One of Sky Girl’s runaway hits, the story of Joyce Heath has remained a curiosity with the comp’s ambiguous liner notes. At the gracious artist’s request, we’ve now made a 5-track EP available on all streaming services.
Forever fantasising of leaving Waller County, Texas for a music career in New York, Joyce Heath took the miraculous leap at the age of 22 as a two-time divorcee + mother of two. First anonymously performing the double entendre party record Angelina (The Singing Model), Heath’s big break came when Atlantic paired her little song ‘Rock + Cry’ with R&B singer Clyde McPhatter, transposed in a calypso style for the 1957 musical film Mister Rock + Roll.
With her reputation growing as a “one take artist”, she soon formed a 50 year partnership in love + music with the universally skilled Vincent Gagliano - a budding producer, engineer, songwriter, arranger + label owner. Together they would demo for giants such as Frank Loesser + Otis Blackwell, while selling masters to RCA Victor, Roulette, Laurie + a school of smaller labels. Riding the fading tail of doo-wop, she cut several singles at Gagliano’s Sound Center for his various imprints. With a fire escape stairwell turned echo chamber, the exciting sounds emitting from the studio were the envy of the industry.
Now burning brightly as part of Julien Dechery and DJ Sundae’s cult compilation, her signature tune ‘I Wouldn’t Dream Of It’ has also featured prominently in Lynne Ramsey’s You Were Never Really Here, New Zealand rom-com This Town + the cli-fi psychological thriller Foe. 🌟
Out on 2LP/CD/digital April 26, Someone Like Me is a humanity-reminding suite of miracle moments that unites real people in the pursuit of a meaningful connection. Taping their lived experience in economic studios in quiet English counties, Pacific Northwest woodland retreats + the big city bustle of Sydney + LA, these kindred spirits rendered sheer beauty in the process. Custom pressed folk songs of love, loss + the lord saviour.
Illuminating minor works from seasoned players such as former Syndicate of Sound chart-topper Sharkey + late-era Canned Heat lynchpin James Thornbury, the collection in tandem honours the fleeting amateurism of hobby musicians. With one shot at tangible vinyl, freshman Lynne Ann Kingan realised her loose bubblegum rocker on campus time, while US Navy recruit Fred Potts cuts his unconditionally serene ballad remotely stationed on a Spanish naval base. Spartan production continues to reign with Jon Betmead’s hair-raising gospel, howling into infinite space, + Goldrust’s stripped back garden hymn.
Throughout the hour-long reflection, faith has an intermittent yet revelatory presence, most overtly with the divine choral soul of Seventh-day Adventists Remnant. More subtly, Gary Ramey + Jim Kennedy both turn to song in their spiritual quests, offering their all to a universal power. An irrefutable cornerstone, the National Office For Black Catholics showcased Charles Murphy’s lionhearted account of the Black experience at a 1971 concert (streaming above). Five years earlier, The Superwomen would use their hauntingly angelic harmonies to address racial inequity with a breathless take on ‘Lowlands’.
Compiled and lovingly restored by armchair digger Mikey Young (Eddy Current Suppression Ring/The Green Child), Someone Like Me pays due service to 17 rarefied journals of truth + devotion. Adorned with visual artist Chris Fallon’s figure + flora dream extractions, the uniting songbook is further detailed by expansive track-by-track liner
Bhairavi Raman and Nanthesh Sivarajah’s transcendent ‘Bittersweet Reflections’. The Carnatic duo of violin and Mridangam will perform two sets at our Searchlight Moonbeam launch at ACMI this Saturday 25 November ~ at 5:30PM + 8:30PM (before Dust In the Wind + The Killing of a Chinese Bookie respectively).
Tickets available as individual sessions or as a double feature @ https://www.acmi.net.au/whats-on/efficient-space/
Out on 2LP/CD/digital November 10, Searchlight Moonbeam is the new narrative compilation from Time Is Away (Jack Rollo + Elaine Tierney) whose eponymous monthly NTS Radio shows, tinctured fusions of fugitive sounds + reverie-inducing archival speech, have won them an ardent audience.
Following from Ballads (A Colourful Storm, 2022), Searchlight Moonbeam is an autumnal dreamscape, intimate + vespertine, pensive + irresolute. An imagined community where differences drop off + resonances emerge – between Maher Shalal Hash Baz affiliates Kasumi Trio, Taiwanese score composer Chen Ming Chang whose ‘Rainwater’ (written for Hou Hsiao-Hsien’s 1986 film Dust In The Wind) is exquisitely heartbroken, + the plangent improvisations of self-taught French pianist Delphine Dora.
Revelations are frequent: the bedsit isolationism of Bo Harwood + John Cassavetes’ ‘No One Around to Hear It’ (from The Killing of a Chinese Bookie); the narked minimalism of Klang (an early 2000s band formed by ex-Elastica guitarist + featuring prize-winning experimental novelist Isabel Waidner on bass); the etude-grooves + echoic wobble of below-the-radar French avant-gardists Omertà; the beautiful, plaintively dubby ‘Is It You?’ by Slapp Happy; a psych-tinged reimagining of PiL’s ‘Poptones’ by Simon Fisher Turner (one half of Deux Filles, + here, recording for él as The King of Luxembourg) that's as perverse as the cover of 20 Jazz Funk Greats.
