When we spotlight reissues like these, it's usually for one of two reasons: Either the music is historical (seminal, groundbreaking, definitive, influential), or it's the exact opposite-- unique enough to stand outside time, feeling just as distinct and fascinating today as it did when first released. New Zealand's Tall Dwarfs are in the interesting position of fitting both categories. They're a little like Syd Barrett, Half Japanese, or early Ween-- pioneers in the history of being odd, all hermetically sealed from everything else around. Factor in their more challenging idiosyncracies, and their small, devoted following starts to make sense-- it's a surprisingly diverse cult, but it skews heavily toward unreconstructed record geeks. Welcome to the original world of indie, where the niche appeal is the important part: If it seems like these guys are vastly overrated, that's probably because their rabid fans tend to be the only ones talking about them, or hearing them at all. It's entirely possible that you have better things to do than make grand efforts to join their ranks.
If there's anything this particular duo gets "historical" credit for, in fact, it's an early launch to the ultra-indie "lo-fi" aesthetic: Their mid-1980s records, made right at home, came cloaked in duct tape and dust, dim buzz and rough performance, mostly just two guys and their guitars and whatever backdrops of fake percussion they could cobble together behind it all. The sound of lo-fi was never the point, though; it's not like anyone "invented" tape hiss. By the time the Dwarfs-- Chris Knox and Alec Bathgate-- hit these two albums, their recording had cleared up into intelligibility, leaving behind the pure lo-fi ethos: all the raw personality, rough charm, and weird personal quirk of music rigged together in solitude, somewhere over by the closet. Add the Dwarfs' tendency toward psychedelic sound, and you can probably guess why these reissues are brought to you in part by members of Olivia Tremor Control.
The ethos fits the songwriting; their sharp, energetic pop is all the better for its lack of embellishment, and their homespun psychedelia is all the stranger and more intimate. The former can come off like what you might dig out of Robyn Hitchcock's attic if he'd never had a record deal, and sometimes it's the duo's main selling point; songs like "Mr. Broccoli" come off like handwritten letters next to junk mail, and leave plenty of limelight to spare for the cutting, consistently involving lyrics. The latter aspect, though, might be the main hook for these reissues. These days there's plenty of interest in those woodshed psychedelics, and while the Dwarfs' version of it is anything but spaced-out or transcendent, it packs plenty of the same claustrophobic strangeness-- and plenty of the same bad-idea experiments-- that run from Jad Fair to modern-day Brooklyn.
It's on 1990's Weeville that you get a better shot at that side of things: "Breath", for instance, is raw, spooked psych-rock, joyously harmonized over two guitars and one drum ticking time. "Crawl", another standout, treads all the way over into Syd Barrett's The Madcap Laughs territory. The songs around them bring in creaky keyboards and piano and devolve in any number of unexpected directions; the whole thing is covered in dirt and odd ideas, and it's a curious enough artifact to reward honest efforts to get inside its off-center aesthetic. 1992's Fork Songs, re-packaged with 1988's Dogma EP, requires less work: Its payoff isn't as high, but its songs are more relaxed, its sound-palette warmer, and its structures more intuitive. There's folk waltz on "Wings", country swing on "Lowlands", classic pop-rock on "Life Is Strange", and tender balladry on "Think Small"-- as far as skewed aesthetics go, this can serve as the toe-dipping kiddie pool to Weeville's shallow end.
Here's the caveat: Most of you reading this will not like the Tall Dwarfs, even on these, some of the most accessible of their releases. To most of you reading this, these songs won't even sound challenging or interesting-- they'll just sound like a couple of freaks banging out rickety crap at a rate of an album a weekend. It's not an unfair position. These songs are packed with fascinating hooks, fine lyrics, and alternating runs of bitter political sneering, emotional vulnerability, and everyday humor-- but there's something in their makeup that keeps it hard to access, a life-changing treat for the cult and a scrappy oddity to everyone else. Given the odds, these records might not really be worth the shot-- especially when stacked up against alternatives ranging from Knox and Bathgate's solo albums to the entire scrappy run of the Flying Nun label. Tread carefully, and don't worry: Your life will be no less complete for not "getting" this band.
