Ash Wednesday – AfterMATH
LP / Digital (HEVMAC054)
Australian electronic music pioneer Ash Wednesday presents AfterMATH – a stunning long form composition for the Melbourne Town Hall Grand Organ, Moog and electronics.
Ash Wednesday arose as a central figure in the development of Australian synthpop and minimal music throughout the eighties.
A founder member of seminal Australian groups Models, JAB, The Metronomes, Crashland, Modern Jazz, Ash also collaborated with Karen Marks, Nina Hagen and the legendary Einstürzende Neubauten.
During the past 10 years Ash has been confronted with the onset of a debilitating ailment known as progressive multiple sclerosis (MS).
Despite losing control of the right hand side of his body he has been able to utilise the computerised MIDI control capabilities of the gargantuan Melbourne Town Hall Grand Organ to create a groundbreaking self-generating sound work for the instrument.
After a self-imposed hiatus from creative processes, this composition can be considered as being the AfterMATH.
AfterMATH is available now in digital and deluxe 12″ clear vinyl edition with gatefold sleeve, holographic spot varnish, OBI strip, printed insert and original art by Luke Fraser / AHR+.
Check out the psychedelic video for ‘AfterMATH (excerpt)’ and order the album here.
File under:
grand organ / avant-garde / drone ambient / experimental / minimal
Sow Discord – Scale II
LP / Digital (HEVMAC053)
Scale II is the third long player from Melbourne based industrial electronic artist Sow Discord. The next chapter in his ongoing ambient release series; Scale II explores dissonance, density, and oppressive atmospheres – combining the gargantuan ominous tones of the Melbourne Town Hall Grand Organ with manipulated field recordings, mutilated samples and hallucinatory electronics.
The result is an immersive journey through extremities of dark psychedelia, doom, avant hip hop, and noise. Sow Discord creates a unique apocalyptic vision on this groundbreaking hybrid release.
| David Coen aka Sow Discord is a Melbourne/Naarm-based electronic artist that has been making music and pushing the envelope across an extensive list of projects for two decades. Aside from Sow Discord he is also a part of Doom outfit Whitehorse, handling electronics and percussion. |
Scale II is out now on digital and a limited edition of 300 clear vinyl copies, featuring artwork by Luke Fraser / AHR+ and David R. Coen.
Check out the mind-bending video for Scale II (excerpt) and order the album here.
File under:
doom industrial / experimental electronic / dark ambient
Taipan Tiger Girls – Live At The Melbourne Town Hall
LP / Digital (HEVMAC056)
Heavy Machinery Records and It Records are proud to present Taipan Tiger Girls’ third and final LP – an hypnotic, cosmic freakout that combines analogue electronics, drums, guitar and the mammoth drones of the Melbourne Town Hall Grand Organ.
Recorded live at Melbourne Music Week in 2017 in front of an ecstatic sold out hometown crowd, this record marks the zenith of the short but incendiary career of an extraordinary band.
An instrumental outfit with a relentless drive to experiment, Taipan Tiger Girls are composer, producer and all-round electric statesman Ollie Olsen (WhirlyWirld / Max Q / NO / Third-Eye / Psy-Harmonics), experimental drummer and synth obsessive Mat Watson (Boredoms BoaDrum / E.S.G / ULMD / Other Places), and feedback guitar droner and organist Lisa MacKinney (Mystic Eyes / Hospital Pass / Super-Luminum). Here they are joined by very special guest guitarist Bonnie Mercer (Grey Daturas / Hospital Pass / Breathing Shrine) while MacKinney commands the historic Melbourne Town Hall Grand Organ.
Taipan Tiger Girls previously released two beloved and quickly sold-out albums via Melbourne indie imprint It Records: Taipan Tiger Girls #1 in 2015 and #2 in 2016.
This third and final outing from this remarkable band is a monument to the combined talents of a group of phenomenal musicians whose fusion created a magic elixir made all the more precious by its temporary nature. Live at the Melbourne Town Hall showcases the improvisatory prowess of the band at the peak of their powers and bolts off into the stratosphere in a thrilling surge of psychedelic expansion.
Raising Funds for Ollie
In 2022 Ollie Olsen was diagnosed with Multiple System Atrophy, an aggressive and degenerative condition for which there is currently no cure. All proceeds from the sales of the vinyl and digital versions of this album will go to assisting Ollie Olsen and his ongoing medical care, with love and admiration from Heavy Machinery and It Records and all his fans who appreciate him for the seminal musical force that he is and all the wonderful music he has gifted the world.
Taipan Tiger Girls – Live At The Melbourne Town Hall is out now on digital and as a limited black vinyl edition featuring cover art by cover design by Luke Fraser.
File under: psychedelic / experimental electronic / avant rock
Check out the album HERE.
V – Faithless
2LP / Digital (HEVMAC051)
V is a gender non conforming underground Australian / English singer, bassist, synth player, artist, producer and studio engineer. Their music practice was forged in the hardcore and leftist scene in Berlin and later fine tuned in Naarm (Melbourne). With a background in visual arts, V brings a unique and dynamic perspective to their music and live performances and is noted for their engaging live shows.
V’s music is heavily influenced by the synth explosion in new wave and darkwave music in the 80s, and their music has been described by Rough Trade UK as “constructed out of eroded body parts from the fertile ground of early 80s year zero times” or “Soft Cellian rumbles in the fog”. Mesh Magazine describes V’s music practice as “Sharp and politically engaged, V’s powerful stage presence, industrial beats, dilated physicality and dynamic vocality mesh the right kind of magic…”.
V has performed with artists including Eartheater, Molchat Doma, Viagra Boys, Kontravoid, Tamaryn, Anika, Dispossessed, Alex Cameron, Nun, Divide and Dissolve, I Heart Hiroshima, Spike Fuck, Habits, RVG, June Jones, Buzz Kull, Lucy Cliché, Marcus Whale and Circle Pit.
NERVE – Meridian Blaze
LP / Digital (HEVMAC052)
Melbourne electronic phenomenon NERVE presents his debut long-form release Meridian Blaze – four extreme rhythm workouts exploring notions of drum and bass, noise, electro, dark ambient, and industrial techno.
Meridian Blaze expands upon the brutal hardware electronic sound of NERVE’s previous output to deftly incorporate the spine-tingling melodic sonorities of Melbourne’s extraordinary public sound sculpture: the Federation Bells. The result is an icily meticulous collection of groundbreaking hybrid electroacoustic sound works.
NERVE is Joshua Wells, a Naarm (Melbourne) based musician, engineer and producer. As NERVE, Wells has relentlessly performed, presenting his works of extreme volume rhythm workouts across international and domestic club circuits. For his debut on Heavy Machinery, Wells has utilised the Federation Bells to create four compositions that traverse BPM’s, composition and rhythm that touch on notions of drum and bass, noise, electro, techno and beyond. Wells’ has recorded and performed in many recording projects, known for his energetic live sets and productions which have seen him release recordings on taste-making imprints A Colourful Storm, Downwards, & La Vida Es Un Mus.
Meridian Blaze is out now on digital and as limited vinyl edition featuring cover art by TOOMUCHVOID.
VACUUM – VACUUM
LP / Digital (HEVMAC045)
Heavy Machinery Records and It Records are proud to present the debut LP from cult duo VACUUM.
Andrea Blake (ASPS / Chrome Dome) and Jenny Branagan (NUN) met as labelmates on the cult imprint Nihilistic Orbs and quickly becoming friends and collaborators. Their outfit VACUUM formed in 2013 and has fortified punk shows and techno dance floors alike with a sensory brand of sub-bass, abnormal beats and mechanical scapes – resulting in a disquieting yet danceable outcome.
For all its psychic terror and gut-punch aesthetics, VACUUM’s debut LP is alive with refreshing wit. Its elliptical industrial songs apply a piquant buzz to contemporary experimental electronic music. Listen to the tinny clap of 80s freestyle that augments the blaring, militaristic “Pulse”, or the deadpan voice that asks you, like a spin class instructor from some chromed future hell, “Are you ready to run? Are you ready to fall between?” on “Between”. This record is dead-serious, of course, but like the best creators of dystopian visions, VACUUM know that you need a touch of light to contrast with all that shade.
These songs move in hypnotic circular grooves; complex engines kept in motion by weights and counterweights. Sub-bass shudders through their veins and remixes by Lakker and Sow Discord add high-frequency charges of electricity. Recorded by Josh Wells and mastered by Enyang Urbik, this album is sleekly built but coarse in texture – VACUUM makes hard graft feel like a walk in the park.
VACUUM‘s self titled LP is out now on digital and and as limited red vinyl edition featuring cover art by Ali McCann.
Check out the full album and order your LP now.
Rot TV – Tales Of Torment
LP / Digital (HEVMAC022)
Heavy Machinery Records and Tee Pee Records are very excited to announce Tales Of Torment, the slamming new record from Melbourne horror rock juggernaut Rot TV.
Rot TV are lovers of all things freakish and gritty – be it a demented old Lovecraft tale, or a BÖC tune on full blast. Their debut vinyl release FDA/Transylvanian Nights was a hard n’ heavy double feature of howling, riff-crazy horror rock, and their brand new debut LP Tales of Torment delivers all this and more. Rot TV have described their forthcoming album as a delightful journey to hell and back dedicated to ALL maniacs – and that means YOU.
The record is led by first single ‘Ready To Die’, a relentless, loud n’ proud rock number with “just the right ratio of headbangery to boogie woogie”.
Tales Of Torment is out now on digital and in a limited vinyl LP edition.
Check out the searing lead single Ready to Die alongside its perfectly unhinged video clip and order your LP copy now.
Racerage – Black Medusa
LP / Digital (HEVMAC043)
Heavy Machinery Records proudly presents Black Medusa, the unapologetic debut LP from Melbourne electro hip hop genius Racerage.
Racerage is a queer Black radical rapbrat – spitting bars and shattering white fragility with hard-hitting lyricism, smooth harmonies and wry wit. They collaborate primarily with other First Nations, POC, queer and trans producers, artists and performers, exploring themes of intersectional feminism, decolonisation, class, genocide, and life in the queer bubble.
Racerage infuses dark electronic hip hop with defiant punk energy and a unique colourful DIY aesthetic. Their collaborating producers span a diverse range of genres from trap, to old school hip hop, boom bap, cruisey reggae styles, noise pop and experimental beats. Drawing all these sounds together with their dynamic vocals to create frosty politi-cute protest rap, Racerage takes their audience on a journey across the emotional spectrum, intertwining the personal with the political.
Black Medusa is a record based around the themes of trauma, exploring different paths to healing and finding strength in speaking truth to power.
Racerage conceptualises the mythology of Medusa through the lens of their lived experiences; a Black Medusa, a queer Medusa, a disabled Medusa, whose “monstrosity” in the eyes of oppressors lies in their staunch subversion and defiance.
