Club Sound Witches/The Mermaids “Surface Noise Vol. 7” CDR/digital

Description

No survey of strange and confounding Australian music, such as the Surface Noise series, would be complete without a visit to Newcastle. For decades now, it’s been a hotbed of odd amalgams of lo-fi electronica, field recordings, deconstructed rock, and disturbing snippets of old records and radio broadcasts; often issued on cassettes with ‘print runs’ you can sometimes count on one hand, accompanied by hazy or downright misleading details about the identity of the culprits. Surface Noise Volume 7 all comes from a one gig featuring a visit to Newcastle by Brisbane’s masters of lo-fi not-quite-beats Club Sound Witches (Matt Earle of xNoBBQx and Nicola Morton of Bad Intentions), which then bleeds into a set of processed/bludgeoned samples from local duo The Mermaids (alumni of Cock Safari, Polyfox And The Union Of The Most Ghosts, and probably countless others).