One Man Bannister: Birds & Bees

Matthew Bannister was the Sneaky Feeling who wrote the Byrds-influenced songs. This tape of 20(!) home recordings from the early 1990s to 2014 evokes, naturally, Byrdsian jangle, experimental psych and no-nonsense pop.

Anyone who's enjoyed Robert Scott's recent archival tapes would love this, you'd think. But then Bannister or Sneaky Feelings could never be categorised as easily as other Flying Nun bands. They had Martin Durrant's Al Green influence, David Pine's countrified leanings and Matthew Bannister's 60s pop. Did someone say Orange Juice? Or 80s British indie?

According to the press release to Sneaky Feelings' final album, 1988’s Hard Love Stories, they:

Found themselves somewhat outside of what one of the band called “a cosy little scene” in Dunedin, which had built up around the success of New Zealand’s leading post-punk godfather-types The Clean. Why Sneaky Feelings fell outside the prevailing scene might have something to do with their immediate record collection; as Bucketful of Brains said, Sneaky Feelings ‘drew on The Beatles, The Byrds, Neil Young and Fairport Convention among others, by-passing punk completely’.

There are many songs on Birds & Bees with that essence.



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