Grey Orders, Distant Trails

Improvised soundtrack to a non-existent Western, recorded in the late ‘90s by James Kirk, Nathan Thompson and Tim Cornelius
“Deep South kitchen-sink explorers have been circling the drain in counterclockwise fashion for at least half my life and yet I am still reduced to shameless gobsmackery in the presence of this sterling new collection of historic treasures. Committed live-to-tape in the comfy climes of a living room/recording studio/temple affectionately known as ‘Canongate’ (a kinda homespun CBGBs of Dunedin’s out-sound universe) Sandoz here bristle with the million-ideas-per-minute glory that hovers over their finest blossoms
Unrivalled in their inventiveness and the seemingly infinite permutations of ‘shouldn’t work but does’ instrumentation, ‘Grey Orders…’ creaks and rattles like ringing spurs on the empty bar floor of some unseen antipodean western. Whether this makes more sense envisioning the cactus-pronged wastes of Arizona or the deserted main streets deep in the blistering badlands of central Otago is best left to the ear of the beholder, but one things for goddamnsure… there’s gold in these here hills and I’m gettin’ me a mule and a pick-axe.” – Campbell Kneale