The Chills - Scatterbrain (2021)

 

 

Since returning in 2015, Martin Phillipps and the Chills released two albums (Silver Bullets and Snow Bound) that not only reestablished the long-running band's place in the indie pop scene, but added some extra polish to their already-glittering legacy. 2021's Scatterbrain stays true to the big pop sound of their previous two albums while adding a little bit of prog rock-inspired trickery and some mystical lyrical concerns. From the opening track, the jumpy, synth-heavy rocker "Monolith," it's clear that Phillipps and the band are delivering another strong album. The room-filling drums, rumbling bass, swelling synths, and jangling guitars combine with Phillipps' vocals -- which are as strong as ever -- to create a sound that rocks pretty hard while still feeling nimble and light. The rest of the record takes a winding path sonically while allowing Phillipps space to meditate on aliens, magic, disappointment, and the slippery nature of time. More than many Chills records, there's some sonic diversity at play. "Hourglass" travels gently from introspective acoustic guitar backing to angular synths and comforting strings; "Caught in My Eye" balances stately piano with glitchy electronics and clomping drum machines; "You're Immortal" adds Morricone-esque horns and backing vocals to an arena-sized track that sounds like prime major-label Chills, and the title track is filled with ping-ponging electronics, howling guitars, and Phillipps' seething vocal delivery. Along with these sonically challenging tracks there are also a couple of knockout pop songs that make you remember that this is the guy who wrote "Heavenly Pop Hit." The rambling "Walls Beyond Abandon" is one; the wonderfully hooky "Little Alien" is the other. He also wrote a truly lovely anthem for the troubled times the album was created in with the sweet ode to staying home, "Safe and Sound." Overall, this wide range of styles makes for one of the most surprising and listenable albums they've done yet. It's dramatic, it's grand, and it proves yet again that Martin Phillipps hasn't lost a step and will hopefully go on for a long time making records as good as Scatterbrain.  

 

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The Bats - Foothills (2020)

  

The Bats have made a career of consistency, keeping the same lineup and not changing their sound too dramatically since forming in 1982. Their slow and steady approach has resulted in the straightforward presentation of countless wonderful songs, all quietly accumulating over the course of a nearly 40-year run that brings us to tenth album Foothills. As with everything that preceded it, Foothills is a no-frills collection of slightly melancholic but ever-upbeat pastoral pop songs written by guitarist/vocalist Robert Scott, and brought to life by the subtle touches added by the rest of the band. This takes the form of a few jaunty, uptempo rockers like "Warwick" and "Red Car," but sticks mainly to patiently paced jangly fare. The chiming guitars and simple shifts in dynamics between verses and choruses on album opener "Trade in Silence" all make for an incredibly direct tune, but it's the kind of less-is-more approach that has defined the band's best work over the years.

On more slow-moving tracks like gorgeous closer "Electric Sea View," the Bats' gifts for understated arrangement come through clearly, with gentle vocal harmonies and layers of tremolo-heavy keyboards and fuzz guitar adding depth and mystery to the sonic picture. Over the course of Foothills, incredibly small production choices like these make a huge impact. A single droning synthesizer note on "Warwick," the trembling guitar leads that meander throughout "Another Door," and barely there accordion tones on "As You Were" all expand the songs without overwhelming them. The rising waves of feedback and glockenspiel that show up for just a moment at the very end of the steady and wistful "Change Is All" instantly take the song to a different plane before quickly melting into the next track. Similar to the musical component, the lyrical content of Foothills is never too overt or heavy-handed. A band that's been active in relatively obscure circles for 38 years might be prone to tunes about growing older, nostalgia, or struggles with change, but if those expected themes appear, they come up more as emotional implications or nods to universal feelings instead of blunt statements. The Bats hold tightly to their time-tested sound on Foothills, producing another 12 songs of bright and wistful pop not quite like even their closest peers in the New Zealand indie pop scene. At this point, the standardization of their sound is the furthest thing from a criticism. The Bats' ability to achieve beautiful new results by returning time and again to the same specific set of sounds and inspirations remains one of the best things about the band.

