Ed Kuepper
★★★★ Singles ’86-96 PRINCE MELON. CD/DL/LP
Bountiful highlights from Aussie punk ledge’s turbofertile solo era.
Quitting Brisbane ramalama heroes The Saints after a major label flame-out in 1979, the everprickly guitarist left-turned with the genre-defying Laughing Clowns, but on 1985’s Electrical Storm settled into a furiously prolific phase under his own name. With more approachable acoustic/ electric arrangements and his melodic expertise to the fore, Kuepper again threatened to break big internationally, but ultimately helped define underground alt-rock’s expansive Antipodean wing. Starting off brass-y and railroadrattling on Also Sprach The King Of Euro-Disco, this 20-track singles round-up (with a bonus disc of B-sides) plots a then-unique marriage of blues/rock roots and boomily modern production, which eventually leads to the early’90s homeland paydirt of smouldering ballads like The Way I Made You Feel. He even gives AC/DC’s Highway To Hell a stirring once-over in that idiom. Later briefly a Bad Seed, Kuepper has sanctioned some Laughing Clowns reissues, and a chaotic 2018 live recording of his punker outfit, The Aints. Andrew Perry