New Zealand indie/DIY/cult legends Tall Dwarfs (Chris Knox and Alec Bathgate) will release a new retrospective box set, Unravelled: 1981–2002, on August 19 via Merge Records. With that news, the duo have also finally made their entire discography, which originally came out via iconic NZ indie label Flying Nun, available on streaming services.
The 4-LP or 2-CD set culls 55 songs from Tall Dwarfs’ two decades of recordings, which included more than a dozen albums, as well as singles and EPs. The LP edition is pressed on 180g vinyl and comes in two gatefold jackets with a 20-page booklet featuring rare photos, comics, posters, and more. Check out the packaging and tracklist below.
The band's low-fi, DIY approach has been massively influential in indie rock circles for 40 years, including Guided by Voices, Superchunk, Jay Reatard and the Elephant 6 collective (Olivia Tremor Control, Neutral Milk Hotel, Elf Power) to name just a few. Says Neutral Milk Hotel's Jeff Mangum: “This box set will bless you with some of the catchiest and most intelligent songwriting ever conceived. Acoustic outsider poetry punk, mixed with a ‘studio as instrument’ artfulness. what more could you want?”
There's a lot of Tall Dwarfs to dig into now but compilations Hello Cruel World and The Short and Sick of It are pretty good places to start, at least till the Unraveled box set comes out. Stream those below, and and head to Bandcamp for more.
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Unravelled: 1981–2002: 1 Nothing's Going to Happen (3:54) 2 Luck or Loveliness (2:42) 3 All My Hollowness to You (2:20) 4 Maybe (3:08) 5 Pictures on the Floor (2:28) 6 Clover (2:05) 7 Paul's Place (2:57) 8 The Brain That Wouldn't Die (3:21) 9 Walking Home (2:18) 10 Beauty (2:12) 11 Turning Brown and Torn in Two (4:40) 12 Crush (5:59) 13 Shade for Today (1:52) 14 Pretty Poison (1:51) 15 Carpetgrabber (2:04) 16 Sleet (2:09) 17 Burning Blue (3:00) 18 Woman (Live) (4:47) 19 Road and Hedgehog (1:45) 20 Attack of the Munchies (3:42) 21 The Slide (3:47) 22 Waltz of the Good Husband (2:40) 23 Cant (2:47) 24 Dog (4:53) 25 The Winner (2:46) 26 Bodies (3:37) 27 Sign the Dotted Line (2:09) 28 Rorschach (3:06) 29 Pirouette (4:12) 30 Wings (1:57) 31 Lowlands (3:07) 32 Oatmeal (1:48) 33 Think Small (2:58) 34 Life Is Strange (3:06) 35 We Bleed Love (3:23) 36 More 54 (3:26) 37 Entropy (3:22) 38 Bee to Honey (1:20) 39 Self-Deluded Dreamboy (In a Mess) (4:30) 40 The Green, Green Grass of Someone Else's Home (1:40) 41 The Severed Head of Julio (1:29) 42 Two Minds (1:43) 43 Jesus the Beast (1:33) 44 Albumen (4:20) 45 Cruising with Cochran (2:44) 46 Fatty Fowl in Gravy Stew (4:20) 47 The Ugly Mire of Deep Held Feelings (2:24) 48 Gluey, Gluey (2:37) 49 Round These Walls (2:09) 50 Room to Breathe (2:08) 51 Time to Wait (1:21) 52 Baby It's Over (3:12) 53 We Are the Chosen Few (3:03) 54 The Fatal Flaw of the New (3:24) 55 Over the Hill (1:43)