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David Kilgour - Bobbie's a girl (2019)

Both on his own and with his band the Heavy Eights, David Kilgour built up a strong CV of chiming, noisy, and sometimes thickly psychedelic indie rock since the Clean stopped recording (for a while) in the early '90s. On records like 1994's Sugar Mouth or 2004's Frozen Orange, right up to 2014's End Times Undone, he's made thoughtful, tuneful albums that chime warmly as his understated vocals deliver a big, soft punch. It's a formula that has served him well for a long time, but on 2019's Bobbie's a Girl, Kilgour and his band change things up. For one thing, it's mostly an instrumental album, with Tony De Raad and Kilgour's acoustic and electric guitars carrying the main melodic weight, Thomas Bell's bass and Taane Tokona's drums subtly shading the background, and an array of carefully placed keyboards coloring in spaces here and there. A majority of the songs are meditative and inward-looking while still being darkly compelling. "Entrance" sets the scene like a cloud settling in overhead, and many of the songs follow suit. Sprinkled in among the pretty, wordless ballads ("Coming in from Nowhere Now"), dramatic Bad Seeds-esque laments ("Swan Loop"), and off-kilter noise-blues jams ("Ngapara") are occasional pop songs like the sweetly soaring "Smoke You Right Out of Here" and "Looks Like I’m Running Out," which spits out shards of pain in fragments of electric guitar then attempts to heal the damage with reassuring vibraphone runs.

It's no surprise that the album's tone is extra thoughtful and a little sad at times, since it's inspired and shaped by the death of Kilgour's mother as well as his longtime mate Peter Gutteridge. The band took their time making the music and creating the right feel, and the heartbreaking results show that their efforts were well worth it. Along the way, Kilgour realized that jettisoning the words allowed the interplay of the instruments to conjure up the exact feeling of loss and melancholy that he was looking for without language getting in the way. That choice makes the album a little less accessible on first listen, but once the music takes hold, it sinks in deeply. Though it is something of an outlier, at its core, Bobbie's a Girl is just like the other albums Kilgour has made over his long career: lovely pop music powered by his knack for crafting songs that feel like snippets from real life.

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The Verlaines - Dunedin Spleen (2019)

The Verlaines have been a seminal Dunedin band since 1980, creating songs that mix astute lyrics with complex, visceral music often influenced by songwriter, vocalist and guitarist Graeme Downes’ day job as a music academic at Otago University. ‘Dunedin Spleen’, the band’s 10th album, continues this trend – and makes up for any delay between records with 19 tracks.‘None of these chords I own, I’ve only gave them temporary shelter,’ the album begins, and the lyrics throughout are similarly thought-provoking, intelligent and satirical, though not without warmth and sadness. The impressionistic chords and touching lyrics of A Crib At Flatline Bay reveal deep loss, while Way Too Old To Grow Up Now is an affectionate nod to a friend and fellow musician in a particular Dunedin scene.

A new Verlaines album always means sophisticated songwriting and musicianship, which ‘Dunedin Spleen’ has in buckets. Freeform impressionistic jazz, show tunes, Weimar-Germany influenced punk jazz (Church And State) and garage rock (None Of These Chords) all feature at points, while elements of punk, indie, and art-rock help to define the album’s sound. Crashing chords, and winding guitar and organ lines add depth to the songs, which are immediate and vital. It’s fair to say that some of the more recent Verlaines’ albums have been harder to engage with, but not so ‘Dunedin Spleen’ – it’s urgency frequently matches the visceral classics from the band’s early years, and shows Downes (and The Verlaines) at their melodic, and intricate, best.

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The Chills - Snow Bound (2018)

