Review

Across 40-odd years and a span of musical methodologies, Peter Stapleton made things happen. The musician, lyricist, festival organizer and record-label proprietor spent his entire creative life on New Zealand’s South Island. If you’ve cared about the things that have happened there in the cracks in between rock and more diffusely experimental music, you’ve probably paid attention to what he’s done with the Pin Group, the Terminals (full disclosure: my long-defunct Roof Bolt label released a Terminals single in 1996), Scorched Earth Policy and the Metonymic label.

Stapleton died way too young in 2020, one month short of his 65th birthday, and these two posthumous releases by the group Eye represent the terminal point of a profoundly impactful musical life. Formed in 2003, Eye comprised Peter Porteous (guitar, singing bowl), Stapleton (drums, electronics, voice) and a sequence of third players. Jon Chapman, an American emigrant to New Zealand who’s also done a spell with Double Leopards, played synthesizer on both Prophecy and Black Ships. The group wasn’t the only manifestation of the Porteous/Stapleton partnership; the two of them also founded the Lines Of Flight music festival, which carries on to this day.

Prophecy steers closer to rock music, albeit rock crumbling into dust. One vector driving this proximity is Stapleton’s drumming. Like Maureen Tucker, he liked to play standing up, and even in the most diffuse settings, his drumming was forcefully propulsive; check the looming tom-beats on “Nacred,” which takes up all of side two. On “Outer Dark,” it’s also quite dramatic, giving shape to the buzzing guitar/synth racket. But Stapleton was also a writer, albeit one who usually gave his words to others to sing. It’s a bit of a shock to hear his voice on a couple of tracks on Prophecy, first as an eldritch shade perceived behind waves of acid sound on “Catch Them,” then later willing the congealing tar textures of “Too Hot To Dry” into something like song form.

Stapleton doesn’t drum on Black Ships, which is the more recent recording. He faced the encroaching limits of illness without flinching; as one door closed, another opened. Since the trio preferred murk, it’s as hard as it is pointless to determine which waves of sound came from his electronics. Aside from occasional guitar harmonics, the music on Black Ships is an unspooling mass, amorphous and enveloping. Crackle-coated voices—some snatched from the radio waves, others issuing from Stapleton’s lips—create the impression of discreet intelligences trying to materialize within a black void.

The two LPs can be bundled for purchase with a booklet that compiles photos and appreciative memories of Stapleton. Many of the images were snapped at gigs that appear to have taken place in small back rooms and austere community halls. The immersive quality of Eye’s music is even more impressive when you see the humble circumstances under which it was performed