This Medusa’s gaze is more fire than stone; lasers boring through the falsehoods of capitalism, the criminal injustice system, white beauty standards, white fragility, ableism and coloniser history books.
This record is the soundtrack to a shared decolonised, queer, accessible future; spitting on and rising from the ashes of the systems we burnt down together.
Black Medusa is out now on digitally and in a limited lurid orange vinyl LP edition.
Check out the full album and order your limited edition vinyl copy now.
Dream Fiend – Outland
LP / Digital (HEVMAC032)
Heavy Machinery Records is excited to announce Outland, the excellent new album from Melbourne synthwave genius Dream Fiend.
Created by Jay Babinall in 2012, Dream Fiend composes and remixes music influenced by sun-soaked beach funk, synthwave, nu-disco and chillwave to inspire and uplift all dreamers tuning in. Dream Fiend offers a glimpse into a multidimensional world we can live in through music inspired by nostalgic melodies, funky bass riffs, classic video games, neon landscapes, and a hopeful future.
The face of the project Dream Fiend is a 1980s anime-inspired character that takes the form of a cloud – he’s a young dream navigator here to assist all forms of life in the dream state to ensure that dreams are amazing experiences for all.
Outland is a journey through time and space, and Dream Fiend is your guide. The album also features special guest appearances from Australian synthwave luminaries September 87, Gryff and Killstarr.
Outland is out now on digital and via limited transparent double LP edition.
Check out the full album and order your limited edition 2LP now.
Aarti Jadu – L’ECOLE DE LA CAZ
LP / Digital (HEVMAC044)
Heavy Machinery Records is honoured to present L’ECOLE DE LA CAZ, the truly mesmerising new album from Melbourne sound artist Aarti Jadu.
Described as “an alien folk album”, L’ECOLE DE LA CAZ explores displacement, belonging and isolation with stories that negotiate the material and the ethereal. A time capsule of a home lost; as one moves in multiple directions of change, travelling across, ascending, and transcending.
The first taste of the record is opening track IT / THAT – a poem acknowledging the interchangeability between that which is classified object and human. Spelling out a list of earthly qualities, the chant presents flaws that are associated with living, affirming self-acceptance and the reality of being. It is a multilingual song of earth language and alien, delivered through electronic manipulation as these characters communicate this celebration of self from afar. A symphony of heavenly strings throws the voices into the vastness spiralling away in zero gravity.
The 7 track LP begins in a setting of another world. A select group of basic schoolfemmes are summoned by authorities to test uncharted territory without prior warning. Through the course of the album, they sing their experience of being uprooted and flying, of time in strength and connectivity, of pensive moments and the inevitable growth in journey. In contrast, shadowing their path is an entity, branded and lone. This being symbolises ‘other’ that quietly lurks, reminding the subjects of what they have together; company, identity, conversation, memories, a sense of home and belonging.
L’ECOLE DE LA CAZ is out now on digital and in a limited clear vinyl edition.
Check out the full album ‘IT / THAT’ and order your copy LP now.
Diimpa – Bunya
EP / Digital (HEVMAC047)
Heavy Machinery Records is proud to present Bunya, the mystifying new EP from Naarm based sonic wizard and avant composer Diimpa.
Diimpa is solo artist William Cooper whose compositions are organic soundscapes that grow upon themselves in mischievous ways. Playing a mix of analogue synths and acoustic instruments, Diimpa draws inspiration from fast paced minimalism to healing ambient music, all from a queer autistic Murri perspective.
Eclectic and esoteric, Diimpa is an avant-garde composer, soundscape-weaver and sonic wizard, whose music takes inspiration from his experiences as a proud autistic, Gubbi Gubbi queer man. Diimpa works with keyboard instruments such as analogue synths, music box, glockenspiel and accordion to create worlds of effortless magic and sound. Filled with electric pulses and ambient textures, Diimpa’s music is, at its heart, transcendent.
A keen interest in durational pieces has seen Diimpa play eight-hour improvisations as a part of Yirramboi Festival, Blakheart Festival, and Sustenance at Arts Centre Melbourne for Fringe Festival 2016. Diimpa has also performed at Meredith Music Festival and the Melbourne International Arts Festival, and was nominated as ‘Best Experimental/Avant-garde Act’ for Music Victoria 2019.
Bunya, his second release as Diimpa, explores a healing, softer world that still teems with life. In the four track EP, Bunya inhabits sounds of elated textures, boggy messes, and surreal bliss.
Opening with intimate music box track Bergamot, the record’s title track is then blown wide open with twinkly synths in an ecstatic ode to trees and cicadas. After the rise comes Lichen, which plunges the EP into worlds of dreaming; of huge cliffs crashing in slow motion. Creeping in last comes Moss with haunting bass clarinet loops, ending the record in an uncertain sputter.
Bunya is out now on digital and as a limited green vinyl EP edition.
Check out this beautiful record in full and order your vinyl copy now.
Corin – Araw
LP / Digital (HEVMAC040)
Heavy Machinery Records is very proud to present Araw, the enchanting new EP from Filipina-Australian electronic producer, composer and performer Corin.
Corin Ileto works across the fields of performance art, sound design, theatre and club spaces. Her compositions merge traditional forms with hyper-digital sounds to create new imaginary realms. Drawing from a background in classical piano, her live performances encompass technical configurations executed with equal parts emotion and cold precision. CORIN is also a regular monthly host on NTS Radio.
Her latest release ‘Araw’, or ‘sun’ in Tagalog, is a set of five extended compositions that experiment with notions of textural ambience. Following Corin’s more rhythmically pronounced effort ‘Enantiodromia’ on Lee Gamble’s UIQ label. What differs ‘Araw’ from Corin’s recent work is the noticeable paring back of those rhythmic pronouncements. Though the sonic intensity has lessened in one sense, the textural detail that remains is just as striking as before.
These impeccable constructions reveal a side of Corin’s composition and production abilities often hinted at in her prior work, though less often deployed. These are elegiac pieces – truly, titled as ’Elegy’, ‘Ghost Dance’, ‘Nadir’ – but they are vital and dynamic with an animated energy that is hard to come by in works of ambience trading in this kind of palette.
A spectral, haunted feeling hangs in the ‘air’ of this music, but there is a considered, tonal richness, too. Time and space seem to be collapsing into a something not fully apparent, a sentiment likely pertinent to many, now more than ever. ‘Araw’, perhaps, hints at another way of seeing and hearing this slow-motion flux.
credits
Araw is out now on digital and as a limited transparent green vinyl edition featuring cover art by Wei Huang .
Check out the record in full and order your LP now.
Grace Cummings – Heaven / Storm Queen
Ltd. ed. 12″ single / Digital (HEVMAC046)
Heavy Machinery Records is excited to share the Heaven/Storm Queen 12″ from powerhouse Melbourne singer/songwriter Grace Cummings. The 12″ is a super limited edition on transparent mint green vinyl.
Grace Cummings is a folk/rock musician whose songwriting is intensely personal and reflects a strong connection to the Australian landscape. Her music is influenced by 20th century poets and luminaries – from Joni Mitchell and Bob Dylan to Brett Whiteley and Van Gogh. In her short career, Cummings has been invited to support Weyes Blood, Evan Dando, J Mascis and the Allah-Lahs in Melbourne. Her debut album, Refuge Cove, was released through Flightless Records, earning critical acclaim from Pitchfork and AllMusic, among others. In 2020, Cummings released the track Sweet Matilda as part of the Looking Glass single series released by venerated indie label Mexican Summer. Cummings recently landed a worldwide deal with US indie label ATO Records.
In the making of the record, Cummings reinforced the self-possessed naturalism at the heart of her artistry, ultimately distilling her vision down to its most elemental essence. “In the past there were times when I’ve let other people’s opinions affect me too much,” she says. “But with this record I learned that I’m allowed to influence myself instead of taking in anyone else’s ideas. I learned to completely trust what I see and hear in my head, and I stuck with that and just focused on creating what I love the most: something real and raw and ugly and beautiful.” Cummings approaches each track with both exquisite control and unfettered abandon.
Heaven / Storm Queen 12″ is out now on and as limited edition transparent mint green vinyl edition.
Check out both singles and order your limited edition vinyl copy now.
Kalaji – Kalaji
LP / Digital (HEVMAC049)
Heavy Machinery Records is proud to present the beautiful debut self-titled album from Melbourne electronic composer and producer Kalaji.
Kalaji is the self-titled debut album by Nyikina sound artist and electronic musician Mark Coles Smith. Produced on Country in the North of Western Australia, the work is an astonishing combination of remote field recordings, multi-instrumentation and cutting-edge sound design, all brought together into a sonic exploration of country, culture and consciousness in the age of technology. The resulting soundtrack is one of meticulous detail and depth, with all of its focus on delivering the listener across a sonic dreamscape that is as hypnotic as it is haunting.
The artist writes: “The themes that circle and inspire the work are deeply personal, but don’t belong to me. Reflections on heritage and culture, and the intersecting relationships of technology with the natural world. There is this amalgam of influences that make me who I am, and shape what I’m interested in, both musically and culturally, there is so much about the modern world that I am in awe of and inspired by, but there are also aspects of my Nyikina heritage that extend beyond words for me. In the end, I wanted to create something fragile, and beautiful and strange, as a part of the conversation I was having with country itself.”
Kalaji is the electronic musical alias of actor and artist Mark Coles Smith, a Nyikina man from the Martuwarra (Fitzroy River) in North Western Australia. The project has been a long running personal exploration of Nyikina country, lore and spiritual imagery translated through his passion for sound design, audio art and field recording.
Inspired by the Nyikina word for whirlwind, ‘Kalaji’ is a dreamlike arrangement of wandering analogue synthesis and delicate acoustic sampling. Much of the lyrical material divulges partial sections of a long form mythological narrative set across multiple generations on country. Constructed through a mixture of natural and technological sound sources, the resulting composition blends a range of musical inspirations – from ambient and downtempo, through to archival audio and modern dance music.
Kalaji is out now on digital and as a limited red vinyl edition.
Check out the full album and order your LP now.
MY DISCO – Alter Schwede
LP / Digital (HEVMAC021)
Heavy Machinery Records is proud to present Alter Schwede, the stunning new album from Melbourne experimental legends MY DISCO.
MY DISCO formed between long-term collaborators Rohan Rebeiro, Benjamin Andrews and Liam Andrews in 2003. Renowned for their experimentation and refined minimalist approach to dark and heavy instrumentation, MY DISCO have built a reputation on their arduous tour ethic, having reached remote areas of Australia, Southeast Asia, Mexico and Russia, as well as a headlining and supporting on multiple tours across Europe, UK, US, and Asia Pacific.
MY DISCO have released many acclaimed singles, 12” limited editions, and five studio albums including: Cancer (2006), Paradise (2007), Little Joy (2010), Severe (2015), and Environment (2019).
Compiled remotely by the band and mix engineer Boris Wilsdorf at his AndereBaustelle studio in Berlin, Alter Schwede continues the band’s recent trajectory of ambient experimentation, utilising elements and sounds from their last album, Environment, as well as continuing their interest in unique percussion, dark FM synthesis and industrial noise.
