Mint 400 (1995) - Ammonia

Major label debut from Perth band Ammonia. Excellent post-grunge with some proto-emo moments. Sometimes comes across as a much more bearable Oasis.

I had a bit of a dive through the Internet archives but not a lot comes up in the zine circles. Hopefully I'll add a little more research as I come across it.

1. Ken Carter        3:55
2. Drugs        3:27
3. Sleepwalking        3:10
4. Face Down        5:09
5. In A Box        2:35
6. Suzi Q        2:37
7. Little Death        5:24
8. Mint 400        2:17
9. Small Town        2:25
10. Burning Plant Smell        3:07
11. Z-Man       2:37
12. Million Dollar Man        3:57

Mint 400 (1995) - Ammonia

Peculiar World (1998) - Litany

The first upload of 2018, from a track encountered on the Rock n Roll High School Vol. 4 comp previously uploaded, is this offering.

Much of the history surrounding this group might be garnered from the aforementioned RnRHS page. Litany was a band featuring RnRHS founder Stephanie Bourke on drums and vocals. They bridged a range of styles, sometimes playing straight garage indie followed by something bordering on power metal. This breadth is quite refreshing and the album is very listenable.

See period era reviews here and here.

1. Madrigal        3:43
2. By Myself        4:37
3. Aurora        2:53
4. Labyrinth        3:12
5. When You Gonna Stop        3:53
6. Rome        3:41
7. Schubert        1:10
8. Bad Faith        3:49
9. Cathedral        4:51
10. Buy Me An Ocean        3:45
11. Rapunzel        3:32

Peculiar World (1998) - Litany

Popsicle 2 (1995) - Various Artists

The first cassette comp. that I'm uploading here. It piqued my interest because side 2 starts with a Sandpit song that I'd never heard of before (and had a release date about 6 months prior to their debut EP Lessons in Posture being released).

Just playing on the stereo now, it's an excellent indie comp.

The Beat street press magazine logo is on the back of the inlay, so I assume they were the responsible party.Most of the bands were fairly well-known and pleasingly have available catalogues today. Rail opens, followed by Autohaze (still going today) and Dollop, with the Hatfieldian Rubher (Jane Gazzo) closing out the side. Side 2 starts with the interest-piquing Sandpit track (more rudimentary and less melodic than what was to appear on their debut, but hints towards 'Die 501' in the chorus), The Earthmen, Snout and Header. Following up that Header lead gave this blog, which should prove of interest to you, as well as this Soundcloud set of rare live material from more (Perthling?) Aussie 90s bands. 

For the nerds out there, the signal path used in digitising the tape: Technics RS-B66W deck with line-out into a Tascam US-800 USB 2.0 interface, captured at 24 bit, 44.1 kHz and sequenced in Audacity. I have not applied any equalisation or other processing, and I'm not shelling out $4,458 for Celemony Capstan, so you get what you get from a 22 year old cassette, wow, flutter and all.

N.b. the mp3 files are 160 kbps, if you need higher res let me know. The tape artifacts are worst at the start of the comp, but at least there's decent frequency range (response is lumpy) throughout. Lots of <100 Hz listening to the digitisation on AKG K240s.

Popsicle 2 (1995) - Various Artists

Losin' Your Marbles (1995) - Fur

Like Diolene, Sandpit and Gerling, another band of the Fellaheen Records stable. They amassed a fair following in the 1990s, and like some of their labelmates were the subject of fan sites.

Losin' Your Marbles (1995) - Fur

SmokeStack - Discovering Newcastle (1998) - Various Artists

Surprisingly okay comp. from a government arts initiative in Newcastle. Not all Chili Peppers-esque alt. rock! Ranges from buzzy, jangle pop (Jetson) that somehow prempts Courtney Barnett, to Morrisettisms (Brooke Harvey), to the expected Tool wannabes (Zero One) to screamy brat punk and hardcore (Twin Psyche and Le Bonk). See the shred of the comp's accompanying webpage here.

Disclaimer - I couldn't find any data other than ''97' listed beside a name on the inside, so I actually have no idea if this was released in 1998 or not. If you know better, please tell me.

Also, many of these bands have short bios that can be found here.

When I think of Newcastle I think of Bloody Fist.

1. Jolly Frog    2:44    Jetson
2. Rap Song    3:49    Flat Earth Society
3. Strawberry Jam    4:22    Charlotte's Soiree
4. Dandelion    2:09    Melvin Starr
5. Shiney Car    3:04    Brooke Harvey
6. Morrisseyesque    4:14    Scott Fiddes
7. Mr. Teen    3:30    Supersonic
8. Calling Me    3:37    Zero One
9. Me    3:39    Analagy
10. Permanently Pissed    2:06    Twin Psyche
11. A New World Order    4:00    Human Tribe
12. Split    1:46    Le Bonk
13. Way To Peace    6:46    Limen 10

SmokeStack - Discovering Newcastle (1998) - Various Artists

Us Versus Them (2001) - Us Versus Them




This has been sitting in the box for a while, but for some reason it was only after a rip of this appeared somewhere on Facebook that I remembered that it needed to be uploaded. Another win in the search for period Aussie 'emo', Us Versus Them were a band from Lismore, signed to the veritable Building Records, whose 60 Songs compilation I uploaded not long ago (see former link to see a blurb on the record).


This was purchased off eBay, bur006 in the Building catalogue. The band had a website, which changed from its initial layout in 2001 (see for mentions of a band called Theory of Flight, whom they played with up in Brisbane - addendum: this site called Punk Down Under) to a more spartan look (pun intended) a year later. By around 2003, the site is defunct, so perhaps the band ceased to exist at that point.


There is also mention of a demo tape, with the following tracks:

1. Chapter Two is Dawning

2. Paint this Town

3. More than Gold

4. the High Cost of Segregation


If anybody has a copy of this, let me know so I can put up a rip.


The PLF #4 compilation also featured 'I Should Have Chosen Impulse', which tipped me off to the existence of the band in the first place.


1. Red Is Blood    5:34
2. As Tears Fall From Blackened Hearts    6:16

3. I Should Have Chosen Impulse    6:03

4. Reveling In Destruction; Ravaging In Defeat?    6:15


Us Versus Them (2001) - Us Versus Them


P.S. Here's an even more complete version of Punk Down Under which says that Us Versus Them's last show was 2/2/2002.

Bungalow (2000) - Bungalow

I haven't posted anything in a while because I've been a bit self-concious about my lack of a scanner. Now I'm running a linux box, and tonight's exercise was to rip, encode, tag and zip a compact disc from the collection entirely via the command line. I've got the scanner/printer thing hooked up to the linux machine and managed to use Xsane to get the cover artwork. For the nerds, this is a quick procedure that I wrote out (comments after the hash in each line):

mkdir [album name]
cd [album name]
cdparanoia -B #rip CD tracks into current directory as wav
for t in track{01..xx}*.wav; do lame -b 160 $t; done #convert tracks from 01 to xx at 160 kbps
mid3v2 -a [artist] -A [album] -t "[track name]" -T [x/x -track number] -y [year] track05.cdda.mp3 #create id3 tags - iterate
cd ..
zip -r [album name].zip [album name - directory] #make zip file

Bungalow were a band that I picked up because they had a PO Box in Glen Waverley listed on the back of the disc. They were a bunch of medicine students that played Rock - General. They also had a Triple J Unearthed page featuring one of the songs on this disc, a few years after the fact. If you're looking for a period-era website (hosted by the creatively named au.com) see here.

1. Fall Into Me
2. Dynamo
3. Cafe Poet
4. City
5. I Love Her

Bungalow (2000) - Bungalow