Failsafe newsletter April 2008
Failsafe Records, one of New Zealand's longest running and staunchly Independent Record Labels has the results of its last 2 years of work ready to bubble out into the wide world and the label couldn't be more proud or excited.

After spending most of 2005 reducing a stunning collection of lost and important recordings from the countries post-punk explosion years (how can you know where you're going if you don't know where you've been) Failsafe is ready to move on into the future with brand new material, although we still have a couple more really important collections of alternative music icons to come.

First up in the new material is:

Mulchzoid - Laptopdancer
Mulchzoid is the electronic extension of David Mulcahy, dark pop luminary of JPS Experience, Superette and Kimo / Eskimo fame. Mulcahy has a long history of providing quality dark pop masterpieces to the unsuspecting public and Laptopdancer is no exception to that rule.
Exploring the premise of one microphone one computer and one bedroom Mulcahy has locked himself away and produced a strong collection of sparkling dark compositions musing on themes of Girls, Drugs, Suicide Bombers, Existence, Celebrity and Fascism over its lucky number of 13 tracks. Stylistically the album touches on the sounds of New Order, Suicide and Snapper, and Cabaret Voltaire, while still sounding exactly like an album you'd expect from someone of David's lineage. Sparkling Dark Pop. Enjoy.

Closely following Failsafe brings you:

Kimo - Surrender
Surrender is the new album from Christchurch band Kimo, 2 years in the making and featuring dark pop and deep textures from the core duo of Rob Mayes (Throw, Dolphin, + guest stints in Children's Hour and Chris Matthew's Robot Monkey Orchestra) and David Mulcahy (JPS Experience, Superette, Mulchzoid).

The band decided to try and make an album in a unified and cohesive style rather than attempt to cover all aspects of the wide world of music and aided (or unaided) by a bizarre luggage accident break to Mayes' fretting hand saw a push for the album toward the less rock spectrum of Kimo's sound, ie. all the pretty songs have made it to the one album. That coupled more by accident than design a thematic similarity with most of the songs exploring the various connotations of the word Surrender, many of them positive.

Name change
The band formally known as Eskimo surprised and enthralled with edgy melodic indie rock tracks on their debut Loverbatim album of 2004 found after an internet search on their name that every man and his dog had a band with the word Eskimo in it. The band decided to distance themselves from the pack have the 'ES' surgically removed, opting for a little Kimo-therapy in the form of their new album Surrender.

The sound
Stylistically this album is much different from 2004's Loverbatim showcasing a more controlled warm and tempered delivery differing from the more rock rowdy antics of its predecessor. This was part planning, and part circumstance spurred on by a broken hand for Mayes, a bizarre luggage accident resulting in a hammer break to a finger on Mayes fretting meaning it was one note at a time and absolutely no fat distorted chords as on Loverbatim), in the early writing and recording phase.
Production wise this proved the impetus to push the band in a more contemplative direction and has resulted in a rich textural sound, all swirling strings, spacious melodies and Mulcahy's hushed vocals.

The core duo are joined by guests
Namiko Iwamoto - Vocals (Escalade)
Mark Roberts - Guitar / Vocals (Enright House)
Michael Daly - Drums (YFC, Renderers) to flesh out the sounds.

Other Projects on the Horizon
Having released a few more entries in to Failsafe's Retrogenic Series in early 2008 the label pushes forward with more important and lost recordings from our near past, specifically the early eighties post-punk period that seems so relevant in the modern rock climate.

Out in May
Beat Rhythm Fashion - Beings Rest Finally
The second disc in the Beat Rhythm Fashion retrospective, this disc collects the bands early post-punk works, edgy rock songs and everything that didn't fit on the first disc.

Pop Mechanix
As part of our Pop Mechanix collection we have the last three installments in the series:

Pop Mechanix - Splash Alley
The earliest recordings of the band featuring their first singer Dick (Richard) Driver.
This disc features live recordings of the band playing Mainstreet in Auckland, that very same gig where they were discovered by Doctor Rock (Barry Jenkins) and persuaded to change their name. Also featured are the Dick Driver version of single 'Now' which had to be have new vocals recorded when driver left the band a few days later and was replaced with ex Whizzkids vocalist Andrew Snoid (Mclellan). The Rest is History...

