Dylan still chillin'

Last year my son started listening to Bob Dylan

It followed from playlists of Dr John, which apparently had my teenager badged on Spotify as the late musician's number one fan.

I know Dylan is having another of his moments at present with the biopic movie, but my son was ahead of that news.

I also know that I got interested in Dylan when I was a little older than my teen is now, when I wrote a 10000 word essay for my English class in 1991. 

While I still appreciate his writing, my favourite of Dylan's catalogue is the reggae album Infidels for the grooviness of renowned rhythm section Sly and Robbie.

Anyway, it was still surprising that the usual pop hiphop like Kanye and Kendrick Lamar had shifted to music older than me. 

On the weekend my youngest and I were talking about the author SE Hinton, as he'd recently enjoyed The Outsiders and I'd given him Rumblefish for Christmas, and I had an idea.

There's an interview with the author where she's asked why her books are so successful and continue to be assigned to high school English classes.

Hinton recognised that she was still young at the time it was written and still had some of the idealism of youth, which resonated authentically with her audience.

Now it's left me wondering if that's part of the appeal for some of that enduring music from earlier decades? 

Then again, looking at this graph just now, maybe it's because Spotify promotes old music?

Slice of the pie

Musicians gained a lot of independence with the arrival of the internet, as well as a lot of competition

Given that Spotify offers very little financial return on investment for most musicians, you've got to wonder why it's being used to judge the success of local Australian artists.

This is the experience of Emmet Prime:

"He said the industry's emphasis on social media following, engagement and listeners on streaming services often made him feel like it was a "waste of time" to put so much effort into the craft of performing."

Peak industry association Music SA had used the Spotify metrics to evaluate which bands to include on a line-up:

"The artist has to be able to show that they're ready to maximise any opportunities that might come out of that, which includes a really strong media and social media presence, and for example, that is one of the criteria of being selected as a Scouted artist," said Music SA CEO Christine Schloithe.

To get any financial recognition from Spotify you need to stream past a threshold of a minimum number of times your content has been heard, but you also need to get past the number of phantom musicians whose content is crowding out original music.

Critics like Ted Gioia have pointed out there's an increasing number of shadow artists padding out the material on Spotify and it's not clear if it's a further inequity for musicians trying to be heard.

So it seems inappropriate for an organisation promoting music with South Australia to rely on a company that is not in the business of promoting these kinds of bands and musicians.

There probably are questions to explore on the role of metrics in decision-making for an organisation and it's here that Spotify looks like a potential benchmark.

Where did the bands go?

Rick Beato raises an interesting observation here about how few contemporary bands appear in the charts

I think one of the things he misses is that pretty much all of recorded music is available online. In the past albums would go out of print, unless they were really popular.

The other thing is that contemporary music is so much more competitive, with that many more artists and they don't get the budgets and experience available to previous generations.

(Part of me is amazed at the older stuff that my kids listen to, but another part of me ponders those two points above.)

Another factor influencing their ongoing success might be that by the 1990s many bands had stopped touring material before recording it, which means they wrote and recorded songs without performing them for audiences and missed having that opportunity to fine-tune structures or develop material beyond to be more memorable.

And, yet another idea, the demise of bands fits within a broader trend identified in Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community, a nonfiction book by Robert D. Putnam published in the year 2000. (After all, Regurgitator sang that "Music is sport!")

Elephant crushes Triple J

Woke to the news The Wiggles have won Triple J's Hottest 100 with their cover of Elephant

It's not surprising to me, as the song seemed to be the only contender that I saw being discussed in the lead-up to the event.

I think it's an inspired cover, as The Wiggles do what great covers do and make it their own.

The original track is cynical about a particular kind of corporate character that seems straight out of the stories about Sony's Australian operations.

This kid-friendly rendition brings light to the image and beautifully segues into The Wiggles own material as a kind of bridge or medley.

However, I feel like we're witnessing the moment when Triple J finally disappears up it's own arse.

For years the need for the station to appeal to youth has meant they increasingly mimic the overblown hype of commercial radio.

The idea that the Triple J competition is won by a song they produced themselves is a kind of vertical-integration, as the promote and also sell the result.

Maybe I should file a complaint with the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission?

Broken tokens

This tweet prompted a lot of thought

I found myself confronted by the sexism and aghast that one might evaluate music on something other than its intrinsic value; then resigned that 'the personal is political' and consumers should vote with their purses.

Still wondering whether my efforts to balance the music I write about for Cyclic Defrost are token.

