Smelly Feet - Smelly Neu Pollution
£28.00
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Minimum Table Slacks announces its arrival with this collection of Brent Hayward's long-obscured work as Smelly Feet. If you do know of Hayward, i'd venture it's likely for his involvement with primo Wellington/Auckland acts Shoes This High and/or Kiwi Animal rather than for the three 7"s he self-recorded, released and distributed as Smelly Feet in 1981. And even in that case, you'd be in the minority. That's a matter of geography and paths to industry as much as anything else, though there's a very singular and outsider quality to Hayward's music that suits the margins, and nowhere is that more obvious than across these 15 tracks, which include all nine from the 7"s alongside six unreleased cuts from the home recorded archives. Even within the world upside down context of Flying Nun, Smelly Feet bears a notably distinct idiosyncrasy. Though the lead track from the second single, the label have decided to position the unsettling whimsy of OHMS as the opener, what might almost be interpreted as a challenge to the listener. It's the most abstruse song here, defiantly lo-fi, atonal and possibly even out of tune, the perfect encapsulation of Hayward's prickly shape. It's also immediately identifiable, distinguishable from that opening strum, which is telling of of Hayward's music overall. The lo-fi quality remains consistent throughout, though unusually, the unreleased songs are slightly more melodic and conventional in structure, which i suppose suggests that Hayward was always gesturing towards the odd and off-centre with everything he did did publicly. A unique soul no question, and a must for anyone who's dug deep into the NZ universe of Tall Dwarfs, The Spies, Alastair Galbraith, the brothers Jefferies et al. Edition of 300.
