Australian Experimental Music and Beyond – label, mailorder, archive
Clinton Green of Shame File Music spoke at length to Julian Williams on his Parallel Islands radio show in December 2024, covering the history of Shame File Music, key releases, Green’s own music and many other topics.
Listen to the whole show in 2 parts here:
Astasie-abasie’s “Vestigial Gamelan” is the third in a series of experiments exploring the magnification of the insignificant sounds. The chaotic but inherently repetitive patterns created by the interaction between the objects has been realised through a minimum of gestural action by way of a number of distancing strategies, such as the use of hand drills, film winders and motorised drills/screwdrivers.
Astasie-abasie is a project of Ian Andrews which evolved out of a long running performance collaboration with Garry Bradbury. The project focuses on the amplification of small sounds (following the approach of John Cage, Gordon Mumma and David Tudor) through the capture of sounds generated by small objects by way of contact microphones, home constructed cartridges, miniature piezo microphones and conventional microphones. Various devices are used as constraints in order to distance any performing gesture of the artist from the compositional process. The compositional process is, in this sense, aleatory and close to automatic. Much like field recording, sounds are found rather than performed or manipulated. Modified, or ‘prepared’ turntables are often used to bring about the sounds, after which any editing of the material is kept to a minimum. “Vestigial Gamelan” is the third in the “Gamelan” series, following “Elliptical Gamelan” (2022) and “Molecular Gamelan” (2021).
Limited edition of 100 copies with locked grooves ending both sides. Pre-order and stream preview tracks now, shipping January 2025.
Blue Plum Bloom is the debut album from the improvising trio of David Brown (prepared guitar, electronics), Tony Buck (drums, percussion) and Magda Mayas (piano, objects).
The trio is an expansion of Buck (The Necks) and Mayas’ long-time Berlin-based duo, Spill, but with the expansive addition of Melbourne-based Brown (Pateras/Baxter/Brown, Western Grey, Stone Echidna, Dumb & the Ugly, and countless other sonic explorations) making the ensemble behind this album a unique beast indeed. The trio has been playing sporadically now for about a decade; usually low-key shows in Australia when Buck and Mayas are visiting or when Brown returns the favour in Europe. The trio describe their music as “pointalistic interactions combined with contrasting timbral sonorities expanding the language developed by Spill into a new, more expansive whole; piano with objects and guitar and drums intertwined and subtlety shifting in focus, like a constantly shifting kaleidoscope of sound”.
Blue Plum Bloom was recorded live at the New and Experimental Arts Lab on Wadawurung Country (Geelong, Australia) in December 2019. The album is issued on a limited edition of 150 copies of marbled royal blue and white vinyl, pressed at Program Records in Melbourne. It comes housed in full colour sleeve printed on reverse board, with a postcard insert + download code.
For the first time, the entire Shame File Music digital discography on Bandcamp (83 releases) is available at a 35% discounted price of AU$200.20.
Ross Manning’s vinyl-only album from 2023 Some Technical Drawings is now available for the first time as a digital edition. We still have a handful of copies of the limited edition clear vinyl with hand-applied bespoke locked grooves still available as well.
Free shipping for any orders shipping within Australia totalling more than $100. Be sure to choose the Free Shipping option upon Checkout.
A Conduit consists of three linked works honed from Green’s recent explorations of broken Walkmans playing themselves.
Loose internal speakers from the Walkmans are positioned between the spindle and play-head. The parts cling together magnetically, yet are agitated by the turning spindle, creating not-quite-regular rhythms punctuated by magnetic/electronic interference. Green gently nurtures this kinetic and sonic phenomena by changing the positioning of the Walkmans, and applying subtle EQ and effects. The musical results are accompanied by episodes of aleatorically-constructed cassette collages, processed text and turntables.
“I feel this is quite a different direction in some ways; broken Walkmans playing themselves and inviting you to (sorta) dance” – Clinton Green (on A Conduit).
Allegations of Ventriloquism – a psychodrama; an opera for Walkmans and turntable
Emucounter – an interlude; an encounter
Stopcock (alleged) – a valve; flow control; no outlet
Clinton Green is an Australian experimental artist and performer. He works with Walkmans, prepared/hacked turntables and found objects as instruments.
“His reason…is to find out why he’s such a damn fool” – Harry Smith (on himself)
Availabile digitally and on pro-produced CD with 4-panel sleeve housed in PVC sleeve. Limited edition of 100 copies.
Two of Melbourne’s leading sound artists release on Shame File Music for the first time with Sooji Kim and Aviva Endean’s Breath + Voltage.
This is the first of a series of electroacoustic collaborations envisioned by Kim, exploring encounters between analogue synthesisers and traditional and non-traditional acoustic instruments. Kim engages with clarinet wunderkind Endean via a variety of synthesisers from MESS (Melbourne Electronic Sound Studios).
Breath + Voltage is available now to stream and purchase digitally on Bandcamp.
I’ve been invited to create a radio mix of Shame File Music releases, that will go to air on Dublab internet radio at 2am AEST on Tuesday 26 September. An archive of the show is available here for streaming.
Out today (in conjunction with Albert’s Basement) – Ad Hoc’s obscure 1980 live cassette Corpse, recorded live at Clifton Hill Community Music Centre.
A startling sister release to the band’s Distance cassette of the same year, it’s hard to imagine a more different follow up than Corpse. In response to a review of the Corpse live performance in New Music #1, the band wrote:
* Not spotlights: two bare bulbs to see with.
* No accusation.
* No pre-recorded tapes: magnetic tape for delays/loops.
* For the particular end or case at hand without consideration or wider application.
Available now digitally and on a limited edition of 100 cassettes with two-tone risograph covers.
More on Corpse from James Clayden, including the full New Music #1 review.