Futures & Pasts | MRR #405
From Maximum Rocknroll #405 (February 2017): reissues of two crucial Kiwi post-punk LPs & some truly fractured early ‘80s US DIY; a brilliantly sparse one-off single from a band who should have been the next Young Marble Giants & the latest seething synth-punk export from Australia.
The waning months of 2016 have yielded two absolutely essential reissues culled from the rich archives of the New Zealand underground. First, there’s X-Features, an anthology LP collecting the two EPs from early ‘80s post-punks the FEATURES, plus an entire side’s worth of material that had never been officially released until now. Where many of the Kiwi DIY agitators of the era drew liberal influence from the FALL’s caustic and jagged sneer (SHOES THIS HIGH or the GORDONS, to name two), the FEATURES seemed more closely aligned with the American strain of intellectual art-punk that had its heyday from from about 1979 to 1982. “City Scenes,” taken from the group’s 1980 debut single, has all of the rubbery, herky-jerky danceability of NYC’s pre-new wave downtown weirdos COME ON, while the desperate, angular dissonance of “Party” and “Mirror” (from their Perfect Features Exposed EP, released later that same year) suggests MISSION OF BURMA transported to the Southern Hemisphere. The group’s avowed love of PUBLIC IMAGE LIMITED is also worth noting, particularly given that like so many of their UK post-punk counterparts, the FEATURES origins can be traced back to relatively straightforward early punk combos (in this case, the PRIMMERS and the TERRORWAYS), before ultimately branching out from what was quickly becoming a stale musical orthodoxy post-‘77 - SEX PISTOLS to PIL, BUZZCOCKS to MAGAZINE, the list goes on. They definitely made the right call with that particular trajectory, and this collection is a total gem. (Flying Nun, flyingout.co.nz)
Then there’s the latest entry in the Hozac Archival series, a reissue of the TERMINALS’ brilliant Uncoffined LP from 1990. The independent music scene in New Zealand in the 1980s has since come to be largely defined by the warm, kaleidoscopic pop hooks of the holy trinity of the CLEAN, the CHILLS, and the BATS, but more so than their contemporaries, the TERMINALS’ jangly melodies were spiked by a sinister organ-accented drone that was most likely the product of a good number of hours spent studying the VELVET UNDERGROUND’s White Light/White Heat album. It’s that thread of somber psychedelia that ties Uncoffined to the bands lurking in some of the darker corners of the early Flying Nun catalog, like the PIN GROUP and SCORCHED EARTH POLICY (both of whom had personnel overlap with the TERMINALS, appropriately enough). But for all of their moodier leanings, the TERMINALS were still very much a continuation of the mid-to-late ‘80s Kiwi-pop tradition - “Frozen Car” is right up there with the CHILLS’ ‘Pink Frost” when it comes to haunting and heartbreaking NZ underground classics, and “Gasoline” reimagines the CLEAN’s most freewheeling and giddy side (think “Tally Ho!”) with an anxious post-punk edge. Buy the damn thing! (Hozac, hozacrecords.com)
On a non-New Zealand reissue tip: the ZOOMERS existed more or less parallel to the council flat-centered DIY racket of the late ‘70s/early ‘80s UK post-punkers and hometapers, but with their own uniquely warped (and, truth be told, heavily drug-addled) approach to crafting true freak sounds perfectly representative of the Louisiana swamps from which they were spawned. They held it together long enough to press a few hundred copies of a three-song single in 1981, then apparently proceeded to toss a good number of them out of the window of a moving car during an acid trip in a move that was easily way more punk than the Sex Pistols memorabilia bonfire stunt that Vivienne Westwood’s son recently pulled. The records that survived that particular joyride have since been fetching triple digit prices, so Mighty Mouth have truly done their good deed in re-releasing the 7”, complete with recreations of the original garishly colored hand-painted sleeves and everything. “From the Planet Moon” has rightfully become an iconic song in the pantheon of Hyped to Death compilations, showing all of the ramshackle art-punk charm of legends like SWELL MAPS, the HOMOSEXUALS or TRONICS, but with the addition of the sort of bent melodic knack that the New South jangle-pop groups who followed in the wake of the ZOOMERS just a few years later ultimately straightened out. The way they not-so-subtly swipe from LOU REED’s “Vicious” in “You’ll See” is pretty genius, too. (Mighty Mouth, almostreadyrecords.com/mmm.htm)
Not reissued, but someone should really get on it: INDIFFERENT DANCE CENTRE’s entire recorded legacy is limited to an impossibly rare single from 1981, which includes an A-side (“Flight and Pursuit”) that’s basically the best YOUNG MARBLE GIANTS song that YOUNG MARBLE GIANTS never wrote. There’s the same stark, brittle foundation of chilly drum machine beats, ethereally-detached female vocals and steady bass throb, all delicately arranged like a house of cards. On the flip side, “Release” takes those Moxham and Statton-patented hyper-minimalist post-punk vibes and filters them through the kind of gauzy dream-pop atmospherics that 4AD would go on to make their name with post-COCTEAU TWINS, without any of the dour goth pretensions. It’s hard to believe that this 7” appeared just a year after Rough Trade released Colossal Youth - is there a whole secret history of early ‘80s UK-based YOUNG MARBLE GIANTS disciples out there that has eluded me all of this time? I really hope so.
And last but not least, we return to the here and now. I’ll admit that the KLEENEX and SCREAMERS comparisons that were thrown around to describe the new demo cassette from Australia’s SPOTTING were what initially reeled me in, although those reference points are actually, at least to my ears, tenuous at best. Not nearly as loopy and off-kilter as the former, nor as unhinged and terrifying as the latter, but that doesn’t mean that it’s not an absolute scorcher of a tape. If anything, I’d put SPOTTING on the same general axis as the Goner Records-affiliated cohort that’s drawn equally from raucous, no-fi garage and synth-damaged post-punk as of late (think AQUARIAN BLOOD and BLACK ABBA, or if you want to go back a little further, even ANGRY ANGLES). The shouting in an echo chamber vocals, wobbly, distorted synth, and TV static used for sonic texture do give everything a distinct “recorded directly to VHS” feel - maybe that’s where the SCREAMERS analogy really comes in? Future-punk is now; it’s SPOTTING’s world and we’re just living in it. (No Patience, nopatiencerecords.bandcamp.com/album/demo-cs-6)
