"Turn of the Century", by Beat Rhythm Fashion.
Back when I first became obsessed with the music of Dunedin, both through regular (but infrequent) visits to Exposure Records in Cotham Road, Kew, and irregular (but frequent) deliveries of XPressway tapes into the letter box courtesy of Bruce Russell, I adopted (at least subconsciously) the view that the mere fact, let alone the quality, of the Dunedin scene was so exceptional and unlikely that it had to be singular. Hence, it seemed to me that if something out of New Zealand wasn't from Dunedin and/or on Flying Nun, it probably wasn't worth my time.
Beat Rhythm Fashion were from Wellington. They weren't on Flying Nun. They remained undiscovered (by me) until a few weeks ago, when this emotional rollercoaster of a song appeared on a FACT mix by Matthew Mondanile (whom I wrote about recently in connection with Dunedin rock royalty). I suppose you could say that it inhabits a space where a nascent New Order sit down and play nicely with early Cure, but that disregards the ineffable power of the chorus, which acts as the parting of the clouds to reveal a sunny, hope-filled new day. And couldn't we all use one of those.
(Guest mixes, it seems to me, are the new radio. They are one of the few places now where I can, if only occasionally, hear something that stops me in my tracks and demands that I track it down. (And like radio, it can also be less than easy to work out what it was that I had been listening to. Thanks, Denis, for finding what I needed.))
