Antony Milton - More Small Songs

Vital Aotearoan/NZ zine What Lies Beneath extends its label operations a length further with its maiden LP release, bringing to vinyl for the first time a short and sweetly compelling collection from Antony Milton, originally made available in 2021. If you follow NZ underground music only half as closely as readers of What Lies Beneath must, you'll likely know this to be significant news, as very rarely in Milton's decades long history of music making have his songs found a place outside of micro edition cassettes, CD-rs and lathes. Strange it should be this way, since Milton's music has wider appeal, an obvious extension of Xpressway and the fringe elements of Flying Nun, things we know to have very attentive audiences. On these five songs, Milton is in quiet, introverted form, his low hum of a voice accompanied by little more than the delicate strum of nylon strings and and the mournful drone of violin, and the sense that even he didn't think this music might one day make its way to a wider set of ears. There's the same off-hand intimacy as present on the early Maxine Funke recordings, albeit more tortured in a Kitchen Cynics kinda way, and you can feel the pulse of NZ underground mystique throughout, that same thread that runs through Peter Jefferies, Alistair Galbraith, Stefan Neville and right now up to William H. Meung (no surprise Meung and Milton have both separately provided for focus of compilation CDs issued by Slung). By anyone's estimation, that's gold standard company to be keeping. Milton's fully deserving of the associations and a lot more attention to be directed his way.