Autumn Jumbo Fun-Pak: Onset/Offset Cassette Comps (1983-87)

Digging back into the fertile fields of the 1980s Christchurch underground. Many of these songs were comped on the Krypton Ten 2xLP, but now you can listen to them in all of their 35-year-old, 'tape-saturated', hissy and disintegrating glory! Read all about Onset/Offset in Andrew Schmidt's article here. 



20 Krypton Hits Volume One (1983)

Comeback Neurosis

Krypton Green (1984)

The Square's a Square Inch Up Here

Krypton Red (1984)

The Scariest Thing Is Your Mind

Krypton Amber (1984)

They Were Still Dazed By Long Celebrations

KVEETWO (1987)

Little Red Radio

Besser and Prosser - Dark Wind/Spring Rain (1986)

New Zealand Composer Edition: New Music For Violin and Piano, by Jonathan Besser & Chris Prosser.

Both artists have been involved with electronic music, though I've only heard Besser in Free Radicals. But this part of their practice is evident in the record's opening suite.

Extended techniques expand the timbres in the Three Impressions of 'Dark Wind': in Part One, reverberating wooden raps and clouts on bodies of piano and violin, strummed piano wires and whispery un-rosined bowing wheeze huff and heave like the sea; Part Two's tinkling keys ground the flutter and swoop of birdcalls/-flaps/-hoppings chivvied from the fiddle; whilst Part Three feels electronically augmented, with low piano strings struck odd-chiming like ring-modulation, and paper slipped 'twixt the violin strings sizzles and snaps 'midst buzzy sawtooth scything. Unambiguously bewitching.


Best Prose

Autumnal Jumbo Fun-Pak: The Unmatchable Robert Cardy (1987-88)

Continuing our Christchurch cassette excavations: home-taped, killer music from the bountiful Bob Cardy (Axemen, Shaft, etc.).

Traditional EnZed bedroom studio stuff in the orthodoxy of Chris Knox or Kraus, Alastair Galbraith or Darcy Clay or Stefan Neville -- like The Residents recording The Basement Tapes or Jonathan Richman's Thinking Fellers tribute act solo-recorded on the dole, all dolloped in Strapping Fieldhands' sloshed slapdashery.

81 songs on six tapes over two short years! Cheesy preset synths and sound effects, home organ, drum machine and double-tracked vocals, guitar and bass and banjo. Riffs for Africa, Velvet earworms, effortless songcraft out the metaphorical wazoo, plus jokes 'n' puns & drones 'n' gems a-poppin'.

Download and overdose on this underlooked ol' wunderkind! Unreservedly recommended.


Fat Spring Coal & Diamonds In The Lava (1987)

The Untouchable Farmhand Blarney

Lallapaloosa (1987)

Hindsight Scrambler

Public Address (1987)

Young, Gifted & Broke

18 Milky Bar Odes (1987)

Return Of The Horse That Bit Me

A Thousand And One Stag Nights (1988)

Tape Angels

Gloss (1988)

Grindstone Noseboy

Drone - Drone (1989)

Debut album from late-80s Auckland minimalist avant-garde art schoolers Drone. Not what I expected when I discovered them around the turn of the century, my post-Free Noise sensibilities presuming heavy electric drunge.

This is not that: instead it's sombre and sober, astringent acoustic strings with vocal harmonies and scant samples, detuned chimings and chants braided into unison rhythms. Rich and thick (like good American ketchup or bad American presidents), sensitive and affecting, very smart yet from the gut.

The marching piano on second track 'Carcass' bounces like an obscurely perky This Kind of Punishment, while 'Music for Guitar + Piano' could be a Terry Riley-led Abel Tasmans painting a McCahon. Other tracks call to mind a synth-less Marie and the Atom, stripped down or vigorous as in knotty ‘pop’ tracks like ‘Lofty’ by Out of the Compost, or ‘Black Thoughts’ or ‘Ethiopian Dream’ by Thin Red Line. 

Get the whole story at AudioCulture, and pick up their first 7-inch here.


This Carcass I Beg To Slaughter

The Semmy-Compleet Smelly Feet (1981-82)

Brent Hayward -- a stabler Syd Barrett, a glib Pip Proud, a scatter-brained Bill Direen, a slipshod Crispin Glover -- the hands and mind behind Shoes This High, Smelly Feet, The Kiwi Animal, Fats White (and so on). Earnest weirdness and unsmiling silliness which swings from intimate revelation to dispassionate observation track by track. Andrew Schmidt's got a full write-up on Brent Hayward's post-Shoes This High story on AudioCulture. 

This post is 'semmy-compleet' as the third 7-inch can be found at the excellent Forgotten New Zealand 45s blog.

Smelly Feet - As Seen On TV (1981)

The ideal initiation into the Smelly Feet scheme, from the seasick and slinky 'North Of Anywhere' to the sweet ennui of 'A Song For The World', then on to the miniature municipal metaphor 'Vegetable Market' before merrily surrendering to the apocalypse with 'E.O.T.W.I.T.'. 

A scan of the complete fold-out 7-inch sleeve is included. A wee bit of distortion on this rip. 

