Shocking Pinks

Shocking Pinks

Shocking Pinks is musical wunderkind (and ex-drummer for Sub Pop’s Brunettes) Nick Harte, a young Aotearoa New Zealander who is just as comfortable making skewed indie pop as he is listening to Charlie Parker. After a stint with Aotearoa New Zealand’s Flying Nun Records, DFA signed Harte and released this collection of favored tracks from the (hard to find) Flying Nun albums. It’s easy to pick out influences here (The Clean, Velvet Underground, New Order, My Bloody Valentine, The Rapture") yet not so easy to nail him with one label. Sometimes drony and hazy (“How Am I Not Myself,” “Second Hand Girl”), sometimes bittersweetly pop (“This Aching Deal,” “Emily”) and sometimes aiming straight for your dance-punk pulse (“End of the World, “Cutout,” “Victims”), Harte covers an awful lot of indie-rock ground here. Considering he played all the instruments (and wrote, sang, produced, etc), it’s easy to be impressed with the scope of his talent, and overlook the sometimes-sagging arrangements (completely lacking in the first half of the record!) or occasionally spotty production. Heartache-filled lyrics meeting up with distorted guitars, washes of synthesizers and clattering layers of drums and percussion is certainly nothing new, yet Harte’s own take on these elements is impressive. It seems he’s just getting started.

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