The Lewers is a supergroup made up of members of Orion, Diat, Itchy Bugger and Rapid Dye (two of those bands - Diat and Itchy Bugger - have been covered here). Some of the members are German, but this is being released on Australian label Lulu's Sonic Disc Club (Melbourne, Australia).
The Lewers sound nothing like either Diat or Itchy Bugger. This sounds like an amazing cross between Bailter Space, Exek, and The Clean. In fact, the Bandcamp write-up states, "the instruments weave in and out before building to an anti-climax and transforming into a washed out lament that wouldn’t be out of place on NZ’s legendary Xpressway label."
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I was invited to do an hour long radio show on 00185fm.
I decided to make it about a collective approach to making and distributing music, taking Discreet Music, Midnight Mines and Mystery Plane, C/Site and Xpressway as examples. The program consists of mostly music with some quick spoken introductions in Italian.
Do explore the rest of the contributions to 00185fm as they will provide you with an awesome portrait of what they call New Weird Italia.
Many reviews of New Zealand sound smith Alastair Galbraith’s solo work seem to fall back on a comparison to Syd Barrett, ignoring a wide swathe of his oeuvre. What about his drone improvisations alongside Bruce Russel as A Handful of Dust, or his experiments with piano wires, glass harmonicas and fire organs? Those are just a few examples of what the man has accomplished. An older interview posted on the Emperor Jones website shows that Galbraith himself is surprised to be weighed up against psychedelic minstrel Barrett. Such a narrow distillation is unfair. A jeweller wouldn’t analyze a gemstone from only one angle, so it seems disingenuous to focus on a single, wan comparison when discussing Galbraith’s vast body of work. Â
Galbraith’s solo material traces back to the late 1980s, when the Xpressway Records collective was founded, of which he was a part. His musical lineage traces even further back to his time in The Rip, which released material on Flying Nun before that label up and split to the North Island. At that point, alongside The Dead C, This Kind of Punishment and others, Galbraith sparked a post-Flying Nun version of the “Dunedin sound,” dedicated more toward experimentation than jangly pop melodies. He has filled his miniature sound worlds with bagpipes, violin, reverse-played guitars and organs (thanks to the magic of reel-to-reel tape), as well as plucked and strummed melodies and a level-headed vocal sensibility. Earlier material, as collected on the Seely Girn compilation, is in a vein that is primarily what the general public would consider song-oriented – the closest this writer feels he came to approaching Barrett’s cracked solo material. Yet Galbraith has always been one to experiment, and later records featured more drones and expressive instrumental pieces.Â
Loss is the first set of new Galbraith solo material to be released in over a decade. It picks up right from where he left off, featuring a handful of spindly guitar/vocal pieces wrapped in compositions that head in more exploratory directions. The songs are simultaneously dreamlike and palpably emotional, whether there are lyrics or not. It isn’t until the morose “Space Man” that we hear Galbraith’s voice, where he’s hoping that the titular character has achieved freedom through death. This piece is book-ended by “At the Heart of the Gorge” and “Lost the Cottage,” the former a violin meditation and the latter a guitar/organ droner. These pieces are just as heart wrenching as the vocal-centric tracks, the instruments provoking images of loneliness. “Law” sounds as if Galbraith is improvising alongside a Scottish drum/bagpipe corps, with snaky whisps of feedback seeping into the mix. A car’s engine provides the backdrop for a signature Galbraith guitar melody on “The Very Rev,” while “Horror Show” is an existential take on two people experiencing life that culminates with him asking his compatriot to “push through this darkness, push through fear, so grateful that you were here” with an unnervingly doubletracked vocal.Â
A meditation on life and its ending, Loss is like a eulogy. We’ve accidentally stumbled onto someone’s seaside funeral, and we’re invited to celebrate their life. It also perfectly sums up much of Galbraith’s three-plus-decades-long career, encompassing both his delicate and melodic side as well as his more adventurous proclivities. His otherworldly racket seems to exist out of time and is even now influencing younger Kiwi musicians, such as Pumice. This reflection of one’s artistry in others is the real definition of longevity, so it’s safe to say that Galbraith is eternal.Â
Issue #1 of Tuatara, a Dutch zine about music from New Zealand, published January 1992.
Paul Schwarte, the man behind Tuatara, is a kindred, Kiwi-crazy soul. Not sure where I picked this zine up, but it could very well have been at the record store I worked at in Boston, as my coworkers also shared similar tastes.
Main feature, “The Flying Nun Alphabet,” covers lesser-known acts like The Orange and Marie and the Atom along with the expected marquee names. The Xpressway label also gets its due: there’s a small feature on the then-new home to more experimental artists, many of whom—like brothers Peter and Graeme Jefferies—also recorded for Flying Nun at different times.
While the zine is history, Paul still keeps current with the latest NZ indie and more, sharing favorites on Twitter.
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“...Despite the nearly psychedelic Xpressway-sounding dense guitar pop at the onset, the record eventually descends through homemade banging & clanging and enough tweeter-shredding noise to please the Merzbow fans of this planet.”
LUXURIOUS BAGS review by SUPERDOPE contributor DOUG PEARSON
SUPERDOPE #5
no page #
1992
JAY HINMAN, Editor
LUXURIOUS BAGS Quarantine Heaven at Forced Exposure in stock today (9/10/18) for $12.50: “Luxurious Bags is a one man basement project with St. Johnny & Vermonster connections. This CD stacks his two previous limited LPs from the past coupla years (From Heaven To My Head + Voluntary Lifelong Quarantine) one after the other. Churning guitar-noise density and indie splatter consciousness.”Â
Jay publishes in the 21st century in/at Dynamite Hemorrhage, formerly @dynamitehemorrhage, now https://dynamitehemorrhage.com/ on the word-press
The word on the street about Doug Pearson? It’s possible he’s the very same Doug Pearson who played keyz in MONOSHOCK and served up narco waves with NOTHING PEOPLE. It is possible.
This is one of those releases that will make many release an audible gasp of excitement. Peter Gutteridge's solo album - released in 1989 by Xpressway (New Zealand) - is again being reissued. This time by Bay Area label Superior Viaduct.
Gutteridge (Dunedin, New Zealand) is considered by many the "creator" or the Dunedin Sound. While he denied this, there's no denying that he was a member of both The Chills and The Clean. He later went onto to form Snapper, and was also part of The Puddle.
In other words, Peter Gutteridge was the shit. He, along with fellow Dunedin musician Hamish Kilgour, represent two icons who were lost way too early.
