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Sven Olsens Brutal Canadian Love Saga

Nigel Beckford, Tim Robinson, Andrew Downes, John Fletcher, Murray Costello, Steven Hinderwell, Janet Thompson And Nick Sceats.

The Wyndham Range Concerto Was a cassette-only release that accompanied the novel the Weet-Bix Emperor written by Nigel Beckford. The album was only sold through bookshops in a brown paper bag that contained a novel, a snax cracker which readers were encouraged to ejaculate onto and a 45 vinyl single for playing packing vinyl, a game which entails passing a vinyl record between the buttocks of drunken participants. The book described the antics of an unemployed scrubcutter growing up in Tauranga and has been hailed as a ‘Comic Classic’ by the likes of Arthur Baysting, Sue Macauley, Barry Humphries and John Campbell. (It is a firm favourite at the TV3 newsroom.) despite it’s uncompromising subject matter and underground publishing origins, the novel and cassette quickly sold out. The album is based on the world of the book and offers crazy vignettes of provincial life rendered in surprisingly gentle and tender acoustic pop style. In a bizarre twist, one song from the album, our love was a grim citadel which puts Rak Mason’s classic poem to music, was chosen by poetry critic Greg O’Brien As National Radio’s ‘poetry moment of the millennium’ in 2000!

Only a few copies of the original cassette/novel package remain and are available through Henryboy, box 6273, Wellington, although a cd re-release is in the pipeline, as is a follow up.
– Nigel Beckford

Discography

  • The Wyndham Range Conshirto [1992 Henry Boy Records]

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