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Genteel Death · 01.05.2014, 11:34 AM

(v/a) - I HEAR THE DEVIL CALLING ME 7" (Drag City, 1991)

Back in the early '90s, when New Zealand's long-gestating underground music scene was beginning to emerge internationally from it's secluded Aotearoan pupa, & before the Internet was seen as anything more than a faddish dial-up distraction, the only opportunity that non-Kiwis had of actually hearing any of the country's elusive paraphernalia was via a handful of enlightened N.Z.-friendly d.i.y. distributors (Fisheye's long-suffering Paul Wild, for instance).

What struck me at the time - other than how remote & hermetic this motley cluster of artists seemed, & how unconcerned they appeared to be in trying to (gasp) sound American - was their stubborn adherence to the already semi-obsolete 7" single / cassette set-up, a strategy of necessity that seemed "charmingly" parochial in an era when, elsewhere, the compact disc had achieved sovereignty & vinyl was approaching it's lowest commercial ebb. Tapes, I should add, had already been dismissed as ridiculous charity shop fodder.

One of the earliest & most prominent artefacts from The Year The World Turned Kiwi was Drag City's pocket-sized compendium I Hear The Devil Calling Me. Released in August 1991, just as the label was just becoming financially solvent as a result of Pavement's early & prodigious success, it brought together a dozen N.Z. acts, each of whom handed-over an illustrative 1 minute long track. Compiled by The Dead C's Bruce Russell, & employing his milieu-defining Xpressway label as it's catalyst, most of it's Dunedin & Christchurch-based noise-smiths contributed bespoke compositions, though a couple appeared to be extracted from longer, pre-existing recordings. Inevitably, this enforced brevity worked in some acts' favour more than others - you'd be hard pressed to get the gist of The Renderers' objectives from a 70 second piece like their titular track here, but Gate & A Handful of Dust's prudent hor d'oeuvres made a (dare I say it) refreshing change from the customarily exhausting attack-intensity of their own records. Throughout, accents were conspicuously "regional", maltreated guitars buzzed & purred, crepitating vintage synths spluttered, drum-kits emulated collapsing wet cardboard, fracturing melodies with dissonance while the production values remained defiantly frugal... a vivid snapshot of that scene's tangled synthesis of boldly amateurist music & art. Remarkably, many of the contributors herein are still making music, much of it better than anything that's been released by any European act in the intervening 20 years, & all of it habitually ignored by our music press... never mind.

Issued in a once-only edition of a thousand or so copies, the I Hear The Devil Calling Me 7" has never been repressed & is not available to download from the Drag City website.

● Uneasy trail
http://ilovetotaldestruction.blogspo...g-city_24.html

01.05.2014, 11:34 AM	#1526
Genteel Death invito al cielo Join Date: Aug 2009 Posts: 8,744	(v/a) - I HEAR THE DEVIL CALLING ME 7" (Drag City, 1991) Back in the early '90s, when New Zealand's long-gestating underground music scene was beginning to emerge internationally from it's secluded Aotearoan pupa, & before the Internet was seen as anything more than a faddish dial-up distraction, the only opportunity that non-Kiwis had of actually hearing any of the country's elusive paraphernalia was via a handful of enlightened N.Z.-friendly d.i.y. distributors (Fisheye's long-suffering Paul Wild, for instance). What struck me at the time - other than how remote & hermetic this motley cluster of artists seemed, & how unconcerned they appeared to be in trying to (gasp) sound American - was their stubborn adherence to the already semi-obsolete 7" single / cassette set-up, a strategy of necessity that seemed "charmingly" parochial in an era when, elsewhere, the compact disc had achieved sovereignty & vinyl was approaching it's lowest commercial ebb. Tapes, I should add, had already been dismissed as ridiculous charity shop fodder. One of the earliest & most prominent artefacts from The Year The World Turned Kiwi was Drag City's pocket-sized compendium I Hear The Devil Calling Me. Released in August 1991, just as the label was just becoming financially solvent as a result of Pavement's early & prodigious success, it brought together a dozen N.Z. acts, each of whom handed-over an illustrative 1 minute long track. Compiled by The Dead C's Bruce Russell, & employing his milieu-defining Xpressway label as it's catalyst, most of it's Dunedin & Christchurch-based noise-smiths contributed bespoke compositions, though a couple appeared to be extracted from longer, pre-existing recordings. Inevitably, this enforced brevity worked in some acts' favour more than others - you'd be hard pressed to get the gist of The Renderers' objectives from a 70 second piece like their titular track here, but Gate & A Handful of Dust's prudent hor d'oeuvres made a (dare I say it) refreshing change from the customarily exhausting attack-intensity of their own records. Throughout, accents were conspicuously "regional", maltreated guitars buzzed & purred, crepitating vintage synths spluttered, drum-kits emulated collapsing wet cardboard, fracturing melodies with dissonance while the production values remained defiantly frugal... a vivid snapshot of that scene's tangled synthesis of boldly amateurist music & art. Remarkably, many of the contributors herein are still making music, much of it better than anything that's been released by any European act in the intervening 20 years, & all of it habitually ignored by our music press... never mind. Issued in a once-only edition of a thousand or so copies, the I Hear The Devil Calling Me 7" has never been repressed & is not available to download from the Drag City website. ● Uneasy trail http://ilovetotaldestruction.blogspo...g-city_24.html
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