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CD
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EFFICIENT 031CD
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A humanity-reminding suite of miracle moments, Someone Like Me unites a geographically unbound cast of real people in pursuit of a meaningful connection. Taping their lived experience in economic studios in quiet English counties, Pacific Northwest woodland retreats and the big city bustle of Sydney and Los Angeles, these kindred spirits rendered sheer beauty in the process. Custom pressed folk songs of love, loss and the lord savior. Illuminating minor works from seasoned players such as former Syndicate Of Sound chart-topper Sharkey and late-era Canned Heat lynchpin James Thornbury, the collection simultaneously honors the fleeting amateurism of hobby musicians. With their one shot at tangible vinyl, freshman Lynne Ann Kingan realized her loose bubblegum rocker on campus time, while U.S. Navy recruit Fred Potts cut his unconditionally serene ballad remotely stationed on a Spanish naval base. Spartan production continues to reign with Jon Betmead's hair-raising gospel, howling into infinite space, and Goldrust's stripped back garden hymn. Throughout the hour-long reflection, faith has an intermittent yet revelatory presence, most overtly with the divine choral soul of Seventh-day Adventist quartet Remnant. More subtly, Gary Ramey and Jim Kennedy both turned to song in their spiritual quests, offering their all to a universal power. An irrefutable compilation cornerstone, the National Office For Black Catholics showcased Charles Murphy's lionhearted account of the Black experience at a 1971 concert. Five years earlier, high school seniors The Superwomen would use their hauntingly angelic harmonies to address racial inequity with a breathless take on "Lowlands." Reaching the furthest corners, Someone Like Me secures the inaugural license of three homespun masterpieces. Discovered by fluke in the digital haystacks of Youtube and Soundcloud, Jim Huxley's bedroom pop earworm melds peacefully into Charlie Webster's synthesized reverie. Meanwhile, Hollywood's John Agostino introduces us to the bizarre world of tax scam records, with the artist only now learning that his tender psych-folk demos were leaked via a 1977 bootleg. Compiled and lovingly restored by armchair digger Mikey Young (Eddy Current Suppression Ring/The Green Child), Someone Like Me pays due service to seventeen rarefied journals of truth and devotion. Adorned with visual artist Chris Fallon's figure and flora dream extractions, the uniting songbook is further detailed by expansive track-by-track liner notes and a forward from San Franciscan poet Rod Roland. Also featuring The Bob Hughes Band, Jon Betmead, Robison Kaplan Ltd., and Ritchie Tierney. Original recordings range from 1966 to 1990.
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EFFICIENT 031LP
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Double LP version. A humanity-reminding suite of miracle moments, Someone Like Me unites a geographically unbound cast of real people in pursuit of a meaningful connection. Taping their lived experience in economic studios in quiet English counties, Pacific Northwest woodland retreats and the big city bustle of Sydney and Los Angeles, these kindred spirits rendered sheer beauty in the process. Custom pressed folk songs of love, loss and the lord savior. Illuminating minor works from seasoned players such as former Syndicate Of Sound chart-topper Sharkey and late-era Canned Heat lynchpin James Thornbury, the collection simultaneously honors the fleeting amateurism of hobby musicians. With their one shot at tangible vinyl, freshman Lynne Ann Kingan realized her loose bubblegum rocker on campus time, while U.S. Navy recruit Fred Potts cut his unconditionally serene ballad remotely stationed on a Spanish naval base. Spartan production continues to reign with Jon Betmead's hair-raising gospel, howling into infinite space, and Goldrust's stripped back garden hymn. Throughout the hour-long reflection, faith has an intermittent yet revelatory presence, most overtly with the divine choral soul of Seventh-day Adventist quartet Remnant. More subtly, Gary Ramey and Jim Kennedy both turned to song in their spiritual quests, offering their all to a universal power. An irrefutable compilation cornerstone, the National Office For Black Catholics showcased Charles Murphy's lionhearted account of the Black experience at a 1971 concert. Five years earlier, high school seniors The Superwomen would use their hauntingly angelic harmonies to address racial inequity with a breathless take on "Lowlands." Reaching the furthest corners, Someone Like Me secures the inaugural license of three homespun masterpieces. Discovered by fluke in the digital haystacks of Youtube and Soundcloud, Jim Huxley's bedroom pop earworm melds peacefully into Charlie Webster's synthesized reverie. Meanwhile, Hollywood's John Agostino introduces us to the bizarre world of tax scam records, with the artist only now learning that his tender psych-folk demos were leaked via a 1977 bootleg. Compiled and lovingly restored by armchair digger Mikey Young (Eddy Current Suppression Ring/The Green Child), Someone Like Me pays due service to seventeen rarefied journals of truth and devotion. Adorned with visual artist Chris Fallon's figure and flora dream extractions, the uniting songbook is further detailed by expansive track-by-track liner notes and a forward from San Franciscan poet Rod Roland. Also featuring The Bob Hughes Band, Jon Betmead, Robison Kaplan Ltd., and Ritchie Tierney. Original recordings range from 1966 to 1990.