Alter Schwedeis out now digital and a limited black 12” vinyl LP edition featuring cover art by Liam Andrews.
Check out the full album order your LP copy now.
Bitumen – Cleareye Shining
LP / Digital (HEVMAC035)
Heavy Machinery Records is delighted to present Cleareye Shining, the savage sophomore LP from Melbourne post-punk outfit Bitumen.
The driving, metallic barrage of Bitumen’s signature sound is present within this track, aggrandized by dramatic synths, acoustic guitar and layered vocals. Out Of Athens is a song about “the indignity of unreciprocated love, being on holiday, and the comedy inherent in experiencing a personal romantic tragedy against a backdrop of sweetness, light and maybe even disco”.
Most of the songs on Cleareye Shining were in the embryonic stages when the pandemic hit, forcing the band to move away from attempting to capture a live sound and lean into making a cleaner studio album. Crafting nine individual songs each with its own character and internal logic, Bitumen took a precise and restrained approach, allowing the album room to explore breakbeats, piano, acoustic guitars and more intimate vocal work. Lyrically, Cleareye Shining sees shadowy figures in the throes of loving, lusting, plotting and fantasising. The result is 80s maximalism meets 90s industrial-electro. Robocop meets Basic Instinct. Always intense, always dramatic, and always demanding of your attention.
Cleareye Shining is out now on digital and in a limited bitumen-black vinyl edition.
Check out the full album and order your LP now.
null hypothesis – Party Music For Popular People
LP / Digital (HEVMAC015)
Heavy Machinery Records is thrilled to present Party Music For Popular People the mind-bending new album from Melbourne electronic genius null hypothesis.
Are you a person? Are you popular? Do you like parties? Well, this album is made with you in mind. null hypothesis unceremoniously thrusts this screeching, mewling gift into your arms like an unwanted baby in a supermarket parking lot, confusingly accompanied by an ugly handmade card. Go on, take it. Have a nice life.
Party Music For Popular People is a multifaceted journey, exploring the chasms and peaks between relentlessly danceable noise cutups and gently nuanced ambience. Drawing inspiration from genres such as breakcore, neoclassical, death metal, donk, hip hop and chiptunes, the album somehow manages not to sound like any of them. Rather, if those genres had factories, PMFPP would be the dumping ground for their industrial waste.
On a technical and creative level, PMFPP is the product of challenge, an enforced expansion of skills. It captures the introspective vacuity that accompanies a lockdown-fuelled obsession with broadening musical horizons and learning new production techniques…all the while dancing around the bedroom to endless livestreams. The only wafts of meaning take the form of facetious self-effacement and nods to daft tropes. It’s dark, it’s brutal, it’s wry, it’s fun, it’s stupid. It may not articulate anything important, but it’s a love-letter to all the things that keep us us, while we can’t do any of the things that make us, us.
Party Music For Popular People is out now on digital and in a limited green 12” vinyl LP edition featuring cover art by Larissa MacFarlane and null hypothesis.
Check out the full album order your LP copy now.
Dianas – Little Glimmer
LP / Digital (HEVMAC031)
Heavy Machinery Records and Blossom Rot Records are proud to present Little Glimmer the excellent new album from Melbourne dream pop luminaries Dianas.
Born in a dingy share house in Perth, from a heady combination of stolen gear, cheap red wine, heartbreak and small-town malaise, Dianas is a drunken conversation between friends that never ended.
Nearly a decade on, Dianas are finishing each other’s melodies like an old married throuple and grappling with the fact that although they may be older and drinking more expensive wine, their hearts are still breaking and their amps are still stolen. Now based in Naarm / Melbourne, the trio’s friendship and musical connection has grown and matured, and they have settled into a sound that is both intricate and naive, rendered through crashing drums, dreamy harmonies, and tones that crunch and sparkle.
Dianas’ third full length release Little Glimmer showcases the intelligent songwriting, powerful instrumentalism and intricate arrangements that have gained Dianas the reputation as one of the most talented and original bands in Australia. Written in two halves, beginning separately from their individual houses, sharing ideas over voice memos and garage band; then intensively over a compounded couple of months at the start of the year, at night time over glasses of wine like the old days.
Working with an outsider influence for the first time in years, they recorded and mixed with James Cecil (Totally Mild, The Goon Sax) at Supermelody World amongst the trees of regional Victoria on Dja Dja Wurrung country, creating a glittering collection of songs that exemplifies the quintessential Dianas sound.
Little Glimmer is out now on digital and in a limited pink 12” vinyl LP edition featuring cover art by Caitlin Moloney.
Check out the full album and order your LP copy now.
Lady Lash – Spiritual Misfit
LP / Digital (HEVMAC013)
Heavy Machinery Records is proud to present Spiritual Misfit – the breathtaking new album from Melbourne musical firebrand Lady Lash.
The inner fires burn strong with Lady Lash. Her musical presence can be felt deeply, moving audiences with the power of the feminine divine. Her music is an experience steeped in sultry vocals, rhymes, and her haunting sonic sequences that build an intoxicating ambience.
With much acclaim, Lady Lash has brought her magic to stages including the Sydney Opera House, prime rooftop bars, grass roots festivals and arts venues across the country. As a family woman searching for deeper meaning through sound and voice, Lash’s is a musical vision of eclectic rarities that is embodied by culture and experience.
Spiritual Misfit is a psychological journey through dark and light worlds, exploring the path of a creative who refuses to sit in society’s boxes. Branching out beyond the genre boundaries of her previous hip hop and jazz inspired work, Spiritual Misfit sees Lash exploring newfound musical freedom in the sparkling new cosmic realms of synth pop, witch house and experimental electronics.
An emotional journey through rebirth, death, love and hate is paramount to the innovation that Lady Lash brings on this album. Incorporating banging beats and avant sonics alongside the commanding presence of her spine-tingling vocal performance, Lash leads the listener on a heartfelt psychological journey – balancing the pendulum of truth and the psychosis of losing one’s self, love and mind to a state of peace and understanding of who we are in this world of madness.
On Spiritual Misfit, Lady Lash strives toward a deeper understanding of life and inspiration. This record is one for the souls who are constantly turning inside out from complex mental and spiritual growth.
Spiritual Misfit is out now on digital and as a limited blue marbled 12” vinyl LP edition featuring cover art by Sofi Farg.
Check out the album in full and order your LP copy now.
Mo’Ju – OK
Mini-LP / Digital (HEVMAC050)
Heavy Machinery Records is very proud to present OK the stunning new mini-album from Australian musical genius Mo’Ju.
One of Australia’s most exciting singer/songwriters, Mo’Ju’s music has amassed critical, commercial and cultural influence. Her third album Native Tongue was one of 2018’s most important and award-winning releases, impacting her life, song-writing and the Australian music landscape. With the album being a career definer for the singer/songwriter, Mojo had documented a deep and intimate exploration of her Wiradjuri and Filipino roots. The album represented a turning point in both Mojo’s career and in the ways in which Australian songwriters are telling their personal stories.
Now in 2021 Mo’Ju comes with brand new offering. O.K. – a ‘mini-album’, sitting somewhere between an E.P. and L.P., produced by long time collaborators and band mates Henry Jenkins (The Cactus Channel, Karate Boogaloo) and Lewis Coleman (The Cactus Channel) . It is a vulnerable and introspective reflection upon mental health and loneliness, however despite the weighty subject matter, the song-writing and production is playful and experimental, leaving audiences feeling as though the music itself is the antidote for sadness.
OK is out now on digital and in a limited black vinyl 12″ mini-LP edition featuring cover design by piewack.
Check out this stunning new album and order your EP now.
Pirritu – Part 1
LP / Digital (HEVMAC041)
Heavy Machinery Records is very proud to present Part 1 the debut full length album from brilliant Melbourne singer/songwriter Pirritu.
Pirritu (Brett Lee) is a proud Wangaaypuwan Mayi of the Ngiyampaa clan, a creative thinker, educator, storyteller and musician. His music is gentle, honest and melodic, enticing listeners into the depths of his personal journey, singing a story of sadness, love and hope.
Pirritu (meaning ‘Brett’ in Ngiyampaa language) was adopted by a non-Aboriginal couple as a newborn baby and raised to be proud of his Aboriginality, to follow his cultural journey and connect back to family, culture and language — a journey he began when he was 14 years old. Two things drive Pirritu’s continual thirst to connect to his people, country, language and culture: his two-year-old daughter and his passion for music. Pirritu’s debut single was released in 2019.
Pirritu – Part 1 is sun-filled collection of gorgeous and strikingly honest acoustic folk songs, led by Brett Lee’s arrestingly beautiful voice and his extraordinarily tasteful backing band of Douglas MacDowell and Luis Poblete plus some very special guest appearances.
Pirritu – Part 1 is out now on digital and in a limited deluxe vinyl edition featuring cover art by Brett Lee.
Check out the full album and order your LP copy now.
Dixon / Akers – Slime Resolution
LP / Digital (HEVMAC008)
Heavy Machinery Records is very proud to present Slime Resolution, the immaculate new LP from renowned electronic producers Elisabeth Dixon and Alexander Akers (Forces).
Melbourne’s iconic Federation Bells undergo a total techno reimagining as Dixon / Akers collaborate to create a ground-breaking new electroacoustic work. Layering meditative drones beneath dark mechanical rhythms and the unique computer sequencing capacity of the Bells, Dixon and Akers steer this extraordinary public sound sculpture into wild new territory exploring hypnotic, trance-inducing dance floor experience and the aggressive frenzy of industrial techno.
The first taste of the record, A Kiss From Viejo San Juan, is out now and described as “primal techno beats shot through tunnels of pulsating binaural drones, the disorienting death rattle of the bells herald unknowable fears and pleasures”.
ELISABETH DIXON is a producer hailing from Melbourne, Australia. Dixon’s formidable sonic landscapes are informed by an interest in binaural beats, altered states of consciousness and ritual trance. Suffusing hypnotic drones and driving techno beats with powerful binaural frequencies, she incarnates otherworldly atmospheres that are both meditative and eminently danceable. Since releasing her critically praised debut ‘LP1’in 2016 via Instruments of Discipline (DE) and TRAIT Records (AU), Dixon has performed live techno sets at clubs, festivals and warehouses around Australia; recently supporting The Black Queen (US) and DRAB MAJESTY (US) for their sold-out Australian tour.
ALEX AKERS is an Australian artist who works in a variety of media including sculpture, synthesis, 3D animation and VR. His work is informed by his early professional experience in interface design, commercial 3D animation and music software development. His work is frequently concerned with liminality, community, the occult, nature and worship. Alex came to prominence for his visceral and hypnotic production and performance with industrial, electro outfit Forces as well as his work as a collaborator for like minded artists including Brixx, Zanias, Sally Dige and AD Mana.
