Album Review: 4EPs

DUN Records arrives out of Ōtepoti Dunedin with the whiff of fresh solder, basement amps and unfinished business: a new independent label and artist-development engine founded by long-time music advocate, journalist, manager and mentor Natasha Griffiths. DUN Records is built to catch young Dunedin bands before the spark goes out, and its debut, 4EPs, throws Sivle Talk, Sogg, U-No Juno and Vagina Dry onto a double-vinyl manifesto that tips its hat to Flying Nun’s Dunedin Double while declaring the new Ōtepoti wave already in motion.

Griffiths has been deep in Aotearoa music for decades – broadcasting through Radio One Dunedin, writing for Critic, managing artists through mismanagement, developing young musicians through Amped, and mentoring the all-ages underground. She is also the sister of Shayne P. Carter of Straitjacket Fits and Dimmer, but DUN Records is unmistakably her own line in the sand. The kaupapa is simple: stop promising young local artists disappearing into what she calls the “wilderness years” between teenage momentum and the hard realities of building a sustainable music career. “To prevent this from happening, to ensure these career artists stay on the path of continuing to create as they should, I decided to invite these bands to be part of a record release inspired by the 1980’s classic Flying Nun release Dunedin Double. This is a four EP, double vinyl release, capturing this moment in time, and introducing these bands to a wider world.”

In early 1982, Roger Shepherd conceived Dunedin Double as a snapshot of the city’s underground scene. Featuring The Chills, Sneaky Feelings, The Stones and The Verlaines, the double EP became a defining document of the Dunedin Sound and helped cement Flying Nun as New Zealand’s leading independent label. In that same spirit, 4EPs offers four sides and four bands, ranging from 1980’s-influenced punk and no-wave to the jangly pop still associated with the classic Dunedin sound.

The project received support from the estate of Martin Phillipps of The Chills, which donated funds towards the mastering costs, further strengthening the symbolic connection between Dunedin’s musical past and present.

Disc 1/Side 1 – Sivle Talk opens 4EPs with five tracks of wired, politically charged gothic dance-punk, post-punk noise and anarchic screamer rock. Led by Tane Cotton – the solo force behind Sivle Talk, pronounced “Civil Talk” – the Crybaby EP swings from the sharp social commentary of There’s An FBI Office In Wellington through the bruised noise-rock of Retribution, 100 Different People and Sisterhood, before detonating into Bottom Feeder. It is music about kicking against the pricks: politicians, labels, judgement, and the messy business of trying to find your place in the world, landing somewhere between the jagged intelligence of The Fall, the menace of Skeptics, and the furnace-blast distortion of Bailterspace. Cotton also runs War Possum Studios and WarPossumTV, recording and promoting fellow Dunedin artists, including U-No Juno. The CD version adds This Body of Mine, a delicate and surprisingly beautiful ballad threaded with emergency-call fragments and the haunting refrain, “In this body of mine – am I alive?” Whether literal or metaphorical, it is beautiful, unsettling and sad.

Disc 1/Side 2 keeps the noise coming with Sogg’s Freezer Thaw EP. The title track crawls in cold before building in menace and intensity, mixing growled vocals with sound-smashed guitars that recall Jakob, Loves Ugly Children, HDU and The Gordons. Wrapped in a warped sonic death loop, marching percussion and nagging bleeps, Argument is violent, confronting and oddly cathartic. Zeitoun continues the desperate trajectory before Ferrets closes things out with a Thurston Moore-tinged no-wave grind. It all builds into a huge, beautiful mess: an uncontrollable sonic car crash. Brilliant.

Sogg are Ollie Kemmett on vocals and guitar, Noelle Hill on bass, and Rue Tulloch on drums. Formed while the members were still at Logan Park High School, they first bonded over hardcore punk such as Minor Threat before pushing into heavier noise-rock territory inspired by Fugazi, Sonic Youth and local heroes High Dependency Unit. Producer and engineer Nick Roughan – formerly of Skeptics – adds another layer of grit from the band’s Southlink Productions sessions. The CD extra, a sweetly explosive cover of Dimmer’s Crystalator, feels entirely appropriate.

Disc 2/Side 1 belongs to U-No Juno, whose You Know EP offers six slices of jangly shoegaze. Imagine Tanya Donelly, members of DARTZ and Amelia Murray of Fazerdaze sneaking into a Seattle studio around 1995 and you are in the neighbourhood. U-No Juno are Stefan Keller on guitar and vocals, Ramona Mahutte on bass and vocals, and Jack Ingram on drums. Keller and Ingram first played together in a high-school jazz band before recruiting Mahutte in late 2023, and their first South Island tour followed almost immediately, thanks to friends in Vagina Dry.

Frown and Skyscrapers are deliciously melodic while retaining sharp alt-pop instincts. Violent Sweater would likely set an O-Week floor moving, while the strange little deeebeee is intriguing but feels more like an interlude, circling the phrase “Don’t fix the sickness.” Fall Down, by contrast, is a perfectly formed piece of indie grunge-pop with a neat hook; fans of early Breeders or Julianna Hatfield should feel right at home. Final track crumbz brings a burst of punk energy that hints at Tane Cotton’s involvement, while the bonus demo Break Away is quirky, feedback-laden and built for lounge-room pogoing.

Disc 2/Side 2 is where Vagina Dry detonate their self-titled EP: a packed blast of hardcore Riot Grrrl punk that opens with the appropriately named Brutalised. The more melodic Redacted pairs dark, Barbie-sweet irony with full-threat vocals from El Checketts on guitar and vocals. If Harley Quinn fronted a punk band, she might sound something like this.

Vagina Dry are one of the most outspoken and politically engaged bands in the Dunedin underground. The trio features Checketts, Caleb Tulloch on drums, and Bel Martin on bass, with earlier releases featuring Reef Brazendale. Their fiercely independent sound draws heavily from Riot Grrrl traditions and bands such as Bikini Kill, while centring feminism, inclusivity and social justice. They do not hold back: Groomer Loser makes its target clear, Victim turns post-#MeToo survival into defiant empowerment, and Cruelest Fate takes aim at skewed systems of gender inequality. Rot is more straightforward melodic rage-rock, while Little Boy has the same kind of snarling social bite that Dick Move do so well. The extra track, Free Palestine, is as direct as its title suggests.

Despite having only a handful of releases, Vagina Dry have already played Australia’s LOUD WOMEN Fest and become a leading voice for young feminist punk in Aotearoa. Their role in giving U-No Juno an early tour opportunity also reflects the close-knit, mutually supportive nature of the Dunedin scene.

I should give props to Angus McNaughton (at Auralux) for mixing this puppy, alongside Tane Cotton, Sam Charlesworth, Hamis Waddell and others who have worked to make everything sound so great, given the loudness here-contained. OK, not Chris Knox and a 4-track Teac, we’ve come a long way since the 80’s. That’s a benefit.

It is a bold move to release a collection that so openly connects itself to the punk spirit and underground legacy of those early Dunedin bands. These tracks may never end up in TV commercials or soundtracks to student hi-jinks films – and perhaps that is no bad thing – but there is still vital, unruly and thrilling music in the grooves of this vivacious double-vinyl release. 4EPs celebrates the creativity, energy and power of four fabulous new bands. They own the future, they deserve the support, and the hope is simple: may they never burn out and never fade away.