After coming back with 2015's Silver Bullets, an album that reasserted the genius of Martin Phillipps but sounded a little tentative at times, the Chills' second album of the 2010s is a brilliant pop hit that's bold, bright, and confident. Snow Bound is a big pop statement, overflowing with singalong choruses, ringing guitars, rich arrangements, and Phillipps' typically trenchant observations. It's reminiscent of the Go-Betweens' 16 Lovers Lane, Prefab Sprout's Steve McQueen, or the Chills' own Submarine Bells; albums that have ambition and reach but don't sacrifice an ounce of humanity in the process. Unlike those records, which were often tied to some questionable production techniques, Phillipps, his band (the same sympathetic lineup from Silver Bullets), and producer Greg Haver work together to make the album sound modern and spotlessly clean on the surface. They also give it a warmth that keeps it from sounding clinical. Phillipps' songs are witty and super hooky as usual; each one sounds like it could be extracted and called a single. Some of them are as good as any the band have released. Maybe not as timeless as "Heavenly Pop Hit," but the title track, the incessantly catchy "Bad Sugar," and the swinging indie rocker "Scarred" come close. There are political statements ("In Harmony"), introspective moments ("Complex"), and bittersweet love songs (Time to Atone"), all wrapped in sonic finery like sweeping Hammond organ, bubbling synths, piping oboe, and stately piano. The arrangements are full to bursting with sound, but it's never too much. The big hooks and weighty statements Phillipps put to paper needed impressive backing and that's exactly what they got. It may be a long way from the wooly, home-cooked sound of the early Chills, but times have changed, as has Phillipps, and this record is just about the best possible scenario for a Chills record in the late 2010s. The songs are definitely there, Phillipps' wonderfully light vocals are as strong as ever, and the sound is a perfect example of how to make a record that sounds as big as a stadium while still being driven by real emotion.

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Suburban Reptiles - Suburban Reptiles (2011) [1978]

Auckland’s The Suburban Reptiles, along with The Scavengers who started around the same time, were the first 1970s styled punk band in New Zealand. Formed at the beginning of 1977, inspired by a New Musical Express story seen by Simon Grigg, the original performing line-up was Zero (Clare Elliot, vocals), Billy Planet (Will Pendergrast, bass), Jimmy Joy (also Jimmy Vinyl, saxophone), Shaun Anfrayd (Brian Nicholls, guitar), Des Edwards (drums) and Sissy Spunk (Trish Scott, guitar).

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Various - Killed By Death #15. New Zealand Rare Punk 77-82 (2018)

Another installment in the legendary series, this time centered in the obscure and extremely interesting early New Zealand punk rock scene. On offer are 13 tracks of pure KBD mayhem by kiwi luminaries such as Suburban Reptiles, Scavengers, Toy Love, Spelling Mistakes and many more. No hippie shit, no disco, just pure punk rock bliss. Enjoy!

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The Clean - Live at Primavera Sound Festival, Barcelona (29-5-2010)

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Tall Dwarfs - Bovril (2018)

Officially sanctioned by the Tall Dwarf-men Alec Bathgate and Chris Knox this tape-only release gets together in one convenient place (if you have cassette player) rarities, oddities, live material, solo outings (more recent Knox with the Rackets on Gagarin, Bathgate on the unreleased Crushed Velvet) and more. It draws from such diverse sources as the Marc Bolan tribute album Great Jewish Music (Ride a White Swan), the Enemy live at the Windsor Castle (with the raw 1978) and Flying Nun compilations (Under the Influence, God Save the Clean, Abbasalutely) which have long been unavailable. There are also 10 International Tall Dwarfs tracks from recordings in the Helen Young Studio of Radio NZ with the likes of Scott Mannion, Stefan Neville, Sam Hamilton and Kingsley Melhuish. It is excellent (tip of the hat to recording engineer Andre Upston who has the best ears in the business) because the session was funny, casual but professional, and clever. And the Dwarfs songs were reinvented as more downbeat for "a general audience" to reveal their musical essence and craftsmanship. They became so much more musically approachable than many preconceptions of TDwarfs might allow. Closer to alt.folk than alt.rock. Get this, even though you might have to buy a cassette player or dust off the bottom-drawer Walkman.

