80%
The culprits behind this slab of noise are the original members of Nunchukka Superfly, a mid-90s collection of souls from three of Sydney’s loudest and most furious – Blackie and Ray from the Hard-ons, Massappeal’s Pete Allen and James McCann from the similarly-aligned Harpoon. It was a creatively volatile combination that immediately captured the attention of the alternative music scene, launching them directly onto festival stages around the country.
That volatility wasn’t restricted to their creativity, however, and the line-up disintegrated after the Big Day Out in 96, leaving behind only this recording that was thought lost until McCann uncovered it recently.
That’s the background; what does it sound like? Well, Nunchukka Superfly’s music, then and now, has never been easily classifiable, so if you’re going into this as a first-time listener, take that as a warning.
There are definitely songs here, like the abrasive Jacket and the almost-fully realised punk-metal rager Power, both of which would later turn up on 1999’s self-titled EP. For the most part, though, 95 is really less an album of songs than it is a collection of apparently structure-less jams built on looping guitar riffs and noise, over which McCann variously mumbles and screams seemingly random lyrics. Even for fans of unconventional music, the complete spontaneity of a lot of 95 might be difficult to at first digest as Nunchukka Superfly veer from one idea to the next, but the creativity is nonetheless remarkable because, no matter how randomly thrown together each track is, they are all clearly identifiable as coming from the same chaotic place.
An intense and frantic set of tracks, Nunchukka Superfly 95 is a snapshot of a band frantically trying to get something together before it all fractures apart, a mind-bending explosion of anarchic noise that hints at a collective genius that couldn’t last.
