Pitchfork

Words: Matt LeMay, Photos: Christine Tadler
Pictured above: The Clean

New York City's Cake Shop was an ideal setting for three intimate shows by seminal New Zealand rockers the Clean. The venue's small size and minimal sound system highlighted the band's understated charms, most notably David Kilgour's nuanced, feedback-laden guitar playing and brother Hamish Kilgour's skittery, insistent drumming.

Openers Times New Viking and the Mad Scene (fronted by Hamish and joined by Yo La Tengo's Georgia Hubley on guitar) perfectly rounded out the evening, respectively reinforcing the Clean's ramshackle energy and Velvet Underground-esque emphasis on texture.

At Saturday's show (the last of the three), the Clean played a career-spanning smattering of songs, augmented at one point by guitar from Richard Davies (formerly of the criminally underrated Moles). At a time when so many bands of the Clean's stature are cashing in on outsized reunion tours, the whole evening was nothing short of inspiring.

Both the Clean and David Kilgour have finished their current spate of dates, but Times New Viking have a pair of shows scheduled in late January, in support of their forthcoming Matador debut.

THE CLEAN:

TIMES NEW VIKING:

Times New Viking:

01-25 Columbus, OH - Wexner Center for the Arts *
01-26 Cleveland, OH - Beachland Ballroom

* with the Ponys, Endless Boogie, the Feelers