Festival Records & Warner Music Australia release compilation album

PRESS RELEASE:

Festival Records and Warner Music Australia are excited to announce the June 9 release of another exciting and unique new collection of Australian music, ‘CLOSED CIRCUITS: AUSTRALIAN ALTERNATIVE ELECTRONIC MUSIC OF THE ’70S & ’80S, VOLUME 1.’ The collection will be available as a CD, digital download, and as a limited edition 2LP set with four extra tracks. It is available to pre-order now.

Compiled by noted Australian music writer and historian David Nichols, ‘Closed Circuits’ looks at what happened in Australia when the machines started taking over in the wake of punk in the late 70s. Synthesisers and other new technology accompanied a new DIY mentality and very quickly made their presence felt right across the pop spectrum. The collection looks at some of the underground innovators – the likes of Whirlywirld, Essendon Airport, Voigt/465 and Scattered Order – and also some of those who wedded the new sounds with more commercial instincts and created new styles of pop music, like the Dugites, Models, the Reels and the Machinations. It is a range of music that is sometimes fun, sometimes intensely serious, and always innovative.

Nichols puts it like this in his liner notes: “This collection brings together a wide range of recordings really only united by one thing: people using technology to produce something fresh. These were not necessarily artists wedded to the idea of the ‘new wave’ or even hoping to wipe out old rock music; but what these tracks do represent is forward-thinking, inventive, progress… Most (not all) of the people on this collection were in their early-to-mid 20s; their reference points growing up in the 70s might have been Bowie’s Berlin period albums, or Roxy Music – particularly the Eno years – or Brian Eno’s own solo material; perhaps groups like Suicide. Many tracks sound like their creators spent their formative years immersed in the fun experimental side of progressive rock (though few seem to remember that experience). Others were more into the shock element of the new wave/ post punk world – or the DIY nature of synthesisers and other new technology. It didn’t hurt that between the late 70s and early 80s the hardware got cheaper, fast – though five or six hundred dollars for a synthesizer was still a major investment. “

This collection follows the release of David Nichols’ new book – the acclaimed ‘Dig: Australian Rock and Pop 1960-85’ – and comes ahead of another compilation, the 3CD ’12 INCH DANCE: AUSTRALIAN 80s POP’ which David put together and which exclusively features extended mixes from the 80s of tracks by the likes of Hunters & Collectors, Icehouse, Models, Kids in the Kitchen, Kate Ceberano, Eurogliders, Big Pig, pel mel and more.

‘Closed Circuits’ features detailed liner notes and track-by-track commentary by Nichols as well as an original design by Michael Trudgeon, the graphic designer for the seminal Melbourne ‘80s cassette fanzine ‘Fast Forward’ (which was a vital outlet for this music back in the day), as well as numerous images.

‘Closed Circuits’ provides a unique and invaluable look at the specifically Australian beginnings of key elements of the music of the 80s: music that is more popular and examined more seriously now than at any time since it was originally made.

TRACKLISTING

CD & DIGITAL TRACKLISTING

1. The Metronomes – A Circuit Like Me
2. The Reels – Shout and Deliver
3. Informatics – Great X-1
4. Jules – Rock Rock Daddy
5. Bring Philip – Fire Truck
6. Anne Cessna and Essendon Airport- Talking To Cleopatra
7. German Humour – A Young Man’s Old Girlfriend
8. Models – On (Original 7” Mix)
9. And An A – Affirmation
10. Voigt/465 – Imprint
11. Whirlywirld – Window To The World
12. Ya Ya Choral – Waiting Time
13. The Dugites – Waiting
14. Karen Marks – Cold Café
15. The Limp – Outer Space Moth
16. Asphixiation – L’Acrostique D’Amour
17. Machinations – Average Inadequacy (Original Version)
18. Scattered Order – A Few Little Shocks
19. Primitive Calculators – Pumping Ugly Muscle (1987 Sydney Disco Mix)
20. Distant Locust – I Feel Love

2LP TRACKLISTING

Side A

1. The Metronomes – A Circuit Like Me
2. The Reels – Shout and Deliver
3. Whirlywirld – Window To The World
4. The Limp – Outer Space Moth
5. Karen Marks – Cold Café
6. And An A – Affirmation
   

Side B

1. Anne Cessna and Essendon Airport – Talking To Cleopatra
2. German Humour – A Young Man’s Old Girlfriend
3. Models – On (Original 7” Mix)
4. Voigt/465 – Imprint
5. Ya Ya Choral – Waiting Time
6. Distant Locust – I Feel Love
   

Side C

1. Jules – Rock Rock Daddy
2. Bring Philip – Fire Truck
3. Stinky Fire Engine – Fantastic/Ice Cream City
4. W.H.Y. – Sensible Shoes
5. Machinations – Average Inadequacy (Original Version)
6. Informatics – Great X-1
   

Side D

1. Asphixiation – L’Acrostique D’Amour
2. The Dugites – Waiting
3. Shower Scene From Psycho – Cara-Lyn
4. Scribble – Silly Girl
5. Scattered Order – A Few Little Shocks
6. Primitive Calculators – Pumping Ugly Muscle (1987 Sydney Disco Mix)