The Chills
by There was a time, many moons ago, when I would only listen to bands off New Zealand’s Flying Nun label. Yup, I would strap myself into a comfy chair, put my headphones on and, armed with a chunk of chocolate coated Peanut Slab and a can of L&P, soak up album after album of wonderfully self-indulgent low-fi melancholy. There was real coarseness about the sound that characterised many of the acts on their roster; a guarded mix of wide-eyed escapism and world-weariness that permeated the melodic changes and added a depth to the music that was lacking in many of their big budgeted major label contemporaries. At the head of the queue was Martin Phillips and his motley (revolving) band, The Chills. Their songs were pure Dunedin — lush but subdued, expansive in parts yet tightly leashed in others. It was dark yet joyous, sober yet unhinged, a wash of contradictions yet an earful of something disarmingly, frighteningly pure.
Listen to The Chills song, Satin Doll.
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Tagged: New Zealand, New Zealand music, pop music
RELATED
Back in the day, when I was a skinny teenager on the great pedestal of life, I had a real obsession for the understated, low-fi, deliciously melodic and somewhat blurry sounds of the New Zealand Flying Nun bands. I would pool my meagre savings and canvas the local record shops, scouring the racks for the latest cassettes from The Bats, The Chills, The Clean, and, later, The Straitjacket Fits. Read more
Andrew Fagan, lead singer of The Mockers, the poppiest New Zealand band of the 80s, came around to my place once when I was an impressionable 10-year old with stars in my eyes and a head full of shiny, shiny melodies. Read more
At first listen, The Chills were like nothing else when they burst out of the relatively cloistered confines of the Dunedin student set way back in the early 1980s. Only, in retrospect, they were kinda like so much of the rest of the Flying Nun roster: lo-fi, wearily melodic, understated, and joyously brash in their use of lush vocal harmonies and ringing guitar licks. It was simply divine. And the first time I heard this song, Heavenly Pop Hit, I thought it was exactly that: the most decadent single imaginable. Some twenty years later, it still sounds fresh. [Click here to listen to Heavenly Pop Hit]
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YOU'RE SAYING (3)
Will @ A Journey Round My Skull said | 9 June, 2010
I still go through phases where I only listen to Flying Nun bands (started mail ordering the stuff at age 15 in 1992). Bird Nest Roys is probably my favorite “lost” record.
Brenda said | 29 June, 2010
There’s a whole collection of Flying Nun music videos on NZ On Screen here: http://www.nzonscreen.com/collection/the-flying-nun-collection
Also, the Heavenly Pop Hits doco – about the Flying Nun story and featuring many of the bands, is available to watch here: http://www.nzonscreen.com/title/heavenly-pop-hits-the-flying-nun-story-2002 (it’s embeddable as well)
Makes a nice tie-in to the various posts you have about NZ music 
HAVE YOUR SAY
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Lisa Pitman said | 2 August, 2007
Hey! thanks for sharing – that was lovely! Will go in search of some more now…