Panspermia (Selected Works 1986 – 2005)

Description

Limited gatefold white vinyl 2LP with white 7″ and postcard. Hand-numbered cardboard certificate included

“Gary Bradbury is considered one of Australia’s pioneers of electronic music. From 1980 –1985, Bradbury was a member of the seminal electronic post-punk project ‘Severed Heads’ who produced a series of seminal albums; ‘Since the Accident’ (83-84); ‘City Slab Horror’(85); ‘Blubberknife’(82); and ‘Clifford Darling, Please Don’t Live In The Past’ (a retrospective of early works). These works were characterised by the dynamic integration of experimental musical practices, such as tape manipulations, cut ups and the use of found sounds, with more conventional musical forms containing recognisable beats and melodies. He also directed and designed, with various collaborators, three videos for Severed Heads; Goodbye Tonsils, Canine and Big Car. In 1988 he released his first solo album, ‘Drug Induced Sex Rituals’ (a title specifically aimed at a young American audience). In 1992, with Jason Gee, he formed the band ‘Size’. They played live, drank beer and smoked copious cigarettes throughout the 90’s and eventually released the album ‘Actual Size’ in 1997. Bradbury followed this with his two solo CD’s ‘Ruffini Corpuscle’ (2003) and ‘Instant Oblivion’ (2005), released on Dual Plover, a notorious label that specialised in “smashing windows of opportunity”. Throughout this time he also worked extensively in theatre, providing soundtracks for works ranging from experimental movement theatre, most notably Burn Sonata which featured at the Adelaide Festival 1998, through to productions of the works of Shakespeare at the Sydney Theatre Company. His soundtrack for Macbeth (2002) was particularly infamous for its relentless, nightmarish brutality, consisting as it did, for the most part, of samples of pinball machines. Gushing reviews of these works have, over the years, described them as…. “Pinprick precise and giddily warped…rivet splitting beat programming, surgical applications of pungent sound byte snarkery and a candy coated but subtly perverted way with a melody are remorselessly raked across beds of gnashingly sawtoothed signal processing,while still managing to remain swaddled in drugly melted synth.” -Eric Lumbleau (Mutant Sound) “Whilst initially quite challenging, the compositional care taken to structure the works remains a unifying theme… a personal journey that regularly shifts his focus and repeatedly tests out new sonic theories. Bradbury has the rare double; not only is he meticulous in his execution, but he’s been able to produce new atmospheric worlds where the laws of nature no longer exist, but chaos is kept at bay by Bradbury’s odd and innovative logic.” – Bob Baker Fish “Destructive, (really) brutal, broken, crude and, in the same breath, sensitive, pleasant, (really) idealistic and charming. Outstandingly balanced, lavish music without academic ballast, but with humour.” – Hinterland