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Scattered Order – Some Men Remember Music

A listing from my quarterly Guardian column 'Music You Missed', April 2016


From 1979 until 1988 all releases from Sydney post industrialists Scattered Order were on vinyl. Then the world changed. “Electronic music became completely mainstream and CDs … virtually killed off vinyl record production,” lament the band. This is the first vinyl release from Scattered Order since ‘88 and it’s worth the wait. Now, as then, Scattered Order breathe in life and breathe out weird – a danceable version, perhaps, of the decades-long experimentalism of UK recluses Nurse With Wound.

This record works best on immersion in its noise and ooze; letting it creep over you like flesh-eating fog. Amid the disorientation are moments of true beauty – as on I Remember Diamonds, where the Battlestar Galactica-esque Cylon sounds are backed by blossoming viola-like synth. Lo-fi samples – many from foreign TV networks – bubble forth in the brew, making the experience as visual as it is aural. So if you lie down to listen (highly recommended) close your eyes too. Then get up to goth-dance to the industrial beats of Sqitch.

Feature track: What’s that in Euros?

 


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My name is Kate Hennessy. I am a freelance arts and travel writer and music critic. I contribute to Guardian Australia, The Sydney Morning Herald/The Age, The Saturday Paper, The Australian, The Australian Financial Review, The Wire (UK), NME and more.

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    September 6, 2022
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