Andy Cartwright, the musician behind Seabuckthorn, has been building his own corner of the experimental landscape for more than a decade. His work has always been centred on the guitar, but never in a conventional sense.

When Craig Leon released Nommos in 1981 it landed without much notice. Known more for his production work with Blondie and Suicide, Leon was already moving in worlds where repetition and atmosphere mattered as much as melody.

Some records take on a reputation long before anyone has actually heard them. For years the name Heitkotter circulated in collector circles with the kind of hushed reverence usually reserved for ghosts.

When people talk about New Zealand’s contribution to independent music, the conversation always circles back to Flying Nun Records and the Dunedin Sound. At the heart of it all were The Clean

When Ship Scope appeared in 2001 it barely made a ripple. Six tracks, half an hour long, released quietly on Chain Reaction and then gone.

The Marx Trukker has long operated in the margins of electronic music, releasing records that sound less like finished products and more like fragments picked up from a half functioning tape deck.