From the Invisible Jukebox feature in the April edition of The Wire, the following quote from Bruce Russell of The Dead C:

They are one of the greatest things in rock music, ever, and I don’t think anyone can ever take that away from them. Who could not be profoundly influenced by The Fall? Only someone with cloth ears.

They also have a bit more to say about the excitement of The Fall’s NZ tour in ’82 and Russell also has some nice things to say about Sonic Youth.

It was interesting to find this feature in the magazine when I got home from work (it was delivered today), because just as I was leaving work, I had my computer playing random tracks on the hard drive and The Dead C’s “Power” from Clyma Est Mort came on, and I had to just stop and listen for its 7 minute duration because it’s so damn good. I really need to listen to them more. I first heard them many years ago at a friend’s place and they made a very good impression but I have no idea which album it was. I picked up the live album Clyma Est Mort on the basis of that prior encounter with their music, but have to admit that I didn’t immediately warm to the lo-fi sound (and also completely missed The Fall reference in the cover art, having not yet explored their massive back catalogue at the time), and the record sat amongst the rest of my vinyl half-forgotten. Yes, I know now that it is one of the holy grails of Dead C fandom and admit to an embarrassing lapse of taste.
More recently, having given up on it after an earlier search inspired by the wide held belief that it’s their best, I got the album Harsh 70’s Reality as it became easily available again, so I resumed my interest in the Dead C.

I’d already had them in mind just this week for another reason. I’d always imagined them to be outside the better known NZ indie scene of the 80’s, and certainly it sounds like they weren’t well accepted in that scene, but I hadn’t even realised that their first releases were on Flying Nun until recently. I just noticed the other day while listening to the Flying Nun 25th Anniversary comp that Michael Morley played in The Weeds together with Robert Scott of The Clean and The Bats, as well as Shayne Carter & John Collie before forming Straitjacket Fits. (More info here) Additionally, I only just foundout from The Wire article that Robbie Yeats was in The Verlaines.

Some of their recent activity is of interest. A couple of years ago they were featured in Fat Cat’s split singles series on a 12″ shared with Konono #1. The K#1 stuff is great, but not of too much interest if you already have “Congotronics”, but the Dead C tracks are well worthwhile. A nice feature is a number of locked-groove noise loops.
More recently they put out a 7″ called Relax Fallujah Hell Has Come which includes a version of “Power” mentioned above, which makes me interested, but I suspect I’d have trouble finding a copy. (Update: this isn’t hard to find at all actually)
This year they’ve put out a split 12″ with Australia’s Hi-God People which could well be worthwhile but is limited. I’ve got a H-G P cd somewhere I should dig out so I can remember what they sound like.

A new Dead C album will be out later this year.

You can read more about them at Wikipedia.