Slime Resolution is out now on digital and as a limited gold vinyl edition in a deluxe gatefold sleeve featuring generative cover art by Alex Akers.
Check out this groundbreaking album in full and order your LP copy now.
Nina Buchanan – Restless Abandon
LP / Digital (HEVMAC036)
Heavy Machinery Records is proud to present Restless Abandon the brilliant new album from Melbourne electronic producer Nina Buchanan.
Restless Abandon is the result of a dissolution of boundaries – between rhythm and melody, between classifications of genre, between an immediate tumult of feelings and a yearning for something better. Spread across nine compositions, the album maps out a broad palette of moods and contexts. Throughout the release, Nina continues to contort her signature bright, kaleidoscopic synthwork into new forms. The productions bubble with broken drums, blazing fast rhythms, and constantly shifting tones. Each individual track mirrors the construction of the album, unfurling in progressions that feel spontaneous and at times unpredictable. Pensive ambient interludes slot among ecstatic, driving tracks, with the record evoking genre affiliations as broad as 90s electronica, IDM, generative synthesiser music, and minimalism.
Nina Buchanan channels the intensity and euphoria of dance music while shedding its usual linearity, a reflection of her own particular methodology of constructing sounds and arrangements. She works in collaboration with her machines through colliding tones and drum patterns; finding ideas in the spaces between, from the emergent rhythms, dissonances, and harmonics. Throughout the album, she muses on the transformative potential of technology and how that interacts with core parts of the human condition.
Nina provokes questions in listeners – how do we balance helplessness and hope, desire and exhaustion, compassion and rage? Restless Abandon provides no easy resolutions, instead creating a space for listeners to hold conflicting things in balance, even if just for a moment.
Producer and composer Nina Buchanan has carved out a singular space in the local electronic landscape, working at the intersection of club music, exploratory synthesis, and composition to build immersive soundscapes.
Buchanan’s kaleidoscopic take on dance music sits adjacent to hardware-based techno while carrying its own unique spirit and imagination. Her club-ready tracks centre expression, articulated through layered lines of glimmering texture and driving percussion. Bright, shimmering synth lines are looped while they undulate over and over, gradually forming a space for audiences to connect with their own feelings and intuitive perception of her sounds.
Restless Abandon is out now on digital and in limited yellow vinyl edition featuring cover art by Nina Buchanan.
Check out the whole album and order your LP now.
Nate Lust – Club Medic
LP / Digital (HEVMAC028)
Heavy Machinery Records is proud to present Club Medic the ground-breaking debut album from Melbourne experimental hip hop provocateur Nate Lust.
A self-described ‘hot boi alien,’ Nate Lust is a performance artist, vocalist and former club entity for Melbourne audio/visual outfit friendships and experimental rap group RaRa. Lust has toured the US, supporting A Tribe Called Quest among others, and played festivals around Australia, including Golden Plains, Soft Centre, NYE on the Hill and Pitch Festival.
His solo album debut, Club Medic, is a culmination of club hierarchy, politics and a sense of placement/belonging. Lust playfully observes the club as a haven for social hedonism-turned self loathing, doubt and depreciation – the dichotomy of comedic euphoria and guerning, gnashing with the crashing anxiety of the real world looming.
On Club Medic, Lust meticulously grinds through disjointed and deconstructed hip hop, shearing synthesis and dance intelligence wrapped in the framework of ‘70s psychedelia to produce a wonderfully warped and staggeringly original long-form debut.
Club Medic is out now on digital and a limited clear 12” vinyl LP edition featuring cover photography by Ami Taib.
Check out the full album and order your LP now.
RINUWAT – Dua Naga
LP / Digital (HEVMAC037)
Heavy Machinery Records is proud to present Dua Naga, the powerful debut album by Melbourne post metal supergroup RINUWAT.
RINUWAT is a substantive conceptual project for collaborators Karina Utomo, Rama Parwata and Mike Deslandes. Firmly steeped in Southeast Asian traditional instrumentation and notation, the trio’s ancient Javanese name translates as “to liberate oneself from a curse”. Given the depth and intensity of their compositions, that malediction does indeed demand to be extricated.
The group’s debut album, ‘Dua Naga’, carries a weight of musical intellect and amalgamated calibration that is rarely heard in contemporary outfits, let alone in the extreme metal genres that would be a graceless definition of their sound. Each member peers at a set of graduations on their instruments – Utomo’s voice is as piercingly frightening as it is poetic and mantra-like in her delivery. Parwata’s exploratory percussion that seamlessly blends Gamelan notation with bold rhythms on the drum kit and Deslandes creating sonic templates that shift between eloquent guitar narration to walls of noise and droning assaults.
RINUWAT is an abstract term, a word rarely used in day to day Javanese living. A concept of self definition, of freeing one’s being from the imprecations that harbour our freedoms, in essence, to liberate. The group has made a deliberate effort to cross forms, to eradicate genres and to elude definition within their music and their name acts as a pre-cursor to the vibrancy and intelligence of the work within.
Utomo’s voice holds an avoirdupois from the mantra-like poems she delivers. Her vocal range sits outside the comfort zone of even the most avid extreme music listener, “My voice, a thousand times dark” a phrase among many that acts as a cleansing variant for the audience to indulge in.
Parwata brings not only the contemporary styles of an extreme drummer but also shows his vast palette of traditional gamelan instrumentation and techniques. The interlocking rhythms featured in Balinese Gong Kebyar and Baleganjur ensembles are metamorphosed into a contemporaneously abstract setting, masked by industrial overtones and intense noise production.
Multi instrumentalist and engineer Mike Deslandes takes on the roles of producer and guitarist. Contemporary instruments are given new voices and sounds without names complete the framework. Working with gamelan instruments and some purposeful techniques, ‘Dua Naga’ is a true merging of worlds ranging from the ancient to the contemporary extreme.
Dua Naga is out now on digital and in limited gold vinyl edition featuring cover art by Gian Manik .
Check out this brutal album in full and order your LP copy now.
Jaala – Gap Tooth
LP / Digital (HEVMAC027)
Heavy Machinery Records is proud to present Gap Tooth the sensational new album from Melbourne art prog innovators Jaala.
Known for their off-kilter art rock, Melbourne three-piece Jaala is fronted by the enigmatic Cosima Jaala, who delivers bold and plaintive vocals with jaggedly syncopated guitar lines, alongside textural and elastic rhythms prodigiously executed by drummer Maria Moles and otherworldly synth palettes generated by electronic artist Fia Fiell.
Gap Tooth, the band’s first album in its current three-piece formation, is a departure from their previous output, trading the raw urgency of the earlier records for a melting and celestial surreality.
Gap Tooth is Jaala in slow-motion, from the tender assurances of opener All Here into the sweet dysphoric disdain of Fuck To The Radio – syrup-haze guitar and synth coil into the songs like uncanny ivy. Beating-heart, warm low-end waves of Workhorse mushroom into cloudy, soft-focus lulls and playfully misanthropic sun-flares as the album wades toward the soulful swagger of Which Way. Gap Tooth pulses and flashes languorously before resolving into the giant, blooming crescendo of I Love You (DJ Set) and its delicate, fugue-clarity afterglow, Catterpil.
This incredible achievement flows with unpredictable dream-logic, never settling on discernible pop hooks or traditional verse/chorus song structures. Merging experimental folk, dream pop, a disposition for the baroque, and self-professed ‘slag-country’, the album finds humour and hope in the disorientation of time passing and leaving youth behind.
Gap Tooth is out now on digital and a limited black 12” vinyl LP edition featuring cover art by Cosima Jaala.
Check out the full album and order your LP copy now.
Curse Ov Dialect – Dark Days Bright Nights
2LP / Digital (HEVMAC026)
Heavy Machinery Records is very excited to present Dark Days Bright Nights the brilliant new album from Australian experimental hip hop legends Curse Ov Dialect.
Curse ov Dialect have revolutionised the language of hip hop throughout decades of music making. Across eight album releases and 25 years of performances, they have defined and pioneered a new golden age of rap — playful, poetic, enlightened and essential.
The group began in 1994 with three friends from Melbourne’s multiculturally rich outer suburbs. The group has mutated and evolved into its current form of Atarangi, The Maltese Well Monster (formerly known as Raysless), Volk Makedonski and Paso Bionic.
Curse Ov Dialect are internationally renowned for their intense live performances involving elaborate symbolic costumes, audience participation, and Dadaist stage theatrics. Cultures are bridged, traditions are taught, stereotypes and rules are broken. The heaviest beats are matched with unexpected samples from every era of music and every corner of the globe. Each MC brings a powerful voice against ignorance.
‘Dark Days Bright Nights’ is their stunning new album. Bursting with revolutionary energy, sociopolitical fervour and a laser focus on the hypocrisies of Australian culture, this watershed double album powers past the medio-core masses to enshrine Curse Ov Dialect at the forefront of intelligent, original, musically astute hip hop worldwide.
Dark Days Bright Nights is out now on digital and a limited double vinyl LP edition featuring cover photography by Paso Bionic.
Check out the full album and order your double vinyl now.
Big Yawn – Pressure Acts
LP / Digital (HEVMAC030)
Heavy Machinery Records and Research Records are proud to present Pressure Acts the spectacular new EP from Melbourne electronic quartet Big Yawn.
Big Yawn make experimental electronic music by fusing a wash of sweeping synthesizers, heavily refracted vocal sampling, motorik style percussion and disorientating dub FX.
Their latest studio release ‘Pressure Acts’ creates a space where breaks compete with live drums compete and drones. Relentless pummelling bass lines and kinetic dub fx come standard.
Big Yawn’s energetic and unrelenting live performances create a definitive impression on this release. The sonic textures in the record are lush, stoned, frenetic and fun. The music is sinister yet also tongue-in-cheek — Phil Collins and Slipknot may have even been sampled.
The first single ‘Ragazzo’ is ideal for joy rides in HSVs and/or flaunting at the local disco parlor – a tongue in cheek, dank blend of YMO style pop hooks, driving bass, delicate synths, and a motorik pulse.
Pressure Acts by Big Yawn is a joint release brought to you by Heavy Machinery Records and Research Records.
Pressure Acts is out now on digital and in a limited edition of 300 heavyweight 12” black vinyl EP featuring original cover art by Gab Cole.
Check out the full album and order your EP now.
POOKIE – FLick
LP / Digital (HEVMAC046)
Heavy Machinery Records is honoured to present FLick, the debut album from rapper, songwriter, composer and producer POOKIE, set for release on October 25.
FLick is an encapsulation of POOKIE’s musical journey over the last 4 years. With its roots still deep in hip-hop, FLick explores jazz, rock and r&b (in true POOKIE fashion, a little bit of this and a little bit of that). It’s like Sade – if she was South Sudanese and grew up in Perth, Western Australia.
