Written by: Dave Cantrell

Not so much stepping as kicking their way out of ‘those’ shadows, Dunedin’s new breed make a noise. A baker’s dozen of brio and brilliance, the multi-media Temporary sets this year’s standard for a label compilation.

Is it possible to begin a review of a compilation of Dunedin, New Zealand’s pop underground (2011-2014) without mentioning that modestly-sized city’s gargantuan pop past, legendary by most matrices? Well, as is already obvious, apparently not. But one can simply gloss past that storied history on the basis that the vast majority of you reading this are suitably au courant with all things Kiwi pop and need no refresher, not least from the enterprising hack behind these words (but should a quick brush-up be required, try here). Similarly, the fact that this thriving little port city, this antipodean oasis of all things chiming churning and melodic, has steadfastly not rested on its considerable laurels but instead continues – as it has never stopped doing – to prove its indie-cred resilience with a thronging stream of essential, pulse-pounding pop, has also been well established, highlighted by writers and magazines around the world including this one (here, here, here, here, and here). So let’s just skip all that and move on to the multi-media contents of this tidy package being offered by a, umm, temporary partnership between NZ stalwart Fishrider Records and US conspirators Ba Da Bing as well as via established UK partner Occultation.

Birthed, then, in the ‘scene that needs no introduction,’ it’s at least useful to say this, as it’s a subtly complicated but essential point: whereas it’s true that the thirteen bands crowding this comp do indeed – inescapably – share a redolence to some degree with the great sonic quilt created by their renowned forbears, they have – to a band – taken whatever shadow that past has cast and turned it inside out into their own peculiar light. If only by osmosis it’s impossible to shed the specter of their regional past but if nothing else this collection argues for the fresh and independent voice of the new breed. Put succinctly: you’re a big fan of the Chills Bats Verlaines et al? You’ll love this set. Never heard of those and have no idea what this Dunedin fuss is all about? You’ll love this set. In quality, variety, punch and melody, it stands apart.

If you’re a long-time reader or clicked those many “here”s up there you’re familiar with a fair percentage of the names put forward on Temporary, which should stir persuasive interest in itself, especially as only a small handful of tracks here have appeared previously on a band’s respective album and only two of those – the Prophet Hens and Strange Harvest – have been covered in these pages. Those tracks aside, this record is a veritable rabbit run of young irrepressible rascal genius masquerading as a compilation album. Vital, varied, swaying and scratching and, yes, rocking all across the ‘hopelessly infectious’ spectrum, you’ll find all thirteen of these tracks tripping over one another in a headlong hurtle to be heard, heard, heard.

The record comes bouncing into your lap with the importunate scamper of “Dim the Droog” by one Mavis Gary, which is actually a band which is actually made up of just one person, Adrian Ng, who’s actually a bit better known as being a principle member of Trick Mammoth (this, shall we say, ‘interplay’ between bands is, as we’ll soon discover, a rabidly common custom in the new Dunedin scene), the same Trick Mammoth that closes festivities with a plaintively tongue-in-cheek tribute to an ailing, nearly bygone technology (“Home Video”) that in its pining acoustic sincerity could hardly be further from the pop’n’roll of that openiNg track. Between those two bewitching poles we get the drawling disco-beaten allure of “Flowers For the Blind” from a band that’s named after a song by the Verlaines – Death & The Maiden – though they sound nothing like them – too haunted, too mystery-mesmeric; we get the shamelessly doolally rollick of Males via the crystalline churn of “Dead Aware” followed by the more aggressive, vaguely suggestive churg of “My Plums Are Ripe” by a certain Mr Biscuits that’s somewhere between Babes In Toyland-ed grunge and Rezillo’d punk pop that in itself is not surprising except for the fact that both Males and Mr Biscuits are helmed by Richard Ley-Hamilton, the latter band enlisting none other than Mr. Ng (along with other cross-actors but I’ve already confused you enough – just read the liner notes); we get the plucky walkaround wander of “Supermarket” from Opposite Sex, as poppy a screed against blind consumerism as you’ll hear (with shopping’s socio-economic implications tossed in at no extra charge!) and since it’s a leftover track from the sessions that produced their stunning 2011 debut it’s still got Fergus unloosing on guitar as Lucy and Tim keep the creeping groove solid down aisle seven so there’s your price of admission right there. And yet we get so much more besides (‘But wait, there’s more!’)

The bucolic shuffle and understated dazzle of Shifting Sands’ “All The Stars,” bathed with a kind of Dunedinized Laurel Canyon vibe, the echo-chambered, primitivist but spacey “Gaze” by the un-pigeonholeable Astro Children from their breathless lost classic debut Proteus which is essentially Trick Mammoth partner Millie Lovelock’s exploding id outlet and as such delights and confounds around every corner, Kane Strang’s inverted pop perversion of the Beach Boys if Brian and the lads had adopted a mangled jangle aesthetic and a latent post-punk bassline, it’s all here in a living shivering kaleidoscope of playful unpredictability that couldn’t more accurately underscore this scene’s rather petulant health if it tried. Adding in Bad Sav’s darkly-shadowed “Buy Something New” – sirenic, hypnotic, you’ll absolutely need the album that doesn’t yet exist – and the raggedly narcotic and trumpeted “Party to Your Om” by the alarmingly-named Scattered Brains of the Lovely Union that posits Velvety psych pop as written by Bacharach-David, only lards Temporary‘s embarrassment of skewed indie riches, almost to the point that it seems unfair, which is why I hesitate to even mention the magazine that comes with.

Packed to its flat matte gills with band bios, discographies, lyrics, band artwork, a novel excerpt, poetry, mini-essays by June Bride Phil Wilson and others, flyer reproductions and photos galore, not to mention the illuminating introductory reflection by Fishrider major domo and compiler emeritus Ian Henderson that should be required reading for any- and everyone that still retains the phrase ‘the Dunedin Sound’ as a vital component of their musical vocabulary (needless to say it’s not among this community’s favorite expressions), this throw-in is anything but tossed-off. Weighing in at a healthy 24 pages and presenting visually somewhere between a ‘zine and a scruffy but clean fashion magazine, these are the ultimate liner notes, the rare kind that enhance and expand the listening experience until it’s immersive and multi-dimensional.

Spend sufficient time with the record – as you should and anyway won’t really be able to help – spend some intense leisure time with the book, and in the end, like all of us eventually, you’ll become an honorary world citizen of Dunedin, at which point we can join in with these young musicians and future-legends in their chorus of “Fuck the Dunedin Sound, let’s dig the sound of Dunedin now.”