ONANON: Home Baking

By Amanda Mills

Glen Ross, Karen McLean, Ants Anema and Donald Ferns are Dunedin’s Onanon, part modern rock, part influenced by the ever-prevailing local sound. ‘Home Baking’ is their second album (after 2004’s ‘Hang On I’m Still Mutating’), and their debut 12" release for new Dunedin vinyl-only label Killer Monkey Records. Comparisons abound between Onanon and Flying Nun band The 3D’s, and Bailterspace can be found in the deceptively merry I Don’t Know What’s Come Over Me, while the Pixies-ish Angry Monkey, with its bleak chorus of ‘We’re all going to die’ decimates all thoughts of Onanon as a band whose lyrics dwell on the sunnier aspects of life. The juxtaposition of uncompromising (but sometimes funny) lyrics with chiming guitars and arpeggio motifs runs throughout ‘Home Baking’, but the addition of instrumental Lammerlaw halfway through the album is an almost welcome reprieve. The cheery tale of insanity in Seacliff, and the gorgeous indie pop rock of Ghostie are my picks. Recorded with sound engineer Thomas Bell (David Kilgour and the Heavy Eights) at the Albany Street studios, ‘Home Baking’ is a record in the tradition of the city’s great indie rock albums. Welcome to the Dunedin canon, Onanon.

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Issues

NZ Musician

December/January 2010