Wellington’s free music outfit Primitive Art Group were true outliers, even by New Zealand standards. Formed in the early 1980s by a ragtag group of misfits—Anthony Donaldson (drums), David Donaldson (bass), Neil Duncan (sax), Stuart Porter (sax), David Watson (guitar), and for a time, Pam Grey (cello)—Primitive Art Group were at right angles to the dominant forms of cultural creation in underground New Zealand at the time: this was no Flying Nun indie rock trip, no psychedelic post-punk exploration, though there may have been some umbilical connections through adoption of a similar DIY ethos. Instead, Primitive Art Group were informed by the free jazz and improvised music they’d read about, and heard, throughout the 1970s. In Daniel Beban’s recently published book about the group and their scene, Future Jaw-Clap: The Primitive Art Group And Braille Collective Story, the author documents the various members of the group’s fortuitous encounters: stumbling upon early ECM titles at a local record store; hearing Art Ensemble Of Chicago’s Fanfare For The Warriors; listening to Cecil Taylor, Paul Bley, Steve Lacy, Ornette Coleman.

The benefit of creating in the relative isolation of a place like Wellington, though, is the possibility of hearing such overdetermined music without all the contextual noise; lacking a clear map or guide, you must find your own way to—and through—things. The music compiled on 1981–1986 was self-released by the group via their Braille label. (This was also the name of their loose collective of musicians and artists.) The album’s first disc excises material from their 1984 debut double set, Five Tread Drop Down, appending an unreleased live recording of “Cecil Likes To Dance.” It’s rangy stuff, free music that’s situated somewhere between the spacious free jazz of Art Ensemble Of Chicago at their most playful, and the desiccated “non-idiomatic” improvisation of British players like Derek Bailey or Paul Rutherford. What’s particularly compelling about the music here is both its very human fallibility and the group’s ability to turn that into a creative weapon. One thing that’s notable about the material here is David Watson’s guitar: He’s one of the few free guitar players I’ve heard able seamlessly to situate the instrument and its language within a broader field of free playing, and without recourse to a post-Bailey-esque clang and clatter. (Watson’s 1986 solo album, Reference, is a lost masterpiece of solo improvisation.) He’s in similarly great form on the second LP in this set, which reissues in its entirety the Primitive Art Group’s 1985 album Future Jaw-Clap. The material here is tighter (listen to the in-the-pocket sax riffs of “Lannie’s Revenge” as they dissolve into woozy organ and percussion) and clearer in its structure, but no less exploratory for it. The playing’s never less than spirited, and if it’s inquisitive, the music remains of the moment, real-time interactions between the players rough but eloquent. It’s a necessary jolt, a shake-up for free music history’s common consensus.