written by Chris Familton

Berlin’s Morr Music label have put together this tribute to music released on the influential Flying Nun label and it is essentially a collection of indie-tronica that seems to pay cautious homage to a certain type of 80s/90s guitar music that was both primitive and creatively forward thinking. These bands certainly nail the melodies but generally fall short of invoking the spirit of the New Zealand bands.

Tarwater are one of the few exceptions with their take on the seminal Death and the Maiden from The Verlaines. With just a drum machine and some minimal synths they create a cold and clinical take on the song proving that so often electronic music works better when it is dark and melancholic. The Go Find similarly get to the core of The Chills’ Pink Frost – understanding the minimal instrumentation of the original and respecting the deeply sad lyrics of Martin Phillipps.

Where things go wrong they go very wrong. Butcher The Bar twist Tall Dwarfs’ Bee To Honey into something way too quaint and cute while The American Analog Set reduce the slacker chug of The Clean’s Anything Could Happen to a depressing shuffle. The life of the original is sucked out of the song and subsequently it floats untethered – quietly flailing and looking for solid ground.

Disc Two features 16 original tracks by bands who covered songs on Disc One plus a few other acts. The most prominent and best of these is Kudos from fellow Kiwis Surf City. Their album has been one of the highlights of 2010 and Kudos is the closest thing to the Flying Nun sound on this album – even though they reside on Arch Hill Recordings in New Zealand. Other than Surf City the only other track that sticks in the memory banks is the closer Aldebaran Waltz by B. Fleischmann. The cute bleeps and tweaks are largely eschewed for a more emotive delivery with Fleischmann’s deep voice and a hypnotic, droning organ. The song builds slowly with distortion adding grit and colour before it all drifts off into the distance.

Tribute albums are generally to be avoided unless there are interesting artists providing fresh and creative interpretations of the originals. Here those special moments are almost non-existent and once the initial wave of curiosity has passed there is little reason to return.

this review first appeared on The Dwarf