| #524 |
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2000 |
The first National Independent Electronic Labels Conference is over. And what a success. A good natured vibe permeated all the workshops and panels and in-between times many new friends and interstate contacts were made. Key problems faced by most independents such as local distribution, publicity and vinyl pressing were met with many creative solutions. In the wake of NIELC a national syndicated street press column focussing on local Australian independents is on the way and this is likely to be spun off into a national radio show compiled on a rotation basis in each state and disseminated via the ComRadSat network to community radio around the country. Those who didn’t make it to the conference will soon be able to download audio and some video from the sessions and a large database is being put together on the web. It was also almost unanimously decided that NIELC should happen again – in next year’s This Is Not Art series of festivals. Stay tuned to the NIELC website – www.octapod.org.au/nielc for much more. Thanks to everyone who helped, participated, and got involved with NIELC. The gigs during the TINA festival were also quite amazing. Amongst my personal highlights was a set of synchronised video and audio from a Tasmanian crew Lalila. Stunning visuals of cityscapes and urban scenes were beamed on the 20 metre high wall of the building beside the venue whilst Lalila’s disjointed electro filled the air below. If you get a chance to catch them live don’t miss it. Scanner surprised many on the Friday night with a set that didn’t include his trademarked phone tapping, instead laying down a wash of textures and beats on a little music touchpad and a theramin. The Saturday night at the Cambridge is probably best described as Freaky Loops relocated to the equivalent of a biker pub in Penrith or Pendle Hill. A maze of rooms, some of which were most easily reached by going out one door of the pub, walking around the street corner and into another door, made for a pretty chaotic room-to-room experience and many elected to stay in one room for most of the night. The drum’n’bass room rocked to sets from Sulo, defiance from Brisbane and a distorted, amen-filled set of killers from Newcastle’s Subsonic. The experimental chill space was turned into a spacious, warm chamber of dub techno by Canberra’s Stalker who is churning out some incredible music at an amazing rate. Amongst the acts at TINA were the people behind Kog Transmissions, New Zealand’s equivalent to Clan Analogue. Kog is a collective of professional video and sound artists and longtime musical collaborators. Amongst them are Pitch Black and Joost Langveld formerly of Unitone HiFi. Kog have several CDs out already this year, although they are quite hard to get in Sydney. Amongst the pick of this years’ batch is a compilation of NZ digi-dub called Dub Combinations. If any sound has resonated in New Zealand it has been dub and reggae – due in part to the lasting effects of a Bob Marley tour in the later half of the 70s. Although Marley toured Australia at the same time, and this has had a noticeable and direct impact on indigenous music here – particularly Aboriginal rock/reggae bands like Coloured Stone; it was NZ’s urban population that helped the spread of reggae-flavoured sounds into the NZ mainstream for many years. Most recently Salmonella Dub and Pitch Black have made strong in roads into the mainstream NZ charts with the most unlikely of chart-music. Kog’s Dub Combinations feeds directly into this sympathetic climate letting loose some excellent bottom-heavy dub from Auckland, Wellington and Christchurch. You can order directly from www.kog.co.nz or try to get them via Siren Distribution in Melbourne. At Frigid over the next few weeks we have the IF? Records extravaganza on the 22nd with Little Nobody (aka Andrez), Son Of Zev, and Nod all dropping in for live sets. Although they play several gigs that same week, the Frigid sets will explore more abstract terrain. The 29th will have Dan Coy in a long awaited appearance at Frigid. Yellow Peril (www.snarl.org)  Goto
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