secret box: chills rarities 1980-2000 - album reviews
Spread out over these three discs' 83 selections are B-sides, outtakes, rarities, demos, radio sessions, tribute LP covers, a '60s-revival Coke jingle, soundtracks, and most important of all, 31 live versions of songs never released in any form. These unheard, vintage tracks span disc one and half of disc two, tripling the insight on the 1980-1987 Chills. They're loads more aggressive (aided by the sweaty club environments) than the band's supernatural early singles and EP collected by Kaleidoscope World. It all comes as a bit of a barrage, since Martin Phillipps' prolific pen was never more frenzied, spitting out one keyboard-laced, great post-punk pop track after another. His long-standing contention that the band should have released two, possible three classic LPs before 1987's "debut" Brave Words (nine lineup changes, including the death of a key early member, hurt) is finally, fully supported by this evidence. Even some of the later shimmering tracks, such as the ghostly "House With a Hundred Rooms" and onrushing "Oncoming Day," had their start in this harder, edgier epoch, as the original incarnation of the former as 1982's "After They Told Me She Was Gone" and the 1985 Bucketful of Brains flexi version of the latter exhibit. The demos and radio sessions are as much fun, while only the consummate Chills head will have all the later B-sides and compilation tracks. True, this is specifically for fans, as the merely curious are better off starting with a comprehensive best-of like 1994's Flying Nun double-CD Heavenly Pop Hits. There one encounters the more silvery-burnished, better-recorded, stabler Chills of 1987-1992. But even those who buy Secret Box will discover a greater energy than normally associated with the Chills name, who betray more of their '60s garage and psychedelia and '70s original punk roots here than at any time in the future. It's a bonanza, with the singer's comments on all tracks included. Sadly, this case of many treasures may be hard to secure. A regrettably unconfident Phillipps only pressed 500 copies of this inaugural release of his label, so he must have been amazed when the entire pressing sold out in advance! ~ Jack Rabid, The Big Takeover, All Music Guide
Padraig Collins Secret Box review for The irish Times June 2001
This three-CD compilation of rarities is a godsend to those of us who regard Martin Phillipps as a songwriter on par with The Go- Betweens and his fellow-Kiwi Neil Finn. Some of the early live recordings are rough, but no less wonderful for that. Balancing, a seven minute psychedelic trip, is particularly great. There are also radio sessions, jingles, b-sides, covers and outtakes. The Soft Bomb demos show the route to that album, 92s creative highpoint. Phillipps deserves to be rescued from obscurity and hailed as the genius he is. If you care about the craft of writing brilliant songs, you need this album.
George Parsons Secret Box review for Dream Magazine #2 May 2001
The Chills SECRET BOX Rarities, 1980 - 2000
Over three and a half hours of unreleased songs, live stuff, radio gigs, demos, choice covers, and studio outtakes as well, by one of the greatest bands/songwriter singers on the planet Earth, our protagonist in the trilogy of tales presented on the 3 CDs, and poster that comprise Secret Box; one Martin Phillipps of Dunedin Central, NZ.
The poster/cover is a big fold-out full color thing of Martin contemplating Martin across a vast maze peopled by odd creatures and aircraft. On the flipside it's 3 wide columns of tiny precise hand lettered text (I mean text originally hand written, not that he hand-lettered each) with an authentic autograph and number writ in felt-pen by Mr. Phillipps himself in the lower right corner, and as of the copy I bought; there were 264 signed copies left (all of the first 500 signed and numbered copies have now been sold). As one scans across the list of 19 different band lineups, and the detailed notes to 83 tracks, the maze on the other side starts to make a lot more sense. Martin notes date, and band lineups, and location or recording for every track on the 3 CDs.
The first one is all live stuff from the early to mid 80s, of varied sound quality, but it all sounds much, much better than 99% of all bootlegs you'll ever happen to hear; it blazes by and you're impressed with what a driving raw almost punky sound The Chills would conjour up live and what effective spellcasters they already were, and how strong all of these "throw aways" are; bands have built careers around work that doesn't come within spitting distance of the majority of the stuff here.
The 2nd CD is more live stuff, this time from the mid 80s, and the sound has grown much more melodic and ambitious, a set of gorgeous radio sessions. Studio versions of the radio sessions have been released, but not these sessions, (for those that felt some of the Chills major label stuff might have been a tad overproduced, there are stripped-down and energized versions of great songs like: Part Past, Part Fiction and Effloresce And Deliquesce ) and a bunch of studio outtakes. And the first revelation is that no matter the band members playing, it almost always sounds like The Chills or Martin anyway, the wave and echo repeating, chant choruses, and a recurring view of a far-away world of lovely haze and shadow; the "Chills-zone", that began when we all heard about something called Pink Frost so many years ago.
The 3rd CD is B-Sides, tracks contributed to tribute albums, soundtrack stuff and jingles.
Over breadth of this massive set there are too many remarkable moments to mention them all, but a few... The Byrds/Go-Betweens jangle of Juicy Creaming Soda, the most lovely song I've heard to a beer in many a moon: Steinlager. The mesmerizing 7 minute instrumental Balancing, which is The Chills doing space rock quite well. The sterling rendition of Jody Reynolds' Endless Sleep from the very first edition of The Chills in 1980. A Coca-Cola jingle that brings to mind the Who's classic The Who Sell Out album, in fact the later jingles also add to the same effect. The jazzbo angularity of the instrumental Donald Duck In Chicago. The gorgeous Jetty, another instrumental like Love Tractor jamming with Harvey Mandel. The genuinely chilly near instrumental with vocal "ahhhs', Moonlight on Flesh. The absolutely sincere and lovely Christmas song Christmas Chimes. The lone piano ache of Martyn's Doctor Told Me that he wrote upon hearing his drummer Maryn Bull had leucaemia. The primal and wonderful Raw Shark, The "Funny Mix" of I Love My Leather Jacket which is sort of a mentally ill dub thing. The trippy Green Eyed Owl with it's meanderingly weird stoney structure, about a weird stoney structure that looked like a green eyed owl. The ringing folk jangle of Dan Destiny And The Silver Dawn, the ghostly House With A Hundred Rooms, and the compulsively catchy I Think I'd Thought I'd Nothing Else To Think About. The simple beauty of Wave-Watching, the stark mysterious Water Wolves demo. The great Big Dark Day cowrit with Peter Holsapple. The stunning beatnik cool of The Streets Of Forgotton Cool with it's fingerpopping rhythm section. The odd Flintsones fantasy Yabba Dabba Doo, with more plot twists than the average soap opera. The ethereal cover of The Byrds Draft Morning, and the heartbreakingly tender interpretation of Love's A Message To Pretty, performed with the great David Kilgour (Clean, Pop Art Toasters, Great Unwashed, etc.). The Abba cover Tropical Loveland may be slight but it's fun and the closing track; Autumn Testament where he sets the words of the late James K. Baxter's pondering of mortality and the fear of death, to music is a fitting way to conclude a monument.
|
