Sasha Margolis from AUTOMATING & CONSTANTLIGHT was a guest on the NWA radio show mid-August. We played his new CONSTANTLIGHT EP in full – which you can now download free at constantlight.bandcamp.com.

New Sydney producer GHOST_ also appeared on the NWA show recently and played a live set, backed by guitarist BLACK PYRAMID. He’s made the full set available for free download at ghostmusic.bandcamp.com

More free release material – from LUCIA DRAFT (NWA2). Her debut EP ‘A Pile Of Skeletons’ is now available for free download via Lesstalk Records.

ALPS (from NWA3 and our 2010 St Petersburg show) has a new (very limited) split live cassette with New Zealand’s Forest Spirits — get them before they’re gone at alps.bigcartel.com.

Another release featuring two artists from NWA4 – Sydney’s TEXTILE AUDIO and GENTLEFORCE. ‘The Pomegranate EP’ is TEXTILE AUDIO’s debut EP, featuring her unique mix of experimental sound and contemporary opera, released via Feral Media. The release comes complete with a GENTLEFORCE remix, who will shortly become one of the few Australian artists to feature on a ‘Wire Tapper’ compilation CD from the renowned Wire Magazine.

TOM HALL, who recently played our ‘Refraction vs New Weird Australia’ show has been signed under his AXXONN guise by Brisbane’s Useless Art Records. He’s released a new single ‘Lets Get it Straight’, ahead of a new album release in mid-October. axxonnband.blogspot.com

Line-ups are starting to be released for the 2010 This Is Not Art Festival, and the component parts Electro Fringe and Sound Summit, held in Newcastle NSW the first weekend in OCtober.. There’s an avalanche of great Australian music, including many NWA favourites such as TANTRUMS, DOT.AY, KYU, SCATTERED ORDER, COLLARBONES,. HOLY BALM, BLANK REALM, NO ANCHOR and more TBA.

Release, tour, other news?  Let us know – info at newweirdaustralia dot com.

Title: New Weird Australia, Volume Two
Catalogue Number: NWA002
Released: September 2009

Free Download

Tracklisting:

1. OCEANS, 02 + 03 (5:11) From ‘album’
2. GHOUL, Swimming Pool (Remix) (3:04) From ’Swimming Pool’
3. WILLIAM GARDINER, Sonance Arboreal (4:39) Previously unreleased
4. SAM PRICE, AutoHackney (5:28) From ‘Rand’
5. BROKEN CHIP, Summer Stars (5:06) From ‘POWWOW Seven’
6. KHARKOV, Crustacean (3:12) Previously unreleased
7. COCK SAFARI, 8MH (6:36) Previously unreleased
8. LUCIA DRAFT, Not Interested (1:16) Previously unreleased
9. MIELI, Hometime (3:34) Previously unreleased
10. KAROSHI, Re-Animate Me (2:44) Previously unreleased
11. NO ART, Fight In The Nocturnal House (3:56) Previously unreleased
12. TRANSMISSIONS, Staring At Lightning Strikes, Catching Every One (2:45) Previously unreleased
13. PANOPTIQUE ELECTRICAL, We Was Them (7:32) Previously unreleased
14. MADDEST KINGS ALIVE, Measels (4:05) From ‘Make Me’
15. SPLENDID FRIENDS, Holy Shears (1:42) From ‘Summer Moon Illusion’
16. PAUL FIOCCO, Torsions and Drifts (13:34) From ‘Torsions And Drifts’

Compiled by Stuart Buchanan & Danny Jumpertz
Artwork by Grant Hunter, granthunter.daportfolio.com

Click artist title for background information and links.
All music donated by the artists for use in this compilation only, all rights reserved.

Sleeve Notes: September 2009

Grant Hunter’s cover artwork for the free download compilation, New Weird Australia Volume Two – featuring our country’s endearing emblematic marsupial with black claw outstretched and a murderous fleck in his eye – perfectly illustrates the ‘Jekyll & Hyde’ binary of the Australian story.

On one side, the world is sold on paradisal visions of Australian reefs and plains, care-free surfers racing down golden sands, and the classic long-shot of a sun-blemished Uluru. On the flip, with just as much fervour, we mythologise and peddle stories of perpetual gangland warfare, malevolent outback serial killers and dingoes eating babies for their morning snack.

If only the same warped duality could be brought to bear on the world’s vision of our musical worth. The exported track record is however largely one-sided – our place as the shiny, electro party-starter of the Southern Hemisphere is unrivalled, along with a seemingly endless passion for rock, culled from a 40-year old tombstone. Ask the world to identify a prominent Australian undercurrent and they will remain largely tight-lipped. Hence New Weird Australia – a project aimed as much at curating a contemporary library of alt-Australiana, as promoting that collection to the rest of the globe.

For Volume Two, we once again represent a strong geographic diversity with music from Tasmania, Western Australia, Queensland, Victoria, South Australia and New South Wales. We embody genre diversity from 21-year-old William Gardiner’s neo-classical work to the sprawling sample ephemera spread by Newcastle’s Cock Safari; from Maddest Kings Alive’s shoegaze chip-tunes to a seemingly perfect drift plain soundtrack, hewn by Solo Andata’s Paul Fiocco. There are also multiple exclusives from Kharkov, Lucia Draft, Mieli, No Art, Karoshi, Transmissions and Jason (Pretty Boy Crossover) Sweeney’s Panoptique Electrical project, and new work from Broken Chip, Ghoul, Oceans, Sam Price and Splendid Friends.

In mapping and redefining the local terrain, New Weird Australia represents a new breed of Australian musicians that cast an essential shadow over Australia’s sunny disposition.

Press:

The Silent Ballet “there really is no reason for any curious avant-garde aficionado to pass this one up”

Real Time Arts “exposing listeners to some great hidden treasures with an impressive Australia-wide representation”

Foxy Digitalis “Kudos to anyone who is willing to get into the endeavor and gather unreleased songs for eleven of the sixteen tracks from bands all over the spectrum”