Kiwi Animals: Future/ Primitive Aotearoa

For fans of Flying Nun more quirky / electronic output., contains songs reissued on vinyl for the first time from cult Kiwi bands Blam Blam Blam, Headless Chickens and Chris ‘Roger’ Knox.

Strangelove’s personal Inventory of NZ 1980’s odd pop; Kiwi Animals recasts the local charts in a parallel universe of misfit melodics, gonzo-tronics and strange waves. Channelling South Pacific voodoo and edge of world melancholia, the album highlights electronic tangents from iconic NZ groups Blam Blam Blam and Headless Chickens.

It dredges the cassette revelations of art avante-gardists’ Drone and Kim Blackburn, alongside bittersweet moments from Rupert and Norma O’Malley. There’s the infectious minimal wave of Ballare and a reprised electro-boogie dance suite (?!) from Tom Ludvigson and 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 disparate seams of a local indie label awakening, the various tangents of ‘Kiwi Animals’ congeal with a future / primitive sensibility and an underlying Antipodean mischievousness.