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12"
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EFFICIENT 029EP
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After a ten-year pursuit, Efficient Space finally presents Late, Late Show, the last recordings of influential Sydney-via-Newcastle band pel mel. Taped in the mid-80s, these charmingly unvarnished sessions pare the combo back to their core, producing blue-collar sophisti-pop to a danceable LinnDrum beat. From the funky disco-not-disco of "Mr President" to the effortless pop perfection of "Fool's House", the six tracks reveal a creatively open and well-oiled pel mel before they inevitably disbanded. Formed in early 1979 as a misfit sextet from steel and surf town Newcastle, pel mel were inspired by New York and UK's post-punk imports. Cutting their teeth speeding through originals and Joy Division, Wire and The Buzzcocks covers every Friday night to a regular turnout of dole bludgers, students and the under-age, the band would also cross-pollinate with electronic-leaning support act The Limp. In 1980, they decamped to Sydney to join the city's flourishing alternative music scene alongside the likes of Laughing Clowns, Tactics, The Reels, Wild West, and the M Squared crew, making an indelible mark with two albums and several singles as the only domestic signee of Factory's Australasian licensee GAP Records. Catchy and intelligently experimental without being noisy, their musicianship and enduring legacy continues to be lauded by peers. Undoubtedly some of their strongest output, this previously unreleased demo suite documents pel mel free from the pressures of a commercial outcome, naturally elevating them to a class alongside Orange Juice, Antena and Young Marble Giants.
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2LP
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EFFICIENT 032LP
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LP version. Searchlight Moonbeam is the new narrative compilation from Time Is Away (Jack Rollo and Elaine Tierney) whose eponymous monthly NTS Radio shows, tinctured fusions of fugitive sounds and reverie-inducing archival speech, have won them an ardent following. It follows from the London-based duo's Ballads, a remarkable driftwerk released on A Colourful Storm in 2022. Searchlight Moonbeam is an autumnal dreamscape, intimate and vespertine, pensive and irresolute. An imagined community where differences drop off and resonances emerge -- between Maher Shalal Hash Baz affiliates Kasumi Trio, Taiwanese score composer Chen Ming Chang whose "Rainwater" (written for Hou Hsiao-Hsien's 1986 film Dust In The Wind) is exquisitely heartbroken, and the plangent improvisations of self-taught French pianist Delphine Dora. Revelations are frequent: the bedsit isolationism of Bo Harwood and John Cassavetes' "No One Around to Hear It" (from The Killing of a Chinese Bookie); the narked minimalism of Klang (an early 2000s band formed by ex-Elastica guitarist and featuring prize-winning experimental novelist Isabel Waidner on bass); the etude-grooves and echoic wobble of below-the-radar French avant-gardists Omertà; the beautiful, plaintively dubby "Is It You?" by Slapp Happy; a psych-tinged reimagining of PiL's "Poptones" by Simon Fisher Turner (one half of Deux Filles, and here, recording for él as The King of Luxembourg) that's as perverse as the cover of Throbbing Gristle's "20 Jazz Funk Greats." Searchlight Moonbeam is the musical analog of an Italo Calvino novel or a medieval fable. Associative, intuitive, borderless. Emotional and mysterious. Endowed with the tactility of Braille. A private language that is both unknowable and understood. It is a record of the seasons, for the seasons. Featuring an evocative essay by writer Jeremy Atherton Lin and disarming cover art by Penny Davenport, Searchlight Moonbeam showcases Rollo and Tierney's still-unrivalled talent for gloaming melodies, disques du crépuscule, ensorcelled storytelling. Also featuring Bhairavi Raman, Nanthesh Sivarajah, O.G. Jigg, Scala, Soft Location, Gyeongsu, CROCHE, Un, and Harry Plunket-Greene.
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EFFICIENT 032CD
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Searchlight Moonbeam is the new narrative compilation from Time Is Away (Jack Rollo and Elaine Tierney) whose eponymous monthly NTS Radio shows, tinctured fusions of fugitive sounds and reverie-inducing archival speech, have won them an ardent following. It follows from the London-based duo's Ballads, a remarkable driftwerk released on A Colourful Storm in 2022. Searchlight Moonbeam is an autumnal dreamscape, intimate and vespertine, pensive and irresolute. An imagined community where differences drop off and resonances emerge -- between Maher Shalal Hash Baz affiliates Kasumi Trio, Taiwanese score composer Chen Ming Chang whose "Rainwater" (written for Hou Hsiao-Hsien's 1986 film Dust In The Wind) is exquisitely heartbroken, and the plangent improvisations of self-taught French pianist Delphine Dora. Revelations are frequent: the bedsit isolationism of Bo Harwood and John Cassavetes' "No One Around to Hear It" (from The Killing of a Chinese Bookie); the narked minimalism of Klang (an early 2000s band formed by ex-Elastica guitarist and featuring prize-winning experimental novelist Isabel Waidner on bass); the etude-grooves and echoic wobble of below-the-radar French avant-gardists Omertà; the beautiful, plaintively dubby "Is It You?" by Slapp Happy; a psych-tinged reimagining of PiL's "Poptones" by Simon Fisher Turner (one half of Deux Filles, and here, recording for él as The King of Luxembourg) that's as perverse as the cover of Throbbing Gristle's "20 Jazz Funk Greats." Searchlight Moonbeam is the musical analog of an Italo Calvino novel or a medieval fable. Associative, intuitive, borderless. Emotional and mysterious. Endowed with the tactility of Braille. A private language that is both unknowable and understood. It is a record of the seasons, for the seasons. Featuring an evocative essay by writer Jeremy Atherton Lin and disarming cover art by Penny Davenport, Searchlight Moonbeam showcases Rollo and Tierney's still-unrivalled talent for gloaming melodies, disques du crépuscule, ensorcelled storytelling. Also featuring Bhairavi Raman, Nanthesh Sivarajah, O.G. Jigg, Scala, Soft Location, Gyeongsu, CROCHE, Un, and Harry Plunket-Greene.