Coinciding the 10th anniversary of Time Is Away’s first broadcast, Searchlight Moonbeam is the musical analog of an Italo Calvino novel or a medieval fable. Associative, intuitive, borderless. Emotional + mysterious. Endowed with the tactility of Braille. A private language that is both unknowable + understood. It is a record of the seasons, for the seasons. Featuring an evocative essay by writer Jeremy Atherton Lin + disarming cover art by Penny Davenport, it showcases Rollo + Tierney’s still-unrivalled talent for gloaming melod
Bélver Yin's new album is out today! An absolute anomaly in the reissue racket - an artist from decades past whose present-day live and studio magick is as potent as ever. An intimate collection of new recordings encouraged by our 'Luz Bel' reissue, 'Para Mi Madre' delves deeper into the world of the Spanish shoegaze outfit. Now solely helmed by founding member Pedro L. Ortega, the album is a parting gift to his mother, fulfilling a promise made in her final days.
Buy @ bit.ly/BelverYinPMM
Stream @ bit.ly/EfficientSpaceInfinity
Spurred on by emergent footage of a recent live performance, Efficient Space delves deeper into the world of Spanish shoegaze outfit Bélver Yin, now solely helmed by founding member Pedro L. Ortega. An intimate collection of new recordings, Para Mi Madre is a parting gift to his mother, fulfilling a promise made in her final days.
Bélver Yin’s story begins at the turn of the ‘90s, blooming from a fixation with British ethereal alt-pop (Cocteau Twins, The Chameleons, The Cure et al.). Utilising guitar, bass and drum machine rhythms to record the cathartic 1991 debut Luz Bel, their quintessentially Mediterranean angle on slow, reverb and echo-laden atmospherics found a home on fleeting label Noisex Music. Despite radio play and concerts around Spain, lack of distribution led to the album being largely overlooked, until Efficient Space’s faithful reissue in 2020.
With this newfound interest stoking Ortega’s fire, the wealth and strength of Para Mi Madre’s expressive impulses will woo fans and newcomers alike. Patiently moving from pastel hues, sepia-tones and balearic nostalgia, its crystallised instrumentals give a knowing nod to the wide-eyed possibilities of youthful summers as much as they do world-weary respite. Not wallowing in gloom, the deeply personal and spirit-stirring memorandum documents Ortega coming to terms with the loss of his greatest champion.
Para Mi Madre is out on LP/digital 28 July 2023. Preorder @ https://bit.ly/BelverYinPMM
At the request of Jeff Dread, we've made the Sydney via Bromley electro-dub producer's two albums available on Bandcamp and streaming services. Originally released on CD via Creative Vibes in 1999 and 2001, these long players showcase his singular approach in honouring dub's Jamaican trailblazers with one foot in the burgeoning '90s local dance network.
On his debut The Merchant of Dub, Dread traded up ten slow bopping ear worms, madly engineered live to CD-R, with a bonus re-rub from contemporary Sheriff Lindo. Dread followed with Return from Alpha One, his phantom second album of wonky half-speed steppers and mind twisting psy-fi panoramas. Another seminal release in the scene, this second set of blunted dubs strangely evaded online documentation until very recently.
Subtle melodies and woozy skanks that will penetrate your melon, this is smoked-out digi business of the highest order >
jeffdread.bandcamp.com/
After a ten year pursuit, Efficient Space finally presents Late, Late Show, the last recordings of influential Sydney-via-Newcastle band pel mel. Taped in the mid-’80s, these charmingly unvarnished sessions pare the combo back to their core, producing blue-collar sophisti-pop to a danceable LinnDrum beat. From the funky disco-not-disco of ‘Mr President’ to the effortless pop perfection of ‘Fool’s House’, the six tracks reveal a creatively open and well-oiled pel mel before they inevitably disbanded.
Formed in early 1979 as a misfit sextet from steel and surf town Newcastle, pel mel were inspired by New York and UK’s post-punk imports. Cutting their teeth speeding through originals and Joy Division, Wire and The Buzzcocks covers every Friday night to a regular turnout of dole bludgers, students and the under-age, the band would also cross-pollinate with electronic-leaning support act The Limp. In 1980, they decamped to Sydney to join the city’s flourishing alternative music scene alongside the likes of Laughing Clowns, Tactics, The Reels, Wild West and the M Squared crew, making an indelible mark with two albums and several singles as the only domestic signee of Factory’s Australasian licensee GAP Records. Catchy and intelligently experimental without being noisy, their musicianship and enduring legacy continues to be lauded by peers.