Lead single Halloween is out today following its premiere on 3RRR’s Good Fortune yesterday. Halloween is the POOKIE anthem! On Halloween, the organ stabs, the strings and the hook will have you wanting to jump on the bandwagon (or at least run beside it). In this expeditious number, POOKIE seems to really be introducing herself to audiences, following her EP Dinka Girl – released earlier this year.
Aćol Agaar Apollo, better known by the stage name POOKIE, is a South Sudanese rapper, songwriter, composer and producer born in Nairobi, Kenya.
POOKIE attributes her love for music to numerous nostalgic childhood anecdotes. Among these tales are flashbacks of her older brother hurling stereo speakers in the middle of the family compound and blasting Chaka Damus and Pliers’ Murder She Wrote all day long.
At age seven, her family migrated to Australia where she was introduced to the works of Missy Elliot and the world of Hip-Hop music at large. Growing up in Perth, POOKIE also discovered a love for other forms of creative expression, ranging from painting, sculpting and sketching. Utilising this creative arsenal, POOKIE’s art has become a dynamic display of her South Sudanese roots, with many of her pieces celebrating her Dinka culture and heritage.
POOKIE relocated to Melbourne in 2014, and found a scene of African creatives boldly celebrating their narratives. These creatives were unapologetically committed to redefining the art scene by taking up their own space. Finding comfort among like-minded creatives, POOKIE began exhibiting her art, as well as organising and curating events for empowering Black femme creatives. Around this time, POOKIE also took to the stage with her spoken word poetry. Through experimenting with elements of her poetry, POOKIE discovered the world of production and in 2018 she began studying production and music business. In 2019, she formed a five-piece band. With a wave of authentic Afro-Jazz and Hip-Hop melodies, they quickly made an artistic impact in Melbourne’s music scene, while elevating their name with performances across Australia.
POOKIE not only employs her art as a means of self-expression, but uses it as a medium to bridge the gap between her experiences as a Black African woman growing up in Australia as she navigates the relentless challenges of this society. With effortless eloquence and grace, POOKIE authentically represents life as it would have been in Paan Jieng, while being dispossessed and subjugated as a part of the South Sudanese Australian diaspora.
Flick is out now on digital and in a limited edition gold vinyl edition featuring cover art by Pookie .
Check out the whole album and order your LP now.
Papaphilia – Remembrance of Things To Come
LP / Digital (HEVMAC038)
We’re very proud to present Remembrance of Things To Come the brilliant new release from Melbourne experimental dance icon Papaphilia.
Papaphilia is the experimental electronic project of queer sound and visual artist Fjorn Bastos.
Descended from South Asian and British heritages, Bastos works as a researcher and community organiser, interrogating the aesthetics of political representation and cultural supremacy in the content of the colony. Performing as Papaphilia, she continually draws the listener’s attention back to intangible experiences that guide embodied and ancestral forms and knowledges – rhythm, voice and emotion – transmitting the incredulity felt by those resisting oppressive power structures.
Papaphilia’s new release Remembrance of Things to Come is a series of meditations on the cyclical character of time, and grieving the violence of life within the decaying colonial politics of so-called Australia. In collaboration with producers Kuya Neil and Various Asses, Papaphilia transformed her initial improvisations into a concise collection of high-intensity tracks.
‘Remembrance’ operates at the intersection of several dance idioms, intertwining hard kicks, industrial beats and acid oscillations with mutated vocals.
Remembrance of Things To Come is out now on digital and a limited black 12” vinyl LP edition featuring cover art by Mohini Sharma and Alexandre Dubois.
Check out the full album and order your LP copy now.
screensaver – Expressions of Interest
LP / Digital (HEVMAC025)
Heavy Machinery Records is proud to present Expressions of Interest the brilliant debut album from Melbourne post-punk specialists screensaver.
screensaver balance frenetic energy with unsettling tonalities to create rhythmic gloom that rides the new wave to the synth-punk. Spending three years in an incubatory state, the band began as a trans-Pacific collaboration between Christopher Stephenson (Spray Paint / Exek) and Krystal Maynard (Bad Vision / Polo) in 2016. By 2019 the pair had recruited Giles Fielke (Low Tide) and James Beck (Personal Touch / Rat Columns) on bass and drums respectively to form the band as it exists now.
‘Expressions of Interest’ is their debut album, released on Heavy Machinery (AU) and Upset the Rhythm (UK).
Sonically, the 10-track album is rich and detailed, and pays homage to its era of inspiration: late 70s-mid 80s post-punk and new wave.
From electronic-driven krautrock, to post-punk full of tribal toms and dirge-y synths, to death-disco with touches of EDM, ‘Expressions of Interest’ is an album that is both fierce in attack and destined for the dance floor.
Maynard’s vocal style is equal parts haunted and commanding, her lyrics exploring themes of social degradation, frustration and repetition, whilst exposing the fragility of our bodies/minds on the whole.
Expressions of Interest is out now on digital and a limited edition heavyweight 12” transparent green vinyl LP featuring cover art by MERDA.
Check out the full album and order your LP copy now.
The Dacios – To The End
LP / Digital (HEVMAC034)
Heavy Machinery Records is proud to present To The End the stunning new album from Melbourne punk supergroup The Dacios.
The Dacios first erupted on local stages in 2005. Featuring members of legendary Melbourne acts Little Ugly Girls, Magic Dirt, Useless Children and Grey Daturas, the band is known for their entertainingly energetic and hypnotic performances.
The new album ‘To The End’ is a vividly cathartic ride into the poetics of joy, loss, pain and simmering rage. From the opening whipcrack wipeout beat of ‘Dark Dark Light’, guitars are deployed like flame throwers and air raid sirens. Always there is heartbeat repetition, the quickened pulse of the elliptical bass lines, the drive to oblivion, the escape from memory. Focussed stabs of noise and lyricism. Intensely alive, no one is backing down here. No surrender. The urge to move ahead. Lose oneself in speed, propulsion and rant.
Ardently articulate punk poet Linda J surgically dissects shattered dreams of domesticity, prompted by the dissolution of a marriage. There is no room for trite clichés. Every word is a precisely aimed uppercut, every line a bruising blow to the heart.
But ‘To The End’ is so much more. This album makes you fall in love with language, with the clarity of razor-sharp insights. Breathless, you are left gasping for air, because the stream of words keeps coming. The brain keeps humming with poetry, while the music keeps churning, burning, scorching the synapses.
Conceived and executed in the hothouse claustrophobia of Covid lockdown, this is proof that it is necessary to have time on one’s hand to hone articulation, to truly create. There is a bolshy attitude to Linda J’s art. The earned right to take and not just to give. Hers is a world where words matter, as tools for self-construction and deconstruction of illusion. Acting as a mirror and a vehicle for her fury, the instruments unleash a howling vortex of sound that is gloriously impolite. No filters, no apologies.
By the end we have circled to the beginning. Life born out of chaos, but everything willed to be exactly as it is. This is The Dacios’ truth.
To The End is out now on digital and a limited edition of 300 heavyweight 12” clear vinyl LP featuring cover art by L. J. Dacio on October 4.
Check out the full album and order your LP copy now.
Laughing Gear – Freak Lemons
LP / Digital (HEVMAC012)
Laughing Gear is an exercise in catharsis aimed at dissecting the tribulations of gentrification & classist warfare. The band features ex members of Melbourne punk luminaries Chrome Dome, Brando’s Island, Romero and Eyesores.
Formed by vocalist / pattern architect Bryce Sweatman in 2018, Laughing Gear combine modulating analogue synths with Compu-Rhythm drum machine loops, complemented by a howling / delay-induced vocal screech that harks back to an era of synth-punk that was most dominant in the 1980’s underground music. Fergus Sinclair’s incendiary guitar work is drenched in chorus effects that allow these unique synth-punk & anarcho worlds to collide and mutate, culminating in a highly original musical space that is provocative, jarring and exhilarating.
Laughing Gear’s stunning debut album Freak Lemons is a formidable collection of cutting-edge dystopian synth punk and incisive socio-political commentary, delivered with an acid tongue and a wry sense of gallows humour. A finely honed 80s pop sensibility is mixed with heavy doses of vintage synth worship and punk rock antagonism, while the history of underground music is slyly referenced.
The result is a defiantly original and unapologetically danceable album brimming with whip-smart lyrics and cunningly crafted songs where hooks and concepts fly thick and fast.
Freak Lemons is out now digital and in a limited vinyl edition of 300 copies.
Check out the blazing single ‘New Estate’ and order your limited edition LP HERE
The Merindas – Complicated
EP / Digital (HEVMAC018)
Heavy Machinery Records is thrilled to present Complicated the new EP from Melbourne electro-pop icons The Merindas.
The Merindas are the collective force of Ballardong Whadjuk and Nyoongar woman Kristel Kickett (from Tammin, WA) and Candice Lorrae of Jawoyn and Thursday Island heritage (born in Darwin, NT). Now based in Melbourne, these soul sisters are set to trail-blaze their innovative style of Indigenous music. They describe their unique sound as “electronic pop with a dance-hall feel, alongside hip hop and R&B influences.”
The Merindas formed in 2012, singing Motown hits for the premiere of The Sapphires movie. What was supposed to be a one-off show became a full-time career, having performed more than 400 shows in the last eight years. Garnering rave reviews on the live circuit, playing festivals and major corporate events across Australia, The Merindas present a world-class, fresh and energetic show. During their performance, audiences can expect choreographed dance moves, soaring vocals, and visual projections that weave into the fabric of their music and stories.
On the back of their debut LP release ‘We Sing Until Sunrise’ in June 2020, The Merindas return with their incredible follow up EP ‘Complicated’. Delving into a more Disco/Pop feel, The Merindas are showing their true essence with this EP as they continue to find their unique voices and individuality through the lyrics and production of the new tracks.
The songs on ‘Complicated’ delve into themes of relationships, falling in and out of love, while also expressing happiness, uplifting feelings and more matured outlooks on life. Co-Produced by The Merindas and Simon Moro at Ninety Nine 100 studios, The Merindas new EP features a fusion of electronic and live instruments.
Complicated is out now on digital and in a limited edition of 300 heavyweight 12” clear vinyl EP.
Stream the full EP and order your EP copy now.
Mindy Meng Wang – Phoenix Rising
LP / Digital (HEVMAC033)
Heavy Machinery Records and Music In Exile are proud to present Phoenix Rising the breathtaking new album from internationally renknowned Guzheng artist and master collaborator Mindy Meng Wang.
Mindy Meng Wang is a versatile Chinese/Australian composer and world-class modern Guzheng player. She was born and trained in China, and studied western musicology in the UK before emigrating to Australia.
A contemporary pioneer of the Guzheng, she introduces the ancient Chinese horizontal harp into many western genres including experimental, jazz, western classical, electronic and improvisation.
Her work is an important part of a significant movement of Chinese musicians redefining and reinvigorating their musical tradition on the global stage. Her long-term vision is to create a strong voice for young female composers and artists of Chinese heritage, and to create a deeper and reciprocal musical connection between Australia and China.