'Cause Her Shoes Were Too High

Smelly Feet - OHMS (1981)

The punkest of the three releases presented here -- 'OHMS' is shouty and strident, repetitive like Kiwi Animal's 'Woman And Man Have Balance', intercut with lyrical nihilist declaimings. Then there's the grotty-vibed 'My Festured Toe' [sic], and the chastising 'Comparisons'. Detuned, clatter-stringed guitar. 

No cover. Quite a crackly rip, sorry. 

It's All Been Done For You

Smelly Feet - Left Odours (1982)

Snippets, quite a few complete songs, and euphonious streams-of-consciousness -- 22 total tracks recorded at home and gigs, on four-track and portable tape recorders. The good stuff here is like first-take Kiwi Animal, Hayward's (admittedly idiosyncratic) songcraft and playing both edging toward that Brent and Julie apogee. Not at all a 'for the real fans only!!!!' Dead Letter Office, rather a rare find -- like a faded denim jacket in your size at the op shop which is both impeccably zirconia-bedazzled and prog-metal patched. 

The first three pieces on the a-side are furiously lofi -- like, no-fi -- and I worried that the tape was degraded, but by ‘Kenny’ they are much clearer, so hang in there. It's promptly obvious from the varying track quality that the indiscriminate fidelity is intentional. I've stereo compensated as it was heavily left-leaning, and boosted the volume of the ultra-lofi bits. 

A Body Covered In A Fur Mink

Nux Vomica (1985-88)

More obscure Chch! Nux Vomica were an early project of Lawrence Kennett and Lisa Preston, later of The Portage.  Kennett's first band, The Droogs, released one single around 1981 on cassette, 'Fuck Your Brain', which was re-pressed on vinyl in 2005 (under the name The Pitts).  Kennett stepped back from music for a bit but has recently begun playing again with other Garden City refugees now resident in Dunedin: Bob Cardy and Mick Elborado. Preston continues to perform, with bands such as Snort and Loliners. Bassist Phillip Hubbard disappeared from the scene in the early 90s, and drummer Chris Small died last year.

Nux Vomica - My Life To Live/T.V. Producer (1985)

This 7-inch is quite crackly but so what -- it's p*nk as f*ck. 'My Life To Live' sounds like one take, live in the studio, with some telephone-mic vocal overdubs -- slurred'n'shouty, organ'n'bass, grotty staccato garage. 'TV Producer' might be brutally tape-spliced from several takes, with different EQs and mic placements, giving the whole thing a nicotine-stained short-of-breath live-reptile-show caveman-minimalism drive.

Recorded and co-produced by The Axemen's Steve McCabe.


I Know What'll Sell


Nux Vomica - Live '85 - '87 (1988)

Recorded at the Gladstone, in Motueka and Takaka, and in rehearsal.

Heaps more guitar on this (if there was any on the single, it was totally inaudible) -- smoky, speed-thrilling, raw cuts from the Gladstone:  'Adoption', 'My Life To Live', and the Very Metal 'Gnome'.

Two songs from this -- 'Sin' and 'Swamp Dream' -- were re-recorded with The Portage on the Thirteen; Thirteen twelve-inch. 'Sin' and seven-inch A-side 'TV Producer' get roisterous in Takaka with Alan Wright on sax skronkings. The 'Swamp Dream' live rehearsal is murky-as motorik, like Sister Ray gets stripped-down and sweaty. Acoustic duet 'Good Things' could be a Kiwi Animal outtake. A couple tracks are just simple snippets of the best parts: 'Keeps on Coming' --which feels snotty and primitive like The Stones [NZ] -- starts suddenly, cuts abruptly.

Their originals are the best bits, but the tape finishes with a couple of covers of Lou Reed and The [Rolling] Stones.

[Note: There is a noisy tape glitch toward the end of the heavy, heavy, psych-groove 'Iron Pineapple'. I've done my best to splice the sound together. Not sure if the original tape was recorded that way (à la The Puddle's live records) or due to deterioration from earthquake liquefaction residue.]

Rough as guts, fucked up and sweet, familiar and a bit of strange. Highly recommended.


If I Kill You In My Passion

The Osterbergs - Freak Power (1990)

More licks from the unplumbed pockets of Mysterex maven Andrew Schmidt: the scritchy, shouty sounds of Detroit devotees The Osterbergs!

"The Osterbergs out of east Auckland were regulars at the Queen City's inner-city music dives in the late 1980s, and early 1990s, on the diverse bills of the time.

"Their wah-driven Stoogoid punk sound -- the guitar courtesy Mark Jones, anchored by drummer Shirley Charles and bass player/vocalist Paul E. Snake -- had an endearing, nagging charm, well captured on their only release for Auckland's Onslaught Records.

"The original trio of Shirley Charles (drums), Paul Edwards (bass/vocals) and Mark Jones (guitar) had been joined by Lance Strickland on second guitar, who broadened the songs and gave it an unscripted edge.

"Changing their name to Freak Power, the quartet would go on to support many like-minded touring groups, and release a ten-inch EP on Wildside Records."

The Osterbergs – Freak Power (Onslaught Records)

Side 1
Your Time
Saccharine
It Burns

Side 2
Everything
Strung Out

Rec’d by Matthew Heine at BFM in Auckland, 1990

Paul Edwards – bass/vocals
Lance Strickland – guitar
Mark Jones – guitar
Shirley James – drums


Borrowed Amps