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Robert Scott - The Green House (2014)

Robert Scott never stops surprising - as a solo artist he's found a new gear. On his first album, 'The Creeping Unknown, he experimented, for the next 'Ends Run Together he produced a terrifically assured work of pop-rock. 'The Green House' is another excellent set of songs: the mood is quieter, and it draws you in with intimate tales of the heart set in the weather and wide skies of the south - a record of darkness and light, beautifully played out and accentuated with the aid of the voice of Tiny Ruins. Indeed Tiny Ruins (Hollie Fullbrook) adds the perfect accompaniment, appearing on half of the albums 12 tracks. And shes not the only guest appearance either with extra guitar lines thanks to Tristan Dingemans (HDU), with drums provided by Rob Falconer. All expertly engineered and mastered by Dale Cotton (The Bats, David Kilgour) in Roberts home of Port Chalmers, Dunedin. Scott's album The Green House captures him at yet another career peak in melodic songs which only rarely allude to the acoustic or rock chug of his other bands but mostly turns attention towards deftly tuneful song Graham Reid.

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Robert Scott - Ends Run Together (2010)

The third solo album from Robert Scott (The Clean, The Bats) is an outstanding album of 13 engaging songs, as likely to appeal to any fan of great alternative pop as much as to those already familiar with his past projects. To Roberts guitar and voice (which has never sounded better) are added the talents of fellow Clean-er David Kilgour, and miraculously, even Lesley Paris (Look Blue, Go Purple) has been coaxed back onto a drumkit for some of the songs. Jam-packed full of pop hooks, Ends Run Together features everything from squalling guitar rock (On the Lake, Too Early), dreamy pastoral folk (Days Run Together), through to the driving krautrock-ish pop of Daylight.

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Shoes This High ‎– Straight To Hell (2014)

While Shoes This High’s existence was a mere glint in the eye of Father Time (a year or more, tops), they made every second count, stalking the New Zealand post-punk landscape—both North and South islands—with ravenous abandon. For most fans, their legend and reputation rest solely on the strength of one highly formidable (and collectable) self-released 7-inch EP from 1981. And as anyone with ears who’s had the good fortune to come in contact with its jagged, scabrous genius can attest, the cry invariably rings out afterward: “Mein Gott, is this all there is?” In the 30-plus years since its initial release, the answer has been a most unflinching “yes.” That is, until Siltbreeze tapped into the massive tape library of famed New Zealand underground music archivist Bob Sutton, who had in his possession a white-hot live scorcher of the group, culled from a set that went down at the infamous Billy the Club way back when. Straight to Hell showcases a band at the peak of their menacing powers. Guitarist Kevin Hawkins slashes and rips strings from his ax like a mad butcher; the rhythm section of Jessica Walker and Christopher Plummer is par excellence, while the sneering, contemptuous vocals of singer S. Brent Hayward spit like poison darts above the swagger. Expertly sequenced by Jared Phillips (Times New Viking), Straight to Hell is a most welcome and astonishingly great artifact that delivers in buckets a shivering, toxic rain you always knew had fallen. Vinyl comes with a digital download of the complete album plus the four studio tracks from the original 1981 EP.

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Shayne P. Carter - Offsider (2016)

This is an absolutely wonderful album. Due to the different songwriting and musical approach, It's a slow burner, much like Dimmer's first album was. In fact, It's very much like an analogue hopeful version of I Believe you are a Star. As ever, Shayne's songwriting, voice and lyrics shine through to produce a wonderful sound that is a unique departure from his rich body of work over 30 odd years. I admit to being very sceptical that this could match up or even get close to Shayne finest output. How could it? It's piano album FFS?! But it is a wonderful surprise, full of beautiful moments which, at times, show a Shayne Carter at his most vulnerable, melodic, open, naive and, at times, also his best. A wonderful album that was a long time coming (in the end...).

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Steriogram - Taping the Radio (2010)

'Taping the Radio' is packed with sing a long anthem, commanding melodies and themes drawn from Steriograms twelve year career. A journey which has seen the Grammy Nominated band play thousands of shows across many countries, and in the process sell hundreds of thousands of records worldwide.

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Sneaky Feelings - Progress Junction (2017)

The twelve songs on Progress Junction were recorded over two years in bass player John Kelcher’s Christchurch studio. There was no plan when the band began recording, the four members just had a bunch of songs that suited the Sneaky Feelings sound and feel. As band put the album together they experimented by weaving in snippets of audio from New Zealand radio archives. Voices from the past started talking to the present.