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MAG
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ENT 003
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Efficient Space publication Enthusiasms revives with Issue #03. 92 pages covering Ao-tearoa DIY folk proliferator Maxine Funke, the vocal magick of Cucina Povera, Australian devotional jazz mystery Singing Dust, Osaka portal EM Records, unsung dub specialist Sheriff Lindo and the living practice of e fishpool. View post-punk trailblazers through the lens of Rotterdam polaroid photographer Peter Graute, while Swiss artist Elise Gagnebin-de Bons exhibits her series of collages purposed for Ghost Riders. The issue also boasts imaginary mixtapes from Gavsborg, Greg Davis and Jefre Cantu-Ledesma, Mikey Young, Sonic Boom, and Troth. Perfect bound and illuminated by designer Steele Bonus.
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EFFICIENT 034LP
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Spurred on by emergent footage of a recent live performance, Efficient Space delves deeper into the world of Spanish shoegaze outfit Bélver Yin, now solely helmed by founding member Pedro L. Ortega. An intimate collection of new recordings, Para Mi Madre is a parting gift to his mother, fulfilling a promise made in her final days. Bélver Yin's story begins at the turn of the '90s, blooming from a fixation with British ethereal alt-pop (Cocteau Twins, The Chameleons, The Cure, et al.) Utilizing guitar, bass, and drum machine rhythms to record the cathartic 1991 debut Luz Bel (EFFICIENT 016LP), their quintessentially Mediterranean angle on slow, reverb and echo-laden atmospherics found a home on fleeting label Noisex Music. Despite radio play and concerts around Spain, lack of distribution led to the album being largely overlooked, until Efficient Space's faithful reissue in 2020. With this newfound interest stoking Ortega's fire, the wealth and strength of Para Mi Madre's expressive impulses will woo fans and newcomers alike. Patiently moving from pastel hues, sepia-tones and Balearic nostalgia, its crystallized instrumentals give a knowing nod to the wide-eyed possibilities of youthful summers as much as they do world-weary respite. Not wallowing in gloom, the deeply personal and spirit-stirring memorandum documents Ortega coming to terms with the loss of his greatest champion.
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7"
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EFFICIENT 023EP
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7" with picture sleeve. Tresa Leigh is the reflection of St. Simons Island, Georgia teenager Teresa Laxamanna (né Leggett). Wooed by a Classifieds listing to audition for Philly funk and soul imprint Lyndell Records, the aspiring 15-year-old dragged her father, guitar, Fender amplifier, and microphone to perform her convincingly mature folk tales of first-time heartbreak. Winning the support of label owner Walter L Rayfield, the fresh recruit cut two originals in a makeshift motel studio on the neighboring Jekyll Island, backed by a band of unhurried session players. The 1970 recording yielded her debut 45, pairing the endearing juvenile jangle of "I Remember" with the heartsick Ghost Riders (EFFICIENT 022CD/LP) cornerstone "Until Then". After a car accident prevented Mr. Rayfield from fulfilling his release plans, an unswayed Tresa responded to Great World Of Sound's newspaper advert, baiting the prospect of gold records, major label connections, and sales of a million copies. With family and friends crowdfunding the $1,200 that the company required to produce a follow-up 7", she jetted to Nashville, recording a slicker, emotionally elevated update on "Until Then", and the symphonic slow dancer "I Miss You". In another unfortunate career misfire, the dubious label failed to deliver on any of their promises, with the artist volunteering the only surviving copy for restoration. Collating all four recordings, this brief anthology immortalizes the innocent smalltown dreams of a genuine original, inadvertently echoing the likes of Nora Guthrie, Bonnie Dobson, and Patti Whipp.