Undoubtedly some of their strongest output, this previously unreleased demo suite documents pel mel free from the pressures of a commercial outcome, naturally elevating them to a class alongside Orange Juice, Antena and Young Marble Giants.
Out 9 June 2023. Preorder @ bit.ly/pelmellatelateshow
Out today, this Ghost Riders appendix bottles the innocent small town teenage dreams of St. Simons Island’s Tresa Leigh. Only 15 years old when cutting her tales of first time heartbreak and endearing juvenile jangle, the EP also rescues the aspiring songwriter’s long lost sophomore 7”, restoring the emotionally elevated version of Ghost Riders cornerstone ‘Until Then’ and the symphonic slow dancer ‘I Miss You'. Don’t underestimate the minor format - Tresa is a genuine original, inadvertently echoing the likes of Nora Guthrie, Bonnie Dobson and Patti Whipp bit.ly/tresaleigh
Patrick Gibson’s enduring legacy continues to unfold with ‘Elbow Room in Paradise’, an anthology of his vast solo oeuvre released today for Bandcamp Friday.
A tirelessly curious sonic pathfinder, Gibson’s recorded contributions hold up as some of Australia’s most urgent and undisputedly original ideas committed to tape, from Systematics, Ya Ya Choral, Height/Dismay, No Night Sweats and an endless litany non-bands, to wisecrack radio plays and lengthy stints in Scattered Order and The Loop Orchestra. Strolling into M Squared clutching a cassette of solo tunes in 1980, he instantaneously became a studio pillar, proliferating his own experiments with after hours access and helping manifest historic recordings from Negative Reaction, Four Gods, The Limp and Tangled Shoelaces as an engineer and/or producer.
Part kitchen sink ambient, part vertigo inducing synth wave, part infinitely repeating mania, this collection spans 11 years of resourceful soundcraft, as Gibson directed an array of instruments and unlikely sources (vacuum cleaners, toilet roll holders, contact mic’d woks etc), while humorously deliberating philosophy, religion, science, art and literature. Available digitally and in a cassette edition (limited to 120 copies) with risographed collage art by Julie Bookless, all proceeds from the release will be donated to Lifehouse, a not-for-profit cancer hospital that provided Gibson with the best treatment and support.
RIYL This Heat, Roedelius, Severed Heads, Deux Filles, Brian Eno and Desmond Simmons.
Support @ bit.ly/PatrickGibson
Immortalising Ghost Rider + aspiring St. Simons Island, Georgia teenager Tresa Leigh with a 4 track EP.
Wooed by a classifieds listing to audition for Philly funk + soul imprint Lyndell Records, this 15 year old dragged her father, guitar, fender amplifier + microphone to perform her convincingly mature folk tales of first time heartbreak, winning the support of label owner Walter L Rayfield. She laid down her debut 45 in 1970, pairing two originals - 'I Remember's endearing juvenile jangle + the heartsick Ghost Riders cornerstone 'Until Then'.
After a car accident prevented Mr. Rayfield from fulfilling his release plans, an unswayed Tresa responded to Great World Of Sound’s newspaper advert, baiting the prospect of gold records, major label connections + sales of a million copies. Jetting to Nashville, she recorded a slicker, emotionally elevated update on 'Until Then', + the symphonic slow dancer 'I Miss You'. In another unfortunate career misfire, the dubious label failed to deliver on any of their promises, with the artist volunteering the only surviving copy for restoration.
Out 10 February, this brief 7”/digital anthology bottles the innocent small town dreams of a genuine original. RIYL Nora Guthrie, Bonnie Dobson + Patti Whipp. bit.ly/tresaleigh
A double shot of Y2K digi thrillers from Sydney via Bromley electro-dub producer Jeff Dread is out today. Part of the city’s burgeoning network of blunted bass and sound system culture, Dread worked in parallel with the likes of Sheriff Lindo, Andy Rantzen and Ali Omar, issuing two dynamite albums on Creative Vibes in 1999 and 2001.
Utilising the Atari 1020 Ste, Dread would frantically live mix up to 9 tracks direct to CD-R, echoing the same rough and ready low tech intuition as Jamaican trailblazers King Tubby, Scientist and Jack Ruby and their UK-based disciples Jah Shaka, Adrian Sherwood and Mad Professor. While unmarked discs of his indulgently durational sessions litter the archives, this plate showcases versions immortalised by two crucial compilation CDs. Wicked stepper ‘Dub The Farmer’s Daughter’ burrows the ear canal with its addictive melodica and tightly coiled acid synth lines, edited for high impact by Sheriff Lindo for his volume of Dub For the Masses (Dread would curate its successor), while ‘Out On A Limb’ hails from Just Is, a double album sequenced by legendary Sydney queer party crew Club Kooky. A bass bin creeper that was extended with horns for his second longplayer Return From Alpha One, it’s this unembellished work in progress that really stings.
With Dread’s allegiance to local sound system heavyweights Firehouse, these totally brained studio jams are tried and tested weapons, finally blasting on the sacred 7” format.
Buy @ bit.ly/JeffDread >
