Clyma est mort

33⅓ Oceania #9

by Darren Jorgensen, Jon Dale (Editor), Jon Stratton (Editor)

The Dead C's Clyma est mort (1993) is the record of a live gig for one person. Tom Lax was running the Siltbreeze label in Philadelphia and had come to New Zealand to meet the artists he was releasing. He heard The Dead C at their noisy, improvised best, turning rock music on its head with a free-form style of blaring, loosely organised sound. Leading a second wave of music from Dunedin, New Zealand, The Dead C were an assault against the kind of jangly pop that had made the Dunedin Sound famous during the 1980s. This book uses The Dead C and in particular their album Clyma est mort (1993) to offer insights into the way the best of rock music plays vertigo with our senses, illustrating a sonic picture of freedom and energy. It places the album into the history of independent music in New Zealand, and into an international context of independent labels posting, faxing and phoning each other.

Genres: Music

140 pages, Paperback

First published June 15, 2023

Reviews

[Jack · Rating 2 out of 5]

103 pages of fluff that confronted me with the question “What do I get out of books about music?” because this clearly didn’t provide it. Extremely presumptuous dribble with a couple good chapters and interviews between the spit. Initially I was excited, interviews with Robbie Yeats who (as the book agrees) holds the band together! But that’s just an outlier for the first chapter. Also, sound the klaxon! Another book about niche New Zealand subcultures that can’t put a macron on any of the words that need them.

[Dan Agacki · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great read!