CJA /// IRONCLAD /// LAST VISIBLE DOG/DIGITALIS RECORDINGS ///
	SEHT /// THE VOICE OF THE TANIWHA /// LAST VISIBLE DOG ///
	PETER WRIGHT /// DISTANT BOMBS /// LAST VISIBLE DOG ///

Providence, Rhode Island's Last Visible Dog imprint has spent the past handful of years becoming the States' premiere provider of left field sounds from around the globe. One of the label's fave picking grounds is the legendary-if chronically under-documented-New Zealand free-rock and noise underground, a decades-old scene responsible for some of the most mind twisting sound deconstructions ever to be committed to tape. Recent records by CJA, Seht, and Peter Wright provide a stellar overview of some of the music currently being released by our Kiwi brothers.

Clayton Noone, the man behind CJA, has put out a slew of brutal, tectonic slabs of feedback and damaged art-jams with his bands Armpit and The Futurians. On Ironclad, a joint release with Digitalis Recordings, he switches off the pedals, focusing instead on slow motion, 4 AM balladry. Alternating between acoustic and electric guitars, and occasionally accompanying himself with simple percussion or haunted, wordless vocals, Noone slides, molasses-slow, through 40-minutes of subdued strumming. In Noone's hands, these simple chord progressions and off-the-cuff improvisations take on an almost hymn-like heft.

Where CJA specializes in extremes of both volume and emotion, Seht meander down a strictly more minimalist path. Stirring acoustic guitar passages and sub-everything rumbles are woven with samples and field recordings into intricate, yet spacious mosaics. Often, each track features a number of disparate elements sculpted into a shining solid. The 11-minute "Requiem For John Fahey," for instance, contains elements of Jim O'Rourke's "Happy Days" with Seht's own guitar work and feedback sampled from Gang of Four's "Love Like Anthrax." Yet, far from sounding ill accented, the piece's static swirls and well-placed plucking are entrancing. "We Can Speak Quite Freely" contains a host of voices, movie samples, UHF-band cordless phone conversations and guitar. The massive closer, "St. Valentine's Day 2003," is a 10-minute assemblage of drones and sound collage built upon a "found" recording of a Salvation Army Band. When put into words, much of this may sound impossibly inaccessible, but Seht's greatest strength is in making his tunes thoroughly listenable, no matter how avant-garde his subject matter.

While Peter Wright has relocated to England, the recordings that make up Distant Bombs were made in 2001-2002, while he was still living in his native New Zealand. The record was originally released in a frighteningly limited run on Wright's own Apoplexy label. Using a variety of processed guitars, violin, bowed gas bottle, suspended bottles, electronics and voice, Wright creates warm drones that hang in the air like a thick coastal fog. These pea soup passages rise to clotted clusters of aural ooze before clearing into crystalline vistas. Elsewhere, Wright focuses on delicate string vibrations and violin hum that wouldn't be out of place on a recording by minimalist master Tony Conrad.

While widely different in sound and scope, these three albums showcase artists who are responsible for some of the more intriguing music being made today. With new releases dropping every few months, Last Visible Dog is on track to continue spreading the New Zealand gospel to a new rank of listeners looking to get turned on to some spaced-out sounds.

Ethan Covey