Solo guitar/electronics record from Michael Morley of The Dead C, released by a New Zealand gallery and originally intended as a soundtrack piece. Moves from the sound of blood pulsing in your ears through classic saw-tooth Dead C riffing and Industrial machine noise. Another good one.

More evacuated noise tectonics from the dream-team hook-up of US noise wunderkind John Wiese and NZ sound-thinker and Dead C member Bruce Russell. Limited to 300 copies.

Reissue of this classic and much sought after 1992 ‘live’ album from The Dead C, recorded in the band’s practice space and originally released as a fake bootleg. Clyma Est Mort features some of the most radical and formally fucked improvised rock/noise of the group’s career. Robbie Yeats’ drumming is incredible, reformulating concepts of time as definitively as Sunny Murray or Milford Graves while playing with all of the primitive ferocity of the most feral rock/roll. Russell and Morley’s guitars sound completely destroyed - hovering over amplifier feedback, twisting like tortured metal, defying time, breaking down heavy metal chord progressions into quanta of mainlined drone – and they have all of the dynamic range of a fleet of bulldozers. Morley and Russell’s glorious dual vocals are the most wasted of their career. The version of “Power” remains a staggering free rock peak, still *the* greatest protest song to come out of the underground. Hell has come, indeed. And the ‘hardcore’ tracks are ferocious. Clyma is also the most cryptic and specifically nuanced of the Dead C albums: taking obsessive inspiration from The Fall’s Totale’s Turns; dubbing in audience applause, dropping weird, almost indecipherable references into the titles and sleeve notes, jump cutting from here to there – there’s as much to decode here as there is on John Fahey’s Voice Of The Turtle. The addition of a second disc that bundles a bunch of key 7” sides - a bunch of versions of “Power”, “Hell Is Now Love”, “Bone”, “Mighty”, “Peace” and “Radiation” – is just gravy. For a complete dissection of the mechanics of the recording and the arc of the times check out Tom Lax of Siltbreeze’s compulsive eyewitness account in his exclusive VT column. Also comes with a CD version of Clyma. Highest possible recommendation.

Limited edition LP in a run of only 200 copies from New Zealand’s greatest axe-strangler, Bruce Russell of The Dead C. The playing here is more overtly euphoric than many of Bruce’s earlier sides, his grip tight around the neck, tearing clusters of squeal from conveyor belts of fuzz. The opening duo with Australian noise/guitarist Marco Fusinato is fairly epic but it’s the all solo “West Space One” that best documents Russell at his most Hendrix/amp-destroying. Playing with a machine gun style that comes over like Band Of Gypsies jamming the outro to “Bury”, it’s hard not to anticipate Robbie Yeats staggering in and pushing the whole thing over the cliff. Russell’s solo sides often have a whole bunch of fascinating conceptual/hermetic weight to them but Antikythera Mechanism succeeds because of its status as ‘simply’ a solo guitar record and in its own way it feels as definitive as Donald Miller’s A Little Treatise On Morals, Jandek’s Interstellar Discussion or Keiji Haino’s Affection. Bruce does a lot of actual playing here – as opposed to just letting the guitar sing - and on the third side-long track his guitar sounds closest to Nicholas from Love Cry Want’s guitar synthesizer’, albeit with the dials set to “Iron Man”. But in the end it all boils down to this: Bruce Russell was in The Dead C and you weren’t. That’s why he can pull off fringed leather jackets when you would just look like a dope. And that’s why in his hands an all-improvised guitar album sounds like the goddamn keys to the kingdom. So listen up. Pressed on ultra thick white vinyl.  Highly recommended.

Massively ambitious double-LP set from the duo of Barbara Manning and Seymour Glass (Bananafish) that sees them joined by a jaw-dropping line-up of underground figures including Bruce Russell of The Dead C, Alastair Galbraith, Scott Simmons of Eat Skull, Lucian Tielens (Brent Lewis Ensemble), Patricia Rowland (Vomit Launch), Jett Hotcomb and more. The set encompasses some stunning dark/minimal covers of primo material like The Birthday Party’s “Mutiny In Heaven”, Hank Williams’ “I’ll Never Get Out Of This World Alive”, The New Creation’s “Dig! The Origin Of Man” through bastardised movie snippets and manipulated monologues lifted from films like The Holy Mountain, Head, Toy Story, Willie Wonka & The Chocolate Factory and Help! Barbara provides the most song-orientated material while Glass works fucked-up tape magic with the slightest of sonic detritus. Throw in a buncha wild apocalyptic texts lifted from Elizabeth Clare Prophet, L. Ron Hubbard, Flannery O’Connor, Hugo Ball, Hippocrates etc,. Bruce Russell’s take on David Crosby, Galbraith’s higher-minded violin drone, voices of spectral choirs rising above texts about the nature of creation and infinity and you have the ultimate end-of-times report from the furthest margins of the underground. Much of Glands... back catalogue exists in a zone where tongues reside firmly within cheeks but this is the heaviest, darkest and most unaccountably affecting broadcast from these two to date. Packaged with a full-colour fold-out Sgt Peppers-style poster with manipulated images of the entire cast. A singular work, highly recommended.

Debut issue for this excellent new underground/experimental music zine published and edited by Lasse Marhaug. Beautifully put together on heavy paper with high quality photography, this one features serious/funny/revealing in-depth interviews with Bruce Russell of The Dead C et al, C. Spencer Yeh of Burning Star Core (lots about movies), Oren Ambarchi (classic interview that focuses on AC/DC and KISS), Daniel Menche, Sissy Spacek, Arcn Templ, Umpio, Sete Star Sept, Zweizz, Tommi Keranen, Chulki Hong and more. The interviews are all pretty great, veering away from the usual dull line of questioning and touching on all sorts of aspects of the artists’ life and influences that most people would never think to turn over. Funny, informative, perplexing – a fantastic read, highly recommended. 

Stunning compilation that marks 30 years of one of the hands-down greatest underground record labels of the modern age, New Zealand’s Flying Nun Records. Two discs that remind you just how much of your favourite jams came out of a single imprint. Amazing tracks from The Clean, The Verlaines, The Chills, The Dead C, Pin Group, The Bats, Sneaky Feelings, Look Blue Go Purple, Bird Nest Roys, The Great Unwashed, Straitjacket Fits, Able Tasmans, Fetus Productions, Jean-Paul Sartre Experience, Garageland, Bressa Creeting Cake, Chris Knox, Headless Chickens, The Mint Chicks, The Phoenix Foundation, Robert Scott, Grayson Gilmour, The Gordons, The Stones, Children’s Hour, Doublehappys, Tall Dwarfs, Snapper, The 3Ds, Shayne Carter & Peter Jefferies, Bailter Space, Skeptics, Solid Gold Hell, Dimmer, Loves Ugly Children, High Dependency Unit, Ghost Club, The Subliminals, Shocking Pinks and F In Math. If you’ve yet to check in with the label then this is the perfect primer and if you’re already a devotee this might just be the mix tape of your life. Highly recommended!