Forgotten New Zealand synth-pop gems

NZ Herald blogger (and ex Rip It Up editor) Leonie Hayden has written a cool piece for NZ Music Month, titled 'Five forgotten New Zealand synth-pop gems'. The list includes The Knobz - Culture, Alastair Riddell - Zero, The Fanatics - Models, The Deadly Deaths - Bury It, and Over The Atlantic - Loveless Devotion.

One of my fave NZ forgotten synth gems is this killer 1984 electro tune from Auckland, by Snap... musician Tom Ludvigson (Trip to the Moon) was one of the players on this session, read him talking about it here.. Tom says...

“Recalling the session, recorded to 24track tape at Harlequin Studios, a few things stick out:

• The musicality of the “Triangle” production team of Graeme Gash, Paul Streekstra and Noel Connolly;
• The experimental the-studio-as-an-instrument approach;
• The trial-and-error art of overdubbing Polysix arpeggiator lines in sync with the track without the benefit of hard sync: first tweak the arpeggiator tempo knob until it sounds right, then trigger it exactly on time, every time. It worked with repeated drop-ins…;
• Borrowing a just-released Oberheim OB-X polysynth to do state-of-the-art sounding overdubs for the extended dance mix;
• Four of us jamming the extended dance mix at the 24-track console, eight hands together tweaking sliders and delay buttons for a dubby atmospheric mix.”
• 
  

And then there's Car Crash Set, as a mate reminded me...



And IQU, featuring Betty-Anne and Ryan Monga of Ardijah... also a 1984 release...