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Hamish Kilgour - All Of It And Nothing (2014)

2014 debut solo release from the veteran New Zealand musician. Incredibly, after all his work as a founding member of both the Clean and the Mad Scene, Hamish Kilgour has never released a proper solo album of his own, until now. Fans of his work over the years will no doubt be pleased with ALL OF IT & NOTHING. The album is an ode to the power of jangle, highlighting Kilgour's innate ability to both gleam the melodic cube and let the choogle of a chord progression ride itself to greatness. Written and recorded in collaboration with Gary Olson, who captured the album at his Marlborough Farms studio and accompanies Kilgour on some songs, the album carries a distinct hushed intimacy, full of soft-spoken phrases and light guitar play that belie the power of the music it provides.

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David Kilgour, Sam Hunt & The Heavy Eights - The 9th (2015)

This LP was a long time in the making, in part because all the parties were busy and were determined to record Sam Hunt live with the musicians. So March 2014 Sam came to Dunedin for seven days where we wrote and recorded for about 4 days in an old hotel in Port Chalmers called Chicks. Apart from the three poems mentioned earlier all the rest were worked up over these four days. Sometimes Sam would suggest a mood for a poem, or I might be strumming away idly on guitar playing nothing in particular for no one in particular when Sam would say "hey keep playing that, I think I've got words for that". Or we would pick up our instruments and improvise something up on the spot in pursuit of a Sam suggestion. All of Sam's vocals were cut live with the band." - David Kilgour

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David Kilgour And The Heavy Eights - End Times Undone (2014)

Now nine albums deep into his solo career, David Kilgour still keeps one foot in The Clean, yet that trio is sporadic and seemingly unpredictable in terms of output and activity - to the extent that his body of work with band The Heavy Eights is his primary focus and creative outlet. End Times Undone beautifully captures the same mystical lazy strum and innate homespun catchiness of Kilgour’s singing that has characterised all of his work to date. The ingredients of Kilgour’s style were formed early; that Byrdsian jangle, Velvet Underground drone, Dylan-like lyrical dance and wrestle and the motorik pulse of krautrock. All are present in varying degrees here and the combination is both hypnotic gently energising.

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David Kilgour And The Heavy Eights - Left By Soft (2011)

Even on laid-back songs such as the mid-tempo piano ballad "Autumn Sun", there's plenty of fuzzy distortion bleeding through. Kilgour is rather unheralded as a guitarist, but in his early days with the Clean in the 1980s, he helped write the book on a ragged approach to playing that can be heard all over indie rock today. On Left By Soft, he seems to be reminding us that he helped stake out this territory. He opens and closes the album with two distinctly different demonstrations of that talent, leading off with strident noisemaking on the title track and ending things with "Purple Balloon", where he glides over a breezy beat with a series of offhandedly pretty, clear-toned explorations.

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Robert Scott ‎– RePort (2016)

Robert Scott may well go down in history as the man who has written the most pop songs ever, in his property as a member of The Clean, of The Bats, or of The Magick Heads, as a solo artist or collaborating with various other artists. Gritty Post-Punk, bitter-sweet Folk, or dreamy Pop: the prolific songwriter, singer, guitarist and bass player is at home in quite different musical worlds. Nonetheless, his compositions are always as distinctive as his singing and they are all unmistakable Robert Scott songs that gel together, their varying temporal or contextual origins notwithstanding.  It isn’t easy to keep track of Robert Scott’s immense output. Not only has Scott released a great number of official albums, he has also contributed to various, hard to find compilations and is selling even more of his music on naturally rare CDRs at concerts or as downloads on Bandcamp.  RePort is a selection of 21 not-so-famous Robert Scott songs quite a few of which not many people may know. The tape features cover art by Robert Scott himself and content-wise some unexpected cover versions: The Magick Heads’ When I kissed the Teacher is originally by ABBA, Stop and Smell the Roses is by the TV Personalities, and Party of the Mind is a song by London Post-Punk legend The Sound. Stop and Smell the Roses, The Clue, and Tuis are hitherto unreleased tracks. Robert Scott, whose father emigrated from Scotland to NZ in the fifties, has also recorded two Robert Burns songs for Zelle Records’ Burns compilations, both of which, Green Grow the Rashes O and My Bonie Bell, are here. The latter is as yet unreleased.

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