Present at, and to a substantial degree responsible for, the creation of the City Too Busy To Hate’s new wave/punk scene in the mid-1970s, Kevin Dunn was a member of Atlanta’s storied Fans — whose frontman, bassist, and principal songwriter, the now-reclusive Alfredo Villar, is to this day spoken of by students of the era in reverentially hushed tones, and went on in the early ’80s to form the short-lived but hugely influential unit known as Kevin Dunn and the Regiment of Women. As a producer, he has directed his own projects — weaving shiny, vertiginous textures throughout the arrangements of his compositions; was instrumental in the rise of the B-52s (for whose single release on DB Recs, “Rock Lobster,” he acted as production sherpa); and worked as co-producer with the celebrated Athens minimalists Pylon on the original vinyl version of their (recently rereleased by DFA) first album, Gyrate.

As a player of stringed-and-fretted instruments, Dunn is known for an electric style at once cerebral, innovative, and uninhibited — “[He] makes his guitars sound like angry animals and natural catastrophes,” rhapsodized the late Robert Palmer in a New York Times column from 1984 — and has of late excited considerable buzz within his hometown’s alternative/experimental milieu for his explorations of the pop possibilities of the treated mandolin, the chitarra spagnuola and the mysterious chitarrone.

Unavailable for over two decades, the recordings gathered on the May 18, 2010 release No Great Lost: Songs, 1979–1985 (Casa Nueva) form a definitive anthology of this most distinctive and influential figure, featuring the complete contents of his 1981 cult-classic album The Judgement of Paris, fully restored from the original master tapes, along with rare and essential single, EP and LP tracks, packaged with an extensive booklet containing period photos, original cover art and an illuminating new essay by Dunn himself. Dunn’s early music bristles with invention, melodic wit, and exploratory zeal – a uniquely southern refraction of the textural and lyrical possibilities of avant-garde pop. “Snotty, literate pop from this underground master of the post-punk era,” is how The Apples in Stereo auteur Robert Schneider described the collection, “oozing with angular hooks, synth bleeps and fuzz guitar wizardry.”

For complete lyrics to No Great Lost, click here.

To download a quote sheet, with excerpts from vintage and modern press and newly-composed testimonials by Robert Schneider (Apples in Stereo, The Elephant 6 Recording Company), Vanessa Briscoe Hay (Pylon, Supercluster), Jeff Calder (Swimming Pool Qs, The Supreme Court), Glenn Phillips (solo artist, The Supreme Court, The Hampton Grease Band), and journalists Anthony DeCurtis and Tony Paris, click here.