Getaway Exclusive 2LP

A Newbury Comics exclusive color vinyl pressing. 1 Yellow with Red Swirl LP, 1 Yellow with Blue Swirl LP.

2001s Getaway may be the best illustration of whatever mercurial, inexplicable musical power animates The Clean. After the bands initial rush of activity between 1978 and 1982, the trio lay dormant until the end of the 80s, when a string of reunion shows inspired the Kilgours and Scott to start recording again. After three well-received albums in the first half of the nineties1990s Vehicle, 1994s Modern Rock, and 1996s Unknown CountryThe Clean disappeared again until the end of the decade, when another tour inspired another record. While playing gigs across New Zealand in celebration of their original label Flying Nun, David says they brought along a TEAC 4-track quarter-inch tape machine. As usual, we started jamming and recording, and before you know, we thought we may be onto an LP.

Speed and spontaneity ended up defining Getaway. Robert says, I remember writing Silence or Something Else while the others went for a long walk. It was done by the time they got back. I probably would have gone for a straighter version, but I still like it. David remembers, Hamish wrote the instrumental Jala’ in about five minutes in a motel outside of Turangi. At one point in the process, Yo La Tengos Ira Kaplan and Georgia Hubley were visiting from America, and they ended up on the record too. Getaway came out in August of 2001, with cover art by Hamish who says that his original artwork was the actual size of a compact disc case. After that, The Clean set out on another tourincluding in New York City, where they happened to be during the terrorist attacks on 9/11. They coped with the tragedy by playing gigs with their American friends, and staying in the same creative space theyd been in since before they started working on the album. I remember we did some great gigs on the New Zealand tour, debuting some of the new material, Hamish says. Stars was a favorite for the big 12-string sound.

A live version of the pulsing, soaring Starsalong with a couple of other Getaway songs and Clean classics like Fish, Side On, Quickstep, and Point That Thing Somewhere Elseappear on the rare 2003 album Syds Pink Wiring System. That record is included with the Getaway reissue, along with the more experimental, piano-driven EP Slush Fund, from the same era. These bonus tracks reinforce the idea of the Getaway-era Clean as especially plugged in, generating inspired and beautiful music almost on instinct. Indeed, theyve done justice to a key album in The Clean discographya record that honors the bands origins as garage-rock-loving New Zealand kids, excited just by the hum of a good, cheap amplifier. Songs like the twangy, easygoing Crazy, the jaunty acoustic snippet Cell Block No. 5, and the trance-inducing Circle Canyon are more fine examples of Scott and the Kilgours interest in immediacy and a strong vibe, applied to catchy melodies. Each album is a completely different beast, Robert says. We all change in different ways between each one, bringing different things to the table, and sometimes bringing nothing much at all. But if Getaway proves anything, so long as all three members of The Clean are in the same space at the same time, anything can happen.

Album includes a digita download.