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7"
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EFFICIENT 030EP
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A double shot of Y2K digi thrillers from Sydney via Bromley electro-dub producer Jeff Dread. Part of the city's burgeoning network of blunted bass and sound system culture, Dread worked in parallel with the likes of Sheriff Lindo, Andy Rantzen, and Ali Omar, issuing two dynamite albums on Creative Vibes in 1999 and 2001. Utilizing the Atari 1020 Ste, Dread would frantically live mix up to nine tracks direct to CD-R, echoing the same rough and ready low-tech intuition as Jamaican trailblazers King Tubby, Scientist and Jack Ruby and their UK-based disciples Jah Shaka, Adrian Sherwood and Mad Professor. While unmarked discs of his indulgently durational sessions litter the archives, this plate showcases versions immortalized by two crucial compilation CDs. Wicked stepper "Dub The Farmer's Daughter" burrows the ear canal with its addictive melodica and tightly coiled acid synth lines, edited for high impact by Sheriff Lindo for his volume of Dub For the Masses (Dread would curate its successor), while "Out On A Limb" hails from Just Is, a double album sequenced by legendary Sydney queer party crew Club Kooky. A bass bin creeper that was extended with horns for his second long-player Return From Alpha One, it's this unembellished work in progress that really stings. With Dread's allegiance to local sound system heavyweights Firehouse, these totally brained studio jams are tried and tested weapons, finally blasting on the sacred 7" format.
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2LP
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EFFICIENT 022LP
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2023 repress! Double LP version. Includes printed inner sleeves. A North American road trip of coming-of-age garage soul mapped by Ivan Liechti, Ghost Riders is Efficient Space's latest narrative compilation, hovering in a liminal emotional ravine between moonlight melancholy, teenage heartache, and unchecked, unrealized ambition. Across seventeen open hearted ballads recorded 1965-1974, the album collects and connects dots between British Invasion fanatics, child prodigies, the loners and the luckless, in a kind of trans-continental survey of those swept up in rock n' roll mania and buoyed by local newspaper ads promising fame and gold records. From the tangerine dreams of eight grade all-girl combo The Mod 4 to the tri-state jukebox aspiring echoes of The Tempters, The Yardleys' poetic Farfisa vamp and lilting folk pop, and The Landlords' weepy break up B-side blues, these are mostly one shots by dreamers whose experience was brief before being checked back to the reality of suburban normality and realistic career options. Hailing from the regional backwaters of Illinois, Arkansas, Nevada, Massachusetts, Ohio, Idaho, Texas, and beyond, the licensed artists were scouted by way of local fire departments, spiritualist fellowships and animal welfare centers, often barely a stone's throw from where their contributions were originally laid. A barely teenage Dennis Harte's "Summer's Over" perhaps best taps the collection's essence. A gut-wrenching lament of the passing of the season as if it was the last on earth. Flanked by players from The Left Banke, Harte, a now-piano tuner to the stars, is from the minor segment that found longevity in showbiz. Likewise with Michigan icon Lyn Nowicki who cast her ghostly voice over Beatles cover song chameleons The Common People and Jerry McGee, The Ventures member and conduit of Dr. John's "Twilight Zone". Ghost Riders simmers with the scent of youthful summers, the pang of schoolyard romance, and the excitement (and disenchantment) of teenage naïveté, delivered via a deceptively simple and frequently wonky garage band set-up. The vision of record collector and graphic designer Ivan Liechti, these eternal psych-folk howlers are further crystallized by Colin Young's fastidious audio restoration, the original artwork of Elise Ganebin-de Bons and an aptly penned forward from Sonic Boom. Also features Decompressed Impossibility, The Living End, The Newports, The Landlords, The Prisners Dream, The Fortels, The Bohemians, Tresa Leigh, WM. Penn & The Quakers, Carroll, and Toe Head.
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CD
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EFFICIENT 022CD
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A North American road trip of coming-of-age garage soul mapped by Ivan Liechti, Ghost Riders is Efficient Space's latest narrative compilation, hovering in a liminal emotional ravine between moonlight melancholy, teenage heartache, and unchecked, unrealized ambition. Across seventeen open hearted ballads recorded 1965-1974, the album collects and connects dots between British Invasion fanatics, child prodigies, the loners and the luckless, in a kind of trans-continental survey of those swept up in rock n' roll mania and buoyed by local newspaper ads promising fame and gold records. From the tangerine dreams of eight grade all-girl combo The Mod 4 to the tri-state jukebox aspiring echoes of The Tempters, The Yardleys' poetic Farfisa vamp and lilting folk pop, and The Landlords' weepy break up B-side blues, these are mostly one shots by dreamers whose experience was brief before being checked back to the reality of suburban normality and realistic career options. Hailing from the regional backwaters of Illinois, Arkansas, Nevada, Massachusetts, Ohio, Idaho, Texas, and beyond, the licensed artists were scouted by way of local fire departments, spiritualist fellowships and animal welfare centers, often barely a stone's throw from where their contributions were originally laid. A barely teenage Dennis Harte's "Summer's Over" perhaps best taps the collection's essence. A gut-wrenching lament of the passing of the season as if it was the last on earth. Flanked by players from The Left Banke, Harte, a now-piano tuner to the stars, is from the minor segment that found longevity in showbiz. Likewise with Michigan icon Lyn Nowicki who cast her ghostly voice over Beatles cover song chameleons The Common People and Jerry McGee, The Ventures member and conduit of Dr. John's "Twilight Zone". Ghost Riders simmers with the scent of youthful summers, the pang of schoolyard romance, and the excitement (and disenchantment) of teenage naïveté, delivered via a deceptively simple and frequently wonky garage band set-up. The vision of record collector and graphic designer Ivan Liechti, these eternal psych-folk howlers are further crystallized by Colin Young's fastidious audio restoration, the original artwork of Elise Ganebin-de Bons and an aptly penned forward from Sonic Boom. Also features Decompressed Impossibility, The Living End, The Newports, The Landlords, The Prisners Dream, The Fortels, The Bohemians, Tresa Leigh, WM. Penn & The Quakers, Carroll, and Toe Head. CD version comes as digipak and includes booklet.
