Stream Kane Strang’s Debut Album ‘Blue Cheese’

Image: Loulou Callister-Baker

Singer songwriter Kane Strang calls Dunedin, New Zealand home, and while you can hear the sound of the city's rich indie pop legacy in his music, there are also flourishes of folk and psych. It’s a sound that owes as much to Ariel Pink, Bowie and Donovan as it does to the Clean and the Chills.

Strang spent time in Germany but rather than the hustle of Berlin he chose to live in smaller towns, and listening to his debut album Blue Cheese, you get the sense that his songwriting is suited to the slower pace of Dunedin and rural Germany than the bustle of Auckland or the hyper hipster neighborhoods of Berlin.

Indeed most of Blue Cheese was composed on quiet days during the two months Strang spent housesitting his parents' Dunedin home. A line from the lead off track “The Web” goes "Yeah, I met someone else / Without leaving my little house / No, I haven’t held her yet / I met her on the Internet”, before an abrupt ending. It's a song that is melodic and direct.

Kane and his band will be touring North America later in 2016. In the meantime stream Blue Cheese and read a brief chat we had with him.

Noisey: I imagine there’s some nice blue cheese in the South Island of New Zealand?
Kane Strang: I’m sure there is, but I can’t afford the good stuff. The blue cheese I buy is probably full of weird chemicals and shipped over from somewhere else.

It’s an acquired taste. Is there any music that you have acquired a taste for as you’ve grown?
My attention span is becoming a bit more forgiving and I'm starting to appreciate more sparse music that gets better over time.

Your dad was in punk bands. Which ones? What does he think of your pop songs?
I’m not so good with genres, so Runt might not have been punk exactly, but they were pretty full on. He also played with Robert Scott in the Magick Heads (who definitely weren’t punk). I think Dad has pretty diverse taste and seems to be into most things I do.

The album was scrapped a few times. Is it a relief to have it out?
It was a relief for about a day and then I started thinking about the next one, all the things I could improve on etc. I imagine it will always be a bit like that.

It sounds like Bowie has been an influence on you. Where were you when you heard of his death?
I was at my flat and already having a weird day, so it was the nail in the coffin really. I thought of my mum first because she was a huge fan. In fact the only way her parents could convince her to move to Dunedin as a teenager was by bribing her with a ticket to see Bowie live.

How much is “Never Kissed a Blonde” based on your own life?
Not at all, it’s actually something a stranger said to me as he surveyed the room of a shitty bar here. I thought it was such a random/stupid thing to say that I decided to sing it venomously in a creepy song. I guess it’s meant to be some kind of sarcastic anthem for shallow people.

'Blue Cheese' is available Feb 26 through Flying Nun and Ba Da Bing in North America.

Kane Strang launches 'Blues Cheese' at Chick's Hotel in Dunedin on March 3.