Opposite Sex debut album released

Underground pop-subversive trio Opposite Sex, who relocated from Gisborne to Dunedin early in 2011, have released their debut album on Dunedin's underground psych-pop label Fishrider Records (home of The Puddle and The Dark Beaks).

It's avaialable from Fishrider Records (distributed via Yellow Eye Music) in a lovely digipak CD and as a numbered limited edition of 150 LPs.

Fishrider Records founder Ian Henderson recorded the album at his Dunedin studio after discovering them while touring the North Island with The Puddle in February: "They sent me some MP3s recorded in their practice room which I thought were so very different to what any other young bands were playing. They reminded me of bands from the 1970s and 1980s like Slapp Happy and Young Marble Giants without sounding anything like them."

Seeing them live when they supported The Puddle in Gisborne in February completed the picture. "They were so loud and being pulled in three directions by the three personalities in the band. When they said they were thinking of moving to Dunedin to go to Uni and Art School I offered to record them. What I thought was going to be 3 or 4 demos, and secretly hoped would result in a couple of songs suitable for a 7" if I was lucky, turned into a whole album's worth of songs over two afternoons. I told them "You have to let me release this!" and they said "Really? Do you think it's any good?". So that's how this album happened - totally unplanned and a spontaneous result of a chance encounter."

The album was finished with a few more afternoons finishing vocal takes and adding some trumpet and piano to a couple of songs. It was then mixed by Tom Bell (David Kilgour & The Heavy Eights and regular mixing guru for Fishrider Records).

Opposite Sex and Fishrider Records celebrated the release of the album at a sold-out Fishrider Records 5th anniversary show in Dunedin with The Puddle in early November. A combined Opposite Sex/ The Puddle tour is planned for the first quarter of 2012 when the new album (actually a double EP on one album) by The Puddle, called Secret Holiday/ Victory Blues, is released.

The Opposite Sex album has already gained an enthusiastic 8/10 review in the UK: "Sitting somewhere between oddball pop and disjointed 1970s No Wave, the album is experimental without being alienating and embracing without being sickly... It’s a debut album that contains all the elements you desire in a first outing - it’s fun, youthful and successfully manages to distill the spirit and essence of a band's intent. There is a ferocity and intensity here captured in eight hours that some would strive for after months in the studio."

The album is available via bandcamp (you can also order the CD and LP mail-order there), iTunes, amplifier and the CD and LP should be available from most good retail stores in NZ (it's distributed by Yellow Eye Music if they say they don't have it in stock). It is also now available from the Rough Trade stores in London.

• Lucy Lawless and Friends
• Tim Ripper Owens
• Inquisition (US), Vassafor, Anno Domini Mortus, Winter Deluge
• Terror
• Subhumans New Zealand Tour