One of the most striking bands to emerge from Aotearoa New Zealand’s “Dunedin sound,” Straitjacket Fits featured Shayne Carter and John Collie from the early Flying Nun Records band Doublehappys and released all of their work on that label too. The 1987 track “She Speeds” introduced their combination of vibrant guitar hooks, tuneful sensibilities, and well-timed jags of noise, coming in at No. 9 in a 2001 APRA poll of the country’s best songs. It also appeared on the band’s 1988 debut album Hail, alongside the appropriately glistening “Sparkle that Shines” and a twangy version of Leonard Cohen’s “So Long, Marianne.” The dreamy jangle of 1990’s “Down in Splendour” was lovingly echoed a half-decade later in Pavement’s 1995 track “Grounded,” while the same year’s “Bad Note for a Heart” mined a groggy seam of psych. After Nirvana blew up globally, Straitjacket Fits’ noisier material fit right into the alt-rock boom, with 1992’s “Done” reaching No. 11 on the NZ charts and 1993’s “Cat Inna Can” finding catchiness in the quirks of slack guitar and playful meows. After the band folded the following year, Carter founded the funkier Dimmer a decade later and released a memoir in 2019.