Good Clean Fun

Show

Out To Lunch,

Presenter

Patrick Pittman

Published

Thursday 24th September

The Clean have been making music from Dunedin in New Zealand since 1978. To call them influential would be an understatement. For a start, they were pretty much responsible for the founding of the Flying Nun record label, and were pioneers of the Dunedin sound it made famous through the 80s and 90s – a special brand of pop perfection coming, bizarrely, from one little town at the end of the earth. In the early releases of The Clean, you can hear the seeds of REM, of Yo La Tengo, of Lambchop, of Pavement. The folks behind those bands would be the first to admit their debt to the brothers David and Hamish Kilgour, and cohort Bob Scott.

They’re still together these days, and every now and again they’ll turn out an album full of effortless pop perfection.

Their latest, Mister Pop, is their first in eight years. Last week David Kilgour took the time to speak to Patrick Pittman from his comfortable pocket of Dunedin, where he reckons there’s still a fair bit going on.