Superette - Tiger 2LP

Emerging from the dissolution of Jean Paul Sartre Experience in 1993, Dave Mulcahy and Greta Anderson found themselves in New York with a handful of song skeletons. Recruiting childhood friend Ben Howe back in Auckland, Superette was born. The band combined Mulcahy's signature sound-bending guitar and melodic ear for a pop hook with Anderson's muscular drumming, triangulated by Howe's energising, sinewy bass and guitar lines.

One of Flying Nun's mid-90s gems, this deluxe re-issue of Tiger features the album along with the band's debut EP, Rosepig, b-sides from the Touch Me and Killer Clown singles plus unreleased demos from the bands' never released, uncompleted second album - a rare delight for fans of the band's impeccably slender back catalogue.

From the grunge riffs of I Got It Clean to the soft melodic hooks of Bye Bye; from the slow, melancholic verses of Felo De Se to the overdriven anthemic rock drive of Saskatchewan, Tiger is unique in its deployment of binary functions; aesthetic and thematic. Quiet/loud; soft/hard; smooth/jagged. As Big Ross notes of the band's name itself, it's big/small. Super-ette.