A Cuppa Tea And A Lie Down

• This reissue of the 1986 debut full-length album 'A Cup Of Tea and A Lie Down' by Able Tasmans is now re-mastered and re-packaged featuring liner notes, posters and flyers as well as a Bonus 12" that contains the band's first EP, 'The Tired Sun' (1985).

Initially hailing from Whangarei, one of New Zealand's northernmost city, The Able Tasman's were more than 1500 kilometers away from Flying Nun's epicenter, Dunedin. However, this never hindered their involvement with the label as they released four albums and two EPs filled with their own brand of sweet and crafty guitar pop. Named after the Dutch explorer Abel Tasman who first discovered New Zealand, the band themselves were avid explorers limited only by their imagination. Their song writing and arrangement crossed lines between baroque and indie pop integrating field recordings and bringing keyboards to the forefront of their music. They are also the only New Zealand band to tastefully incorporate bagpipes into a song.

"It was Flying Nun who gave us the chance to record. We remain grateful. I personally felt some pride in hailing from Whangarei, not a major center and certainly not southern, yet doing music that Flying Nun and its grand stable of thoroughbreds thought was something akin to good," founding member Graeme Humphreys explains. "Even as a dinky 3-piece with not a guitar in sight we were invited to tour alongside Look Blue Go Purple and The Chills. It was a massive vote of confidence."

Now, after nearly two decades their debut album is available again, with this new collection dedicated to the late David Beniston, the Able Tasmans' original bassist and founding member.