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LP
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EFFICIENT 027LP
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2023 repress. Hydroplane reinstate their formidable 1997 debut of sublime guitar atmospherics, fragile lyricism, and droning incidentals with an overdue vinyl reissue. An offshoot of the now-fêted The Cat's Miaow, the trio formed after drummer Cameron Smith decamped to London, charting new territory with tape loops, manipulated samples, and a borrowed Jupiter 4 in the wake of Endtroducing. Adopting a handle that Dean Wareham once considered calling Luna, Hydroplane intended to only ever release Excerpts From Forthcoming LP (1996), a single-sided 7" sonic collage, before imploding in mystery. Their label however insisted they deliver their taunted album. From the comfort of a Brunswick flat, they continued to record soaring melodies and restrained song structures to 4-track, sculpting dramatic Radiophonic Workshop cues weighted in reverb and near-perfect dream pop lead by Kerrie Bolton's empyrean vocals. Bored of industry expectation and largely ignored by local audiences, the reluctant performers followed the way of The Cannanes and formed meaningful overseas alliances by mail and phone, securing releases on Michigan outpost Drive-In and Broadcast launching pad Wurlitzer Jukebox. Championed by John Peel with twenty spins on his converted Radio One slot and even polling in Festive Fifty of 1997, the humble three-piece still walked to their neighborhood shops undetected. Previously only available as a US-issued CD, this reminiscent late-night suite establishes Hydroplane as an everlasting ember in Australia's beloved indie nexus.
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7"
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EFFICIENT 024EP
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Height/Dismay were the M Squared studio-as-instrument duo of Patrick Gibson and Dru Jones. A member of Systematics and Scattered Order, Gibson was an integral part of the M Squared label and studio, where he met Jones. With an unapologetic misuse of instruments and ample time, the two sonic explorers scraped guitar strings, manipulated clarinets, and contact mic'd woks to layer their echo chamber apparitions. Collating three 1981 recordings, the then-shelved "Blood Pressure In The Sand" joins "Dusk", their contribution to archetypal cassette-zine Fast Forward. Also unreleased, "The Tinning Test" rejects formal lyrics in favor of a deadpan reading from the Australian Standard for tinned copper wire. The outsiders of the outside, these mutual minds' productions have long been overlooked as crucial pieces of the Australian DIY music puzzle. Height/Dismay is pressed in an edition of 281 hand stamped white labels, wrapped in white ink printed colored card.
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7"
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EFFICIENT 025EP
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Crossing over to Adelaide, odd wave minor players The Frenzied Bricks completely bypassed the history books with indifference. This madcap union of school friends Chris Merchant and David McCarthy cut void-entering motorik and weirdo monologues in bedrooms and suburban rehearsal studios. Rumored to be an individual, they never bothered to disprove the gossip with live performance. They did however submit aspiring demos to community radio station 5MMM, where they were fortuitously stored for four decades. The 7" marks the non-band's debut release, combining two should-be classics from the vault. "(Can I) Bridge The Gap" apathetically tunnels with Neu! Order energy, dual bass and McCarthy's laconic vocal delivery, while their only instrumental "Entropy" calls in guitarist and unofficial Brick Dave Warren to send the TR-808 into the stratosphere. Unknown until now, this is down under synth-wave at its finest. The Frenzied Bricks is pressed in an edition of 327 hand stamped white labels, wrapped in white ink printed colored card.
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LP
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EFFICIENT 026LP
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Efficient Space presents Soft and Fragile by Ros Bandt and LIME (Live Improvised Music Events), originally released by Move Records in 1983. A pioneering figure in Australian music, Bandt is known for her work with sound sculpture, electronics, acoustic ecology, and invented instruments, as well as her writings and teaching. Soft and Fragile comprises a series of structured improvisations performed on custom-built bells and gongs. On the side-long "Ocean Bells", Bandt performs on her "flagong", a three-tiered vertical glass marimba that she made in 1978, inspired by the "cloud chamber bowls" of maverick instrument builder and microtonal composer Harry Partch. Over a long tape loop made up of slowed down sounds from the same instrument, she delicately strikes the glass bells with mallets, allowing individual pitches to ring out and decay with the aquatic wavering quality that suggested the piece's title, eventually building into flowing melodic sequences. Structured as a series of events determined by the length of the performer's breath, this gently undulating music invites listeners to lose themselves in delicate microtonal fluctuations and subtle yet expressive phrasing. For "Shifts", Bandt is joined by Julie Doyle, Gavan McCarthy, and Carolyn Robb on a collectively composed work for clay bells. Atop a steady pulse, melodic and rhythmic cells expand and contract, shifting between LIME's four members. LIME also perform the closing "Annapurna", where timbres sourced from glass, clay and metal are freely threaded through a pulsating tape backdrop generated from loops of the ensemble chanting. While Bandt's ideas and techniques draw on aspects of the invented instrument tradition of Partch and Bertoia, Stockhausen's intuitive music, and the cyclical structures of American minimalism and Javanese gamelan, the floating world of Soft and Fragile also resonates with the work of new age outlier Stephan Micus and contemporary practitioners such as Tomoko Sauvage. In Bandt's own words, this is "elegant and sensual music where the body and mind have the time to reflect and catch up with the moment as it passes -- It is a music intended for respite." Presented in a redesigned sleeve showcasing the performers and their instruments, the reissue reproduces the extensive original liner notes.
