Review: Dimmer and the Chills deliver fresh spins on their debut albums

by Dimmer

After the demise of Straitjacket Fits in 1994, Shayne Carter – staring at 30 and having spent half his life doing hard graft in post-punk rock – considered his options.

His musical interests had broadened and his next project, Dimmer, launched itself with 2001′s I Believe You Are A Star, a courageously innovative album he described as influenced by “the drift and throb of ambient music, Krautrock, electronica, outsider pop and the dark funk of Sly Stone, James Brown and Funkadelic”.

It was unlike anything in our musical landscape, the songs were surreptitious and slipped into the subconscious: “It’s all evolution,” he sang.

Last year, Carter brought together an ensemble for a Covid-delayed 20th anniversary tour of Star, shows received in reverential silence then huge applause.

The Live at the Hollywood double vinyl is drawn from performances at Auckland’s Hollywood cinema where they extended the material, and pieces like the spellbinding What’s a Few Tears to the Ocean from There My Dear (2006).

Here’s Curtis Mayfield-likesoul (Getting What You Give from 2004′s You’ve Got to Hear the Music), wah-wah grooves (the free-floating Drift, the embittered funk-rock of I Believe You Are A Star) and moody electro-psychedelic rock (Drop You Off, Seed, the shimmering Under the Light).

A classic album reshaped: I Believe You Are A Star and Carter evolving still.

by the Chills