In a rambling and comical essay recently posted online by guitarist and vocalist Louis Smith, Dunedin band Fat Children is named as ''the most disorganised entity [he has] ever been involved with or encountered''.
And I can see his point.
Things move pretty slowly for Fat Children.
Two years ago, the four-piece had just issued their debut record, the '60s pop-influenced Three Quarters of A Fistful and were saying they already had six new songs finished.
Recorded in February 2013, partially lost, found, and now released, the group's new album, Dog's Breakfast, is probably the band's last.
(''What do Fat Children do when they have a deadline? Why they faff around of course!'')
Only Smith remains in Dunedin. Bassist George Driver and drummer Oli Bridgman are now based in Wellington, while co-leader Paul Cathro is ''going mad on a basil farm''.
It's a shame, because it's a great record, and easily one of the best local releases of the year.
Dog's Breakfast is a record that feels punk to me, in attitude and execution, if not strictly style per se.
There's weirdness to the personality here, and it takes over the record, in a positive sense.
Whether it's the oblique, rough ditties Is This The Line? or Not About You, or the more lead guitar-heavy Pulverised and Genuine, Man it's a varied and more severe listen than Quarters.
''It's certainly a bit heavier,'' Smith counters.
''I don't know whether that's down to there being more songs by me on it, and I like my distortion.
"I think maybe with the first one Paul had been doing so much of the Alizarin Lizard heavier stuff, that he wanted something cleaner and poppier, and a lot of songs came out of that.
"It's less 'Fat Children' than the last record; less of that doof-crack-crack, doof-crack rhythm.''
It's also a very DIY record, or rather DIT (do it together), with the band relying heavily on the kindness of others to borrow the instruments (Smith says in the whole history of the band he never once played a guitar that actually belonged to him) and recording gear required to lay down the tracks.
Even after finding the gear, the trials weren't over: while the band had found a two-channel interface for recording, four channels were required, the band resolving this issue with ''an inspired lack of knowledge and professionalism by setting up another two-channel interface attached to another computer and determined to attempt to sync up the resulting recordings at a later date''.
It works though: the performances from the band and the occasional brilliant flourish from guest violinist Alex Vaatstra hold together perfectly, the energy still managing to feel both slack, in a Pavement kind of way, and vital.
''It's shiny but it still has some mistakes left in which keeps it Fat Children-appropriate,'' Smith laughs.
''If everything was autotuned, and you took the bits in the background of us swearing from the background it wouldn't be us.''
For a writer who often draws attention to the fact that he really should have made up a few more lyrics, Smith and the band do usually have something to say worth remarking upon.
''We're not sentimental musicians, we steer clear,'' he offers.
''They either want you to write about your feelings or things that are happening in the world ... we write about mundane things mostly. Like nostalgia or being poor and getting the Property Press.
''You gotta take the piss, Y'know?''
Get it
Fat Children's sophomore album Dog's Breakfast is available now on Bandcamp for ''pay as you like''. It's worth visiting for Smith's history of the band alone. fatchildren.bandcamp.com/
