Cloak and dagger

KINGS OF SUBURBIA: Cloak and Dagger launches its CD in Nelson on Thursday

Suburban noir is the new noise around town. Naomi Arnold talks to the band responsible, which is launching its CD in Nelson on Thursday.

Suburbia. An immoral den of curtain-twitching, wife-sharing, key-swapping, whip-and-chain iniquity – according to Nelson band Cloak and Dagger, anyway.

Craig Agnew, Sam Atkins and Doug Stenhouse affectionately call their music suburban noir: alternative rock mixed with a dash of lounge and plenty of black humour.

Vocalist and guitarist Agnew confesses that while he's not sure if things like key-swapping actually go on in suburbia, there's something about small towns that makes him think it's a possibility. "I grew up in a small town and people find strategies to survive them. Things like that always intrigue me."

Agnew originates from Blenheim, but now works at Nelson Marlborough Institute of Technology with fellow band members Atkins (bass) and Stenhouse (keyboard, drums and backing vocals). He and Stenhouse are music tutors, and Atkins teaches bass and works in NMIT's administration.

The band formed only this year, but the three have played in various groups in the past.

Their students are involved with Cloak and Dagger, supporting their tutors at performances and voicing their opinions on the tracks. Agnew plays them "rough mixes" and Nelson's Mike Beever, who mixed the music, spoke to a class about how he'd approached the task. Agnew says the students always respond very favourably.

"They give me an opportunity to try out a lot of the things which I've read about and know in theory." Although tonight's party is a CD release, online distribution is one element band members had to learn about, with Agnew signing a contract with iTunes. The band's tracks are also available as a download at music distribution site bandcamp.com.

"I haven't pursued it before and it's something that's changed a lot in the music industry," Agnew says. "The idea of record labels taking you off and making you a star doesn't seem to exist as much these days, but there's a lot more control the artist can have."

Some of those six songs to be released on the mini-album tonight, such as Mr Wilson, Hangin' Out with the Neighbours and The Spy, have clandestine threads of secrets twisting through them, slithering next to lyrics about hot tubs, fondue, rubber devices, spanking, Twister and cocktails. It's easy to see where the '70s-style lounge influence comes in, and it sounds like Cloak and Dagger have had a lot of fun creating it.

Are dark deeds done behind closed doors really rampant in small towns? Agnew says he hasn't decided to "travel down that dark path yet" himself. But he would say that, wouldn't he?

Maybe they do happen, he laughs, but he wouldn't know: "I can't see. The net curtains are always too far closed."

• Cloak & Dagger CD launch party, Thursday, November 12, 7pm, V Block Performance Space at Nelson Marlborough Institute of Technology, 141 Collingwood St. Free entry. For more info visit cloakanddagger.co.nz.

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