Gestalt - √−1 7" Pyrrhic 001, 1982

We've made our feelings on Sydney's North Shore known before. We admit though that there was a pretty good punk scene up there that spawned some of our favourite records; oh, and Progression Cult too. There was other stuff as well, and the leafy bush around Church Point (almost as far North as Sydney stretches) produced a strange experimental record in 1982.

The 300 press was split equally amongst the three members. Each member's 100 copies has label and sleeve designed by that individual member. We haven't seen enough copies over the years to be sure how much variation thus ensued but the three we know of are pretty different. Anyway, as explained in the booklet which comes with some copies, the common denominators in each copy are the bandname Gestalt, the label and catalogue number (Pyrrhic 001) and the song titles: Adventures Of A Flea, Chained To The Floor, Of This Men Will Know Nothing and Latent Doings.

The packagings are labours of love - from the 1/2 inch thick piece of foam matting above to the found photography and art here, down to the hand altered blank white labels.

The care extends to the music - analog synths, electroacoustic tape manip and so on. We're no experts on this kind of thing though it's unpleasant enough, if lacking the kind of anti-social edge we could hang our coats on.

As to the protagonists - they're unnamed. How did they come to make music like this? John Blades in his memoir speaks of the importance of Double Jay in proselytising mutant sounds. M-Squared's first half dozen releases precede this and they had decent distribution, on the East coast at least. There's a probable M Squared connection, at least by communication - MxM gets a thanks, and the the Shane in the thanks list is Shane Fahey, Gordon is probably Gordon Renouf (Slugfuckers, Wild West, M Squared engineer), and so on. The recording wasn't done at M Squared though, but at the "now demolished Roscoe St residences" - most likely in Bondi (but perhaps in Newcastle), over Easter 1981.

Adventures Of A Flea [Download]


Chained To The Floor [Download]


Of This Men Will Know Nothing [Download]


Latent Doings [Download]

Another sleeve variation, front...

...and back.

It was cheap...