‘Phoenix Rising’ is her breathtaking new album which features a range of collaborative pieces with artists from across the musical spectrum including Paul Grabowsky, Brian Ritchie (The Violent Femmes), Fia Fell, Claire Edwardes, Daniel Jenatsch and Ma Haiping.
Phoenix Rising is an extremely deep and emotional record that flows out of my heart. The music takes you onto an intimate journey, it gently awakens profound feelings, resonates and amplifies until you are immersed in the softest part of your heart.
There are many colours mixed into the music: The sparkly dark blue of the ocean in the moonlight, the inky green over the misty mountains, the metallic grey of the mercury river, the translucent pink of the Sakura petals flying in the spring wind and the mat black of a black hole. It’s all there.
Phoenix Rising is a very important record for me, it sets a milestone for modern Guzheng music. The Guzheng had only ever been played traditionally for 2500 years in China. During the last decade, my artistic practice was about finding new techniques, tuning systems and musical potentials to unleash the Guzheng. In this record, I used many innovative ‘first ever’ techniques and reached out to various music styles that had never been touched before by the Guzheng.
This record represents a quantum leap for the Guzheng and should forever be remembered as a new chapter in the instrument’s history!’
– Mindy Meng Wang
Tracklist:
1. Night Storm 雷雨夜眠迟 with Paul Grabowsky
2. Mother River 母亲,河 with Claire Edwardes
3. Frosty Mountain 冷山雾海 with Brian Ritchie
4. Ferrofluid 无穷
5. Undercurrent 暗涌 with Fia Fell
6. Activation 异变 with Ma Haiping
7. Stirring Flower 搅花 with Daniel Jenatsch
Phoenix Rising is out now on digital and in a limited heavyweight 12” gold vinyl edition featuring original cover art by Luke Fraser.
Stream the full album and order your gold vinyl here.
Brixx – Conversion Therapy
EP / Digital (HEVMAC023)
Heavy Machinery is proud to present Conversion Therapy the sophomore release from Melbourne electronic producer Brixx.
Brixx is a producer, composer and DJ influenced by cult cinema, new beat, EBM, post-punk and techno. Her music is underpinned by a darkness that slowly bubbles to the surface, acting as a lens through which to explore the human condition.
True to her creative foundations, Brixx’s latest release CONVERSION THERAPY is music about transformation. Rather than a narrative about repression or a forced change in sexual orientation, this release celebrates queer identity and disassociating from what it means to be heteronormative.
CONVERSION THERAPY is inspired by the gamut of emotions and subsequent journey leading up to and following the coming out process. The EP draws on the artist’s love of David Lynch, cult queer cinema classics and film composers such as Heathers’ David Newman. It’s a mental trip encompassing repressed desire, frivolity, transformation and ultimately acceptance – a late night soundtrack which drops you into a world tinged with darkness that encompasses techno, new beat, EBM and breaks.
For the Flash Forward program, Brixx has been paired with Melbourne visual artist BOOTLEG COMICS. The two artists have collaborated on the EP cover artwork for Conversion Therapy.
Conversion Therapy is out now on digital and in a limited edition of 300 heavyweight 12” black and white marble effect vinyl EP featuring original cover art by BOOTLEG COMICS .
Check out the EP and order your copy now.
HTRK – Rhinestones
LP / Digital (HEVMAC048)
We are very proud to present Rhinestones – the gorgeous new album from iconic slowburn Melbourne duo HTRK.
Rhinestones is an elegant nine song suite of windswept emotion and heartbreak noir, crafted in skeletal arrangements of guitar, voice, metronomes, and FX. Inspired by a recent infatuation with “eerie and gothic country music,” Rhinestones moves from whispered lament to acoustic eulogy to downtempo vignettes, tracing muted embers of loss and lust through haunted city streets. Taking cues from the economy and brevity of western folk but skewed through a narcotic, nocturnal lens, the album maps enigmatic badlands of strung out beauty and lengthening shadows.
Nigel Yang cites friendship as a central muse, “particularly the forging of it, and its potential for new feelings of telepathy and trust.” Jonnine Standish’s wounded, alluring vocals echo similar mysteries of connection and unknown crossroads, poetic but direct, dream diaries faded with age and rain. The rhinestones of the title evoke the glittering plastic of cowboy glamor, yet “made precious somehow;” Standish cites as an example a baby blue star brooch from Texas, gifted to her “from a stoned friend on New Year’s Eve 10 years ago in Brighton – cheap keepsakes can be more valuable than diamonds.”
Even for a group as enduringly versatile as HTRK, Rhinestones is a revelation, condensing their lyrical alchemy to its simmering, magnetic essence. “Sunlight Feels Like Bee Stings,” “Reverse Déjà vu,” and “Gilbert and George” in particular are masterpieces of drama, delivery, and distillation, dried flowers clouded by smoke, the candle’s flame flickering but unforgotten: “Some things are not like the others / Some friends are not like the others / did I ever say / did I ever say / did I ever say thank you?”
Rhinestones is out now on digital and a limited edition heavyweight 12” vinyl LP featuring cover art by Jonnine Standish.
Check out this beautiful album and order your LP copy now.
Emma Donovan & The Putbacks – Under These Streets
LP / Digital (HEVMAC029)
Emma Donovan & The Putbacks return with their new album Under These Streets.
Following on from their success with Crossover (Hopestreet Recordings, 2020) but also on the edge of lockdown, acclaimed Indigenous vocalist Emma Donovan returned to Melbourne with her two daughters to be closer to slick rhythm combo The Putbacks. Into the studio they leapt, recording eight fresh tracks drawn from the mighty music vault of The Putbacks. Out The Door is the first of this selection, with the lyrics born from the band’s desire to create and make music together in the shadow of the global pandemic.
Emma Donovan & The Putbacks first burst on to the Australian scene with Dawn in 2014. In 2020, the release of Crossover highlighted Emma’s bruisingly honest lyrics performed alongside The Putbacks’ fluid, live and raw funk. This new and unexpected release showcases the band’s unity and incredible ability to create as one in the recording studio.
Emma Donovan grew up singing church songs with her grandparents on the north coast of New South Wales, Australia and her first secular gigs were singing in the family band, The Donovans, with her mother and five uncles. Throughout her career, she has toured and recorded with many of the mainstays of Indigenous music from Archie Roach to Dan Sultan and was a member of the Black Arm Band project. It was in this group that Emma met members of The Putbacks and their journey together began.
The Putbacks are stone cold pros, grizzled veterans of all the tours and all the studios. When they come together, they’re one of the tightest, sharpest, slickest, most dynamic musical units ever to exist. Their collaboration with Emma elevates their music and Emma’s songs to another level.
Limited edition heavyweight 12” Vinyl LP featuring cover art by Aretha Brown
Under These Streets is out now on digital and in a limited gatefold edition of 300 vinyl copies.
Check out this stunning album and order your limited edition LP HERE
Whitehorse – Death Weight
2LP / Digital (HEVMAC024)
Heavy Machinery Records and Sweat Lung are very proud present Death Weight – the absolutely gargantuan new double album from internationally revered Melbourne doom legends Whitehorse.
Having burdened the Earth with thunderous, noise-ridden sludge since 2004, the great unholy beast known as Whitehorse has dragged its carcass around the world, spewing audible viscera in its wake — and the band have the scars to prove it. For two decades, Whitehorse has toured extensively through the USA, Europe, Japan, New Zealand and Australia, rattling bars, venues and entire neighbourhoods with their heaviness and shaking the very souls of the punters.
Death Weight is their mind-alteringly heavy new album. Brutal and beautiful, intense and intricate, epic and electrifying – this expansive double LP lifts Whitehorse’s already stellar sonic practice to terrifying new heights. Folding together elements of grind, metal, sludge, industrial noise and general auditory carnage, ‘Death Weight’ is a long-form magnus opus that further cements the bands rightful place at the forefront of the international art-doom movement.
In early 2020 Whitehorse felt they were well on the way to finishing writing their 3rd album, then the world was turned on its ear and Melbourne around them entered into hibernation. Physically separate for months on end, while we all watched the world in throes of chaos, the 6 members of Whitehorse members kept ideas, sounds and discussions flowing.
Come August when Whitehorse were finally able to reconvene in their rehearsal space, they came at the material they had left early that year with altered ears. Writing, refining and adding to the body of work with somewhat of an understanding that the world for now had changed, everything was a little darker.
Whitehorse members have always been drawn from varied and different worlds, coming together to create something heavy. Death Weight is heavy. Themes of death, loss, despair, isolation, darkness and frustration drip through the riffs, swept along by the squalls of the electronics, hanging in the mist haze of the growls, awakened by the beat of the drums.
Whitehorse present Death Weight as the soundtrack to this unprecedented, mid-apocalyptic world we have found ourselves in. Soak in it for a while.
Death Weight is out now on digital and in a limited edition of 300 heavyweight double 12” red and white vinyl album featuring original cover art by Brent Stegeman. Stream the full album and order your 2LP copy now.
Jake Blood – PRIX
LP / Digital (HEVMAC017)
Heavy Machinery Records is proud to present PRIX, the debut LP from Melbourne electronic producer Jake Blood.
Jake Blood began DJing in Melbourne’s seediest night spots in 2006 under various aliases. Refining a record collection as time went on, Blood began sourcing classifieds for second hand drum machines, slowly building a techno rig.
In 2010, he started playing improvised sets at Melbourne’s hottest late night clubs, pushing drum-heavy psychedelic acid techno. In 2014, Blood had a serious bicycle accident, quietly ending his club journey. After playing post-recovery performances for Bunker, and supporting Yamantaka Eye and My Disco in Hobart for Dark Mofo, Blood relocated to the Victorian Alps. Here, he began a love affair with an MPC2000XL and yoga, concentrating on all things health-related and searching for a different groove.
After spending time honing these new skills and playing illegal doofs in various forms, Blood moved back to the big smoke where he was forced into a universal state of isolation. During this isolation, Blood was able to reforge moods from the past with a level of positivity and forward thinking. With a refusal to follow the crowd and a content mindset, Blood crafts rough basslines, heavy kicks and shaky hats washed in alien synths and soaked in reverb to create a truly unique sound world.
PRIX is a highly original atmospheric work of singular artistic vision. Eerily psychedelic and highly evocative, the album conjures a slowly shifting kaleidoscope of feelings and moods. A distant memory of a rave, a disconnection from reality, dissociation from the environment. A vessel of escape, taking the back streets to avoid the crowds, sound design twisted and crushed to its lowest fidelity. Moments sampled and resampled over and over; reliving the experience, losing definition with each replay. Swirling, reverberating solitude. An MPC2000XL crashing constantly, a bass with a broken string, some digital synths, FX, records and a tenor saxophone.
For the Flash Forward program, Jake Blood has been paired with Melbourne visual artist PRIX, who has created the artwork featured on this album’s cover design.
Deluxe limited edition heavyweight green coloured 12” vinyl featuring cover art by PRIX. Limited pressing of 300 copies.
