{"id":9792,"date":"2015-12-15T05:30:05","date_gmt":"2015-12-15T05:30:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/?p=9792"},"modified":"2015-12-16T13:06:11","modified_gmt":"2015-12-16T13:06:11","slug":"album-review-chris-knox-seizure","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/2015\/12\/15\/album-review-chris-knox-seizure\/","title":{"rendered":"Album Review: Chris Knox – Seizure"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"chris_knox_seizure\"I have a lot for which to thank Richie Unterberger<\/b>. Reading the renowned music journalist’s 1998 book \u2013 the first of several \u2013 Unknown Legends of Rock’n’Roll<\/i> introduced me to countless fascinating musical artists. Before reading that book, I considered myself reasonably aware of important yet little-known figures in rock music. Unterberger’s book helped me realize just how much I had been missing.<\/p>\n

One of the chapters in Unknown Legends of Rock’n’Roll<\/i> focused on New Zealand indie\/lo-fi\/DIY acts Tall Dwarfs<\/b> and band member Chris Knox<\/b>. Based on my experiences exploring the music of other artists profiled in the book, I was confident that I’d dig their music. After a bit of digging \u2013 the internet was nowhere near the resource it is today \u2013 I laid hands on a Knox CD, Songs of You and Me<\/em> from 1995, and then a few years later I found 2000’s Beat<\/i>. And in my bootleg collecting period, I managed to score a couple CDs of live Tall Dwarfs shows dating from 2005.<\/p>\n

The music was quirky stuff, displaying Knox’s way with a hook and a melody, filtered through a disarming do-it-quick-and-cheap aesthetic that was a hallmark of the kind of Kiwi pop favored by acts on the venerable Flying Nun label.<\/p>\n

Fast forward a decade. In 2015, Flying Nun has reissued Knox’s 1989 album Seizure<\/i> on vinyl. (They’ve also reissued the Tall Dwarfs’ 1990 album Weeville<\/i> on 12\u201d disc; I cover that album in a separate review.<\/a>)<\/p>\n

The instrumentation on Seizure<\/em> is typical for (and consistent with) Knox’s aesthetic: simple, straightforward, solid. A tune like the opening track \u201cThe Face of Fashion\u201d arguably doesn’t need anything beyond a distorted electric guitar and Knox’s voice. The quirky, catchy pop of \u201cThe Woman Inside of Me\u201d features a less-distorted guitar, bass, a spot of keyboards and some rudimentary percussion, but even with the relatively full arrangement, it’s still a stripped-down affair that keeps the emphasis on the song itself. \u201cStatement of Intent\u201d is insistently punky in an almost industrial way, but this ain’t no Throbbing Gristle<\/b>; Knox’s pop smarts are closer to the approach of Atlanta’s LMNOP<\/b> (another obscure act that would be well-served by an Unterberger profile, by the way).<\/p>\n

\u201cFilling Me\u201d is built around some very basic cheap drum machine sounds, and Knox’s voice here is a bit reminiscent of early Split Enz<\/b> member (and fellow New Zealander) Phil Judd<\/strong>. The percussion on \u201cNot Given Lightly\u201d feels like a found-sound sample to which Knox applied an old-fashioned Brill Building-style melody. Perhaps it is. Some well-placed vocal harmony overdubs make this one of Seizure<\/i>‘s most memorable tunes.<\/p>\n