Burn It Clean
Architects of the ‘Dunedin sound’, The Clean’s earliest recordings – the 1981 7-inch Tally Ho b/w Platypus; the same year’s five-track EP Boodle Boodle Boodle – are reissued on vinyl to mark their 40th anniversary. Originally released by totemic New Zealand label Flying Nun, these remastered vinyl versions in replica sleeves (overseen by the trio’s David Kilgour and Robert Scott) are on US indie Merge, the North Carolina label founded by Superchunk on the axis that connects ’80s NZ pop-psych with their own joyously scuzzy output. Despite its raw recording – made during a mid-tour stop-off in Christchurch for just NZ$60 – Tally Ho’s carnivalesque organ riff (played by The Chills’ Martin Phillips) and urgent, motorik propulsion sent it into the NZ Top 20, while Boodle Boodle Boodle (produced by Dunedin scene guru Chris Knox) went to Number 5 and stayed in the charts for six months. The Boodle 12-inch adds a replica ’zine from the original pressing.