Liminal Electronic Musics: Post-Punk Experimentation in Australia in the 1970S-1980S
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QUT Digital Repository: http://eprints.qut.edu.au/ Knowles, Julian D. (2008) Liminal Electronic Musics: Post-Punk Experimentation in Australia in the 1970s-1980s . In Wilkie, Sonia and Hood, Anthony, Eds. Proceedings 'Sound : Space' Australasian Computer Music Conference, 2008, pages pp. 37-45, Sydney Conservatorium of Music, University of Sydney. © Copyright 2008 Julian D. Knowles ACMC08 Sound:Space - Proceedings of the Australasian Computer Music Conference 2008 Julian Knowles Liminal Electronic Queensland University of Technology Kelvin Grove, QLD, 4059 Musics: Post-Punk Australia [email protected] Experimentation in Australia in the 1970s- 1980s The rise and subsequent canonisation of serialism, Abstract musique concrète and elektronische musik through the 1950s and 60s fuelled the proliferation of electronic This paper presents a survey of some key experimental music studios in music institutions, radio stations electronic music scenes in Australia in the 1970s and and research institutes throughout Europe and the 1980s that were situated outside the frame of music USA. Such facilities became critical sites for musical institutions and the electro-acoustic music tradition. experimentation. Due to the somewhat conserv- Specifically it focuses on experimentalism in the popular ative institutional climate in Australia during this music field in this period, outlining the ‘little bands’ period, it took some time for comparable studios to scene in Melbourne and the scene around the Terse be established in institutions, a process which Tapes and M Squared labels in Sydney, It locates a set of commenced in the late 1960s. Whilst there is international reference points in No Wave, industrial evidence of some small private electronic music music and krautrock and discusses the work of some facilities outside music institutions, almost all were individuals who traversed the popular music and contained within institutions. Such a concentration experimental music scenes, acting as a nexus for musical was largely due to the fact that, prior to the mid ideas. The paper proposes that experimental practices in 1980s, music and studio technologies were popular music exert a significant force on experimental extremely expensive and mostly out of the financial electronic music practices in a wider sense and the links reach of independent artists. to more academic forms of music experimentation need to be better understood. In doing so the paper calls for a From the late 1970s the hegemony of institutions more expanded and complete view of the historical was disrupted, as tools for electronic music development of electronic music as a way of better production became affordable for independent understanding current experimental electronic music musicians outside institutions. Accordingly the scenes in Australia. sites for musical experimentation became more diffuse and much exploratory electronic music was Introduction made outside an institutional context. In a popular music context, experimental approaches to When one considers the contemporary electronic electronics and production were thriving in music scenes that have coalesced around artist-run spaces and warehouses in Australia since the late Australia in the late 1970s, as they were in other parts of the world. This diffusion of experi- 1990s, one is stuck by the differences between these mentation yielded significant outcomes, rarely scenes and the electro-acoustic music scene accounted for in mainstream accounts of the associated with conservatoires and tertiary music development of electronic music in Australia. schools. At the same time, one is struck by the similarities between these contemporary scenes and the ‘DIY’ post-punk scenes of the late 1970s and It would be fair to say that the continuing diffusion of powerful tools for electronic music de- early 1980s in Australia. Despite these strong centred the long-held view of innovation in resonances, there has been little attempt to connect electronic music practice to the point that the these scenes historically, or to see contemporary electro-acoustic music scene became viewed as electronic music scenes as having roots in these somewhat ‘traditional’ in comparison to the scenes, or indeed in any tradition other than the electro-acoustic or western art music traditions1. I innovative practice happening in experimental electronic music scenes from the mid 1990s would suggest that an expanded view of music onwards. These tensions and debates are well history, which accounts for sonic experimentalism documented and came to a head when electronic in popular music scenes alongside developments in dance music artist Richard James (aka Aphex Twin) the electro-acoustic music scene, provides the and video artist Chris Cunningham were awarded necessary context to understand contemporary electronic music scenes. This paper constitutes a the Golden Nica in the Digital Musics category at small step towards drawing some of these links. Ars Electronica in 1999. The trend toward critiquing the dominant paradigm of electro- acoustic music continued. The statement from the 2001 Ars Electronica Digital Musics Jury was direct. 1 The former is actually a sub-branch of the latter. 37 It's a fact: on the cusp of the twenty-first early 1980s had a demonstrably robust set of century, the most innovative, com- engagements with the punk and post-punk music pelling and startling work being prod- scenes in Australia. This is evidenced by the uced in the impossibly broad area of significant quantity of experimental music distri- Digital Musics comes from musicians buted through post-punk’s extensive DIY infra- whose backgrounds have largely by- structure network consisting of vinyl and cassette passed academic study and customary labels, fanzines, venues, specialist publications and career paths. Instead their work speaks radio programs. Rather than simply serving as of an intense, autodidactic engagement distribution networks, the post-punk scene was an with the hyperlinked worlds of post- important site for musical experimentation in its industrial cultures: conceptual and own right and referenced a different set of histories performance art, installation and video from the contemporary classical tradition. work, improvised music, post-indust- rial cultures, eco-activism, post-colon- Beyond post-punk music as a site for experim- ialism, as well as the post-techno/hip entation in itself, an interesting and fertile set of hop/dub grass-roots diaspora of interactions took place between musicians working blunted beatnuts and bedroom boffins. in the more adventurous end of the post-punk (Digital Musics Jury 2001) scene and musicians in other areas who were interested in exploratory music. The principal sites Such a statement proposes that electronic music for these activities and interactions were Sydney practitioners find relevant histories outside the and Melbourne, although there was significant western art music tradition. One might ask how the interaction between the experimental art and post- above might be understood in an Australian punk music scenes in Brisbane at this time. Art context, specifically what local reference points schools, galleries and visual artists2 with an interest might exist outside the western art music tradition in music were part of the network of interactions. to support such a notion? The post-punk and art school scenes were critical to the development of experimental music in Austr- It has been suggested on many occasions that alia and again, posed challenges to the classical musicological engagements with new music in music establishment. These scenes could be interp- Australia have been scant. I might add to this that reted as antithetical to the conservatoire scene due most musicological engagements with music scenes to their close association with popular culture and in Australia tacitly and uncritically accept a split ‘non-musicians’ respectively. Ironically, their between so-called ‘art music’ and ‘popular music’. exclusion from the classical music mainstream The same shortcoming can be observed in the made them powerful sites for unbridled musical majority of writing around both popular music and experimentation and much important work arose western art music in Australia. I would suggest that from this engagement. uncritically accepting this split prevents us from fully understanding contemporary electronic music The Clifton Hill Community Music practices. Rather than suggesting that we should ignore musical differences arising from different Centre as a Liminal Space musical contexts and traditions, I would argue that different contexts and traditions have significant The Clifton Hill Community Music Centre fields of intersection and these are significant (CHCMC) is one of the better-documented scenes drivers of musical innovation. To fully understand in Australian experimental music history. Whilst it developments in musical practice we must is understood to have occupied an important place acknowledge this. Whilst the dialogue across diff- in the history of new music in Australia, it operated erent musical scenes is ever present, I wish to focus in a liminal space between the institutional (read on flow between the experimental electronic music ‘academic’) new music scene and non-institutional and post-punk music scenes in the 1970s and 1980s, scenes. When David Chesworth took over the as this marked a particularly active time, driven by directorship of the CHCMC in 1978, he was young, the diffusion