Shake Summation

Rip It Up, Issue 97, 1 August 1985, Page 30

Shake Summation

Russell Brown

The Chills The Lost EP (Flying Nun) Recorded a relative age ago, by a rather different band, but finally released ... This Is the Way' is magical, the most fulfilled thing on the record, with its soft atmospherics and brain-entwining slide guitar; nothing else gets as close. 'Never Never Go' and ‘Don't Even Know Her Name' are good Chills pop songs, the former distinguished by scratching slide (again) guitar and the latter by the elegant description "a silver-willed affection for a doctors orders frame’! The sea shanty style of 'Bee Bah Bee Bah Bee Boe’ is wistful and warm, working because it’s such a strong, simple idea. 'Whole Weird World' is one of the best Chills songs but here it’s not within a light-year of its live power. ‘Dream By Dream' is a "long” (5 min), weird studio piece that moves and changes just often enough to keep the ears pricked up. Good fun. Of a bunch of lyrics addressed in various ways to life around, it’s the most directly so. Really a good record ... but the Chills will make far better.

Look Blue Go Purple Bewitched (Flying Nun) B First listen through I didn't care very much for this record but since then it’s grown on me with every listen. And that is quite a few listens. A little more mysterioussounding. than . the ’ live ' LBGP,; if lacking the nervous energy. You can hear all sorts of things in this 1 music but it's not quite like anyone else. . The rhythm is maybe the most distinctive characteristic; the others are the vocal harmonies, the guitarkeyboard melodic middle and Norma O’Malley’s flute. 'As Does the Sun' has the best tune and the best lyric but the others aren’t far behind. Delightful. DD Smash

Surrender (Mushroom) Charles Fisher got an Aussie music awards nomination for producing The Optimist and this one in particular is big and beaty in a quite Australian way without ever losing Mr Dobbyn’s slightly skewed stamp. More flexing of singing sinews. Likeable.

Scotty & Co I Like To Drive (Pagan) Scott Calhoun squawks a lighthearted lyric over what sounds like a loopy TV theme. Nice and short, neat guitar line. Urn ... diverting. The flip, ‘Get Into the Act', furthers the impression of Scotty being a nice sort of chap. The Bats and here is Music For the Fireside’ (Flying Nun) A much better record than By Night, in terms of sound, delivery, variety and the way the songs are rounded out. The seven fat-free melodies range in mood from the jolly 'Earwig' to the communicatively desolate 'Offside' (‘‘There’s nothing ir>my head that’s growing / Except for a darkness inside'). Natural music that seems to sound like the people who made it. Singalongabats! Dance Exponents Christchurch (In Cashel St I Wait) (Mushroom) One of the best toons from Expectations, punched silly in an extended mix but rather suiting the treatment. Pretty hard to pigeonhole but then no one’s quite sure who the Dance Exponents’ audience is these days anyway. You also get 'Expectations', another one of the album's stronger songs.

Everything That Flies Bleeding Hearts (Reaction) Apart from a neat name steal, ETF have the elements and the image to attain the pop domination they apparently aspire to, but not before they get someone to write them a really good song and/or get themselves to an arranger. What charms there are in these three songs are all but obscured by the way they meander along. A few live performances will probably help too. Herbs On My Mind (Warrior) One of the ballads from the album. Might be just right for the family radio station but I think it's schlocky. On the other hand, it might well wrldly outsell the previous two singles for precisely that reason. Last Man Down Going To Australia (Ode) Ross Mullins is an appealing lyricist, the wry little pictures he creates are scenes you can easily picture in your head. But like most jazzsters he’s not so good at writing whole songs and the music skates around amiably under the lyric without really touching it. 'State House Kid’ is rather better. Shot In the Dark Fine Line (Warrior) The sort of hybrid that could only turn up on Warrior, ‘Fine Line' incorporates a catchy chorus, a political lyric, a vaguely reggaefied rhythm and some rather heavy rock guitar riifs. Not bad for what I presume is a first effort. This Kind Of Punishment Five By Four (Flying Nun) Where most TKP undertakings have been planned and perfected over a period of time, Five By Four was conceived and recorded within a week, with Johnny Pierce having joined at the start of that week. Wild, huh? The result is a different (again) TKP For a start, where A Beard Of Bees played with silence, the opening track here. North Head', plays with noise: a brutally simple rhythm overlaid with abrasive sounds, it sounds like a machine for stamping on things. Out Of My Hands' is the original Nocturnal Projections recording slowed to 33rpm with additional vocals the effect is eerie. 'Mr Tic Toe' is a piece of spoken prose by Chris Matthews with musical accompaniment

it's good, both musically and literally. What Can I Say' is the most like previous TKP things, but it's a gem of economy, starting quietly and bowing out gracefully. Flipper Come Home! on the other hand, leaps in on itself and lurches through its course in a jagged, nasty-funny way Neat.and it's hard to imagine this is the same "band" that came up with, say. An Open Denial! That kind of flexibility is remarkable and given the fluidity of the lineup should continue. The next record will be some time coming as they're taking a rest for about a year, but for now this is. as usual, a relevant record from This Kind Of Punishment. War Babies Can I Say Something (RCA) A new (but, I suspect, “mature') local act signed by RCA, probably with an eye to the Alison Moyet market. And, by golly, it might just pay off for them excellent singing, nice chorus, good song. In the circumstances it's best to try and ignore the awful flip side, which gets “raunchy" and spoils everything.

Corben Simpson Have You Heard A Man Cry (Ode) A re-recording of a song that won an APRA Silver Scroll award in 1971, 'Have You Heard A Man Cry' should be just about right for Radio i. Exemplary playing of an innocuous jazz cruizzzze. Gloria's Peccadilloes You Never Had It This Fresh (Ode) The main problem with groups with such a strong concept (as there is here with Gloria Grott and band) is that the music doesn’t always measure up. And so it is here: Make Up' and 'Vampirella' make sensible feminist points but as a whole the four tracks don't have much to hold the interest, with very standard playing and very obvious structures. Dosage B Excuse Me Big Nose, What Are You Staring At? (Meltdown) A Palmerston North bunch who make it clear that they're in it at least partially for the laffs. They recorded this in a lounge and it sounds boisterous if nothing else. But ‘Wild Child' is pretty adolescent and I don't know what the hell they're trying to achieve with 'Vi-

cious Love’. 'Suicide' is the best of the five tracks but it's not exceptional I assume they're better live. And the title's from Life Of Brian, right? Rick Harris No Nukes (Ode) This must be what they call a sign of the times a sort of combination of one of the "C’mon Kiwi" ra-ras the TVNZ tries to make us sing every cricket season and a bit of down-home Kiwi country folk, in the name of keeping Their Ships out of Our Ports. The message is unquestionable, except where all the nationalism gets a bit... hang on, Rick’s sister is Tanya Harris, who organised the big “Kiwis Care" march down •Queen St four years ago. Weird! Tokyo Lonely Hearts (Jayrem) I dupno. it must be considered a virtue in the World Of Metal to pack in as many cliches as possible. If that's so then Tokyo are pretty virtuous from the silly pomp rock intro of the A-side on in, it's all so hackneyed it's almost parodic. Grown men? If you want muscle guitar music listen to Husker Du.