Sounds of (not so) silence

A friend shared this beaut version of Paul Simon and Art Garfunkel singing 'The Sounds of Silence' live.



For me this song often prompts one of those 'what if?' moments.

Originally it was recorded without the electric instruments accompanying it, so I sometimes wonder how Paul Simon felt after hearing what happened to it.

After Bob Dylan went electric in 1965, Columbia Records' producer Tom Wilson decided this was now the fashion for folk music:

By June 1965, folk-rock had its first number one hit with The Byrds’ amped-up version of Dylan’s “Mr. Tambourine Man.” That month Wilson produced “Like a Rolling Stone,” Dylan’s landmark electric rocker… Without the knowledge of Simon or Garfunkel, Wilson hired session players – bassist Joe Mack, drummer Buddy Salzman and guitarists Vinnie Bell and Al Gorgoni – to overdub an electric backing track onto “The Sounds of Silence.”

Gorgoni later said he regretted the decision:

“I love the song – but those guitars ... they’re just awful. I really can’t listen to it now. ... Of course, all the things that are wrong with the recording didn’t stop it from becoming a huge success. So there you go.”

It's difficult to imagine the song without those backing parts now, but I wonder if it would've still found an audience.

I guess Simon and Garfunkel have accepted the electric instruments, or are they included in the live performance above to meet the expectations of the audience?

These days a producer would make it sound like the version below!

Round and round

Recently there was news that music released on vinyl records had overtaken music released via digital download in the UK. 

It surprised me as I'm not enamoured with records but, then again, this week I've also seen an interesting discussion of how the emotional content of music can be missing in MP3 files.

Another article pointed to the demise of rock music in the charts and it got me wondering if the medium isn't shaping the effectiveness of the message, because essential elements of rock like guitars and cymbals don't sound as good when they lose higher frequencies during encoding to MP3 files.

I have a theory that it was the rise of magnetic tape as a recording medium that contributed to the development of rock music, particularly the dynamics of the modern drumkit.

Anyway, I expect rock will return again for a number of reasons. I also have a theory that it resurfaces regularly because it's what record company executives know best.

But, not so seriously, how long before wax cylinder recordings make a comeback? Because I was excited to finally locate the Edison cylinder and playback machine at work this week.

Scrapheap orchestras

Tim Prebble introduced my family via his blog to this reality TV show about an orchestra performing on instruments made from scrap.



It was surprising how engrossed my kids became in the show but they don't watch much television, so maybe it was a novelty. I particularly enjoyed the instrument makers and the background information about Tchaikovsky's 1812 Overture.

It would've been interesting to learn more about the musicians. I think an American version of the show could stretch to a season because it seemed like it was made with a small crew and more crews could generate a lot more content covering the participants.

Just before we got to the finale, I remembered where I'd seen a similar story and made my family watch this documentary about the Landfill Harmonic in South America.



In comparison the British reality television show seemed to be gentrified and dictated by the needs of television. The timeframe for production might've determined the need to use professional musicians and instrument makers. As a result it loses a lot of the human interest for me.

There's something about the South American 'underdog' story that makes it so much more poignant but I really enjoyed the orchestra and particularly the makers in the British show, which I think is reality television while the Landfill Harmonic piece seems more like a documentary.

There's a lot that 'reality' and documentary television share in common but I think there is a line that gets crossed by the former in terms of manipulating the narrative and/or outcomes that defines them as separate genres.

An evening with Kristin Hersh

This week I was fortunate to meet the singer of bands Throwing Muses and 50 Foot Wave, as well as solo recordings. Kristin Hersh was bright-eyed and attentive in conversation, making time to speak with every one of the dozen who attended the night.

During a talk she recounted the scene in Boston near the start of her career, mentioning how important it had been that the bands had an “idiosyncratic sound”.

It was funny to hear her mention that for a long time she’d thought that Black Francis of The Pixies was a lesbian. Hersh mentioned that they’d talked often about how it was to be different.

“We were supported by this scene that allowed us to sound strange,” she’d said ahead of explaining a “glowing garbage” analogy where it was beautiful to be different.

“Pretty music is never going to resonate except in a superficial way,” she’d stated. Hersh discussed how she’d ask people why they liked the music. “They’d say ‘I wasn’t alone’” she recounted, which reminded me how much grunge had seemed to unearth an alienated generation. She described her music as “unattractive, but I had to make it.”

While she acknowledged how important the Boston scene had been to her career, Hersh didn’t see the support network as something that was as important these days. “A scene is something there isn’t much of these days, geographically anyway.”

