I met Matt Lachowski while working at a bar in Ferndale, Michigan last year. We hit it off pretty quickly, mostly due to our love of crude humor, but also, at least partially, because of our mutual love of music. I had mentioned getting into The Verlaines and wishing there were more bands like them and he started dropping bands like The Chills, Tall Dwarfs, Bird Nest Roys and others. I hadn’t heard a single one and asked if he wouldn’t mind making me a compilation of similar artists. The mix he put together still gets played regularly to this day and is solely responsible for introducing me to kiwi rock. The label that usually jumps to mind is Flying Nun (where most of the bands on this mix got their start), but there are a few others. Anyhow, this mix was too good to keep to myself. I asked Matt if he wouldn’t mind saying a few words about it.

For some of us there are musicians and bands that in or out of our listening rotation have earned a permanent spot on our library’s shelf. There comes a time when they come back to us and we are reminded of their place; and each time they do the rediscovery can be even sweeter than the last. What earns a spot on that shelf though is not limited to just a musician or a band, but can very well be an entire “sound.” Down from my shelf: this is Flying Nun Records, this is Dunedin Sound.

Flying Nun Records was founded in early eighties New Zealand amidst a surge of new labels opening their doors to an emerging sound in the area. Punk bands of Dunedin began to let their influences surface, the result a roster of bands each delivering their own chemistry of jangly, lo-fi, psychedelic pop. The lineups of Flying Nun acts were often revolving doors, band members sometimes spanning several projects; each band, however, still remaining to claim their own individual sound within the greater Dunedin Sound.

I was nineteen when I discovered Flying Nun, I remember the time well. My older brother was living in Alaska while I was still home in Michigan and we would talk on the phone every week about what was going on in our lives and of course what new music we were listening to. During one conversation I could barely contain my excitement about my latest discovery, but it seems I had to wait to tell him because he had something really important to share with me. It turns out we both impatiently needed to introduce each other to Flying Nun. Having eerily discovered the label independently of each other in the same week, the whole discovery was just that much more powerful.

TRACKLIST:

1. Bailter Space – Dome

2. The Clean – Billy Two

3. Goblin Mix – Coleridge

4. Chris Knox – Not Given Lightly

5. 3Ds – Hey Seuss

6. Tall Dwarfs – Pirouette

7. The Stones – Gunner Ho

8. The Chills – Rolling Moon

9. Headless Chickens – Untitled

10. Bird Nest Roys – Me Want e Get Me Need Me Have Me Love

11. The Verlaines – Pyromaniac

12. The Exploding Budgies – Hank Marvin

13. The Gordons – Spik and Span

Note: Due to copyright issues most of our mixes from here on out will be featured on 8tracks. It’s honestly a great site with the only downside being you can only play mixes in their intended order on the first listen. Keep that in mind, as future listens will randomize the mix.