Favorite Songs Of All Time: Night Of Chill Blue by The Chills

As previously stated on this shabby blog, the music of Dunedin, New Zealand's Flying Nun Records has been a very big part of my life for virtually all of my adult life. The Chills were my gateway drug so-to-speak into the wonderfully unique, chiming pop from the island nation.

A great description of The Chills is from Trouser Press (which, in print form, was another great musical influence for me):

Perhaps the most widely known and beloved combo of New Zealand's '80s indie-pop boom, Dunedin's Chills — led by singer/writer/guitarist Martin Phillipps — made clean, understated, catchy music whose consistent taste and subtlety conspired to keep the band from having real commercial success in this country. At its best, the Chills' work boasted an undercurrent of dark uneasiness that clearly marked it as a vehicle for personal expression rather than mere genre exercise. Guitars may twinkle like harps and jangle over angelically whispery vocals, but the love songs are never gooey. Gooey bands do not write lines like "Oh god this white ward stinks, sterilized stench of sticky death, sniveling relatives at the feet of another moist corpse, but that corpse is Jayne and Jayne can't die" (from Brave Words' "16 Heart-throbs"). Soppy sentimentalists aren't honest enough to admit "I'd like to say how I love you but it's all been said in other songs" as Phillipps does on the same album's "Night of Chill Blue."

One of the high points in the Flying Nun canon is "Night Of Chill Blue" by aforementioned The Chills from their production flawed-but-still-great 1987 "Brave Words" LP.



Some of the tracks from Brave Words have been remastered, with the muddy production cleaned up. Hopefully Martin can get around to taking care of the rest of the tracks, including "Night Of Chill Blue" one of these years.

Five Perfect Things - New Zealand Indie Pop Records

It's a late Saturday night sometime in the fall of 1987 and WXRT ("Chicago's Finest Rock") is in the middle of their Big Beat program, showcasing music that's a bit left-of-center for the primarily album-oriented rock station. I'm likely driving my mom's metallic dogshit brown 1981 Buick Skylark when the opening riff of "Dan Destiny And The Silver Dawn" by The Chills comes pouring from the car's cheap paper speakers.

Something about the song - chiming guitars, a propulsive rhythm section and direct vocals with interesting lyrics and a Kiwi tinge really speaks to me. Two minutes and twenty one seconds of perfect pop. The next day I drive to Homewood's Record Swap, where I would later work at for nearly four years, and pick up Brave Words, The Chills' debut full length from New Zealand's Flying Nun Records.

After repeated listens "Dan Destiny..." wouldn't even be one of my favorite songs on the record. "Ghosts", "Night of Chill Blue" (one of the best love songs ever recorded) and "Creep" are among the superior tunes. And though Brave Word's production is flawed, resulting in a muddy sound, the Flying Nun seed had been planted in my brain.

With The Chills as my gateway, I started exploring more artists on the label. The Flying Nun imprint, like many of the great independent labels of the 1980s and early-90s, served as a mark of quality. If you like one of the artists on the label, there was a very good chance that you'd like others - and it's true in this case. Especially since the Dunedin New Zealand music scene was so inbred with artists contributing and being member of other bands on the label. And while it was hard to narrow it down to just five, here are my picks for the best Kiwi indie pop that the label delivered during its heyday.

The Bats - Daddy's Highway

The Chills - Kaleidoscope World

The Clean - Compilation

David Kilgour - Here Come The Cars

The Verlaines - Bird Dog