A few months ago, in a particularly slothful state on a Thursday evening, I sat down and watched about five straight hours of documentaries on PBS. Now, I love documentaries-- I'm getting to the point where I think I like them more than fictional films-- but to sit around for that long and just watch TV is pretty unusual for me. I probably would have gone and done something else after the first documentary (a fascinating look at America's scenic waterways) had the second one not been about New Zealand.
Now, I confess that I knew next to nothing about that quarter of the world outside of the WWII era, so a documentary on New Zealand's history piqued my interest immediately. To make a long story short, it was one of those stories that makes you feel guilty for being of European descent. But the country itself really is fascinating. Did you know that sheep outnumber people nearly 20 to 1 there? That's a lot of sheep! Or not a lot of people, as the case seems to be. I also find it amusing that the country's air force logo is a kiwi, a bird that can't even fly.
Anyway, New Zealand, like its big neighbor across the Tasman Sea, Australia, has managed to develop a unique culture of its own since separating from the British Empire last century. And, also like Australia, New Zealand has developed a fairly singular, identifiable music scene of its own. The New Zealand Sound, if it can be said to exist, usually laces rhythmic post-punk with a heavy acid tab of psychedelia, and few bands can be said to embody it as well as the Clean. This seems logical, of course, as the Clean were one of the first bands with that sound. Upon their formation in 1978, they were one of the few New Zealand bands playing strictly their own material, and they were to prove hugely influential in their homeland despite their limited recorded output.
Indeed, they didn't record their first full-length album, Vehicle, until 1990, after reuniting. Since then, the Clean has been an on-again, off-again prospect, with the three members coming away from their other projects every so often to record an album or tour. Listening to Getaway-- only the band's fourth proper album over the course of 23 years-- is enough to make me wish they'd stay together more often.
To be clear, let's first assert that Getaway isn't really an especially innovative or earth-shattering record. Neither, however, is it a typical recording for a middle-aged band, content to simply tread the same old path without turning over any new rocks to see what's underneath. In fact, Getaway sounds remarkably youthful, split between brief, upbeat rockers, and longer, more meditative swaths of noisy psych.
The album opens with "Stars," which is something of a middle ground between the two extremes. It's full of droning distortion and restrained rhythm section playing, but also throws some enticing vocals hooks into the mix, delivered in David Kilgour's laid-back vocal style. "Jala" follows, steering the tone toward trance-inducing psychedelia with its alternate guitar tunings, thrummed piano strings, pitched percussion, and droning, wah'd guitar parts.
This strategy is returned to several times over the course of the album, most notably on "Alpine Madness" and "Circle Canyon," both of which feature Yo La Tengo's Georgia Hubley and Ira Kaplan. "Alpine Madness," in particular, has the pentatonic mantra thing going-- it's sort of like the Byrds' "Mind Gardens," except that David Crosby isn't singing out of tune on top of it, and therefore, it doesn't absolutely suck. "Circle Canyon" continues in the same vein, but ushers in percussion and sets you up for the album's mightiest track, "Aho."
"Aho" begins with some of David Kilgour's signature bluesy, wah'd guitar backed by brother Hamish's ultra-dark cymbals, before Robert Scott's melodic bassline starts grooving like hell and the whole band launches into a crazy jam. Kilgour's vocals reside near the middle of the mix, sharing space with his guitar, and often forgoing lyrics completely for spontaneous adlibing. The band also makes excellent use of stereo panning, setting the scratchy, muted guitar in the left speaker and the harmonic parts in the right, which makes headphone listening that much more rewarding.
The album's shorter pieces come basically in two varieties: short, tuneful instrumentals like "Cell Block No. 5"(which features some nice sax parts) and "Holdin' On," and sharply penned songs like "Poor Boy," which would make a fine single. Dense, heavily layered guitar parts like the ones on this album can have a tendency to drown otherwise good melodies, but that's generally avoided here, as the band seems to have a pretty good sense for what the audience needs to hear.
Taken as a whole, Getaway is a fine record from a band of seasoned veterans. Old fans are almost certainly going to be thrilled with this, and I wouldn't be surprised if a few new ones climbed aboard. If there's any complaint you could level at the Clean at this stage in their career, it's that occasionally they'll find themselves wandering without much purpose, but in wandering, they usually end up someplace intriguing rather quickly. Once the album's over, all there is left to do is hope that they hurry out with the next one.