PRIX LP is out now, order your copy now.
The Amplified Elephants – Deep Creatures
LP / Digital (HEVMAC019)
Heavy Machinery Records is proud to present Deep Creatures the beautiful new album from Melbourne sound art group The Amplified Elephants.
The Amplified Elephants is a leading sound art ensemble made up of members Teagan Connor, Jay Euesden, Megan Hunter, Helen Kruljac, Robyn McGrath, Daniel Munnery, Kathryn Sutherland, Esther Tuddenham, Natalie Walters and James Hullick.
Deep Creatures is a blissful deep dive into a sonic world of freely associated imagination, exploring an interplay of electronic ambient sound, cinematic spaces, vocal work and poetry. This deeply evocative album outlines the abstract journey of a young woman called to the seashore. She dives down to a mysterious shipwreck filled with wondrous deep-sea creatures.
Called to the sea by The Following (performed by The Amplified Elephants) – a council of benevolent interdimensional aliens – a young woman is taken to a sunken ship where she unlocks a giant clay urn unleashing the godlike creature from within. She is transformed by this radical experience.
First single ‘Shipwreck’ draws the listener on an immersive waterworld journey. Cinematic sequences highlight some deeper dreamlike narrative at play. This ambient field recording washed track marks The Amplified Elephants ascending to the pinnacle of their arresting sonic abilities. Their expression and creative language made all the more ear catching through their lived experience and perception as artists living with neurological diversity.
The Amplified Elephants dive to great auditory and visual depths linking sonic art; video art; deep ocean creatures and their own take on the infinite brilliance of the creative mind. At times ambient; at times oceanic; at times strident with powerful sonic waves.l depths linking sonic art; video art; deep ocean creatures and their own take on the infinite brilliance of the creative mind. At times ambient; at times oceanic; at times strident with powerful sonic waves.
Deep Creatures is out now on digital and in a limited edition of 300 heavyweight 12” blue vinyl featuring cover art by James Hullick.
Check out the video for the single Shipwreck below and order your LP now.
Female Wizard – TIE-EE-YIE-EE-YIE-EE-YIME
LP / Digital (HEVMAC020)
Heavy Machinery Records is proud to present TIE-EE-YIE-EE-YIE-EE-YIME, the stunning debut full length album from Melbourne electronic producer Female Wizard.
Female Wizard has been a stalwart of the Melbourne dance music scene since taking up DJing in 2014. She initially made her mark by gathering and sharing a vast classic house record collection under the name Brooke Powers, playing feature sets at Golden Plains, Dark Mofo and Red Bull Music Academy’s Transliminal, The Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras, and many more.
In 2019, Female Wizard took on her now trademark experimental and innovative DJ style. Exploring the weirder sides of techno, industrial, IDM and more, this style aims to create collective transcendence through powerful sonic immersion. Female Wizard’s debut at a Boiler Room and Discwoman collaborative event was followed by headlining sets at Hybrid Festival and Soft Centre, as well as mixes for Discwoman, and Boiler Room’s Hard Dance mix series. In 2020, Female Wizard made the shift to music production, releasing her first EP ‘Messy-Podge-Mania’ on local label Anterograde.
Female Wizard’s newest release is TIE-EE-YIE-EE-YIE-EE-YIME – an anxious mix of IDM, slamming techno and mind-altering club energy. The artist describes the record as “an attempt to be blown out of linear time, to travel past and forward at once.”
The first single is the opening track ‘Post-Release’. This track is the first chapter of the release, setting up the sonic motifs that echo throughout the LP, while nodding toward hyper pop and 4 to the floor hard techno.
TIE-EE-YIE-EE-YIE-EE-YIME is out now digitally and in a limited edition of 300 heavyweight 12” pink vinyl featuring cover art by Adam Price.
Check out the mind-bending video below and order your LP now.
Video by Baben Shin
Diploid – I AM YOURS. AND I AM HERE AGAIN
LP / Digital (HEVMAC039)
Heavy Machinery Records is proud to present I AM YOURS. AND I AM HERE AGAIN, the astoundingly heavy new album from Melbourne punk metal legends Diploid.
Since 2010, Diploid have been a primal force searing underneath the pyre of Australian heavy music. Crushing, urgent, depressing and fierce, few can stand toe to toe with the blistering vocals, thematic despair and rapid-fire instrumentals that strike straight at a listener’s pressure points. Diploid are antithetic to peace.
Diploid’s 2020 album ‘Glorify’ recently earned the band an award for Best Heavy Album from Music Victoria. International heavyweights such as Full of Hell, Cancer Bats and Integrity have all slotted Diploid on support for their shows. Heavy Experimental pioneers The Body have performed a collaborative improvised set with Diploid in 2019, and the band have blasted eardrums on tour in Japan, Indonesia, Singapore, Malaysia, South Korea, New Zealand and Australia.
Diploid’s fourth album, I AM YOURS. AND I AM HERE AGAIN is a masterclass in musical intensity where elements of grindcore, noise, black metal, hardcore punk, screamo and avant experimentalism are whipped into a cacophonous fury, while staggeringly extreme vocals explore lyrical themes of genocide and radicalisation.
Written on Wurundjeri land during a 100-day lockdown, the record picks at the feeling that nothing you do changes anything – the feeling that you can’t stop the pain in the world. The next chapter for Australia’s fiercest heavy act is about to begin. Prepare yourself.
I AM YOURS. AND I AM HERE AGAIN is out now digitally and on limited clear 12” vinyl LP edition featuring cover art by Mariam Benjemaa.
Get your limited edition copy now.
Safire & QQQ Akane – Slowly Rushing
LP / Digital (HEVMAC014)
Safire and QQQ Akane are a Melbourne multidisciplinary duo bound by creativity and community. These creative leaders act as the glue connecting people, experience and art; leveraging their craft of audio and visual design to stew a melting pot of forward thinking cool sh!t.
Collaboration is key when identifying their artistic practice. They seem to have an organic knack of creating parties/raves, record labels and releases, technical masterclasses and inclusive artistic spaces that place emphasis on community.
As artists independently, they have hit their respective heights. Ben Safire has toured extensively throughout Europe and Asia, representing Australian Drum and Bass on a global scale. As a musician and event curator he has built the foundations of bass music in Melbourne, collaborating locally and internationally with Noisia, Alix Perez, Dub Phizix, Zed Bias and DLR, to name but a few.
To limit QQQ Akane as a visual artist would be an injustice. While she is well known for her creative collaboration with Metalheadz boss Goldie and visual art with record label Plasma Audio, QQQAkane is an enigma of creativity that flows from fashion and dance to vocalism and music production.
Slowly Rushing is the debut long play from the seasoned duo. The album feels like the soundtrack to a warm night, sharing food on a big table with your friends and family. A dinner where the conversation is as filling as the meal. Before you know it, the table has disappeared and made room for a hazed-out dance floor, exploring non-verbal communication and telekinetic meditation.
Slowly Rushing broods warmth, taking notes from jazz, dub, hip-hop and bass music to hypnotically wrap around your consciousness like a snake to a snake charmer. QQQ Akane calls on her indigenous Amami roots of storytelling and musical styling, that simultaneously feels grounded whilst taking you further down the rabbit hole.
Safire and QQQ Akane have created their own world, a dinner party if you will, all they ask is you bring a plate and enjoy.
Slowly Rushing LP is out now, steam the full album order your LP here. A proud co-release between Heavy Machinery Records and Chilla Holla.
Barney McAll – Transitive Cycles
LP / Digital (HEVMAC009)
Barney McAll‘s music is the rainbow in the oil slick of political and global chaos. He came up through the downtown 90s New York scene playing the piano with some of the great spiritual jazz heavyweights like Gary Bartz, Roy Ayers, Dewey Redman, and Billy Harper. He also submerged himself in a river of unadulterated funk with the likes of Maceo Parker, Fred Wesley, Clyde Stubblefield, and The Groove Collective which earned him a Grammy nomination.
Transitive Cycles is an enchanting cosmic composition for Rhodes, synth, horns, shakuhachi flute, bulbul tarang, double bass, Moog guitar, analogue electronics, percussion and Melbourne’s extraordinary public sound sculpture: the Federation Bells.
Recorded live at its Melbourne International Jazz Festival premiere, the work features interactive improvisation between the bells and an ensemble of sensational musicians, with McAll masterfully leading the interplay on keyboards and his self-made instrument ‘Chucky’ (various music boxes, glockenspiel, kalimba and electronics), creating an unforgettably ethereal soundscape on the banks of the Yarra River.
File under: experimental jazz / cyborg percussion / cosmic prog
Barney McAll – Rhodes, Chucky (self-made Instrument), Bulbul Tarang, Federation Bells
Julien Wilson – Tenor Sax, Bass Clarinet
Adrian Sherriff – Trombone, Moog Taurus, Shakuhachi Flute, Buchla Music Easel, Bata Drums
Steve Magnusson – Moog Guitar
Leigh Fisher – Drums, Modular Synthesis
Jordan Tarento – Acoustic Bass
First pressing of TRANSITIVE CYCLES is a limited gatefold edition of 300 copies on hot pink, yellow and tangerine splatter vinyl is out now.
Stream the album and purchase your limited edition LP now.
Jalang – Santau
LP / Digital (HEVMAC016)
Jalang (formerly Lái) play fast-paced and danceable D-beat punk, propelling the band’s ferocious vocals into the face of the listener. Vocalist Alda’s lyrics are delivered in Bahasa Indonesia and English, engaging with both her own and collective narratives that explore politics, religion, feminism and queer rights in South East Asia, and the diaspora in so-called Australia. Timmy (ExtinctExist, Pisschrist, Schifosi) on guitar and Tessa (Ubik, Masses) on bass were joined by Kyle (Sheer Mag) on drums in 2021.
‘Jalang’ in Bahasa Indonesia is one of those ‘odd’ words: when describing the masculine it means wild, feral, undomesticated; while for feminine figures it translates as promiscuous, slutty or evil — something the band aims to reclaim as a mark of feminine pride. Jalang invokes the band members’ diasporic and queer narratives through hardcore punk, mixing ideas and personal experiences that often inter-connect but also continue to conflict with the world around us.
Recorded by Jason Fuller (Goatsound) at Tender Trap Studios in Melbourne, Santau is 11 tracks of incandescent punk energy from this supergroup of Melbourne underground music, tackling real world issues of politics, power and protest. Next-level musical performances, inspirational song writing and the relentless fury of Alda’s vocals combine to produce one of the most intelligent, crucial and viscerally exciting Australian punk releases in years.
File under: D-Beat punk, hardcore punk
Deluxe limited edition gatefold heavyweight red coloured 12” Vinyl LP with OBI Strip. Cover art by Alda (Deliriousinkarts) & Micah James (Scrawnart). Limited pressing of 300 copies.