Hersh was critical of her former label Warner Brothers. She mentioned the advice for songs offered by major labels amounted to “If it blows, it sells.” There was a pursuit of the lowest common denominator that had led to losing early followers. As a result Throwing Muses had found themselves excluded from the Boston scene. “Imagine the losers at your shows if you do what the major labels ask?”

In addition to disparaging the accounting practices of some record labels who would claim that an album was still in debt after paying itself off, she went even harder on the fashion industry. Hersh described that she knew all her physical flaws from appearing in photo shoots, as this industry relished in pointing out shortcomings.

When the opportunity arose to ask a question of her songwriting process, I was dumbfounded to hear Hersh describe it as a case of transcribing aural hallucinations. I’d known that misdiagnosed mental illness had been a theme in her career but didn't think I'd have so little scope to ask about creative processes.

“There’s something about the songwriting process that makes you want to die,” Hersh said later on. “The song exists and it says ‘go away now’.”

Other musicians in the audience asked questions on how to develop and she offered “You have to find your vocabulary to move people.”

“You’re not allowed to be relieved, that’s the listener’s job. You’ve got to crucify yourself. I know a lot of rock stars and they’re ridiculous… I know more successful homeless people.”

It seemed clear that she’d found more contentment outside the world of a recording artist. She explained that she’d been cured of aural hallucinations and no longer wrote songs. Writing books was now her focus and a story was shared about her moving on to editing proofs after performing a concert the night before.

I thought Kristin Hersh was thoughtful, honest and thoroughly charming. The two songs she performed were great, although the acoustic guitar sounded brash with bright new strings and over-powered her singing.

In review

When I began writing reviews last century it was largely an opportunity to hear new music. These days I don’t listen to much music and when I do it’s often older material. As much I railed against the narrowing of tastes with age while younger, I’ve grown more comfortable with the idea as I’ve become older.

But this mature perspective has also made me uneasy about writing reviews. Too often they’re a bunch of subjective statements with little relationship to their subject, like Zappa’s observation that writing about music is like dancing about architecture.

Subjectivity is a weird thing to try and be objective about, I think. It makes me appreciate those Postmodern writers who grappled with writing statements, even if they were often so verbose as to be impenetrable.

One example for me was reviewing Everclear’s album “Sparkle and Fade”. Wikipedia notes the band endured comparisons to Nirvana and that was something I focused on in my review because it’s kind of easy to look for comparisons. I later felt somewhat surprised and blindsided when the band gained airplay, as I felt I’d dismissed their album on first listen.



There’s an interesting discussion in John Seabrook’s book “The Song Machine” where he discusses the process of testing new music with listeners. He outlines that a song needs to be heard three times before a thorough opinion can be formed. I wish I knew this when I was writing reviews for print.

When I began writing for Cyclic Defrost I was given an album to review. I didn’t like it but persevered with attempting to objectively describe as I really wanted to write for them and needed to demonstrate this to the editors. As soon as I could I said I wouldn’t write any more album reviews.

Yet here I am attempting to write a review after seeing the backlash from an Iranian musician to Tony Mitchell’s review of the album “Absence”. I really feel for that guy because when I dismissed Everclear, who would go on to get a lot of airplay and sell albums, the band probably never read my review and were irked enough to write a statement in response. The internet makes the world a small place.

The other thing is that the album I’ve been attempting to review is one that I have a relationship with already. When I hear it I am transported to a Scout Hall outside Wagga, where I heard the music being performed. I’m not sure those memories will provide anything of interest to Cyclic’s readers.

Anyway, now that I’ve written out these thoughts, I think can attempt to be objective.

Old is new

2013 has seen a couple of big acts release new albums and, while I haven't listened to them, I've been observing the debates on a couple of websites.

It's interesting to see how some artists stir these conversations with comments that appear calculated, such as Daft Punk's dismissive attitude toward laptop musicians:

The problem with the way to make music today, these are turnkey systems; they come with preset banks and sounds.

I can relate to this. I've found using analogue synths provides richer sounds than software synths but also because I've found my laptop to be a fascinating way of experimenting with sounds once I stopped using the samples.

However, my interest in raising this discussion is to provide a slightly different perspective. While I think Daft Punk's disco shows their age a bit and, though I like disco, it seems a very sentimental direction for a duo who I liked for making techno that harked back to earlier days.

When I first read about postmodernism it was framed as a carnivorous approach that took the aesthetics of movements and reworked them away from such anchors as context. Taking meaning and making it a spectacle freed from result from the needing to deliver a message.

