The first volume of Music Under Lockdown: Melbourne 2020 was released in October 2020, documenting recordings made by artists in Melbourne during the long periods of lockdown due to COVID-19 that year. The response to the call for submissions was overwhelming, and recordings made during lockdown continued to come in after the first volume was released. Volume 2 collects these extra submissions that didn’t make it onto the first volume, continuing to document the response of Melbourne artists to this extraordinary time.


David Evans “Emergence” (October 2020) - I began working on this piece as we were approaching the end of the second lockdown. Like many people, I’d found things more difficult the second time around, which was probably also due to the compounding effect of events across the whole year. I also spent more time re-evaluating things and, in that spirit, this piece revisits some old recordings I’d never done anything with, and is intended to convey a tentative and renewed sense of awakening.


Mineral Sands “Soyuz Empire” (September 2020) - During the evening of July 23, 2020 with Melbourne in a curfew, the Russians launched a Soyuz Progress 76 Cargo Spacecraft with 3 tonnes of food, supplies and scientific research experiments from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan, flying up to the International Space Station. This inspired the guitars and pedal settings of Mineral Sands.


Honeyant “Sleeping In…” (August 2020) – A microphone was in the room as I sat and played around in the 3am winter darkness with various objects and machines. I started thinking about all my friends who had died recently and their impact and influence on my life in some weird and wonderful ways.


Dale Gorfinkel “Air Drums – Positively Elephantine” (August 2020) - Last year, a yellow 8ft balloon which I’d been using (as part of my 'Switches and Hose' instrument) met an untimely death before a gig. During the lockdown, I've been trying to figure out how to breathe life into this large latex corpse. Here is a simple setup that I've been calling 'air drums', in which the skin doubles as both a reed and a drum.


Just Read “On The Edge” (August 2020) - During lockdown, not being able to collaborate in a way I was used to, I started producing short pieces myself using limited parameters, in this case with one synth, a simple sequence progressively modified and shifted against itself, and a dozen or so delay units.


David Palliser “Ointment” (July 2020) – Ointment is one of many solo tracks without any electronics I've been making over the years. They're a challenge to myself to make something hopefully interesting from the bare possibilities of saxophone or clarinet. Last year's isolation seemed to make this way of working even more necessary.


Timothy K Brown “Boneland” (July 2020) - I live on a bush block in Coldstream. I feel lucky to be here but the isolation is magnified by the lack of human sound. When I walk, I walk on the property, through the scrub, along the river. I see no one. There are animal bones everywhere. The house is made of mud. There is so little electricity. I've made this song with what little gear I have here, and like so much music it comes from a place of catharsis. More than ever, during isolation, we have to make do with what we have. This song is primitive, electric and restless and that's how COVID makes me feel.


Brute Springclean “Saturn Five” (June/July 2020) - Through the pandemic I'd been exploring with modular synthesis whilst thinking a lot about science and science fiction, where they meet, when science fiction jumps categories and drops the fiction, to be just science. We've mostly known pandemics from science fiction books and movies like Contagion, The Omega Man and 12 Monkeys. But here it was on the news every night. One night in lockdown I watched the Apollo 11 documentary and wondered what it must have felt like for people watching the news back then, when something only conceivable in science fiction was right there on the TV. The lockdown has brought a sense of the unreal with it, with many of us safely locked in our bubbles whilst many others have to go out into the world, keeping our supplies coming and tending to the sick. When making this track I was thinking about those on the edge of known science, racing for the prize, at the frontiers. I was reaching for a sense of exploration, the fixed forces of nature and the human pulse combined in a dance.


Caleb Joyce “Luaithre” (April 2020) - The song was made in Croydon in the eastern suburbs, and it is for a friend who sadly took his own life around the start of April when things started getting really serious with lockdowns and COVID getting worse over the world. He had a lot of demons and was isolated a lot of his life but I think that the idea of isolation and the virus just made things so much worse for him. The track is long due to the musical style, but also me copying portions of his style in the music he made, under the moniker of Luaithre.


Adam Simmons “Empty” (March 2020) - This is for a long-time friend and beautiful artist, Sean Baxter. On Monday 16th March, 2020 I had just come to the realisation that a whole year of planned international performances was going to be impossible due to the spreading coronavirus when I got a phone message with the news of Sean’s death. It all came at once and hit hard. Two weeks later I got a last-minute invitation from Nat Grant to contribute something for Make It Up Club’s second online concert and this was my offering. This was my first online/lockdown gig (and only one of two from the past five months). It’s not a tribute as such, it’s not trying to be Sean, it’s not what he did - and in some ways it feels indulgent to share my personal process of grieving in public this way - but it is an offering that is only possible because of what Sean shared with me.


The Nova Fiends “The Last Man” (March 2020) - The Last Man is far from some statement of masculinity. It is inspired by the philosophic concept of what humanity could look like at the end of history. Since the world is looking exceedingly apocalyptic lately, it seemed appropriate. We were born into a disintegrating environment. The pandemic is just throwing it all into sharper relief. The Nova Fiends' song was recorded in Coburg, during lockdown. The song was recorded DIY style, using whatever equipment we could get together. It is based somewhat on a Leadbelly song for the rhythm, but we drench it in melodic guitar and dissonant bass feedback, and on top is an apocalyptic preacher routine.