Review by Martin Walters
The acclaimed duo of Chris Knox and Alec Bathgate's 1980s output on the Flying Nun label was profoundly influential on a generation of lo-fi music. Their influence can be traced in the music of Yo La Tengo, Pavement, Smog, and others working with intimate and primitive songcraft. Legendary home recorders, Fork Songs continues to expand their self-built universe and deepen their songwriting partnership. Fearless assemblages of noisy loops, primitive guitars, and household objects are the instruments favored, and the ease with which they sculpt oblique elements into delicate upbeat songs is stunning. Like the Television Personalities, their low-tech methods prove that great songs will transcend recording methods, and Fork Songs is only another crucial chapter in the book of musical invention that the New Zealand duo wrote.
Review by Richie Unterberger
As Tall Dwarfs EPs goes, this is one of the better, more crazed ones. "Waltz of the Good Husband" in particular is one of their most darkly inventive tunes, matching a creepy, almost experimental rock arrangment to lyrics of (one hopes/presumes) satirically gross first-person male chauvinism. All six of the cuts are available as bonus tracks on the CD of their 1992 album, Fork Songs.
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