It was suggested the opposing view to postmodernism was romanticism, which prefers sincerity and authenticity, but once irony had been unleashed it was hard not to be skeptical.

When reading Peter Kirn's diatribe against Daft Punk, my Facebook reply focused on how it's a PR technique to draw distinctions between your record and those of contemporaries. But I think Daft Punk's focus on using older machines to make new music is similar to those trends you see in apps where a simple device is given an older look or character.

Software effects have been making VSTs with graphics that reflect old hardware for a long time but the rise of photography filters that mimic old polaroids or the faded brown tones of grainy photographs have been very popular.

Which reminds me a bit of Boards of Canada's aesthetic, known for warbling sounds of tape dubs and the like. It's interesting some listeners say it sounds too digital. Reading an interview with band just now and the interviewer started a question:

In the context of history, we live in an age of unparalleled science and rationality. But despite this, religion and ideas of mysticism – along with other fringe concerns such as conspiracy, etc – continue to thrive.

Part of the appeal in such narratives is they're easy to understand. As technology revolutionises various aspects of our lives, the demand to stay current competes with many other demands. So I'm wondering if the marketing of devices by giving them an old, familiar look isn't a way of selling a product to an audience who are feeling increasingly hostile to having to learn new technology?

In a way this would be furthering the postmodernity of it all too, because the apps never really fully capture the physical model. Sometimes it's the results, sometimes it's the interface, sometimes it's the way they're slavishly imitating hardware but avoiding the key details to avoid infringement.

Which leads to this weird deja vu feeling. Like the sequels and updated myths in franchise movies, there's a sense the meaning and authenticity of an original spirals away into infinite semiosis -- as meaning shifts in each incarnation and floats further from the definition anchoring it.

Daft Punks interpretation of disco harks back to an age that never really existed.

Superjesus' Sarah McLeod

Got to ask a few questions of Superjesus singer Sarah McLeod last night and found it fascinating to learn about her approach songwriting.

A couple of points really jumped out for me, first she said she usually writes in the key of A. This reminded me my formative years were spent listening to Metallica and they wrote almost exclusively in E (before dropping down and tuning up again in recent years). And now A reminds me of Apples, being the note they chime on boot-up. Anyway, she said she was surprised how low she sung on early songs and that it took her a bit of time to find her voice -- as it were -- and sing higher melodies.

The other point was that she went through bouts of songwriting, attributing this to creative flow but I wondered if deadlines didn't play a role when you're on a contract to a record label. Sarah said she'd work on material and then, before returning to it the next day, have another idea before listening to the first to avoid feeling like it was the one creative thread to explore. This seems like a good approach because often I'll find myself flogging a dead horse trying to make a song of a single interesting idea.

Sarah recounted that one of the blokes in ABBA had described songwriting as being like looking in a cupboard waiting for a monster to appear. You wait and wait and eventually get up to go to the toilet or something and there it is -- which I don't think suggested that he found his songs in the bowl but it reminded me of this line from Badly Drawn Boy's Damon Gough:

"I've got this theory about songwriting," he says. "I go to a tree, which has several doors in it. Every door has a bell that plays a melody when you press it, and has a pixie living behind it. If the pixie decides to let you in, he'll give you some kind of nucleus for a song, such as the melody from the doorbell or maybe a couple of lyrics. All the pixies have got different characters. Sometimes you'll get a snappy little fella who's very impatient, so that will have to be quite a quick song, but if you get a gentler, more patient pixie, you might end up with a ballad."

It was great to pick the brain of another ARIA-winning songwriter and Sarah was charming. After reminding myself of Superjesus' material I'm surprised at some of the dark undercurrents in it but maybe that was grunge.

The Presets' Pacifica

Mentioned the first single off Pacifica a couple of months ago and now I've had a couple of listens to The Presets new album. It's a lot of fun, reminds me more of their first album Beams in the variety of sounds on there. It's more like a compilation.



Apocalypso was a very popular album, for me it was the edge on the production -- or rather, the distortion and white noise (which is more fuzzy than sharp, admittedly).

Recently I heard the tour edition of that album and it had a different track order, which worked surprisingly well but maybe because it pushed back the rawness of My People, which I gather was a very different sounding track before it was re-mixed.

In a interview in Audio Technology magazine, Kim Moyes said the mix of My People was

pretty full-on. It got brutal in the top end and the drums were really small. Initially I was really happy with it -- I thought is sounded like Metallica. It didn't sound like a house track.

