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Flying Nun

Still in vogue Down Under

By CHRIS NELSON | October 15, 2007

Love of Diagrams

Australia and New Zealand have been indie-rock hotbeds going all the way back to the early ’80s, the glory days of the Flying Nun label and bands like the Clean and the Bats. Not only is Flying Nun alive and kicking, but its indie sound remains very much in vogue Down Under, and in the Ro Sham Bo Crew, Sydney even has its own indie DJ/production crew.

Love of Diagrams, “Pyramid”
This Melbourne-based, female-fronted band wail like the Slits, shred like the Pixies, and get drenched in feedback on “Pyramid,” a track from Mosaic, their Bob Weston–produced debut for Matador. Yet they sound as if they were doing their own take on post post-punk.

Shocking Pinks, “I Want U Back”
New Zealander Nick Harte was the brains behind the one-man Shocking Pinks and 2004’s Dance the Dance Electric, an album that sounded so much like DFA in all their discofied electro glory that the NYC-based producers signed him to their label. “I Want U Back” is from Shocking Pinks’ homonymous DFA debut, a band-based disc that brings together tracks from two Flying Nun albums that sound nothing at all like DFA. No, there aren’t any dance-inciting cowbells here, but there’s plenty of warm and fuzzy lo-fi shoegazer pop.

Spruce Lee & Sleater Brockman, “Cocaine” remix
These young guns from the Ro Sham Bo crew might have the remix of the year on their hands with this rework of Robin Thicke’s white-line anthem. While you’re at their MySpace, check fellow Ro Sham Bo’er Moriarty’s take on the massive “Eighty Five Riddim” (“Eightysixed”) and their official remix of Aussie indie rapper Macromantics.