Various – Kiwi Animals: Future/Primitive Aotearoa 82-91

Label: Strangelove Music – SL105
Format: Vinyl, LP, Compilation, Stereo
Country: New Zealand
Released: May 20, 2020
Genre: Electronic, Pop
Style: New Wave, Experimental, Leftfield

Eccentric New Zealand pop oddities!  Released via the excellent Strangelove Music.. (NM/NM)

‘Kiwi Animals’ is a personal catalog of local oddities; affectionately recasting the 1980’s New Zealand Top 40 in a parallel universe of misfit pop, gonzo-tronics & voodoo-waves.

Channeling South Pacific gothic sensibilities and edge of world melancholia, the album highlights unexpected electronic tangents from iconic NZ groups Blam Blam Blam & Headless Chickens.

It dredges the C-90 revelations of art avante-gardists’ Drone & Kim Blackburn, along with the bittersweet pop of Rupert & Norma O’Malley. There’s the infectious minimal wave of Ballare and a reprised dance suite from Tom Ludvigson & Graeme Gash.

The furthest depths of Flying Nun’s catalog are also plundered- a brilliant earworm from Stiff Herbert and a mysterious Roger Knox birthday promo. Mining the various disparate seams of a local indie label awakening, ‘Kiwi Animals’ congeals with future/primitive ingenuity and an underlying Antipodean pop mischievousness…

Tracklist
A1 Kim Blackburn– Lizards In Love 4:06
A2 The Kiwi Animal– Woman & Man Have Balance 3:23
A3 Rupert – Soul Brothers 3:51
A4 Stiff Herbert– I Could Hit The Ceiling 2:16
A5 Drone – Nothing Dominant 3:57
A6 Norma O'Malley– Some Tame Gazelle 1:46
B1 Headless Chickens– Throwback 3:14
B2 Blam Blam Blam– Respect 3:41
B3 Roger Knox – Whole Weird World 3:41
B4 Ludvigson And Gash– Ulläng Jnr. 3:35
B5 Ballare– Dancing 3:33