Throughout all of this the names Bruce Russell and Xpressway have been popping up. What do they mean? Well, Russell can basically be thanked for a lot of the interest in NZ music of the last decade and for the current state of the best NZ music...As it became obvious throughout the 80s/90s that Flying Nun was no longer interested in the type of bands or music that had once defined the label, obsessing instead with "big-label" dynamics and the need to succeed, a big gap was left in the NZ music world: no-one was releasing anything interesting/challenging and small-scale. A bunch of people had a bunch of labels, but with most of these it seemed like the label "owners" were too intent with putting their personal "mark" on the label. Fair enough, I guess; these were their labels, but in many cases it meant people with rather questionable likes were releasing some very questionable music, the dangers of the small-label-buddy system.
Bruce Russell was one of these small label "owners;" luckily for us, with a difference. He started up Xpressway at the end of the 80s, giving an outlet to bands passed over by Flying Nun and other labels. Originally this was a cassette-only mail-order set-up, releasing a bunch of interesting material from mostly Dunedin-based bands, at the same time avoiding the kind of narrow-mindedness seemingly endemic in NZ at the time. With Xpressway, Russell had eclectic enough interests and contacts to ensure a pretty diverse bunch of releases. And people wanted to hear it - all over the world. It seemed that with the minimum of hype and promotion, Xpressway was doing what a lot of other local labels could never manage - getting the music heard by an enthusiastic international audience. And revitalizing interest in NZ music. Of course, Russell had some excellent material to work with, which certainly helped. I don't see any point in listing names here as not a lot of this Xpressway material is still available, and I don't know if it will ever surface again. What is available is Making Losers Happy from Drag City, a compilation of most of the vinyl released on Xpressway and maybe the Killing Capitalism with Kindness compilation available on Turbulence. The music here pretty much outlines the Xpressway "philosophy," plus makes for good listening...
After a while, Xpressway started to expand, until Russell was no longer releasing much on the label, instead serving as an intermediary between NZ musicians and overseas labels who wanted to release "Xpressway artists." This may well be Bruce's most important achievement; getting stuff released on labels with a distribution network and a "name." Dadamah, Alaistar Galbraith, the Terminals, Peter Jefferies, the Dead C. and more all got some kind of break out of their Xpressway links. And created a renewed excitement about music out of NZ.
Particularly the Dead C. They started off around the mid-1980s with a couple of releases on Flying Nun, one being DR503. This was later reissued on Feel Good All Over, on cassette in a slightly different version (Perform DR503b) and in 1999 DR503c came out on Flying Nun featuring a few tracks from the original plus other early and hard-to-find recordings. There's a little bit of cross-over here with the Shock release World Peace Hope et al. another compilation of obscure material itself now impossible to find. The second F. Nun release was Eusa Kills, released in 1990 and reissued in 1992: it may or may not still be available. Michael Morley, who had been in Wreck Small Speakers on Expensive Stereos, a very unknown band influenced by early-mid 80s English avant-rock (although when Morley became famous through his Dead C escapades and Gate work, the WSSOES Flying Nun release, River Falling Love was reissued as a CD by Ajax and apparently on Morley's own Precious Metal label as an LP in some ridiculously limited number like 40 copies or something), Robbie Yates, who once drummed for the Verlaines (a wonderful band to see live. Invariably their guitarist, Graeme Downes, would end up with bleeding fingers) and played in Trash (who have two noise-laden CDs plus a single or two. Carrying on the legacy of the totally under-appreciated Alpaca Bros.) and Bruce Russell (who had never been in a band before and basically taught himself to create a racket on the guitar in a matter of months) make up this group. They were once labeled the most important band in the world by one of the English music weeklies...this in a review of the live Repent CD on Siltbreeze. What can you say to that? Repent sees the Dead C at a frenzied peak, just whacking the shit out of their instruments in stellar rock'n'roll style. Bruce Russell expressed a deep admiration for Harry Pussy, and while the Harry Pussy level of intensity isn't quite peaked here, there is certainly an aesthetic meeting of minds. The Dead C sum up a lot of things a lot of people don't want to know about...shambolic, anti-stance, no-fi, de-tuned, downer, improvised, feedback, noise, you pick the words. And tough for those who don't want to know. Their loss, after all. Personally, I find mid-period Dead C to be the most "satisfying."
