How The Fall Nearly Sank Flying Nun
When the New Zealand indie label Flying Nun got a chance to record a live album by Manchester band the Fall, the tensions fraying the group almost destroyed the record company – as documented…
Tag Archives: Flying Nun
Hamish Kilgour a Freewheeling Musician With Worldly Reach
Hamish Kilgour, a founding member of the New Zealand band the Clean, who was celebrated among fans of underground music for his propulsive drumming and his countercultural approach to life, has died in Christchurch,…
Cult Guitarist Roy Montgomery Records New Music
Beloved by the likes of Dry Cleaning and Grouper, New Zealand guitarist Roy Montgomery’s life has been hit by more than one tragedy, stories he traces in meditative instrumentals, Stevie Chick writes in a…
Pandemic Responses to Music from The Beths
“Thanks in large part to an early 80s explosion of talent centred on Dunedin, and shared with the world via the Flying Nun label, New Zealand played a pivotal role in the evolution of…
Wax Chattels Pursue Post-Punk with Manic Fervour
“There are few record labels out there that have come to define an entire country’s quality independent music output. Flying Nun Records did that for New Zealand,” Adam McKinney writes for Washington-based entertainment newspaper…
Marlon Williams Leads Fertile Lyttelton Music Scene
There is nothing like some personal trauma to fuel the muse of a songwriter. Acclaimed New Zealand troubadour Marlon Williams, 27, can attest to that, and the results are etched deeply into the grooves…
Flying Nun’s Look Blue Go Purple Reissue Bewitched
Dunedin band Look Blue Go Purple’s 1985 Bewitched has just been re-released, and US online music magazine Pitchfork deems it one of the “best” recent reissues. “In the 1980s, the women of Look Blue Go…
Ten Memorable Flying Nun Moments
To mark a new LP from New Zealand’s The Bats, the Guardian takes a look back at ten of the best moments from the label that spawned them. “Founded in 1981 by Christchurch-based Roger Shepherd,…
Lawrence Arabia’s Breezy Absolute Truth
Included in a roundup of the best Australian LPs that might have passed you by in the past months, (the Guardian includes a caveat) is Christchurch-born Lawrence Arabia’s latest, Absolute Truth. “The lyrics of musician
Flying Nun History with Pictures
Following a review of founder Roger Shepherd’s memoir In Love With These Times: My Life With Flying Nun Records, Wire magazine has published the stories behind some of the photographs included in the book. The…
Flying Nun History Recounted by Roger Shepherd
“We forget, or don’t know, or don’t think about it – how difficult it used to be to release records if you weren’t signed to a major label, pre-digital download, pre-social media, pre-internet, never…
Peter Gutteridge – One of NZ Music’s Spiky Heroes
In a scene of unsung heroes, one of the least sung will be making no more music, changing no more lives from his place on the periphery. Peter Gutteridge – described as “a true…
Yumi Zouma Instantly Poignant and Placeless
“Assembled via email, at night, from far-flung corners of the globe is the debut EP from these ex-pat New Zealanders,” Guardian reviewer Paul Lester writes, including Yumi Zouma in the publication’s “Band of the…
Letting Go of NZ Essential for Artists
If artists get a chance to leave New Zealand, says Thom Powers, co-founder of The Naked and Famous (TNF), then they must seize the opportunity. Los Angeles-based Powers is in the US with TNF…
Pleased to Meet Him
“Flying Nun is as synonymous with indie rock in New Zealand as Chemikal Underground is in Glasgow or Creation Records is in London,” John Everhart writes in a web exclusive for American magazine Under the…
Ten Bands You Should Know
“If your knowledge of New Zealand’s music scene doesn’t extend beyond Flying Nun Records and Flight of the Conchords, then rejoice — there’s a shitload of excellent local music just waiting to be discovered,”…
Their Own chapter
Dunedin trio Die! Die! Die! is currently touring Australia and are profiled in The Sydney Morning Herald. “Die! Die! Die! is feeling right at home on seminal record label Flying Nun,” Craig Mathieson writes….
Clean Patience
“Legendary masters of pop” Dunedin band The Clean played Portland’s Holocene in October on the final stop of their seven-date US tour. “For all the waiting we’ve done for the band, the patience finally…
Nuns fly high in Seattle
Seattle Weekly chats with “one of New Zealand’s coolest exports” – David Kilgour of The Clean. Kilgour answers questions on a musical career which spans 20 years; from 1981’s “coughing, cursive, and practically perfect Boodle Boodle Boodle” …
Blissful ending
The Phoenix Foundation’s latest album Happy Ending has been given five stars by The Independent’s Andy Gill who says the Wellington sextet “are surely the most potent band to come out of New Zealand…
Heavenly Pop Hits
Morr Music, an independent record label based in Berlin, Germany, has recently released “a double-disc salute to New Zealand’s ever-influential ’80s indie pop scene”. The album, entitled Not Given Lightly – A…
Dunedin’s Sound
“There’s something about the antipodes that irritates Britain,” reckons Chills’ frontman Martin Phillipps, on the phone from Dunedin to the Guardian’s Martin Aston. Phillipps tries to explain why New Zealand’s 1980s music scene, one…
Nearing perfection
The Guardian‘s guide to the world’s greatest music acts beginning with C features Flying Nun luminaries The Chills. The band’s 1994 best-of, Heavenly Pop Hits, is recommended to first-time listeners. The Guardian: “Set…
Musical milestones
The Guardian gives a whirlwind overview of NZ music history, from kapa haka to deep house. Milestones of note include the formation of Split Enz in 1971, Flying Nun in 1981, and hip hop…
Kilgour flies solo
David Kilgour of seminal Flying Nun band the Clean has launched a new solo album entitled The Far Now. “The songs sprung into my lap and pretty much decided how they wanted to…
Chills still thrill
Flying Nun legends the Chills are the unlikely inspiration behind up-and-coming Swedish band Peter, Bjorn and John. The indiepop trio pay tribute to Dunedin’s finest with a song titled The Chills, on their third…
Icons of Indiepop
‘I Love My Leather Jacket’ by Flying Nun legends, The Chills, makes the Guardian‘s list of 10 great singles from the golden age of indiepop. “The Chills … took the so-called ‘Dunedin sound’…
Cleaning up their act
The Las Vegas Sun applauds the arrival of Anthology – the collected works of Flying Nun legends, The Clean. “Two decades later the music still brims with the raw, lo-fi energy that helped usher…
Finn-less wonders
In a review of the recently released Anthology, the Toronto Star dubs The Clean “the most important and influential New Zealand band not to include anyone with the surname Finn A fascinating primer,…
Clean sweep
The release of The Clean’s 46-song Anthology has set Canadian “rock uber-geeks running to record stores.” Chart Attack reviewer sums up the Flying Nun stalwarts’ attraction: “They have created a near-flawless body of work over a long period…