Knowing it was going to be the first single, Pav (Steve Pavlovic, Modular Records boss) suggested we give this guy in LA John Fields a try to see what he came up with. We sent him the tune and he mixed it really well. The drums were massive; everything was really aggressive and a lot of the top end had been reined in.

Being the deluxe schmuck I am, it'd be great to hear that earlier draft of the track. Another snippet from that interview is this view of Julian Hamilton's home studio; seriously love the milk crates.



Apocalypso had a sound acorss the tracks in a way that Beams and Pacifica don't. Dunno, I get a sense of tracks on those albums kinda synthesising popular sounds. For example, the Pacifica track Promises is a big single waiting for summer, it kinda reminds me of Friendly Fires or Passion Pit. Anyway, hopefully it'll be a big summer single. And Fast Seconds is another great track, it's been replayed a couple of times in my household. It'll be killer in their live show.

There's a vocal effect on A.O. that reminds me of The Knife and Fever Ray but it doesn't hide the best lyrics, starting with the opening line about a kookaburra sitting in a tree not named. It's an obvious reference to the case brought against Men At Work for referencing the melody to Kookaburra sits in an old gum tree and the following line about feeling "the shame" is one I'll interpret as an admission to theft because I'm pretty sure every musician has stolen.

The remainder of A.O.'s lyrics focus on the state of Sydney and there's a wry line about schizophrenic tourist being shot and the choice line:

little old ladies die afraid and alone
surrounded by yuppies, small bars and coke

The title is a nice reference to the Adults Only tag that was used for classifying mature content on television back in the day; but I also like that those initials stand for Order of Australia -- as if the angry lyrics about the gentrification of Sydney make it a synecdoche for the country.

Pacifica is a strong album, full of pop hooks and synthy programming with some off the grid drumming. Often I get the feeling The Presets are writing for a different demographic than mine but they're a fascinating band to watch, particularly now they're aiming for bigger venues than the clubs they were touring before Apocalypso broke. And that's one other observation, there's something more anthemic about the choruses that makes me think that when I hear them live I'll get a whole new appreciation. Thing is, this time they'll be in a much larger venue.

Perfecting Sound Forever

Greg Milner's book Perfecting Sound Forever is a great read as well as being a well-researched history of recording technology.

Starting with Edison's wax cylinders and covering the development of the rival Victrola, the introduction of magnetic tape after World War II, then Philips' compact disc and, finally, discussion of the loudness wars initiated by radio stations that have blighted popular music in recent years.

The explanations of the technology were easy enough for me to understand but the highlights seemed to be the people on the periphery who I'd never heard of before, like Leopold Stokowski and John Diamond. The latter has ignited a long-running debate about the effects of listening to digital recordings and there's an interesting quote from Rupert Neve on this topic elsewhere on this blog.

Experiencing Nirvana

Nevermind was the first CD I owned and was a birthday gift from my girlfriend at the time. I'd seen the film clip for Smells Like Teen Spirit on MTV and asked for the album when it came out that week. Like everyone else I was crazy about it.

I managed the meet Nirvana briefly during their Australian tour, which coincided with Nevermind charging up the charts. They caused a riot at the ANU Bar in Canberra with fans smashing in the windows to see the show. I was watching from outside the stage door and introduced myself to Dave and Kris, who gave me a plectrum. Kurt was in his own world, detached.

The anniversary of the album will see a remastered version of Nevermind released and it's great to see a record given the director's cut-style treatment as I've been hoping for this for a while now.

However, I'm less enthused by these comments from Charles Sturt University academic Catherine Strong.

“Kurt was a contradictory figure, on one hand he had the reputation of being really pure, of being only about the music,” Dr Strong said.

“But he also enabled Nirvana to be marketed to a mass audience, with his choice of producers, record labels and so on.

“Grunge had anti-commercial and anti-capitalist messages, yet those things ended up getting lost along the way.

“Grunge also had a strong message of equality, supporting gay rights and women’s rights, yet this political aspect isn’t discussed much these days.”

It's a mistake to attribute so much to Kurt Cobain IMO and the remastered version of the album is supposed to be closer to his vision for Nevermind than what was released.

And grunge was a very successful label commercially for a bunch of bands from Seattle and some were closer to metal than pop-punk but it made them easier to market if they were lumped in with Nirvana. Everyone was surprised at the success they found, I remember reading a Rolling Stone article on grunge and the Seattle scene that was published about a year ahead of Nevermind and the author predicted Mudhoney as the band most likely to find a 'mainstream' audience.

