Majora
1991
Music scenes are by nature incestuous. But the word still seems wholly inadequate when applied to the heyday of the New Zealand post-punk underground (c. late 70's- mid 90's). There is an amazing body of work from that corner of the world at that time spread over a myriad of cassette, 7", hyper-limited lathe cut, compilation, and LP/CD releases. Delve in and you'll immediately start to notice a handful or so names that seem to pop up everywhere. everywhere. With Dadamah we have Roy Montgomery, Peter Stapleton, and Kim Pieters who had been in or would go on to a number of bands like (but certainly not limited to) The Pin Group, Terminals, Flies Inside the Sun, Victor Dimisich, band, Dissolve, Scorched Earth Policy, etc. Montgomery also eventually went on to release a number of solo and collaborative records and garnered something of a cult following by the late 90's.
As far as the pantheon of Kiwi Rock goes, Dadamah is a near perfect example of a particularly virulent strain of NZ noise weaned on equal parts White Light era Velvets, Kill Yr Idols era Sonic Youth and the darker corners of UK Post-Punk a la Joy Division, Wire, and the Fall. They didn't last long, but what they left behind still resonates pretty strongly. This record along with everything else they ever recorded (a scant 2 singles, an LP and a single comp track in all) were compiled on a CD collection by Kranky back in the mid-90's. Amazing.
