Experimental / Experimental Sound in New Zealand

* Edition of 300 * This album has been a slow build over the past eight years, and it is Brian’s first solo release in close to twenty years. The years in between have included a move to the other side of the world (Christchurch to Joshua Tree), and the loss of his brother, who was close in age. This World Just Eats Me Up Alive confronts these topics within Brian’s maelstroms of noise, with his scratchy vocals conveying stories of protagonists living in the gutters of society. It’s a shockingly …

* Edition of 500 + 16-page booklet *By the mid-1990s, there was a quietly thriving underground in Wellington, New Zealand, made up of a number of loosely aligned operatives - Surface of The Earth and their World Resources imprint; Fever Hospital and 8 Dec, and the music made by the members of The Garbage & the Flowers after that group temporarily dissolved in 1992..." One of those rather short-lived groups was Dress, who on record consisted of Yuri Frusin and Helen Johnstone from The Garbage & t…

Second issue of Discreet Music Mag, featuring interviews with Greymouth and Jon Collin and a long piece on I Dischi Del Barone label. Full colour, written in English.

**300 copies** Originally released on cassette by Corpus Hermeticum in 1994. All sounds by Alastair Galbraith and Bruce Russell. "New Zealand is on summer holidays all through the month of January. For some reason I had the house to myself, the wife and kids were elsewhere. Alastair Galbraith brought over some instruments and we plugged in a cassette recorder. We spent the sunny afternoon setting up combinations of instruments and seeing what happened. We had recorded the Concord LP the year bef…

* Edition of 200 copies. Stamped white labels, postcard attached to the cover, insert * One of the most played albums in the IDDB office of 2015 was Sarah Mary Chadwick's 9 Classic Tracks (Siltbreeze). On this 7" the Melbourne-based artist gives us two tracks from the same session as the new album Roses Always Die which was recently released on Rice Is Nice. Two tracks of just guitar and vocals, stripped down to the bare minimum and driven by an austere ambience.

CD version. Some bands struggle to transcend their initial mythos, those stories that introduce them to the public eye. But The Dead C is a notable exception. They appeared in 1986 under a cloud of mystery, their unconventional location (South Island, New Zealand) helping to fuel their erratic sound. Name-dropped through the nineties by groups like Sonic Youth and Yo La Tengo, they gained influence and acclaim but never strayed from their original mainlined performing technique, which can sound …

8mm Records’ latest - Gate’s "Winter Songs" - gathers three long form works of hazy fuzzed out guitar drones from the The Dead C’s Michael Morley, that amount to engrossing meditative expanses at the borders of ambient music, minimalism, and stoner rock. Inward looking and delicate, while bubbling with fury and life, it stands among our absolute favorite releases from one of the most interesting artists working today, and rides high among the best albums of the year so far.

Blod is the solo project of Gustaf Dicksson (Enhet För Fri Musik, Oroskällan), a prolific and crucial figure in the Swedish Underground scene radiating out of Gothenburg and centered around a number of independent labels and including bands such as Enhet För Fri Musik, Monokultur, Oroskällan, Loopsel, and Neutral. Blod has released various home-recorded cassettes and a handful of albums since 2014, all mercurial in nature, exploring various facets of Dicksson’s preoccupations. The melodies borro…

**Edition of 300 copies** Next-level DIY print publication from Gothenburg’s IDDB label head and Discreet Music co-owner Matthias Andersson who’s thankfully taken it upon himself to document the tricky to navigate but dripping with intrigue New Zealand lathe cut scene.  Speaker Crackle In The Garden originally ran for a short series in fanzine Fördämning, but here it’s been expanded to cover no less than 83 individual micro-releases from the likes of Armpit, The Drugs, Entlang, Little Skull, The…

Island Of Lost Souls is the first of four new albums by Roy Montgomery coming out in 2021 to commemorate Montgomery’s forty years in music. His debut release was also Flying Nun’s first, the Pin Group 7-inch from 1981. Roy Montgomery, a pioneer of the NZ underground, believes there is always new sonic terrain to investigate. His latest album for Grapefruit marks forty years of rigorous exploration in which he’s managed to navigate disparate genres, scenes, and atmospheres, always at the forefron…

* Edition of 200 copies. Stamped white labels, postcard attached to the cover, insert * Six new tracks from Mark Anderson and Mark Sadgrove, New Zealanders now based in Japan. Obtuse duo skronk starting out on a fairly reasonable note with 'Scantling' but then slowly deconstructing the song format track by track. The Quemada description of their very underrated 2015 12" makes perfect sense on at least the A-side, "image a Back from the Grave band that was weened on Operation of Sonne and fronted…