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LP
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EFFICIENT 019LP
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2021 edition; originally released in 2016. Wilson Tanner's 69 returns to Australian soil for a new season. A uniquely provincial take on ambient music, Andrew Wilson (Andras) and John Tanner (Eleventeen Eston) assembled their prized debut over a shared love of seafood, wine and LPG. Recorded in a Perth backyard, these two new friends reached for the tools at hand and made the best of the fine weather. Instrument and implement combine in a languorous bricolage of synthesizer, clarinet and building materials -- interrupted only by the occasional flutter of pigeon wings or a call to lunch. Back in print for the first time since 2017, Wilson Tanner hop into Efficient Space's expanding pot. Includes download code.
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EFFICIENT 021LP
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Newly formed archival label Fresh Hold presents one of Australia's most mysterious jazz long players -- Singing Dust, in collaboration with Efficient Space. Almost bound for obscurity from its inception, the eponymous creation of Queensland-based jazz pianist Robert Welsh was originally issued in 1986 on Melbourne independent performance, Singing Dust resembles a unique fusion of Indian devotional song, the jazz piano styles of Bill Evans and Keith Jarrett, English folk, and Debussey's tonal impressions, bearing little similarity to the dominant commercial and subcultural music of its time. Representing a culmination of Welsh's influences in and outside of music, the dynamic collection of seven compositions accompany the Ghazal devotional poems translated by Australian poet Francis Brabazon. While Singing Dust sits loosely within the spheres of exploration that many jazz players took into world fusion in the '80s, it stands alone in its bright searing light of truth, love and austerity. A true work of dedication and posterity that will appeal to many serious music lovers, the album has finally been transferred and remastered from original tapes by Dan Elleson, superseding the imperfect 1986 pressing and fully realizing Welsh's expansive vision. Includes download code.
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EFFICIENT 018LP
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Oz Echoes peels away another layer of Australia's '80s DIY hive mind. The Oz Waves (EFFICIENT 004LP, 2017) successor exposes a deeper circuit of micro-run cassettes, community radio archives and irrationally abandoned studio sessions, as Steele Bonus sequences a ten-track compendium of drone pop, psyche-electronics and agitated tape cut-ups. From the Sydney cassette network, The Horse He's Sick returns with an industrial car crash, alongside Wrong Kind of Stone Age's pagan cacophony and primal riddims. M Squared dynamo Patrick Gibson appears in both Height/Dismay and Mr Knott, his respective studio-as-an-instrument collaborations with Dru Jones (Scattered Order) and ex-Slugfucker Gordon Renouf -- the former's worn out apparition hails from an instantly deleted 1981 7", while Mr Knott entrust one of the compilation's five previously unreleased tracks. Matt Mawson represents Brisbane music media-printed matter collective ZIP, as Adelaide's Three D Radio grants access to their vaults of live-to-air recordings and aspiring demo submissions, rescuing the slap-happy punk-funk of The Frenzied Bricks and Jandy Rainbow's prodigious beginnings in Les Trois Etrangers and Aeroplane Footsteps. Synchronously in Melbourne, Ash Wednesday (Karen Marks, The Metronomes) leads Modern Jazz's improvised proto-techno and EBM pioneers Shanghai Au Go-Go home record their sardonic synth-wave. A cherry-picked cast of unusual suspects, Oz Echoes' unfamed artist and non-band narratives are detailed by track-by-track liner notes with rarely published archival visions and artwork from Video Synth, prompting further rabbit hole ventures into this golden era of creative risk-taking and instant action. Includes download code.
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LP
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EFFICIENT 017LP
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Initially conceived as a short-run cassette for Altered States Tapes, YL Hooi's nameless collection of textural apparitions oscillate between icy DIY minimalism, FX-drenched atmospherics, and nang chamber dub. A ghost-like transmission, Hooi's voice serves to anchor an array of sonic abstractions and impressionistic melodic motifs as a sense of purgatorial ambience dominates throughout. Co-produced with alleged fellow Kallista Kult member Tarquin Manek (LST, M. Quake), Untitled's ultimate sensation is its halfway state, as if caught between worlds. The album's final form speaks of its origins, recorded intermittently over a two-year period (2017-2019). The extended time passage seeps into the song structures, spiraling and mutating from the same center -- the elegiac pulse of opener "Title" presages the hymnal lilt of "Straight Thru", before birthing the inverted bossa nova of "W/O Love". The result is a constantly shifting tableaux of shared liminal spaces. These songs seemingly emerge in plumes of smoke, magician's tricks conjured from the ether. It's a vision that ossifies at Untitled's midpoint with a cover of Love Joys' "Stranger", the lovers rock original morphed into the transportive intimacy of Hooi's own hazy inner space, a totem of the LP's amorphous and ultimately sensuous qualities. The sound from both down under and way out there in subspace, Untitled is an inspired masterstroke of experimental mystics. This 2021 Efficient Space edition is remastered and robed in new artwork that honors the Melbourne-based earth dragon's Chinese and Russian heritage. Includes download code.
