZ artists. My PopLib ears have been tuned locally most of the year.
I will add my Top 10 albums later in the month – you can expect a few more international releases there. But not too many more.

1. “Eden” by Astro Children.
My favourite music this year has been from Astro Children. Millie & Isaac were 19 when they recorded their album “Proteus” earlier this year (following up their Mini-album debut “Lick My Spaceship” from 2012). And, not content with recording one great album in 2013, Millie also recorded an album called “Floristry” with her other band Trick Mammoth (set for NZ & UK release early in 2014). It has been hard picking just one song from Astro Children. “Gaze” was an early favourite. Then “Nora Barnacle” stunned with it’s caustic boil of fury. But “Eden” is just perfect enough to top them all. It combines all the elements I love about Astro Children – sweet & strident, rough & smart.

2. “Avant Gardener” by Courtney Barnett
Best ever song about a panic attack. Or gardening in a heat-wave. The two EPs released by Melbourne’s Courtney Barnett are brimful of character. Short stories set to song, and most songs pack golden choruses to match their wry verses.

3. “Winded” by Kane Strang
Baroque psychedelic folk from world-travelling Dunedin troubadour Kane Strang. On this song he expands his usual acoustic guitar & vocal template with assembled instruments including a bowed saw. As with every song on the album, the vocals become an instrument and an essential part of what makes the songs on his self-release debut album – “A Pebble & A Paper Crane” [now removed from Bandcamp by Kane] so perfect.

4. “Sugar C” by Misfit Mod
Minimalist electronica & voice. Just perfect. And made even better by being available as a delicious 7″ single with screen printed cover.

5. “Dim the Droog” by Mavis Gary
Alter-ego of Trick Mammoth’s Adrian Ng, Mavis Gary is an evolving – and intriguing – solo project from Dunedin’s shy over-achiever. The songs are generally darker and stranger than his Trick Mammoth fare, although some eventually end up as Trick Mammoth tunes. But the ones that don’t – like “Dim the Droog” – have a dark pop brilliance that draws you into the seedy underworld of Mavis Gary.

6. “Dear _____” by Death & the Maiden
Dunedin electronic trio Death & the Maiden add some post-punk to their dark-wave electronica and make songs of strange longing and distracted beauty. I’m hoping 2014 is the year they find the courage to release their developing songbook.

7. “Field Recordings of Animals Noises” by X-Ray Charles
X-Ray Charles are from Christchurch & their “Selph Titled” mini-album release is a fine lo-fi 4-track cassette-recorded slice of mangled melodic rock. It seems as much influenced by “Bee Thousand” era Guided By Voices as it does The Clean. Yet this song also echoes the descending perfection of Pere Ubu’s “Waiting for Mary” (which I doubt they have ever heard).

8. “Amnesia” by Strange Harvest
This Dunedin electronic duo self-released a wonderful album this year & this song is my favourite from it.

9. “Infinity Kiss” by LTTLE PHNX
‘Bummer-synth’ is a great genre to invent. The LTTLE PHNX album is sweet & sad & resigned to its fate (whatever that is). I first warmed to the Suren Unka re-mix which was just a shade more shimmery and bright than the album & But the more I listened to the album I preferred the original oppressive bass thrum and enervated vocals. A crushingly beautiful song to infiltrate your mind.

10. “Complicity” by Sonny Carver/ Opposite Sex
Not sure whether this should be attributed to Opposite Sex (as it is on this fine Sunday Porch Session live video) or Sonny Carver (the name Lucy Hunter & Reg Norris play under when they have performed this live). I’ve also seen Lucy play it solo. Whatever & whoever it is I adore this song. It started life as “My Murders are Fine” & is now known as “Complicity” & its southern gothic theatrics have haunted me since the night I first heard it.

I’ve excluded anything I’ve released via Fishrider Records, because that’s an alternative list for me in its own right.

Venn Diagram of Small Part of Dunedin Pop Underground

People get confused as to who is who in Dunedin’s current Pop Underground, or, as Did Not Chart blog calls it, The Sound Of Young Dunedin.

So, in the interests of clarifying confusion and shining a light on the stuff that keeps people awake at night, here’s a Venn Diagram showing just four of the current bands with new releases – Trick Mammoth, Males (being released soon on the label I run – Fishrider Records), Astro Children (Auckland label Muzai Records) and Mavis Gary (via Dunedin cassette label The Attic).

I’m considering expanding this but it would soon get very huge and messy. Maybe there’s a computer application that will automatically do it…? For example Males link to Dunedin legends The Clean in one easy move through a band called Kilmog which Males’ guitarist/ vocalist Richard Ley-Hamilton plays in along with Robert Scott (The Clean and The Bats).

Plus, if you added an historic overlay you’d find Richard, Sam Valentine and Adrian Ng all playing together in Mr Biscuits and then, briefly, Blonde Hash. But let’s not get too carried away here.

All this might explain why Dunedin keeps producing more great pop bands per head of population than anywhere else in the world. Is it cheating? I don’t think so. It’s just that the weather here is pretty lousy a lot of the time, there’s not that much to do of an evening or weekend, and the kids have music in their DNA. Being in just one band doesn’t keep you busy enough – there’s only so many times a band can play here in the 4 or 5 live music venues in the city. Plus there are never enough drummers.