'Seconds Mark III' is the third iteration of a unique work within the sprawling discography of Alastair Galbraith: poet-dilettante, improvisor extraordinaire and one of the most important figures of New Zealand's storied DIY underground. "Commencing his collaborative musical activities in the early 1980s as part of Flying Nun outfit The Rip (with Jeff Harford and Robbie Muir), it was almost a decade earlier when Galbraith first invested in the violin, an instrument that would accompany him throu…

With This Kind Of Punishment, Graeme Jefferies and Peter Jefferies produced some of most adept DIY sounds to emerge from New Zealand's 1980s post-punk scene. After their phenomenal self-titled debut and classic A Beard Of Bees, the brothers would make one last album together, In The Same Room.  Originally released in 1987 on Flying Nun, In The Same Room is perhaps the straightest rock offering in TKP's esteemed catalogue. Opening track "Immigration Song" expertly pairs jagged guitars with wrathf…

**Housed in a beautiful handmade diorama sleeve and box. Limited to 100 copies.** Just a few months after fortuitously meeting Dean Brown in London’s Low Company I am delighted to be releasing this Little Skull 7”. For a few years I was listening to Little Skull LP’s unaware that Dean’s own brand of NZ underground music was in fact being recorded a short distance from my London home. Furthermore, Dean’s intricate homemade sleeves were crafted in London, shipped to Italy, then back to London wher…

Melbourne's ExEk began as a studio project with frontman Albert Wolski before the 2014 formation of the four-piece line up with Andrew Brocchi (synthesizer), Henry Wilson (bass) and Sam Dixon (drums). With the addition of Nell Grant on saxophone, the group's sound entered another dimension that reveals EXEK to be conjuring the ghosts of PiL, This Heat and Swell Maps. Ahead Of Two Thoughts, EXEK's sophomore release, pushes headlong into haunted, post-punk territories. Opening track "U Mop"…

**200 copies** Deemed to happen IDDB EP from the long running Dunedin, NZ act The Futurians. Full throttle avantgarde punk/sci-fi synth chaos, the two-suite Atuan follows up the massive, monotonous blown-out blasts of the recent Programmed LP (Planam, 2018) and their short cut on the Porcelain Summer compilation 7". Much has been said about The Futurians, some of our favorite quotes are "the sound of gay robots disco dancing and crushing everything underfoot", "the remnants of space debris raini…

**100 copies** Kraus (also known as Pat Kraus, formerly known as Prince Kraus) is a New Zealand experimental musician and composer. The New Zealand Listener called him "a national treasure" and "one of the most quietly important and interesting people making music in New Zealand". His music crosses the boundaries of electronic music, post-rock, no wave, space folk, noise pop, punk rock and martian stomp. I Could Destroy You With a Single Thought was previously self-released on CDr, 2004 - and on…

**250 copies** Improvised soundtrack to a non-existent Western, recorded in the late '90s by James Kirk, Nathan Thompson and Tim Cornelius. "Deep South kitchen-sink explorers have been circling the drain in counterclockwise fashion for at least half my life and yet I am still reduced to shameless gobsmackery in the presence of this sterling new collection of historic treasures. Committed live-to-tape in the comfy climes of a living room / recording studio / temple affectionately known as 'Canong…

Peter Jefferies, a living legend of New Zealand underground music, from his seminal bands Nocturnal Projections and This Kind Of Punishment, to his collaborative efforts in bands such as Plagal Grind and Two Foot Flame, is perhaps best known for his solo work on masterpieces such as The Last Great Challenge in a Dull World (1990) and Electricity (1994), as well as numerous other albums of his singular songcraft. Grapefruit is releasing Jefferies’ latest, Last Ticket Home, which leaves the statio…

Expanded reissue of New Zealand guitar pioneer Roy Montgomery's rare and revered full-length debut, Scenes From The South Island, originally released in 1995 by West Coast experimental / space rock label Drunken Fish. Recorded on both coasts on a pair of Tascam 4-tracks, the album is alternately wistful, windswept, skeletal, shredded, and strange. Solo guitar figures flow and fray through echo and empty space, evoking loss, long roads, and low-lit landscapes.Montgomery's own memories of this era…

When one thinks of the musical centers of New Zealand, the city of Tauranga doesn’t have as celebrated a history as Dunedin, Auckland or Christchurch.  Which is apt, in a way, as the artist known to us only as Rotate The Completor makes music that sounds unconnected to any scene in NZ or elsewhere.  A chance encounter with an enthusiastic passerby while busking on the streets led to the receipt of a home-recorded cassette, which caught the ears of the outsider music community, although any attem…