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12"
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EFFICIENT 020EP
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Turned on by a new dawn of chemical love, Sydney dance-funk combo Bellydance laid down their sampledelica blueprint in 1991, thinking in parallel with Weatherall's revelatory work with Primal Scream. A candy flip of street soul, festival jam band and Chip Monck's cautionary brown acid address, 3 Days Man! was primed for open fields and discotheques, in an age when the deejay was royalty. With an elastic lineup that boasted up to nine members, Bellydance synchronized more with the club scene than the city's straight-ahead pub rock racket, naturally recruiting hometown heroes Peewee and John Ferris to remix their multi-track concoction. A certified party closing anthem, the brother's sun-smacked breakbeats elevate a collective consciousness beyond the clouds. Originally issued on Regular Records sub-label Boomshanka Music as a precursor to their album One Blood, the now sought-after 12" sports characteristic artwork from Mambo visionary and Mental As Anything co-founder, Reg Mombassa. Instigated by Sydney selector Ben Fester, this Efficient Space reboot arrives fashionably late to Woodstock's 50th anniversary but just in time to help soothe universal division. 12" with picture sleeve.
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LP
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EFFICIENT 016LP
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Efficient Space present a reissue of Bélver Yin's 1991 debut Luz Bel. Bélver Yin's soul mining odysseys have been unjustly overlooked for three decades. An anomaly in the Spanish alt-pop scene, their forlorn instrumentals and ethereal romanticism would have struck a chord in the British league of Felt, The Chameleons, Cocteau Twins, and Dif Juz, leaving their 1991 debut Luz Bel deserving of reappraisal. While coining their band name from a Jesús Ferrero novel and quoting Laozi philosophy on album sleeves, Bélver Yin create illuminating textures that unlock a wordless language of memory and adolescent emotion. Formed in Salamanca by self-taught musicians Pedro Ortega Sánchez and José María Martín, the guitar-bass duo spent two years crafting their divine interplay with interim drummers before submitting a demo to Noisex Music, their only attempt at label courting. The phone rang mere days later with owner and producer Bernar Marks (The Dust Sessions) offering to cut an album and the band ventured to Valencia with cloud-touching optimism soon after. Championed by local press, the release fell short of expectation, fueling the mythology of a vanished band known only to the initiated. Varying lineups would, however, continue to work in the shadows under Pedro's direction, recording two spatially arranged follow-ups at their own pace in 1996 and 2005. A glorious debut that undeniably set a high watermark, Luz Bel is finally available again, faithfully remastered by Mikey Young and featuring bilingual liner notes from John Gómez, the authoritative ear behind Outro Tempo. Includes download code.
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12"
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EFFICIENT 015EP
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Architects of the Future Sound of Melbourne, FSOM reigned as their city's scene evolved from underground clubs to vast waterfront wonderlands, alternating between playing studio tracks off cassette and jamming live. "Track 6" has a sinister bassline and mind-obliterating stabs -- 1993 to eternity. Andy Rantzen's "Harmonic Eye" speaks a similar vocabulary. Running parallel to FSOM in Sydney, Rantzen united the masses with Paul Mac as Itch-E + Scratch-E, producing crystalline rave, cheeky breakbeat and techno resistance. Lifted off his downtempo 1999 solo CD The Blue Hour, Harmonic Eye is a certified warehouse burner.
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LP
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EFFICIENT 013LP
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2022 repress. Wilson Tanner come to shore with II, a new album of floating melodies, lightly salted. Throwing electroacoustic conventions overboard, Andrew Wilson (Andras) and John Tanner (Eleventeen Eston) recorded this new work aboard a 1950s riverboat with a resourceful array of weatherproof electronic instruments and a long extension lead. These eight compositions pull in a by-catch of maritime folklore; of siren and selkie, seagull and engine oil slick. A change of course from their debut album 69, the ambient temperature drops as II casts out to sea in uncertain weather and returns to the safe harbors of Port Phillip Bay. The seafarers head out to "My Gull"'s poised optimism -- the birds watch but do they listen? By the arrival of "Loch and Key," the shoreline has dissolved completely, the boat floating in serene infinity as the rest of the world spins. Conditions soon take a treacherous turn on "Killcord Pts I-III" -- a 12 minute odyssey that battens down the hatches as these sailors eye merciless waves and blinding ocean spray, jointly channeling Berlin-school electronics and sea legs. In the aftermath, the waterlogged bleeps of "Idle" survey the damage as our parched crew sound the distress signal and ultimately descend into delirium. Known for navigating individual courses as solo musicians, Wilson and Tanner's collective storytelling is saturated in detail, buoying between tension and harmony. II modestly stands as some of both artists' most accomplished material. Includes download.
