Description
Shame File Music and Albert’s Basement follow up the critically-acclaimed 2022 reissue of seminal Melbourne band Ad Hoc’s Distance cassette with the band’s obscure barely-released (perhaps six home-dubbed copies) live cassette Corpse – available digitally and on a limited edition of 100 cassettes from September 2023 (pre-order now).
Differing dramatically from Distance, Corpse captures the trio presenting a wall of almost self-playing instruments live to a bemused Clifton Hill Community Music Centre audience in 1980. The sounds were already set up before the audience entered, then the amps were simply turned on. The performers present perhaps as a corpse; unmoving, yet with a dramatic visceral impact.
Limited edition of 100 pro-produced cassettes with risograph cover.
The first piece shimmers in a way that calls to mind Matthew Bower’s Sunroof project, while the latter piece bathes in guitar noise so thick that it may have influenced The Dead C’s “The Operation of the Sonne” EP. Ad Hoc have today’s noisemakers beat: Corpse presents itself with a freshness that belies its 1980 provenance – Dust (vol 9, no 10)
The music of Ad Hoc on ‘Corpse’ is very different than that on ‘Distance’; their first cassette is a delightful excursion into the world of ambient music, with lots of piano sounds…none of which you will find on this cassette. It’s almost as if two totally different groups are by the same name… I like both more because they are so different; the first I enjoyed in musical terms, and the second, as much as I love noise, more because it’s daringly different – Vital Weekly 1407
