| 1 | David Kilgour - Chipping Away | 0:00 |  |
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| 2 | Remote Controls - Light Years | 0:00 | |
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| 3 | Dating Godot - Death Bedroom Scene | 0:00 | |
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| 4 | Ninety Nice - We're All Going To Swampland | 0:00 | |
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| 5 | Bevil Web - Once I Had A Day | 0:00 | |
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| 6 | The Landing - The Red Telephone | 0:00 | |
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| 7 | Marble Valley - Bean's Bottom Blues | 0:00 | |
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| 8 | Timb Lewton - On The Footpath | 0:00 | |
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| 9 | Moon Popper - Free Ride | 0:00 | |
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| 10 | The Nudie Suits - Your Golden Throat | 0:00 | |
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| 11 | Red Soda - Try Not To Hide | 0:00 | |
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| 12 | Dump - Girl At Night | 0:00 | |
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| 13 | The Metro-gnome Signal - A Staellite Untill... | 0:00 | |
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| 14 | Lapdog - Un | 0:00 | |
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| 15 | Pacific Racer - Northern California Christmas | 0:00 | |
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| 16 | Alpha Plan - Estuary | 0:00 | |
Regain the Lost Conversation
16 track compilation of lo- fi/home recorded music from NZ/USA. Featuring exclusive tracks from David Kilgour, Tobin Sprout (Guided By Voices - appearing here as Bevil Web), Marble Valley (Steve West- Pavement), Dump (James McNew - Yo La Tengo), Ninety Nine (Laura McFarlane ex Sleater Kinney), The Remote Controls, The Landing.
Originally released 1998 - reissued 2005
Selected Reviews
Blindingly brilliant... alive with cool sounds, fuzzy melodies, fresh ideas.
**** Grant Smithies (Sunday Star Times)
It has a good feeling to it, this disk... and I'm very, you know, proud, that James sings Girl at Night the way he does...
Bill Direen (composer of Girl At Night)
This is a rather peculiar compilation from an obscure New Zealand label that features mostly little-known New Zealand bands and a handful of North American groups, as well. The CD opens with "Chipping Away," a nice, folky pop song by one of New Zealand's most well-known artists, David Kilgour of the Clean and solo fame. The next track, by Remote Controls, is an instrumental that suggests old Pink Floyd filtered through the Soft Boys.
The Landing offer an excellent cover of Love's "The Red Telephone," which would have made a welcome addition to the Love tribute album We're All Normal and We Want Our Freedom , released in '94. The track by Moon Popper sounds like what might happen if Oasis collaborated with Spiritualized. The CD's most surprising contribution, a bittersweet acoustic track called "Girl at Night," comes from Dump, Yo La Tengo bassist James McNew's side project.
The bands on the compilation that sound the most promising are Brooklyn's Red Soda and New Zealand's Alpha Plan. Red Soda's "Try Not to Hide" sounds surprisingly at home on a New Zealand-based compilation. The group's dynamic, melodic sound seems to be equally informed by the guitar-noise vocabulary of Sonic Youth and the pop-craft of the Church.
Alpha Plan could very well become New Zealand's next big thing. "Estuary," taken from their most recent EP, is classic, moody New Zealand pop. They have drawn favorable comparisons to well-respected NZ groups like Bailter Space and the Clean, and I look forward to hearing their next full-length release.
Other tunes on this compilation range from kitschy, organ-driven instrumentals to experimental, noise-for-its-own-sake collages. Overall, this is one of the most unique and satisfying compilations I've come across in a while.
Liner Notes
No one cared about indie guitar music in Auckland in 1998. Dance and punk ruled the city soundscape. That’s why this strong compilation slipped so easily by the public eye. Out of the fickle gaze of time unfolding it stands up well. A careful blend of great songs from New Zealand and America. There’s the stripped down folk of David Kilgour’s Chipping Away. Unique to this record. Tim (Teen) Lewton’s best song on record, the sunny rock shuffle On The Footpath. Birkenhead’s The Remote Controls’ space rock wig out on Light Years - guitar interstellar overdriven and post-punk angular. The Landing chip in a haunted take of Love’s masterwork The Red Telephone.
I met the group up at Crawlspace Records in La Gonda Arcade on K Road where they were regular visitors. North Shore kids not too long outta school who’d already released a split 7” single with New Chapel’s Portastudio. Sarang Bang Records’ main-man Marco Liguori played guitar and sang. Andrew Thomas - a sodden downbeat Henry James fan - played keyboards. Matt Sandford drummed.
Tim Teen Lewton was another shop regular. He’d had some success with Tim Teen and The Teentones with the late Michael Maxted on bass, and Queen City perennial Julian Hanson drumming. They played lots around Auckland but recorded little.
I saw The Nudie Suits in a small basement bar just down below Albert Park sometime in the late 1990s. I was listening to some country by then, digging it, in fact. And these guys and gals sounded swell. They’d later release a post-humous album on Lt'l Chief.
Less well known is The Metro-Gnome Signal’s sky scrapeings A Satellite Until... and Pacific Racer with the snowy surf instrumental Northern California Christmas. The New Zealand contingent is rounded out by Moonhopper - Chainsaw Masochist and Figure 60 bassist Darren McShane and friends - with their Earwig Studio recorded Free Ride, Alpha Plan’s filmic Estuary, the architectural sound of Lapdog with Un, and Dating Godot’s Southern gothic Death Bedroom Scene.
Phone card in hand Marco supplemented the Kiwi tracks with offerings from US fellow travellers. New York’s Red Soda. Guided By Voices’ Tobin Sprout, who appears as Bevil Web with an out-take from his Let’s Take The Circus People album. Laura McFarlane - who played drums in Sleater Kinney - with the Melbourne-based Ninety Nine.
The influence of Kiwi indie music in America was widespread at college radio level. America had a similar musical underground. The small labels. DIY ethic. Belated major label interest. And the recognition was mutual. A lot of the 1990s best New Zealand music came out on American independent labels. That’s how Dump - Yo La Tengo’s James McNew – found Bill Direen’s Girl At Night. Yo La Tengo were well versed in New Zealand indie rock.
Andrew Schmidt - Mysterex
Credits
Thanks to: Tobin Sprout, Steve West, James McNew, David Kilgour,
Lora Mcfarlane, Crawlspace Records and Jeremy Leung.
Cover art by Jeremy Leung
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