Split Enz

★★★★ Mental Notes DEMON. LP When the NZ legends were arty costumed freaks: their second LP – on white vinyl. The original Split Enz’s outlandish look/antics and art-rock/ pop inventory positioned them as an Antipodean Genesis, though twin singer-songwriters Tim Finn and Phil Judd were clearly mad for Victorian music hall. They were an odd bunch (a spoons solo was a stage highlight) with memorable observations (“you wouldn’t know me from a bar of soap” from Sweet Dreams). Their 1976 UK debut, produced by Roxy Music’s Phil Manzanera, conjoined re-recordings from their first NZ-only album (also titled Mental Notes, confusingly) with new songs. Made by a septet, Mental Notes is busy without ever sounding crowded; even prog-minded shape-shifters Sweet Dreams, Stranger Than Fiction and The Woman Who Loves You are delicate rather than stodgy. Follow-up album Dizrythmia

– Split Enz morph into more familiar new wave-pop with Neil Finn replacing Judd – is also reissued, on red vinyl