Especially Harsh 70s Reality, one of their most fully-realised albums to date. Alternating between hypnotic droning noise and loose, chaotic "songs," this album invades and takes over your brain like some kind of supreme downer drug. The quality of trio interaction here is mind-boggling, and I hope they never replicate it - that'll just destroy the beautiful spontaneity of this album. Originally released as a double LP on Siltbreeze it didn't last for long and that particular version is now gone. It has been reissued on the same label as a CD however, minus a couple of tracks. Perhaps it'll be reissued in full one of these days, say your prayers as it is really a pretty damn good record. Trapdoor Fucking Exit is also "pretty damn good." This was originally released as a Precious Metal cassette in some miniscule amount and basically disappeared in minutes. Luckily Siltbreeze reissued it, giving those of us who weren't hanging out in Port Chalmers back in 1990 a chance to hear more freaked pummel 'n' beauty. The CD comes with the Helen Said This LP tagged on; another incredibly rare and necessary moment from the Dead C.
Tusk came out late 1997 on Siltbreeze. Before being released the word was that Tusk was the Dead C in rock form and yeah, you still can't hum any of the songs, but "the word" was not totally untrue. This album is closer to Repent than say The White House or Operation of the Sun with their long "abstractions." Shorter songs of formidable energy and intensity dominate here, and it's a real welcome especially seeing as how not many groups seem interested in making improvised free/rock splatter these days. Or doing it well. Thank you Dead C.
The groups' seventeenth recording Dead C. on Language Recordings was relased in 2000 though consists of recordings from 1995-1999. A move away from the guitar-based improvised skuzz of earlier recordings to all instrumental electronics/sampler-based improvised skuzz spread over two CDS. It's almost ambient at times and while on the first few listens I missed the rowdiness of earlier recordings, the sounds resolve themselves into a rather excellent release quickly enough. For more info. on the Dead C start by exploring their discography.
When not part of the Dead C Michael Morley tends to be Gate usually on his own but sometimes with a few friends. There's a lot of singles and albums out there by Gate, most manifesting that obligatory unavailability...what do you expect; there was (is) never the demand to release thousands of copies of this kind of music and the limited number of copies produced probably have a guaranteed market, anyway. Plus the people releasing this stuff are working on limited budgets. It's hardly as if they are plotting some collector scum ploy; I'd say it's more a matter of economics. Fortunately(?) a bunch of recent NZ bands have benefited release-wise through the Geraldine lathe cut phenomena. Geraldine is a small NZ town in the midst of nowhere (the South Island) where Peter King has set up a "pressing plant" at which he cuts records by hand out of cold vinyl. These records are always in miniscule quantities - as you'd expect from the process - and from my experiences they never seem to play properly. Still, a good concept and a good way to get new material out, even if only to those who are truly in the know. And some may say one of the more bizarre sides to NZ music history...But, at the same time, it's frustrating to hear about a new release by some luminary of the new NZ scene only to discover it was only pressed in an edition of eight and you'll never see it in your miserable life...some of the best of the lathe cuts came out on Crawlspace Records and you can hear a sampling of long-gone releases on the Fit for Kings compilation. For a ever-expanding catalogue of the lathe cut releases from Geraldine check out King Records Worldwide - An Incomplete Discography.
At least with Gate some of the rarer singles resurfaced on the Golden CD from IMD (a now-defunct label out of Dunedin.) All the hits in one convenient package! But maybe the best place to start with Gate (and the best Gate release?) is The Dew Line on Table of the Elements. Here Morley avoids the longer free-form noise pieces you find on other Gate releases for a more song-based approache Bleak, blasted lo-fi scrape 'n' moan via guitar, synth and voice perhaps, but desolation has never sounded so good.
Sounding for all the world like some secret or suppressed Dead C release, Metric on Majora sees Gate at the peak of accessibility. Why, there's even Dead C material here (or do the Dead C "do" Gate?) So, obviously, if you like the Dead C you'll probably find this particular record to be pretty hot poop. But I guess if you like the Dead C you'll probably like Gate...or not...heck, what do I know, anyway.