With This Kind Of Punishment, Graeme Jefferies and Peter Jefferies produced some of most adept DIY sounds to emerge from New Zealand's 1980s post-punk scene. After their phenomenal self-titled debut and classic A Beard Of Bees, the brothers would make one last album together, In The Same Room.  Originally released in 1987 on Flying Nun, In The Same Room is perhaps the straightest rock offering in TKP's esteemed catalogue. Opening track "Immigration Song" expertly pairs jagged guitars with wrathf…

**250 copies** An epic who's who of New Zealand underground music circa 2000, featuring Pumice, Peter Wright, Kunst / Veet (Witcyst), CJA & Anamarie, Sleep, Donald McPherson, GFrenzy, Kieran Monaghan, Swagger Jack, Birchville Cat Motel, Richard Francis, 1/3 Octave Band, Tim Cornelius, Seht, Antony Milton and James Kirk, a total of 16 tracks. Originally released as a CD-R on Antony Milton's PseudoArcana in 2003, reissued as a 2xLP in a heavyweight deluxe deluxe gatefold sleeve and insert with lin…

Cassette version. 75 Dollar Bill, a project by Che Chen and Rick Brown present Wood/Metal/Plastic/Pattern/Rhythm/Rock. "Che's interest in the Arabic modes of Mauritanian music has marked our sound quite a bit but I have brought some things, too. The plywood crate I play is a big factor, defining, by its positive qualities (a nice warm 'boom' sound) as well as by its simplicity, what we're likely to do in the percussion realm. Wood/Metal/Plastic/Pattern/Rhythm/Rock, this new record, differs quite…

A Handful of Dust was founded over three decades ago by two giants of the New Zealand underground, Bruce Russell (The Dead C) and Alastair Galbraith. Declaring their raison d'être in the now infamous Free Noise Manifesto the group has advanced a radical aesthetic; rejecting any notion of structure or comfort they've ground music to its sub-elemental parts. A scraping and howling electricity, spontaneous, unrestrained, physical. Contains expanded and unreleased works spanning the group's history …

Originally self-released in 1984, A Beard Of Bees has been out of print for almost 25 years. Among This Kind Of Punishment's myriad recordings, A Beard Of Bees best outlines the collective vision of the Jefferies brothers. Their classic second album feels more meticulous than its predecessor, proffering a grey, near-Mancunian influence that serves as both touchstone and springboard for the proceedings. The unique maneuvering on "Trepidation" is a marvel: guitar sweetness shifting toward melancho…

In the fertile terrain of New Zealand's 1980s post-punk scene, few figures loom as large as the Jefferies brothers. Graeme Jefferies and Peter Jefferies – the primary forces behind This Kind of Punishment – wrote some of the best music to come out on Flying Nun, Xpressway or elsewhere. A dizzying mix of pastoral ballads and DIY experimentation, TKP's songwriting was at once classic and acutely raw. On their self-titled debut, the Jefferies brothers and Chris Matthews eschew the punk-informed mod…

The Greatest Living Guitarist returns! Following the acclaimed Broken Heart Surgery in 2025, Roy Montgomery delivers another stunning chapter in his ever-expanding sonic universe. Recorded in 2016 during a period of great turbulence in Montgomery's home life, Guitars Infernal emerges NOW - a decade later - because, while wholly instrumental, it "speaks" to extremely turbulent times in the world at large. Hold on to your hats. This is HEAVY. Nine tracks of pure six-string electric guitar alchemy.…

Some Songs is a cult classic of New Zealand outsider folk: raw, intimate, and brimming with wit, where lo-fi experimentation meets heartfelt songwriting in a world both playful and deeply personal.

On Sido Not Dead, CJA unleashes a torrent of lo-fi improvisation and fractured song forms, channeling the wild spirit of New Zealand’s underground into a raw, unpredictable listening experience.

Bruce Russell is a New Zealand experimental musician and writer. He is a founding member and guitarist of the seminal noise rock trio The Dead C and the free noise combo A Handful of Dust (with Alastair Galbraith). He has released solo albums featuring guitar and tape manipulation.  "In summer of 2013, Bruce Russell's daughter Olive Russell uploaded a documentary of her father that she shot and edited herself called "27 Minutes with Mr. Noisy: A Documentary about Bruce Russell" to Vimeo.c…

A cornerstone of New Zealand’s experimental underground, Soibiast Anti-Culler by Witcyst is a delirious journey through mangled tapes, surreal sound collage, and outsider electronics.

A cult favorite, Leisure & The Elderly by Armpit is a noisy, disorienting collage of tape loops, feedback, and surreal humor—a true artifact of outsider art.