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Heydays: Jenny Morris of The Crocodiles. Left, guitarist Fane Flaws. Photos \/ Murray Cammick<\/p>\n
The Complete Crocodiles <\/p>\n
by The Crocodiles<\/p>\n
When post-punk was being reborn as New Wave, the opening track on The Crocodiles\u2019 1980 debut album Tears was New Wave Goodbye, agitated and cynical pop that could sit alongside Elvis Costello.<\/p>\n
\n The quirky Crocodiles\u2019 first incarnation in their two-year career was
\n a creative collision of characters: drummer, actor and mischief-maker Bruno Lawrence; artist, film-maker and guitarist Fane Flaws (like Lawrence, part of the travelling show Blerta and the theatrical Spats); classically trained guitarist Tony Backhouse (Mammal, Wide Mouth Frogs) and pianist Peter Dasent (Spats). Session bassist Mark Hornibrook was alongside singer\/bassist Tina Matthews and vocalist Jenny Morris, both former Frogs.\n <\/p>\n
With further songwriting contributions from Arthur Baysting, they pulled together 1960s Beat-era pop, jazz (Dasent on the power poppy Working Girl), sly jibes (It\u2019s the Latest with \u201chere\u2019s another melody we stole from the Beatles\u201d) and 1950s pop (Whatcha Gonna Do).<\/p>\n
![\"The]()
The Crocodiles album Tears has been reissued on limited edition vinyl; The\u00a0Complete Crocodiles is a double CD, not\u00a0available digitally. Photos \/ Supplied<\/p>\n
The Tears album \u2013 included in Nick Bollinger\u2019s 100 Essential New Zealand Albums \u2013 was an intoxicating nudge-wink m\u00e9lange of pop styles, and the album\u2019s impressive, key-changing title track went top 20. But thereafter came line-up changes and the lesser album Looking at Ourselves. Among those arriving were drummer Ian Gilroy (later in The Swingers), jazz bassist Jonathan Zwartz and Rikki Morris, their soundman promoted to guitar duties and kick-starting his career singing the standalone single Hello Girl.<\/p>\n
Three months after Looking at Ourselves \u2013 and winning Best Group and Most Promising Group at the music awards \u2013 The Crocodiles (just two original members, Jenny Morris and Backhouse) went to Australia, struggled and broke up for separate careers. Morris delivered big albums (Body and Soul in 1987, Shiver two years later) and became a fixture at Australia\u2019s music awards.<\/p>\n
The Complete Crocodiles collects the band\u2019s output plus material by Spats and Wide Mouth Frogs (some crept into The Crocodiles\u2019 catalogue), live songs (Do the Bluebeat), demos, and selections from smart post-Crocodiles offshoots I Am Joes Music, The Umbrellas, Blessed Relief and The Bend (songs co-written by Flaws and Backhouse with poet Sam Hunt). <\/p>\n
It\u2019s an expansive 50-song collection but these people deserve it, six of them so influential they have separate entries at Audioculture.<\/p>\n
So, it\u2019s New Wave hello again?<\/p>\n
Change is a Slow-Moving Beast<\/p>\n
By Fables<\/p>\n
![\"Jess]()
Jess Bailey of Fables. Photo \/ Ebony Lamb<\/p>\n
Slow moving indeed, it\u2019s been more than seven years since Jess Bailey (Fables) delivered her excellent EP Portraits.<\/p>\n
These 12 thoughtful songs address change, damage from love (the hypnotic Eyes Closed), emotional defeat and bitterness (\u201csee you again on the downfall\u201d), concluding with \u201cevery time I find the meaning of life \u2026 it moves\u201d.<\/p>\n
These literate lyrics \u2013 which may explain the long hiatus \u2013 are couched in gorgeously airy, swooning folk-pop melodies with hints of alt-country (the lovely Sundown with Dave Khan on guitars) and are co-produced by Bailey with Reb Fountain, Khan and Dan Luscombe, an assurance of quality. A moving collection delivered with relaxed self-awareness by someone who can persuasively sing \u201csundown becomes me\u201d because this frequently feels like the mood of fading light. <\/p>\n
The Crocodiles album Tears has been reissued on limited edition vinyl; The Complete Crocodiles is a double CD, not available digitally. <\/p>\n
Change is a Slow-Moving Beast is available digitally and on vinyl.<\/p>\n
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Copy LinkEmailFacebookTwitter\/XLinkedInReddit<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Review by Graham Reid Music writer\u00b7New Zealand Listener\u00b7 26 Apr, 2026 06:02 PM3 mins to read Graham Reid…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":399229,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[95,187405,6645,156,117390,5812,157,111,139,69,6443,223],"class_list":["post-399228","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-music","tag-and","tag-belated","tag-crocodiles","tag-entertainment","tag-fables","tag-make","tag-music","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-returns","tag-the"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/399228","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=399228"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/399228\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/399229"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=399228"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=399228"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=399228"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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