Mostly, Gate gets free and noisy. Guitar, also on Majora never did a lot for me - too unfocussed and unstructured, lacking the kicks the best noise releases offer when they peak. Oh well. The Poon Village album recorded live in Boston and New York with Lee Renaldo (he's played with jazz drummer William Hooker a few times. Plus writes poetry) and Zeena Parkins, entitled creatively enough Boston-New York, 1994 comes in a very nice screen-printed package. There's one long, all-consuming track of guitar/synth noise from Morley and Renaldo, but things get really happening when Parkins pops up on a bunch of shorter, intensely atmospheric tracks. Recommended. Lounge (Twisted Village) is a particularly enjoyable release from Gate, this time featuring David Merritt in collaboration with Morley. This, like other non-solo Gate, sounds heavily improvised, and leans almost towards HM stylings. A mighty recording with particularly ugly cover art. One of the best Morley releases currently available, but this time as Michael Morley is the Pavilion of Fools. Lots of just plain wonderful guitar churn and electro-blurp from a man who knows what it's all about...however, I've yet to come to terms with Morley's latest recording under the Gate moniker, The Monolake on "art" label Table of the Elements. The album opens on some horrid faux stadium rock piece (I hope he's being ironic) and ends on a very literal cover of Faust's Jennifer. In between some or all of the following may take place: a guitar gets distorted, synth noise is generated, vocals are moaned. There may even be some percussion, but as I said, it all kind of eludes me right now.
Seems Gate has from since around 1996 moved into the world of the sequencer and samples. The first overt sign of this was the Vulture, constructed from John Spencer Blues Explosion samples and Gate's contribution to the Opprobrium compilation Waiting to be Old. Next is The Lavender Head billed as the Gate techno album, recorded in 1996 and released as a double lathe cut LP in an edition of twenty meaning no one got to hear it. Luckily it's been reissued by the Hell's Half Halo label on real vinyl as a double LP within a very nice cover. The first two sides recall The Dew Line, the same stark, downer tone. Something I kind of think Gate produces well. This may once have been techno but it's now reduced to a barely functioning pace of massive drones, hazed rhythms, machine noise and tone-burst "beats." Unlikely to get much of a twitch out of the punters at the local club although record two might, especially the fracturing reconstruction of techno on Mary and Mars. This is wonderful, ignoring all the genre boundaries that make techno so limited and just kind of messing them all together. The other side starts with woozy backwards samples, they make their own sense as they progress; you'll understand once you listen. Apparently this was recorded as some kind of indication of where Gate was headed; promising directions but who knows what will be next.
Tanaka-Nixon Meeting is the name given to the Morley-Danny Butt duo; with a 7" and album on Giardia Recordings. The 7" Blessed/Tanksis an exercise in barely-extant low-fi scrape and dense ambience via cello(?) and guitar. LP-wise The Ark drones and gets hazy and kind of scary via the same instrumentation, peaking with some nice moments of high-end skree and fucked, loose percussion. Tanaka-Nixon Meeting are very good.
A Handful of Dust, Bruce Russell's free noise unit may seem to some as unnecessarily oblique and impenetrable, what with the Logopandocy - The Journal of Vain Erudition (Russell's continuing free noise manifesto) which accompanies some of the CDs and the whole general "stance" of A Handful of Dust. But anyone who thinks this is, in all probability, wrong. Oblique this band aren't as I'm sure you'll realise on listening to Russell and usual accomplice Alastair Galbraith (helped out by Peter Stapleton) twist out their inspired take on freedom. There's quite a lot of Dust out there, an album on Twisted Village (deleted now) and a bunch of CDs and cassettes on Corpus Hermeticum. Plus the inevitable singles. The early material including Concord was reissued on the Musica Humana CD, here was likewise a reprinting of What is Free, Russell's Free Noise Manifesto. Making Musica Humana a very good place to go for a general overview of Dust's sound and philosophy.
For a general overview of A Handful of Dust check out the Corpus Hermeticum catalogue. Their music is not for the faint-hearted. Like Gate, like most of the NZ post-psychedelic free music/noise collective, we're talking heavy improvisation, and when this stuff really meshes you're in for a joyful lobotomizing experience. More so when they have time to open out and get really loose, like The Dark Lantern of Reason from Now Gods, Stand Up For Bastards, where two men, alone in front of a crowd, prove that noise is a lovely thing.
Which, oddly enough, also happens on the first Dust H/Corp CD, The Philosophick Mercury. Two tracks here, the first of which is a low-key drone-fest, the second a live freak-out with Peter Stapleton that really peaks in the closing minutes. Stapleton makes another showing on Jerusalem, Street of Graves appearing on one track from the now-deleted Topology of a Phantom City cassette. Here Stapleton's distinctive percussive chatter breaks up the churning guitar/violin/electronics of Russell and Galbraith defining the rest of the music recorded at a rare Dust performance opening for Tony Conrad in Christchurch.