Pop Mechanix - Lost Tapes
It wasn't all plain sailing for Pop Mechanix with their new vocalist. The band made the jump across the ditch to make it big in Australia but hit major snags with their name in a lawsuit which they lost.
They recorded an album with Split Enz's Eddie Raynor on production and just as they were about to release it fellow ex-pat kiwis The Swingers nabbed their singer so they had to re-record all the vocals with main songwriter Paul Scott filling in the words.
The resulting album 'Cowboys and Engines' was released under the name Zoo and did ok, but the band eventually split and returned to NZ only to reform a couple of years later with Andrew Snoid back on vocals again. Confused yet?
Well this album is the original Andrew Snoid vocals album which has never seen the light of day and we thought it would be fitting to release it so you can hear these songs with Snoid's distinctive Pop Mechanix voice on it.

Pop Mechanix - Collection
Even we'd agree that 7 albums of Pop Mechanix is a lot especially if you're unfamiliar with the band, so we're distilling them down into a Greatest Hits collection, a great starting point for the uninitiated all on one CD. If you want to go further well there's the matter of those other 7 discs, otherwise just enjoy a pretty much jam packed collection of one of this countries finest pop writers (as noted by fellow luminaries Jordan Luck and Mike Chunn).

Punk continued
Further to the Desperate Measures release we bring you 2 more discs in the CHCH punk series:

Evasive Action
Post-punk Chch band who rose from the ashes of Desperate Measures and Unauthorised. We've remastered their recordings that originally came out on cassette in 1985 plus have a good swag of unreleased material to add to the package, liner notes and photos too. A tidy addition to Failsafe's Chch punk and post-punk catalogue.

Southern Front
From the ashes of Evasive Action came this band, and another album of excellent post-punk tracks. This album has a good bunch of material that has never seen the light of day plus the usual linernotes and photos that you've come to expect from the Retrogenic project.

Just out:

Beat Rhythm Fashion - Bring Real Freedom
A collection of all the singles plus live tracks from the bands last new zealand gigs. This band has reached legendary status for its landmark and rare-as-hens-teeth singles of 1982. "Turn of the Century" is a bonafide classic and this disc collects for the first time on CD all the best songs remastered and restored on one disc.

Breathing Cage - Spilt Milk
A collection of the best work from this Jay Clarkson fronted band, legendary as the winners of the 1989 Rheineck Rock award winning $40000 toward recording an album.

The band were known for their sweeping moody pop experiments, delivered with startling polish, as you'd expect from a band made up of Gary Sullivan - Drums (JPS Experience, Dimmer), Greg Malcolm - Guitar (Surfing USSR, solo), Michael Kime - Bass (Expendables) and Jay Clarkson - Guitar and Vocals (Expendables).

That much money confused the band and the resulting album 'Misericord' over-polished some great songs. The real treasures lay in the pre-album recordings featuring most of those songs in stripped-back stronger form .This album collects the early recordings, the 'You Me and the old Hill' single plus further uncovered material including tracks with Graeme Jefferies (TKP, Nocturnal Projections), and some of the last songs the band played as Breathing Cage. 17 songs and detailed liner notes to make this fitting tribute to an important band with a sizable body of work.

Desperate Measures - Broken Bottles
Classic early Christchurch punk in the vein of UK Subs and other song-based punk outfits, Desperate Measures had a large and loyal fan base, and a string of highly enjoyable gigs to their name. The band released one 7" EP, "1984", and a collection of rough and ready songs on the 'Wasted Again" album before disbanding and morphing into Evasive Action, but that's another story.
This album collects for the first time on CD the EP and the album plus the odd unreleased track on one CD. Excellent liner notes and photos from the band's personal collection makes this a fitting representation of one of the best in Christchurch's punk scene in the early 80's.
This CD is a limited edition pressing, not a CDR, and will be released in NZ, UK, and Japan.

Dolphin - Waiting for Splashdown
Highly influential Christchurch power-pop three piece Dolphin ripped melodic tears in the local music scene from 87-91, inspiring fellow Chch citizens (including Loves Ugly Children) to pick up their guitars and play pretty tunes, loud. With three cassette EPs the band went into hibernation until 95 when they released a double CD and left for the UK, recording a further album of material (Bring It All Down) with drummer Pete Thomas (Elvis Costello and the Attractions).
The band went into hibernation again at the end of 98 but Japanese label Freshwater have rediscovered them and released a compilation of the bands material, remastered and packaged for the Japanese market. This disc is also available locally and is a great introduction to their jagged edge melodic sound. This is a pressed CD and we have a limited number of imported copies available through Failsafe or you can order directly off Freshwater. Dolphin's back catalogue is also available through Failsafe.

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