Midday Moon is a survey of ambient and experimental music that emerged from Australia and New Zealand between 1980 and 1995. These recordings are sourced from a rich variety of micro-labels, private pressings, theatre soundtracks and artists' personal archives. Curated by Melbourne based DJ and archivalist, Sanpo Disco (a.k.a Rowan Mason), the collection delves deep into the world of outsider music that emerged in Australia and New Zealand in the latter half of the twentieth century, as synthesisers and early workstations began to enter the consumer marketplace. The record is an odyssey in itself, a journey that takes listeners into the unsung world of Australian new age composers. There are stories abound within this volume, from the mysterious disappearance of Helen-Ripley Marshall after the release of her 1988 album 'Green Chaos', to the journey of American-born, Perth based blues/rock guitarist John Heussenstamm, who unexpectedly turned his finger to 'ambient' music in the late 80's; and again from Melbourne based Ros Bandt, who made a series of recordings exploring the resonance of a hollow concrete cylinder 5 stories beneath busy Collins Street in Melbourne's CBD. Compiled by Sanpo Disco / Mastered by Mikey Young. '(Ambient music is) a surrounding influence that induces calm and a space to think... it can accommodate many levels of listening attention without enforcing one in particular.' - Brian Eno / 'A richer and more diverse ambient genre began to form. Music that crafts a unique cultural geography of landscapes and atmospheres: real and imagined, natural and man-made. Some artists turned their attention to the singular acoustic ecologies of overlooked spaces around the country. Others fostered interests in non-Western music cultures and instruments. The common thread is their use of new technologies to conjure interior and exterior regions, through acoustic and synthesised sounds.' - Sanpo Disco Tracklisting 1) Not Drowning, Waving - Frogs , 2) Mark Pollard - Quinque II, 3) Blair Greenberg - Beach, 4) John Heussenstamm - Sawan, 5) Beyond the Fringe - Guitar Fantasia, 6) Meera , Atkinson - White, 7) Free Radicals - My Lips are Moving, 8) John Elder - Again, 9) Helen Ripley-Marshall - Under the Sun, 10) Blair Greenberg - Rainforest, 11) Sam Mallet - Westgate Bridge at Dawn, 12) Gary Havrillay - Temple, 13) Ros Bandt - Starzones, 14) John Elder - Wayayisma Petra, 15) Sam Mallet - Stream Daimons Speak, 16) Blair Greenberg - Gleaming, 17) Robert Bleeker - Glowing Trombones, 18) Tom Kazas - Blankets of Ice, 19) Errol H. Tout - As Darkness Falls File under: Ambient