The first Bruce Russell solo release Project for a Revolution in New York (Siltbreeze, LP only I believe) sees our man truly alone on the first side, messing with a guitar over a looped drone accompaniment. Remarkably subdued and dare I say, relaxing. Side two has Tom Lax (Siltbreeze main-man) and Paul Toohey (Surface of the Earth) helping out with percussion and electronics in a very free collaboration where what doesn't happen defines the tension of the piece as much as what does. There's always been a tension between noise and minimalism in Russell's music as evidenced on Project For a Revolution... and made especially apparent on the Crank Automotive release Maximalist Mantra Music. Two of the tracks here were recorded live at the Dux de Lux in Christchurch and the sounds of the audience map neatly into the low-intensity noise emanating from the stage to make you feel as though you were there.
Peter Stapleton is proving to be a pretty key figure in a lot of this noise stuff. I mean, he appears in almost every band mentioned on these pages, turning up yet again on the Pieters/Russell/Stapleton release Last Glass (again on H/Corp.) Things start at a nervy, jittery pace, almost kind of progressive, but don't be put off; like the above-mentioned Dust collaborations this really opens out to peak as a fine example of NZ noise-making. Sex/Machine, CD #2 (Metonymic) manages to do this too, this time encompassing a broader sound spectrum. Stapleton also turns up as part of Flies inside the Sun and Rain, both in fact with Kim Pieters and Danny Butt (he plays in Tanaka-Nixon Meeting with Michael Morley.) Flies...sees the addition of Brian Crook from the Renderers (who play beautiful, blasted, soul-destroying faux-country. Listen to The Surface of Jupiter on Ajax).
Rain have two releases Sediment and Sycamore on Stapleton's Metonymic label where the band head for improvised proto-ambient(?) territory and create some beautifully stark, intense "songs" when they get there. Sycamore seems the better of the two releases - more realised than Sediment with more of a presence to the synth and short-wave radio contributions, filling out the bass/percussion explorations that tend to define Rain's sound.
Flies inside the Sun have a bunch of releases out, An Audience of Others (Including Herself) from Kranky, and a self-titled CD plus Cactus Sky on Metonymic (where Crook joins the fold). Here we find deep almost subterranean percussive rumbles and drifting psychedelic drones overlaid with bursts of short-wave broadcasts, guitar and synth noise along with some subtle delivery of Pieters' chilling ethereal vocals. Not that they can't rock out in best free-form style as happens on le mal d'archive, again on Metonymic and this time from Pieters/Stapleton and Crook. Over the four lengthy tracks Stapleton sets up some marvelous fluid rhythms met head-on by Pieters' free-ranging bass patterns with hypnotic injections from Crook via guitar, synth and organ on the peak of "In Memory of Forgetting".
Another Metonymic release and another Pieters/Stapleton grouping - this time Sleep, here joined by Sferic Experiment member Susan Ballard and Nathan Thompson of Sandoz Lab Technicians - is Enfolded in Luxury. Some (well, Bruce Russell) regard this as one of the labels' best with very varied instrumentation (violin! clarinet!) and open dynamics but I find it a bit dissatisfying, the music doesn't spread out enough. It's a tighter free/rock interface than the above releases; still good but I prefer a little more space. Opprobrium no. 3 ran a long, informative interview with the Rain/Flies... crew which tells you way more than I ever will. And you can read it right here.
The Flies/Rain (and remember Dadamah) links go on...or went on in the form of Doramaar, who released two albums, the first a CD on Corpus Hermeticum titled Copula the next an album on Fusetron called Terra Incognita. The link here comes from Kim Pieters who made up the band along with Adria Morgan and Sara Stephenson (plus Andre Richardson on the first album.) Read about Doramaar in this Opprobrium interview.
Doramaar are long gone, but at least they left us with two rather desirable artifacts of NZ drone+noise=joy. The consensus seems to be that the second Fusetron LP is their "peak," and yeah, it is a fine release; two long (20 min plus) abstractions of improvised instrumentation, "songs" that sound like they are about to implode through the tension of sound. But don't discount their H/Corp release, we're still dealing with very satisfying shorter takes on floating noise-as-music, and at times it approaches the otherworldliness of Dadamah's This is Not a Dream.