THE CLEAN "COMPILATION" LP (Flying Nun, 1986)

I imagine that I am not the only one that finds personal value in bands with a healthy level of humility, and The Clean certainly qualify as a band that knows a thing or two about humility. As a young and developing band in New Zealand in the early 1980's, a fan of the band offered to release their debut single, 'Tally Ho!', on his new label, Flying Nun Records. The band made several attempts to find a local engineer to record the single, but not one of the engineers found the band's material worth their time. The band resorted to recording their own songs, a method that continued for the duration of their career.

This healthy dose of humility, along with other sorted random events would help carve and develop The Clean's lo-fi pop sound. Nearly 30 years later, The Clean's influence is impossible to deny (along with the Flying Nun label, as they would go on to release material by the Verlaines, The Bats, and The Dead C), especially in the current ocean of lo-fi loyalists.

This record, a collection of their early singles, shows the band at their rawest and, in my opinion, their very best. The stripped down nature of their recordings provides a unique view of joyous naivete and solemn reflection. Tracks such as 'Beatnik', 'Whatever I Do', and the aforementioned 'Tally Ho!' are excellent examples of a young band excited to be...well...a young band: excited, almost anxious both lyrically and musically. Other tracks ('Point That Thing Somewhere Else' 'At The Bottom', and 'Fish' come to mind) paint much more haunting and melancholy scenes. Ultimately, these seemingly conflicting qualities do not make this compilation seem scattered or erratic. If not for the obvious title of this record, I believe many would think it to be a proper full-length LP.

With the band still playing and recording sporadically to this day, I suppose we are (for now, at least) spared the story of yet another band parting ways before they could reap the rewards of their painstaking efforts. And for those unfamiliar with The Clean's material in any capacity, you now have an opportunity to indulge yourself with some of the more beautifully simplistic pop songs recorded in the last 30 years by clicking HERE.