AW – THE NERVE (Records Etcetera) (13th Floor Album Review)
AW is Andrew Wilson, one-third of 2000’s formed Ōtepoti band Die! Die! Die!, alongside Tamaki Makaurau musicians Kim Martinengo (Drums) and bassist Morgan Leary (Bass), with Stephan Neville (Pumice & O/PUS) on the mixing desk for the recording of THE NERVE.
I saw AW live on debut (and once or twice since), and they excited me silly, with the space they created within their retro post-punk framework. Thankfully, on THE NERVE, AW have managed to capture the alluring vibrancy of their live shows with their use of a lo fi recording approach.
Across 11 songs, barely fitting into 25 minutes, THE NERVE is more an EP, than an album, TAKIWĀTANGA is a fragment at 44 seconds, Old Boy an southern gothic anthem and the longest at 3.24mins, whilst Moments coming in at 2.09mins alludes to the cacophony of The Fall.
On THE NERVE, Wilson manages to create without interfering expectations, there’s little chance of chart success, and little radio play past Student Radio. What he (and the others) have created, is an album that captures the individual joy and rapture of seeing and hearing AW live for the first time, it is an album of lo-fi post-punk taonga.
AW are on a nationwide tour in March, buy the music and experience them live.
Simon Coffey
THE NERVE is out now
