the specialist VINTAGE ELECTRONICA

Noise Reduction System: Formative European Electronica/ Closed Circuits: Australian Alternative Electronic Music Of The ’70s & ’80s, Volume 1 Two compilations explore the strange, exciting world of early electronic music in Europe and Australia

As synthesisers became increasingly affordable towards the middle of the 1970s, they were utilised by a new generation of musicians. Some of these saw electronic instruments as a linear continuation of rock’n’roll, while others thought they presented an opportunity for departure. Revolution or evolution? These different approaches are represented by two compilations of electronica drawn from overlapping eras but on different sides of the world. Noise Reduction System, a four-disc volume from Cherry Red, collects experimental European electronica, while Closed Circuit features Australian acts who used synths and drum machines to create new but easily recognisable forms of pop.

Noise Reduction System is the sister volume to last year’s Close To The Noise Floor, which celebrated pioneering British electro. It begins with the jarring “Die Gesunden Kommen”, which sounds like somebody has dropped a hippopotamus on Kraftwerk, and remains firmly wedded to the avant-garde thereafter. Although there are big names – Cluster, Vangelis, Yello – the focus is on the underground, with musicians drawn from right across Europe. Here you’ll find the French cool of Ruth’s “Polaroid/Roman/ Photo”, the glacial “Romantic” by Sweden’s Cosmic Overdose as well as the gorgeous minimalism of “NY NY” by Dutch musician Truus De Groot, recorded in an apartment in Hoboken with a Tampax box for the bass drum. There’s a unifying fascination with the future – best heard on “Speak & Spell” by Germany’s Christina Kubisch, which uses a vocal from a handheld educational computer, and also a wilful eagerness to unsettle, whether on the wickedly hopscotching electro-psych of “Lux” by Switzerland’s Schaltkreis Wassermann or the Throbbing Gristle-inspired “Paeodophile Information Exchange” (yes, seriously) by Spain’s Esplendor Geometrico.

Over in Australia, Closed Circuits presents a different angle. This collection compiles 20 songs recorded between 1979 and 1989 (the vinyl version has four additional tracks) by underground bands who had recently discovered drum machines and synths. As David Nichols remarks in his sleevenotes, few were “hoping to wipe out old rock music”, instead choosing to apply new technology to classic ideas. Within that, there’s room for glorious variety, with the only shared sensibility being the sense of possibility – a spark of invention that unites the groovy “On” by Models, a poppy belter that provides a bridge between past and future, with the cacophonous experimentation of Bring Philip’s “Firetruck”, clanking found music from another planet, let alone continent. The other consolidating factor is the more pronounced humour. There’s a cover of “I Feel Love” as played by Suicide-loving metal-heads Distant Locust, the novelty pop “Talking To Cleopatra” by Anne Cessna and Essendon Airport, and The Metronomes’ brilliant ode to machinery, “A Circuit Like Me”, which is a neat mash-up of The Normal and Kraftwerk. It’s this Australian cheekiness that presents the most intriguing counterpoint to the studied Euro cool of Noise Reduction System.