X Way Vision is a video of live performances by artists from the Dunedin-based Xpressway record label. Performing artists include The Dead C, Alastair Galbraith, Plagal Grind, Chris Heazlewood & Greg Cairns, Shayne Carter, and Chug.

Screening at the Film Archive, Wednesday 27 May at 7pm. Tickets $8/6 concession.

[Read more after the jump]

Xpressway was a Dunedin-based record label that in the words of it’s founder Bruce Russell provided a "lifeboat" for a collection of local rock and experimental musicians. Despite being unwanted by other record labels in New Zealand many of the artists on the Xpressway label would later come to be internationally recognised as the defining acts of New Zealand underground music in the 1990s.

X Way Vision was shot at the Studio 13 and Super 8 venues in Dunedin from late 1991 by John Harvey. Just as these groups were – and remain – outside the recognised definition of New Zealand music these performances were shot in warehouse spaces that operated as alternatives to bars and regular venues. A hallmark of all of the performers on the Xpressway label was the foregrounding of performance over commercial production values, and the film sticks closely to the same formula, using a maximum of two cameras and minimal effects. The camera had previously been used to shoot the TAB photofinish in horse races.

X Way Vision features the following performances:
Gate – Cropped Silver Hi-Lo
Peter Jefferies – Difficult Days
Chug – Oozing
Sandra Bell – Dreams of Falling
Chris Heazlewood & Greg Cairns – Surf Shitty
Cyclops – Steel White Bed
Alastair Galbraith – Huxley
Son of a Goblin – Travelling Grave
Shayne Carter Big Band – Big Fat Elvis
Plagal Grind – Screaming E
The Dead C – Helen Said This

New Zealand Film Archive mediatheatre
cnr Taranaki and Ghuznee Sts
www.filmarchive.org.nz