New Zealand’s indie haven: Five masterpiece releases from the Flying Nun label
Flightless birds, bottles of Tui, terrifying rugby players, and Tolkien-esque landscapes; New Zealand is a country that punches well above its weight when it comes to cultural contributions. Flying Nun Records is firmly among those cultural exports, having propped up the nation’s indie and underground music scene for upwards of 45 years.
It was during the early 1980s that Flying Nuns’ indie ethos was forged, arriving in a deluge of independent labels that were springing up across New Zealand during that period, themselves taking inspiration from the explosion of labels commanding the indie music scene of the United Kingdom, some thousands of miles across land and sea. Like virtually every independent label, Flying Nun owed its spirit to the DIY revolution of punk rock, for which Auckland became a particularly fertile breeding ground in the mid-1970s.
Pretty quickly, though, Flying Nun’s output extended far beyond abrasive punk and jangly indie pop. A bona fide haven for independent artists across New Zealand’s entire sonic landscape, the label’s output spans slacker rock to experimental noise, and indie folk to dreampop.
Hand-in-hand with that incredibly impressive breadth of sound, though, is the fact that Flying Nun has been one of the few constants in the Kiwi music scene. In fact, looking at all of the independent labels that sprang up in the late 1970s and early 1980s, both in New Zealand and elsewhere, Flying Nun are one of the depressingly few that have remained entirely independent and, crucially, have managed to keep themselves afloat for so many decades.
Flying Nun might be an essential aspect of New Zealand’s cultural landscape, but its output remains surprisingly underrated – or, at least, under-discussed – in other parts of the world. So, in an effort to right that musical wrong, we have compiled a list of five indisputable masterpieces that have risen through Flying Nun’s ranks over the years.
Five masterpiece releases from Flying Nun Records:
The Gordons – ‘The Gordons’ (1988)
The Pin Group’s ‘Ambivalence’ was Flying Nun’s inaugural release, but The Gordons’ self-titled debut album arrived that very same year, in 1981. A mitigating factor in this record’s inclusion on this list is that, originally, that self-titled LP was self-released by The Gordons, but it was later included on this 1988 compilation, released by Flying Nun. By that time, after all, the band had rechristened itself Bailter Space and signed to the ranks of the indie label.
Back to the compilation itself, though, The Gordons is an invaluable record of the blossoming Kiwi post-punk scene of the early 1980s, seeing Alister Parker and the gang carve out some of the greatest post-punk and proto-noise music of the era – Kiwi or otherwise. It speaks to the lasting brilliance of the record, in fact, that it didn’t seem at all dated when reissued by Flying Nun seven years later, and still doesn’t seem overly outdated to this very day. There are still countless groups out there attempting to evoke the same sounds encapsulated on this album.
The 3Ds – ‘Hellzapoppin’ (1992)
Jumping ahead by a decade or so, few records typify Flying Nun’s domination of early 1990s slacker indie better than Hellzapoppin’, the first record by Dunedin’s noise pop masters, The 3Ds. A woefully underrated gem from that age in which groups like Pavement, Pixies, and Goo-era Sonic Youth were carving out the underground rock sounds of the United States, Hellzapoppin could give any of those alternative titans a good run for their money.
Beautifully balancing the optimistic, catchy guitar jangle of indie times gone by with the more abrasive, more experimental sounds that were just beginning to be explored by rock and roll’s underground during that time, Hellzapoppin is a real everyman of indie expression. Not only did it capture the inventive, subversive sound of Flying Nun’s extensive 1990s output, but had it been given more time on the airwaves of America, it could easily have rivalled the likes of Doolittle in terms of cult indie influence.
The Dead C – ‘Eusa Kills’ (1989)
Before Dunedin’s The Dead C had truly mastered their unique brand of harsh experimental noise and free rock drones, their inaugural two albums were released on Flying Nun, the label that provided them with a vehicle to exercise their inventively weird, abrasive output. Their second record, Eusa Kills, might not be the ultimate jewel in their extensive discography, but it manages to capture the band during a transitional phase, between a more traditional post-punk sound as the harsh experimentalism that soon followed.
As a result, the record acts as a sort of gateway into the dark depths of The Dead C’s subsequent works, easing listeners into their lair of experimental noise excellence. Aside from anything else, it is a brilliant noise-fueled post-punk record, which you don’t need to be a devoted musicologist to see the lasting impact of. Much like The Gordons, you don’t have to search very hard to find a plethora of modern-day bands who, try as they might, can’t quite master the sounds that The Dead C did on only their second attempt.
Aldous Harding – ‘Warm Crisis’ (2022)
In the preamble to this list, it was stated that Flying Nun remain an ardent aspect of New Zealand’s music scene to this day, and Aldous Harding is undoubtedly the label’s brightest star from its 21st-century roster. An international beacon of pulchritudinous indie folk, Harding’s constantly evolving discography has been flying the flag for Flying Nun since her self-titled debut was released over a decade ago.
2022’s Warm Crisis, released via Flying Nun and 4AD, is arguably her most accomplished work, spanning the spectrum from psychedelic pop to vulnerable folk intimacy. It is no surprise the record topped New Zealand’s album charts upon its release, reaffirming – if it was ever in doubt – that Flying Nun’s tendency to release groundbreaking independent records certainly didn’t subside after their 1990s heyday.
The Clean – ‘Compilation’ (1986)
Topping this list with what is essentially a ‘Best of The Clean’ compilation might seem like a rather Alan Partridge-esque tactic, but, in truth, any of The Clean’s three Flying Nun studio albums, or indeed David Kilgour’s first three solo albums, could take their place in this list. Flying Nun’s flagship outfit, and with good reason, The Clean laid out the blueprint for the lo-fi, slacker indie rock that was inescapable on the alternative airwaves of the 1980s and 1990s, and still persists in the 2020s.
Consisting of the trio’s early efforts, including the early 1980s EPs that were the first Flying Nun releases to achieve much in the way of mainstream success, Compilation is as good an induction to the Dunedin indie masters as anybody could ask for. In many ways, the songs included on this retrospective helped to define the Flying Nun sound of the 1980s, and it isn’t much of a stretch to suggest that subsequent groups like Pavement owed more than a little to The Clean’s distinctive sound.
Each one of the band’s records have their merits, of course, but this compilation of their early output is unmatched in terms of the youthful DIY spontaneity that is hard to recapture.
