Flying Nun’s Look Blue Go Purple Reissue Bewitched

Dunedin band Look Blue Go Purple’s 1985 Bewitched has just been re-released, and US online music magazine Pitchfork deems it one of the “best” recent reissues.

“In the 1980s, the women of Look Blue Go Purple helped define the Flying Nun label’s Dunedin sound, putting their own enchanted spin on gentle guitar pop. This new comp surveys their catalogue,” Pitchfork’s assistant editor Quinn Moreland writes.

“Like their optimistic, kaleidoscopic moniker suggests, Look Blue Go Purple poured vivacity into a scene that was already chock full of cheery, sparkling songs. But unlike a majority of their peers, the quintet never released an LP, which prevented them from finding a foreign audience despite their mainstream success on the New Zealand pop charts. Still Bewitched, a recent compilation of Look Blue Go Purple’s three EPs and unreleased live rarities, promises to expose a new crowd to the band’s enchanting style.

“After forming in 1983, Look Blue Go Purple debuted with a tight, distinct sound on 1985’s Bewitched EP. The five women fused the gentle guitar pop that was then well-established by their Dunedin/Flying Nun labelmates with the post-punk experimentation of the Slits and the Raincoats, and to a lesser extent, Swell Maps and Television.

“Without Look Blue Go Purple, any definition of the Dunedin sound is insufficient.”

Look Blue Go Purple were Kathy Bull, bass, Norma O’Malley, keyboards and flute, Lesley Paris, drums, Denise Roughan, guitar and Kath Webster, guitar.

Original article by Quinn Moreland, Pitchfork, June 2, 2017.