ARRIVING EARLY DECEMBER
Bruce Russell's Corpus Hermeticum imprint is an endlessly giving resource for documenting end-of-the/start-of-the-century experimentalism in New Zealand underground music and this latest reissue from Fördämning Arkiv might just have located the prime undersung transmission within its esteemed catalogue. Lovely Midget was the solo project of Rachel Shearer, a long-standing figure in NZ music with connections via various projects to Xpressway and Flying Nun, and the further-flung likeminded enthusiasts at Siltbreeze. The Lovely Midget moniker first appeared in 1997 with a 10" for Ecstatic Peace (which I implore you to track down should have the wherewithal), then re-surfaced three years later with this astonishingly patient and confident long player which, in hindsight, appears to be signalling new paths for exploration within an already avant-minded collective of associated noisemakers. Bruce Russell's involvement draws obvious connected lines to the Dead C (and related activity), while the elemental, mostly controlled, occasionally blistered nature of Shearer's drone-based eruptions partially call to mind the World Resources set (Surface of the Earth, K-Group et al) and evolution of Dadamah into Flies Inside The Sun, but there's also something else occurring here that evades simple like-for-like comparisons. The title of the uncharacteristically short final track, 'Silent Folk Song', is perhaps the giveaway, detailing quite accurately what makes this music so pungent - the ache and swell of synths, strings and flute feels as rooted in folk as it does noise/drone, haunted paroxysms of hidden ideas and open-ended suggestions that draw you in but provide no answers. Why this seems so impressive now is how it presents as a kind of template for the more recent sounds we've seen emerge from the World Underground (™), be that fellow NZ natives Little Skull or Warm Currency, the off-grid activities of Minnesota's Maths Balance Volumes, or even the contemporary Gothenburg scene in which their reissuing label is now located. From the perspective of 2024 looking back, Lovely Midget plays like the discovery of some dusty map to the future.
