various: future/primitive aotearoa

Strangelove Music's personal inventory of New Zealand's 1980s odd pop; The Kiwi Animal recasts the local charts in a parallel universe of misfit melodics, gonzo-tronics, and strange waves. Channeling 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 & 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 The Kiwi Animal congeal with a future/primitive sensibility and an underlying Antipodean mischievousness... Includes insert.