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12"
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EFFICIENT 012EP
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2024 restock. Almost four decades since its domestic release, Karen Marks's 1981 single Cold Café has finally reaped it's deserved international credit to become one of Australia's most recognized minimal wave recordings. Efficient Space now showcases the Melbourne artist's brief but entire discography, including two previously unheard demos, all produced with experimental synthesist Ash Wednesday (The Metronomes, Modern Jazz, Thealonian Music). A rarity in the then male-dominated industry, Marks found her footing in music, first through rock journalism and then in band management. Formally of Adelaide, newly arrived synth-punks JAB (Johnny Crash, Ash Wednesday, Bodhan X) approached her for representation, subsequently contributing tracks to seminal 1978 snapshot Lethal Weapons and playing the Crystal Ballroom's opening night. Wednesday and Crash would soon dissolve JAB, enlisting Mark Ferry and Sean Kelly to create Models. Still under Mark's management, Models became one of the fastest rising new bands of the punk movement, playing to full houses of dedicated and frenzied fans everywhere. Sadly, internal frictions forced Wednesday and Marks to leave after two years, with Crash following three months later. Her creative relationship with Wednesday fortified with the co-production of his 1980 machine-pop prank "Love By Numbers", her swooning chorus uplifting his deadpan count to 100, before the two collaborated on Marks's own recording persona. Immortalized by the icy Oz wave of Cold Café, her Astor issued 7" also boasted the caffeinated flip "Won't Wear It For Long" -- a should be hit with guitar from future Icehouse member Robert Kretschmer. Fans know of one more recording -- "You Bring These Things", a forlorn arrangement of an otherwise unreleased Paul Kelly song, gifted to her by the revered wordsmith. The track only ever appeared on the Astor promotional LP Terra Australis (1981), sinfully alongside "Up There Cazaly" and Joe Dolce -- hard proof that the label grossly misunderstood her talent (Marks recalls their persistent requests to show midriff and cleavage). Locked in a dissatisfying label arrangement and at this stage unwilling to follow her peers to greener pastures overseas, she felt her only way out was to cease all further activities. At the 11th hour of preparing this retrospective, two tracks unexpectedly surfaced via two cassettes -- a paranoid demo version of her signature tune "Cold Café", and a long-lost fourth song "Problem Page". Both living room recordings follow Marks and Wednesday's ingenious framework of minimal lyrics, minimal chord progressions.
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2LP
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EFFICIENT 009LP
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2022 repress. 3AM Spares is a new collection of Australian EDM compiled Andras and Instant Peterson that encompasses the darker sounds and later nights of the 1990s and beyond. Following on from forerunner compilation Midnite Spares, this release draws from local 12" releases, CD-Rs and the archives of community radio station 3RRR FM to make a diverse and pumping scene audible once more. No longer confined to beer barns and back rooms, this generation of producers, DJs, clubbers, and ravers embraced a new culture of machine-metaphor and chemical love. Future Sound Of Melbourne's "Resist The Beat" embodies a time when the country's youth united with juggernaut stamina, partying beyond the long arm of the law. Restored from the original DATs, this debut 12" incited label offers from Jeff Mills, Frank De Wulf, and Carl Cox. Released by the likes of Clan Analogue, Creative Vibes, Volition, DanceNet, Juice and Psy-Harmonics, this era's material has evaded sufficient digital documentation until now. Often these bedroom experiments existed solely for compilation inclusions, a plausible scenario for the mysterious Inner Harmony. In the case of Tetrphnm, Jeremy Dower's glacial sub-bass was digitized from the only known CD-R. Third Eye, the impressive evolution of industrial legend Ollie Olsen, finds common ground with "I Will Go", a hypnotic concoction by Adrenalentil and Jandy Rainbow. The most unique take on this new wave of dance music comes from Turrbal-Gubbi Gubbi woman Maroochy Barambah, using the sound palette of tribal house to highlight the broadening ways that identity and culture were being negotiated and manifested within club music. Artificial's Sobriquet remix bends one of the most looped samples of all time to fit a wired new generation's interrogation of that thing called disco. Her playfulness is mirrored in Blimp's frisky garage house, recalling Paul Johnson, while Ian Eccles-Smith's borrowing is comparatively more discrete on the chillout sampledelic collage "The Slaughtering Eye". Andy Rantzen returns to Efficient Space in two incarnations: as half of ambient alias Screensaver, and in collaboration with General Electrik on "Leather Lover:, a cocked and loaded glimpse at the bottom end of Oxford street, originally recorded for the Club Kooky compilation Gay In The Life: Adventures In The Queer Underground (2000). Reinventing himself as Hypnoblob, fellow Sydney Oz-Wave artist Ian Andrews also gives us his pneumatic-drill-step "Deep Down". Includes download.
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