It's also a mistake to lump a bunch of issues like gay rights with grunge, given the diversity of the genre. I suggest these were part of a much larger dynamic in the early 1990s that included trends like 'lipstick lesbianism'.

Liking Amon Tobin's ISAM I am

Lately I haven't bought many albums but Amon Tobin is one musician I'm still interested in listening to and his new release elevates his work to a new level artisticly.

While ISAM lacks some of the variety of Tobin's last album it reminds me of his early work in the cinematic vibe and surprising shifts of mood. There's the trademark whizzing sounds but the drum breaks aren't as manic. It's quite refined and coherent as a body of work though.



Previously I've been a bit dismissive of fancy CD packaging, sometimes it seems like the fancier the cover the less one should expect of the contents. But now I know better because the new Amon Tobin album gives purpose to such cosmetic detail.

The deluxe packaging for Tobin's new album ISAM uses a hardcover booklet to house colour reproductions of a collaboration that harkens back to times of yore when one would listen to a whole album and marvel at its artwork.



The record label Ninja Tune have produced a lovely document to package Tobin's album and it's really made me rethink the demise of buying a physical record. Ninja Tune also released a beautiful package for their 20th anniversary the other year and I really like their focus on creating a tactile listening experience.

Seeing through CDs

Rupert Neve is a name that people who read audio engineering magazines will have seen. He's responsible for developing some expensive electrical stuff that makes music sound pleasing.

The following quote is from an interview with Mr Neve in Audio Technology and it's interesting in light of the shift we've seen toward digital audio formats:

"The Japanese showed some time ago that the brain produces electric radiations in the presence of different emotions and emotional stimuli. If you listen to an analogue music signal that is good quality, with no crossover distortion and no digital sampling, in can be a very satisfying experience. And as you start listening to it, you do the the thing which us older ones have done for a long time -- you come home after a long, hard day, put a long playing record on, and put your feet up. Even if the record is a bit scratchy, you can listen to it and enjoy it and relax. But you can't do that any longer…[because of the distortions of CDs and cheap transistor circuitry.]

"The Japanese have shown, and in fact a lot of us are accepting quite happily, that these distortions -- first of all the lack of music-related frequencies above 20kHz, and secondly the presence of the switching transient noises above 20kHz -- actually produce a different form of brain radiation. They produce the kind associated with discomfort, frustration, even anger. I am wondering whether we can't blame the CD for some of our social problems."

This makes sense to me because I've grown up with CDs and find I rarely listen to them to relax. I mostly enjoy music to be energised but sometimes for background noise.

For a while I'd listen to music while falling asleep and chose laid-back albums but there were only a few where I could actually fall asleep while listening to them. One time I put one of these albums on repeat to play through the night and found myself awake in the early hours of the morning feeling really angry at this mellow sort of music and couldn't understand why.

And MP3s must be even worse as they have an even narrower frequency range and often more distortion.

How ARIA?

Thought this comment on judging the ARIAs was illuminating:

Upon joining the judging panel for the ARIA awards, I asked for all of the CDs for which engineers and producers had been nominated. My contact at ARIA was perplexed by this request. Dumbfounded, I patiently explained that I couldn’t possibly judge the quality of engineering and production work without listening to the recordings themselves. This was a perfectly reasonable argument, of course, and a box of 40 or so CDs landed on my doorstep shortly afterwards. Likewise one year later. But on the third year they objected, saying I was the only one of a dozen or so judges who asked for the CDs. I don’t know how the other judges made their decisions, but it sure as hell wasn’t from listening to the recordings – unless they happened to be extremely keen fans of Australian-produced music in all shapes and forms, and already owned every CD on the list. Considering the scope of music covered by the nominations (everything from hard rock to soft baroque), I found that highly unlikely. Other factors were obviously at play in the judges’ minds; perhaps basing their decisions on chart figures, sales success, or even less relevant and/or less honest means. Whatever the case, I rapidly began to lose interest in the whole thing. And when five engineers won the same award simultaneously, I knew the system was screwed.

This record

Great cover art. Obviously a very cool record.

Curious review

Just saw this in the Sydney Morning Herald Spectrum section from Saturday, an album review without text. (You can tell it's the Spectrum because it's got that weird pie chart they use. I think the pie chart is weirder than a review without words but it's there every week.)

At four stars I wouldn't have thought the reviewer would be lost for words. Either they're a novice -- and, to be honest, I've read a few reviews lately that seemed like the sorta PR you get with the album as a reviewer -- or it is an album that I'm intrigued to hear for myself to form an opinion.