Album: Surf City EP
Year: 2007
. . .
One of the things I like about the randomness of going (roughly) alphabetically through an iTunes (OK fine, Apple Music) playlist for Certain Songs is that we follow zillion-selling songs that everybody knows by Supertramp & The Supremes with a band named after a song that everybody knows but very few people have probably heard. Though, they were reviewed in Pitchfork, so maybe not that obscure.
I don’t recall how Surf City came across my radar — it definitely wasn’t the Pitchfork review — but they’re a psychedelic pop band from New Zealand that plays into that country’s long tradition of noisy guitar bands, while also reminding me of U.S. bands working in the same vein like Pavement or The Dream Syndicate.
And you can hear all of that in the final track of their initial self-titled EP, “Free The City” which starts with a jangling, repeating guitar hook against chunka chunka rhythm guitar — the guitarists are Davin Stoddard and Josh Kennedy, and I have I idea who plays what.
Nor do I have any idea what they’re singing, either, as it’s all pretty-lo fi. Nor does it even matter, actually: the whole point in “Free The City” is the ever-changing, ever-soaring guitars. Either you love those guitars, or you just kinda think that it’s formless noise. Naturally, I fall in the former category, as does the band, because not only are the singing the guitar riffs sometimes, the back half of “Free The City” is nothing but psychedelic guitar jams.
“Free The City”
Did you miss a Certain Song? Follow me on Twitter: @barefootjim
The Certain Songs Database
A filterable, searchable & sortable somewhat up to date database with links to every “Certain Song” post I’ve ever written.
Certain Songs Spotify playlist
(It’s recommended that you listen to this on Spotify as their embed only has 200 songs.)
Support “Certain Songs” with a donation on Patreon
Go to my Patreon page