The Clear drummer Hamish Kilgour has died, aged 65

Hamish Kilgour, the longstanding drummer for New Zealand indie rock band The Clear, has been discovered useless after he was reported lacking late final month. He was 65 years outdated.

In accordance with New Zealand information web site Stuff, Kilgour was present in Christchurch. A police spokesperson stated the dying has been referred to the coroner. The musician had final been seen on the Palms buying centre in Christchurch.

Born in 1957, Kilgour co-founded The Clear within the late Nineteen Seventies alongside his brother, David Kilgour, and a handful of various bassists – first Peter Gutteridge, then Robert Scott. The band’s 1981 debut single, ‘Tally Ho!’, was the second launch on Roger Shepherd’s Flying Nun Information, serving to to determine what would go on to be an iconic indie rock and pop label.

The band launched two EPs – 1981’s ‘Boodle Boodle Boodle’ and 1982’s ‘Nice Sounds Nice’ – earlier than splitting up. Even whereas the band was inactive all through a lot of the Nineteen Eighties, Flying Nun launched a compilation of their early recordings, titled merely ‘Compilation’, in 1986.

Within the late ’80s, The Clear reformed and started touring, with stay report ‘In-a-Stay’, captured in London, arriving in 1989. The next yr, the band’s debut album, ‘Automobile’, was launched by each Flying Nun and Tough Commerce.

Over the following years, the band moved out and in of exercise. Second album ‘Trendy Rock’ arrived in 1994, with ‘Unknown Nation’ following in 1996 and ‘Getaway’ in 2001. In 2002, one other compilation of The Clear’s early releases, ‘Anthology’, was launched collectively by Flying Nun and Merge. The band’s remaining studio album, ‘Mister Pop’, was launched in 2009.

With The Clear, Kilgour was a pioneering affect on the “Dunedin sound” that got here to be related to most of the bands on Flying Nun. His distinctive drumming method – directly unfastened and muscular, anchoring the jangly guitars and melodic basslines of his bandmates – could be heard all through The Clear’s discography.

Kilgour was musically lively exterior of The Clear for a few years, enjoying with a various vary of initiatives. Most notably, within the early Nineties, he moved to New York and fashioned The Mad Scene with Lisa Siegel. Debut album ‘A Journey Through Monsterland’ arrived in 1993, with follow-up ‘Sealight’ launched in 1995.

In 2014, Kilgour launched his first solo album, ‘All Of It And Nothing’, on American label Ba Da Bing. His second solo album, ‘Finklestein’, was launched 4 years later. Kilgour, as a part of The Clear, was inducted into the New Zealand Music Corridor of Fame in 2017.