The Great Unwashed - Collection (1992)

In the wake of the 1982 breakup of the legendary Clean, brothers David and Hamish Kilgour continued writing songs together; adopting the tongue-in-cheek name Great Unwashed, they released the 1983 LP Clean Out of Our Minds, a collection of primitive home recordings with a slightly experimental bent. The record was well received by steadfast Clean fans, and with bassist Peter Gutteridge in tow, the Kilgour brothers played a handful of live dates. A five-track double single subsequently appeared, and in mid-1984 the Great Unwashed swelled to a quartet with the addition of Ross Humphries; however, by the end of the year, the group disbanded.

One-stop shopping, New Zealand style. Collection puts together the Great Unwashed's one album, Clean out of Our Minds, with the following Singles EP, a handy and merry collection of what might have been a diversion at the start but still has its own worth. Richard Langston's liner notes give a brief potted history of the group's origins following the first collapse of the Clean, as David and Hamish Kilgour got together for a slew of random recording sessions that became the album and what followed. The Clean out of Our Minds tracks are in ways bedroom recordings, but unlike what the stereotype of that term became in the '90s, the feeling here is affable and gently goofy melancholia rather than acid-fried weirdness. The easy-blue groove of "Thru the Trees" mixes well with the instrumental shamble of "Hello Is Ray There?" and the at once creepy and merry celebration of wasting time, "It's a Day." Besides, any song which has what sounds like autoharp -- take "Yesterday Was" as an example -- has to have something going for it. The Singles tracks featured the more immediate and live-performance-oriented version of the band, though there's still the easy-enough feel of the album about it, even with the steady chug of songs like "Duane Eddy" and the scrabbling "Can't Find Water." "Born in the Wrong Time," with a particularly lovely lead guitar melody and some of the Kilgours' best harmonies, is the real winner from that bunch, and makes a fine almost-concluding song for the whole disc.

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