Ah, New Zealand. That two-parted sheep pen. That master of incomprehensible empire-spread sporting activity (Twenty 20, being post-empire, doesn’t count). That home of absolutely no musicians I’ve ever heard of. Well, except those I happen to have written about in the last week. And Kiri Te Kanawa, obviously. And, from Dunedin, the enigmatic Alastair Galbraith. That last one alone should be good enough to stop me besmirching it by printing the fact that the ever-quotable monkeyman thinks it is “just like Britain, but in the middle ages”, but it seems it isn’t.

What to expect from Alastair Galbraith’s latest, especially given that the last time he swang/swung/swinged into my orbit he was tethering metal strings across museums. And not to decapitate those dropping in to pontificate on some meaningless Monet or other, although Crom knows it must have been tempting. There are none of those long strings present here, although there is pretty much everything else he could get his Antipodean paws on. There is plenty gorgeous lo-fi fee-fi folkish stuff, often nestled in backwards or delayed guitar (”Your Lilt” is a personal favourite). This rubs shoulders with feedback-riddled noise (”Cloth Master” is particularly vicious), with scraped viola pieces, with droning collages, with drum machines. Comparisons to his sometime collaborator Richard Youngs are inevitable, but something in this brilliantly unhinged nineteen track collection reminds me of Skip Spence’s classic solo album Oar, and disappointingly few things do that.

For those less keen to make the short hop to that undoubtedly very fine (despite what monkeyman may think) country NZ, there are still copies left at Second Layer records.