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Bruce Russell

Kim Pieters

Kim Pieters is a multi-talented artist based in Dunedin who has made significant contributions to music and visual arts since the 1980s. Pieters is known for her involvement in bands like Dadamah, and her long partnership with Peter Stapleton – with whom she co-founded Dunedin’s Lines of Flight festival.

#nzmusic #kimpieters

Celebrate Psi Phenomenon

Celebrate Psi Phenomenon is a drone, noise and experimental music-focused label from Upper Hutt’s Campbell Kneale, the prolific performer behind Birchville Cat Motel and Black Boned Angel. The label often utilises a distinctive wallpaper aesthetic to their cover designs.

The label was particularly prolific from the mid 1990s until around 2008.

#nzmusic #experimentalmusic #dronemusic #celebratepsiphenomenon

Tanaka-Nixon Meeting

Mid 1990’s free-noise duo made up of Danny Butt (Flies Inside The Sun) and Michael Morley (The Dead C etc). Released three ultra-rare Peter King 8″ lathes on Morley’s Precious Metal imprint, along with 2 albums and a single. Went from noise, scrapes and drones to releasing their own take on electronic dance music with 1998’s ‘Twelve Inches Heaven’.

#nzmusic #undergroundmusic #freenoise #tanakanixonmeeting

CMR

Internationally focused Auckland-based experimental / noise label run by Richard Francis (aka Eso Steel) as a sub-label of the now-defunct 20City label he created in the late 1990s.

Though only a total of 27 releases releases have seen the light of day so far (including Japanese experimental artist Kyoshi Mizutani, German visual / composition artist Marc Behrens and Francis’ own solo material), CMR looks to be succeeding the releases of his former label 20City with a professional approach to releasing far-reaching experimental music, so far of the laptop-drone persuasion.

A Handful Of Dust

One of Bruce Russell’s (Dead C) and Alastair Galbraith’s darkest outfits, often dealing with distinct imagery and motif’s in their music and especially pronounced in their liner notes (most of which are distributed through Russell’s Corpus Hermeticum label).

Formed by the duo in Dunedin in 1984, and primarily a free noise group. Though primarily a duo, Peter Stapleton had been a regular contributor from 1993 until his passing in March 2020.

Surface Of The Earth

3 piece featuring Paul Toohey, later of K-Group – freeform Wellington-based experimentation using:

Synth drones, guitars and mutilated electronic debris to create a soundspace where layers of distortion, hum and buzz hang like veils in the air, each disrupting the aural view of the layer beneath, without completely obscuring it from audibility
– Bruce Russell

Bruce Russell

The man behind Xpressway, corpus hermeticum, and a significant part of the Dead C, Russell finally (after years of eclectic collaborations with a broad selection of New Zealand and international artists) released his solo album on his own Corpus Hermeticum label… Read More »Bruce Russell

RST

Aka Andrew Moon, the head of Imperial Recordings and ex-drummer for Flying Nun Records legends Goblin Mix. Moon worked with RSW London in the late 80s, forming Celine, but its been in RST that Moon (now as a solo musician)… Read More »RST

Peter Stapleton

Peter Stapleton is one of New Zealand’s most referred underground musicians. As a member and song-writer for The Vacuum, Scorched Earth Policy and The Terminals, Stapleton has amassed a body of work like no other, and established himself as one… Read More »Peter Stapleton

Birchville Cat Motel

Extremely prolific Wellington experimental sound-artist who also records his given name of Campbell Kneale, and as a founding member of such varied performance outfits as Lugosi, Hataitai Bowling Club, Black Boned Angel etc.

Kneale has been making music since the mid 90’s, accumulating a vast amount of (usually) limited edition CDr releases and building a name for himself overseas, were he receives a considerably higher profile (though due to the nature of his music – quite abstract, this popularity is limited to an appreciative cult following).

Xpressway

Xpressway was formed by Bruce Russell in 1985 to release his then-fledgling Christchurch band the Dead C, live archival recordings from This Kind Of Punishment and the debut solo material from Alastair Galbraith. Over the course of the next 23… Read More »Xpressway

Chris Heazlewood

Biography Fuzz-guitar god Chris Heazlewood had been a visible part of the New Zealand underground for at least a couple years prior to meeting Celia Mancini in Dunedin back in 1991 (and thereby forming the legendary King Loser). In Sferic… Read More »Chris Heazlewood