Various Artists: The Kiwi Pop Music Scene 1967 (Frenzy)

As this interesting anniversary year in rock culture draws to a close – and every year for the past decade or so seems to have been a milestone anniversary – the estimable and assiduous Kiwi music compiler Grant Gillanders pulls together a double CD of 60 songs which reflects on the music scene here half a century ago.

They admirable range from those which are perhaps by familiar artists like Larry's Rebels (with Think of Something, Painter Man and Dream Time), the La De Da's (Hey Baby, All Purpose Low), Mr Lee Grant (Thanks to You, Movin' Away), the Underdogs (Sittin' in the Rain), Sandy Edmonds (Daylight Saving Time) and so on.

But it is the dozens of lesser known songs and artists here which make this such a valuable addition to any serious New Zealand music library.

These acts roam from largely forgotten mainstream entertainers (the Keil Isles, the Newfolk, Gene Pierson, Bobby Davis, Robert Gennari, Gwynn Owen) to important figures who have often been marginalised (Jimmy Sloggett, the Pleazers, the Brew, the Selected Few) as well as the likes of Bruno, Billy Karaitiana, , Maria Dallas, the Fair Sect Plus One . . .

There are many unfamiliar names here too: the Pyhve, the Surfires, Ronnie and Dougal, the Cossacks . . .

And Ray Columbus with I Would Rather Blow a Bagpipe Mrs Leare.

And classic pop: the Clevedonaires' thrilling He's Ready, Troubled Mind's Carpet Man, the Action with Something Fresh . . .

It was a time of fuzzboxes but also this being the year of Sgt Peppers, the Summer of Love and LSD there are some tripped-out tracks here too: House of Nimrod's Slightly-Delic, the Gremlins' Blast off 1970, the Human Instinct's A Day in My Mind's Mind . . .

There are quite a few covers here of course but by this time local artists were much more inclined to write their own material. And some of those covers – like Larry's Rebel's Painter Man – were much stronger than the originals.

In the excellent and appropriately colourful booklet there is a month-by-month account of pop happenings in this vibrant year where pop came of age, rock got a real foothold on the long ladder of public attention and there was a brash confidence among artists who pushed themselves beyond what they had been doing just a year before (collected on last year's Gillanders' curated collection).

Given that many people too young to be there at the time won't know more than a handful of these 60 tracks this isn't just a trip down memory lane for older folk but an ear-opener which will actually sound fresher than whatever it is classic hits radio would choose to play from 1967.