Unlicensed music events are on the rise again – and the free parties of the 1980s and 90s show they’re not all bad.
Heidi Mellington, performing here with Anthony Smith in Dizzygothica in 2007, has spoken about the importance of a supportive local music scene for emerging artists.
Rachel Cobcroft/flickr
In a world seemingly spinning out of control, music has important roles to play – either to reflect or interpret the state of affairs, or simply to provide solace.
Unlike Dr Strangelove, few people learned to love the bomb – but it changed society nonetheless.
Columbia Pictures
One of popular music’s most influential artists, Lee ‘Scratch’ Perry, turned 80 this year. It is a good time to acknowledge his work as irreducibly complex, deeply layered, subtle and nuanced.
Geoff Hill and Trevor Pearcey in 1952 with the CSIR Mk1, the world’s first computer to make music.
University of Melbourne/MSE-CIS Heritage Collection
A lot happens when computer science and pop music collide.
Experimental electronic music took centre stage during the Unsound component of the Adelaide Festival program.
Piotr Jakubowicz, Adelaide Festival of Arts
Unsound Adelaide brought genre-crossing electronic music to the Adelaide Festival for the third year in a row– but this year’s program could’ve been much more adventurous.
The ‘EasyJet set’ get on inexpensive flights each weekend for some techno tourism.
EPA/Michael Hanschke
Some 25 years after the fall of the Berlin Wall – on November 9 1989 – Berlin is a utopia for many people. In otherwise precarious and uncertain lives, Berlin holds out the hope of pursuing creative work…
The Moog, 2014 Model Sub 37 – producer of squelchy bass lines and distorted expressive solos.
Wikimedia Commons
The classic sound many of us imagine when the word synthesiser is mentioned is the sound of the Moog – the warm, solid propulsive groove of its bass sound and the distinctive sweep of its patented lowpass…
Neil Young has big plans to improve the sound of digital audio – but how realistic are they?
Phillipe Put
There’s a diagram that does the rounds online that neatly sums up the difference between the quality of equipment used in the studio to produce music, and the quality of the listening equipment used by…
Mute Synth, a collaboration between Dr John Richards and Mute Records.
MuteSynth creditphoto GeorgeBenson Stereographic
Following the explosion of do-it-yourself music in the 1990s, aspiring DJs and producers have been spoiled rotten. Home studios are increasingly commonplace now that there is such a wealth of affordable…