J. P. Shilo – Jubjoté
LP / Digital (HEVMAC006)
Enigmatic multi-instrumentalist J.P. Shilo emerges from the shadows to present Jubjoté, a beautifully esoteric live reimagining of the Melbourne Town Hall Grand Organ.
Best known for his work with legendary Melbourne band Hungry Ghosts, as well as contributions to classic albums by Rowland S. Howard, Mick Harvey, Adalita, The Triffids and the Blackeyed Susans, Shilo’s unique musicianship is world-renowned. Here he lends his magic touch to the grand organ, guitar, synthesiser, electronics, sound collage and spoken word to produce a work of singular artistic vision.
Guided by the eternal motion of the Shepard Tone, the listener is plunged beyond the comfort of normalcy to consider a shifting subject position that cannot escape the churn of cultural progress. As L.J. Spruyt’s cover art suggests, Jubjoté invokes a reckoning with multiple concurrent realities. Shilo’s Grand Organ is by turns elegant, sick, beautiful and decrepit.
Backed for this live performance by Hungry Ghosts violinist & co-conspirator T. J. Howden, Shilo leads the capacity Town Hall audience through oscillations of neoclassical focus, wild-eyed psychedelia and avant-garde fragmentation.
For fans of: Klaus Shulze, Eliane Radigue, Olivier Messiaen & Ken Nordine
Deluxe limited edition gatefold heavyweight white, green and black effect coloured 12” Vinyl LP with OBI Strip. Cover image by L. J. Spruyt.
Video directed by L. J. Spruyt
Bacchus Harsh – Caveat Tumultum
2LP / Digital (HEVMAC011)
Bacchus Harsh is the alias of Melbourne based multi-disciplinary artist Christian Bishop. Predominantly known in international music circles as Australian breakcore pioneer Xian, Bishop has expanded his already widescreen musical horizons to embrace an even broader creative cosmos under this new alias. Bacchus Harsh is the sonic embodiment of occult-themed electronics and deconstructed club music. De-territorializing exotica, occult psychedelia and industrial techno with polyrhythms and distorted blast beats, Bacchus Harsh confuses the dance floor.
Caveat Tumultum is an expansive double LP of icy post-breakcore industrial heaviness, where hallucinogenic cinematic atmospheres collide with sample-driven mania and complex mechanical rhythms. The resulting album is a 60 minute masterclass in foreboding electronic production, dystopian sonic manipulation and the thrillingly visceral experience of true underground party music.
File under: post-breakcore / industrial electronics / occult cinematica
Deluxe limited edition gatefold heavyweight silver coloured 12” Vinyl 2LP with OBI Strip. Cover art by Gabriel Nilsen, design by Luke Fraser. Limited pressing of 300 copies.
Cale Sexton – Sustain
LP / Digital (HEVMAC007)
Australian cosmic electronica genius Cale Sexton presents Sustain – a stunning new work commissioned for Melbourne’s iconic outdoor sound sculpture the Federation Bells. Sexton combines this unique public musical instrument with fresh realms of cinematic electro synth and interstellar ambient techno to produce an intricate hybrid form of transcendental hardware psychedelia.
File under: electronic psychedelia / industrial percussion / euphoric synth
Album of the week – PBS FM
A fascinating form of hybrid interdimensional exotica – Cyclic Defrost
A highly anticipated work in experimental electronica – Tone Deaf
Deluxe limited edition gatefold heavyweight transparent blue, red and orange spatter coloured 12” Vinyl LP with OBI Strip. Art and Design by Luke Fraser.
Video directed by Jon Watts
Ehsan Gelsi – Ephemera
LP / Digital (HEVMAC010)
Melbourne electronic composer Ehsan Gelsi presents Ephemera – a spectacular new commissioned work for the Melbourne Town Hall Grand Organ, Moog, Buchla, analogue electronics and live percussion. Gelsi’s composition is a groundbreaking hybrid progressive work showcasing the mammoth grandeur of the ten thousand pipe acoustic organ whilst exploring the full extent of the instrument’s electronic sequencing capabilities. The result is a majestic treat for organ aficionados, vintage synth heads and soundtrack enthusiasts alike.
File under: grand organ / progressive soundtrack / ecstatic electronica
Deluxe limited edition heavyweight maroon coloured 12” Vinyl LP in gatefold sleeve with OBI Strip. Art and Design by Luke Fraser. Cover painting by Benedict Sibley.
Video by Ben Willis
Bridget Chappell – Undertow
LP / Digital (HEVMAC005)
Heavy Machinery Records is proud to present Undertow – the debut full length LP from Australian electronic composer and cellist Bridget Chappell (Hextape).
Bridget Chappell takes contemporary and historical data of local water management and water colonisation sourced from the City of Melbourne’s Open Data Platform, and runs it through a process of sonification to create UNDERTOW – a stunning original work composed for cello, electronics and Melbourne’s extraordinary public sound sculpture: the Federation Bells. The result is a searingly original data-driven work that combines neoclassical strings, industrial percussion and vaporwave textures to create an exciting and thought-provoking site-specific sound work.
Bridget Chappell is an award-winning Australian sound artist working on the unceded lands of the First Peoples of the Millewa-Malle
e. Their often data-driven work explores colonial responsibility, the climate crisis, policing and surveillance, and rave nostalgia.
The land where Birrarung Marr Park and the Federation Bells now stand were underwater: forming part of a system of rivers, creeks, marshland and lagoons, much of which today has been driven underground and away from the city’s conscious face. Now contained in a network of drains, some trace an underground path mirroring – or mocking – the rivers’ original flow. Using the City of Melbourne’s Open Data Platform, Bridget Chappell combines contemporary and historical data of local water management and water colonisation. Through a process of sonification – the musical representation of visual data – they perform an original work: an aural painting of the last 185 years of the Birrarung River (“Yarra”) and Narrm bay (“Port Phillip”) composed for the Federation Bells and cello.
You may know Chappell in another life as the hardcore gabber, jungle, breakbeat, and techno project Hextape, but this is a very different world. Cyclic Defrost
Freshwater Falls’ is a masterclass in utilising outdated musical artefacts in a contemporary context. Great experimental electronica from an artist that has been making the most out of 2020. Weirdo Wasteland
Deluxe limited edition heavyweight transparent aqua and deep blue coloured 12” Vinyl LP in gatefold sleeve with OBI Strip. Art and Design by Luke Fraser. Cover photo by Neville Bowler.
Limited pressing of 300 copies
Out now – by your limited edition copy on Transparent Aqua and Deep Blue Vinyl here.
File under: Esoteric Electronics / Industrial Percussion / Contemporary Classical
Video directed by Henry Pyne
Naretha Willams – BLAK MASS
LP / Digital (HEVMAC004)
Heavy Machinery Records is proud to present Blak Mass – the debut full length LP from Naretha Williams.
Commissioned by The City Of Melbourne for a live performance in 2019, BLAK MASS sees Naretha combine the gargantuan Melbourne Town Hall Grand Organ with live electronics to realise her complex progressive compositions. BLAK MASS reflects on the city’s jarring civic history and the impact of colonisation on its First Peoples and Land, through an experimental, site specific musical performance developed for the Melbourne Town Hall Grand Organ.
BLAK MASS considers the Grand Organ as a significant symbol of European domination and reaches deep in to the psyche of the instrument to create a haunting, avant-garde sound work.
Deluxe limited edition gatefold heavyweight Blood Galaxy coloured 12” Vinyl LP with OBI Strip. Art and Design by Luke Fraser. Cover photo by Christopher Sutherland.
WINNER – Best Experimental Avant-Garde Act – Music Victoria Awards 2019
Video directed by Goodworthy
New War – Trouble In The Air
LP / Digital (HEVMAC002)
Commissioned by the City of Melbourne, Trouble in the Air is a new song cycle composed for voice, bass guitar, electronics and the Melbourne Town Hall Grand Organ. Recorded live at the Melbourne Town Hall. The band describes the work as a “cold dream of uncertainty & rupture”.
Deluxe limited edition gatefold heavyweight coloured 12” Vinyl LP (Halloween orange spatter and black vinyl variants). Art and design by Luke Fraser. Super limited edition of 300 copies only.
★★★★ Album of the week – The Age
Has there been a truer album title for the times we live in? Recorded live in 2017, New War’s Trouble in the Air is their third album in a little over a decade but true to form, this Melbourne four-piece has again steered clear of any sense of convention and done their own thing, spectacularly.
The centrepiece here is Melbourne Town Hall’s glorious four-storey high Grand Organ with Jesse Shepherd at the keys. These seven tracks ooze with a weighty, existential mood that’s complimented by equally trippy rhythms and singer Chris Pugmire’s post-punk howl.
Videos by Agostino Soldati
Sarah Mary Chadwick – The Queen Who Stole The Sky
LP / Digital (HEVMAC003)
Sarah Mary Chadwick ‘The Queen Who Stole The Sky’ LP – released on limited edition blue 12″ vinyl in deluxe gatefold sleeve in collaboration with RICE IS NICE (AUS) April 12 + Sinderlyn Records (US / EU) April 19 2019. Cover art by Sarah Mary Chadwick
The Queen Who Stole The Sky is Chadwick’s most plangent, resonant work. While all her past records have been result of the strength of her intent and talent, there’s something shocking about the austere composition of this album that feels as if it’s coagulated Chadwick’s vision into a ferocious, arresting whole. The Queen Who Stole The Sky is rarely an easy listen – it is terrifyingly loud and heartbreakingly vulnerable, often grotesque in its sadness – but the sense of pure catharsis it elicits is unparalleled.
★★★★★ – The Guardian
The Queen Who Stole the Sky was performed and recorded live on the Melbourne Town Hall’s historic grand organ, and its 147-year-old Victorian-era engineering allows for vast, unending tones and sepulchral bellows. It’s a sound that can create its own reality, which is something the New Zealand expatriate has been doing since leaving her breakthrough band Batrider for a solo career. Self-analysis and furious reasoning are a constant in Chadwick’s work, but the grand organ’s stark textures provide a new landscape that reaches a wrenching culmination on I Just Came to Pray.
★★★★ Album of the week – Sydney Morning Herald
Video by Agostino Soldati
CLING CLANG: Compositions for Computer-Controlled Bells and Australian Electronics
LP / Digital (HEVMAC001)
CLING CLANG is a compilation of new original dark electronic works specially commissioned for the City of Melbourne’s extraordinary outdoor industrial sound sculpture the Federation Bells.
Featuring new works by Forces, Zanias, friendships, Naretha Williams, Kangaroo Skull, Vacuum, Ash Wednesday and OK Sure.
Ear-shearing techno, pounding EBM, experimental electronics and minimal wave atmospherics will meld with the exotic sounds of this peculiar public percussion robot: creating a world-exclusive sound art / dark dance hybrid – perfect for music nerds, electro goths and techno enthusiasts alike.
File under: Esoteric Electronics / Industrial Percussion / Experimental Dance
Released as a Deluxe 12″ LP in a Gatefold sleeve in a limited edition of 300 copies.
Video by Misha Grace
