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Distance

by Ad Hoc

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Ol64
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Ol64 «CHANSON AVEC MOUVEMENT

Hier

(Étoiles
bleues.)

Demain

(Petites étoiles
blanches.)

Aujourd'hui

(Songe fleur endormie
dans le vallon de la jupe.)

Hier

(Étoiles
de feu.)

Demain

(Étoiles
violettes)

Aujourd'hui

(Ce coeur, mon Dieu,
ce coeur qui bondit!)

Hier

(Souvenir
d'étoiles.)

Demain

(Étoiles voilées.)

Aujourd'hui...

(Demain!)

Aurais-je le mal
de mer sur la barque?

Oh, les ponts d'aujourd'hui
Sur les chemins de l'eau !»
(Frédérico Garcia Lorca )
book_of_sand
book_of_sand thumbnail
book_of_sand An incredible archival find, cheers!
wahrearbeitwahrerlohn
wahrearbeitwahrerlohn thumbnail
wahrearbeitwahrerlohn I never heard of them before today - very glad to have discovered! The piano work here is really touching my heart. Interesting to read about the connection with Laughing Hands.
Amazing as well to consider that many of these pieces are abbreviated improvisations - sounds like they were a really talented group of people who worked very well together. Favorite track: The Mist.
more...
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  • Limited Edition Cassette
    Cassette + Digital Album

    Limited edition of 100 pro-produced cassettes with risograph cover., replica of the original 1980 release.

    Includes unlimited streaming of Distance via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.

    Sold Out

1.
2.
The Mist 05:50
3.
Breathless 03:23
4.
5.
6.
The Bridge 09:41
7.

about

Tape sold out. Limited copies available from Albert's Basement - albertsbasement.bandcamp.com/album/distance

Shame File Music and Albert’s Basement present a reissue of Ad Hoc’s 1980 release "Distance". Ad Hoc (James Clayden, Chris Knowles & David Wadelton, and at times David Brown) were an obscure Melbourne outfit of the late 1970s/early 80s who stood curiously apart of from many of their more-storied contemporaries, but whose haunting ambient instrumentals sound remarkably contemporary four decades later.

"Distance", their sole release besides some compilation tracks, has been sourced from the original 4 channel master reel tape, and is now available digitally and on a limited edition of 100 replica pro-produced cassettes with risograph cover.

---

A typed note from our archive states, “The members of AD HOC began working together in April 1978. They are David Brown, James Clayden, Chris Knowles, and David Wadelton.”

Ad Hoc grew out of art school friendships. We were all making experimental and uncategorisable work in various media. We’d all attended P.I.T. and taken David Tolley’s “sound” unit.

Chris took out a bank loan (for $700!) and acquired an EMS Synthi AKS Suitcase Synthesiser. He locked himself in a room in our Northcote share house for months, learning its many foibles.

James and I picked up cheap guitars from a favourite place of ours - Clemens Music in Russell Street, a charming time-capsule of old-world Melbourne retail.

James was a bit older than Chris and I, and already on the scene. He lived in Cardigan Street and had lots of connections in Carlton. Soon after suggesting we work together James quickly arranged a couple of shows at La Mama. He was also able to pull strings and secure the use of a parking garage behind Cafe Paradiso in Lygon Street for us to use on weekends (Melbourne closed down at midday on Saturday). We set up our rented Fender amps, blasting out an improvised wall of droning, squalling white noise set to 11 that could be heard up and down the street. It was an art performance without an audience, apart from a Sennheiser Dummy Head.

There was a vibrant underground experimental music scene in Melbourne in the late 1970s and early 1980s. Clifton Hill Community Music Centre (run by David Chesworth) became a focus of much activity. We performed there as either Ad Hoc or Signals on many occasions. We were included on the New Music compilation LP on Philip Brophy and David Chesworth’s Innocent Records in 1980.

Among other memorable shows, we played in Discurio’s basement on a bill called “MET on a Thursday” with Essendon Airport, Laughing Hands and Tsk Tsk Tsk. While the other groups were high profile, we remained on the fringes of the underground. Despite this, we were included in the 1982 Sydney Biennale entitled Vision in Disbelief, as Signals – (when James moved to NSW Dave returned and we became Signals, joined by Philip Thomson on drums).

The only venture to the “other side of the Yarra” that I can recall was a show for the bewildered patrons of the Evelyn Hotel in Prahran alongside Essendon Airport and Laughing Hands, during the hotel’s Friday Night “Tea Garden” nights.

Melbourne was different then and we were all able to individually rent single-front inner-city terraces while living on little more than the dole. Collectively (and more mellow than previously), we recorded "Distance" in Chris’s place over 1979-80 in the then distinctly un-gentrified Lt. George Street, near Gertrude Street, in Fitzroy. Chris had his Synth and tape recorder set up in his front room, along with an upright piano.

All the recordings arose out of lengthy improvisations that Chris, James and I made. When we could “feel it” one of us would hit the record button. From there it went to a stereo two-track cassette. As there was no track separation the mix was locked-in, along with the room ambience. A typed note from this period states “Where editing is used it has consisted of simply presenting short sections from longer improvisations. No overdubs have been used”.

In the spirit of the times, we self-produced and self-released the cassette in a small edition without any expectations, just to get it “out there”.

- David Wadelton, 2022

"The music sounds very 'modern'... has an ambient quality. In the opening piece, 'Yellow Mirror', a piano and some dissonant guitar are playing. The piano returns in other tracks, but it is not mentioned in the information or cover. Whatever they play on the guitars is not very traditional in terms of chords. Repetition is an important thing for this trio. Not by neatly bouncing loops or sequences but manually played, along with the mild inaccuracies that slip in the performance. Mostly delicate stuff, with even something that reminded me of cosmic music ('The Bridge'). An excellent release, this one. This is something that should be re-issued a lot sooner... An unexpected surprise!" -Vital Weekly 1354

"Ad Hoc were a small group of improvisers in Melbourne in the late 1970s. In this recovered and restored tape they were a trio: James Clayden, Chris Knowles, David Wadelton. By the time I became acquainted with the Melbourne music scene in the mid 1990s, they were already a dim recollection from the past, at a time when the previous generation of any movement was as distant and obscure as an origin myth. All I really knew about them was that they had morphed into another group called Signals, who had the reputation of playing the loudest and most abrasive gigs imaginable.

"Distance is not like that. It’s not like much of anything else going on in improvisation at the time, in fact. The closest resemblance that comes to mind is The Makers Of The Dead Travel Fast, but while TMOTDTF and similar groups started with skewed pop tropes (ahem, ‘deconstructed’) and repurposed them into ambient soundscapes, Ad Hoc began with ambient stasis and built from there. Distance was their one legit release, a small-run cassette issued in 1980, now cleaned up and reissued by Shame File Music, archivists par excellence of the Australian scene. With a fuzzy, but not grungy tape sound, reminiscent of the pastoral side of 1970s British prog, the trio create gently pulsing and shimmering textures that find a low-key groove and lock into it. Their savvy use of an AKS suitcase synth and their self-restraint in refusing to elaborate on their melodic material makes it all sound strangely contemporary, especially on the track “The Bridge”, which sounds like someone remixed a futurist library music record for the chillout room." - Boring Like A Drill

credits

released September 1, 2022

James Clayden, Chris Knowles, David Wadelton.
Original master tape digitised by Crystal Mastering, 2021 (with thanks to David Brown).
2022 reissue mastered by James A. Dean

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Shame File Music Melbourne, Australia

Shame File Music specialises in documenting Australian experimental music, both contemporary and historical.

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