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Home / Entertainment

Sidekicknick - Miscellaneous Adventures

Joanna Hunkin
By Joanna Hunkin,
Herald online·
27 Aug, 2008 12:21 AM2 mins to read

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KEY POINTS:

Rating:

* * *

Full of obscure noises and strange vocal arrangements, SideKickNick - or former Voom bassist Nick Buckton - has successfully produced New Zealand's most unusual musical offering of the year.

As the record opens with

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Something in Your Eyes,

clanking bells (or a random assortment of scrap metal?) can be heard alongside cartoon-like, wobbling spring sound effects.

At it's best - like the meandering

Got A

, complete with alarm clock opening - the album has a certain Blur

Parklife

feel to it. Likewise, the dreamy

Cupcake

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and stonking

Phone Song

standout for their Albarn-esque qualities.

But too often Buckton seems to sabotage his work by taking things to the extreme. Throughout the record, tracks sail along nicely, until Buckton ends them with a clangingly off-key and off-kilter finale.

Amputee Acrobat

and

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Eat & Sleep

are key offenders.

At the same time, tracks like Disturb the Piece  manage to become staid and boring, despite concerted efforts to be oh-so-whacky. Perhaps the most painful offering, however, is the screaming trill and gun-fire drum roll of

Hello My Friend

.

Buckton's efforts to mix things up and try something new are commendable and the result is a handful of genuinely fun and fresh sounds. But too much of the album misses the mark.

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Ultimately, what starts off as interesting and unusual becomes decidedly irksome on repeated listens.

Joanna Hunkin

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