It’s essentially indie rock that mixes psychedelic rock with some Velvet Underground droney guitars and Byrdsy jangle guitar. Each band has their unique characteristics that come from different influences, but those are some of the commonalities between all of the bands.

Here’s a playlist I made on youtube of the key tracks I’ll be mentioning below.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7tf1wzg4rdE&list=PLS3FgAA2aSpIxg1dMZtrxgV6ax8V8IFvj

First, The Clean: You listened to them here, but you have to listen to their EP Boodle Boodle Boodle. The best way to describe it is “Surf Rock Velvet Underground”. My favorite tracks on it are Anything Could Happen and Point That Thing Somewhere Else. They also have Getting Older, which was originally their swan song, as they broke up due to not being able to handle the success they were experiencing. They formed back together in 1989 and have released quite a few albums, but I think they don’t reach the heights they reached with the first two EPs, those being Boodle Boodle Boodle(which they recently reissued along with their first single Tally Ho) and Great Sounds Great.

The Chills: They were the big band on Flying Nun in the 1980s and early 90s. They have a poppy indie sound that’s appealing and almost has a Twee pop vibe to it in some aspects, and they also have some noisier tracks. Some favorites are Kaleidoscope World, Pink Frost, and Doledrums. Their first 3 albums, which are Brave Words, Submarine Bells, and Soft Bomb are great listening experiences.

The Bats: This band was the band that the bassist from the Clean founded after they initially broke up in 1983. They have more of a folk rock/indie Byrds sound to them that I like. Some favorites include By Night, Claudine, Made up in Blue, and North by North. They have quite a few good albums to check out if you want, my favorites being Daddy’s Highway, The Law of Things, and Fear of God. Silverbeet and Couchmaster are good albums too. This band really doesn’t have any bad albums, go for all of it.

The Verlaines: They were the more artsy band in the early period of Flying Nun. They have more of a classic rock vibe to them. They had a sizable influence on the band Pavement. Some good starting points include Death and the Maiden, Pyromaniac, and Doomsday. These are just single tracks, but their EPs and albums also have good tracks to offer, such as It Was Raining, CD Jimmy Jazz and Me, and Joed Out.

Straitjacket Fits: These guys were more of the rocking side of indie rock. They were apart of the second wave of Flying Nun bands and had some good hard rock tunes to boot, like She Speeds and Dialing a Prayer, and some Beatles-esque ballads like Down in Splendour thanks to their guitarist Andrew Brough (R.I.P). Other notable tracks include Hail and Bad Note For a Heart.

Chris Knox/Tall Dwarfs/Toy Love - I love everything this man did in the 80s and the 90s. He’s basically New Zealand’s David Bowie, and probably the most important person to all of New Zealand music. He first made records with his band Toy Love, who are more straight New Wave and Punk Rock, but they inspired all the bands from Dunedin to pick up a guitar and create their own songs, spawning the Dunedin scene in the first place. Chris Knox also recorded all of the early material by all the aforementioned bands. He then went on to do Tall Dwarfs, which is an experimental mindscrew and one of the original Lo-Fi/home recording bands. They have songs like Turning Brown and Torn in Two with the weirdness factor, then they do psychedelic jams like Crush, and then they do Sign the Dotted Line, an acoustic song that Jeff Mangum even did a cover of. They go all over the place. His solo career also has quite a few bangers, like the ultimate love song Not Given Lightly, rockers like Half Man, Half Mole, and more acoustic songs like Lapse. He is an interesting and important figure in New Zealand indie music and has a vast catalog to look through. It’s unfortunate that he had a stroke in 2009 and can no longer create such great music anymore, but what we do have is great.

Honorable Mentions: Look Blue Go Purple(An all female Indie group), The 3D’s(Noise-Pop extravaganza), Garageland(Power Pop Punk), The JSP Experience(Also pretty weird),Sneaky Feelings(Byrds/Motown Pop sound), Able Tasmans(Indie pop with a level of musical sophistication).