The Hippocratic Oats: "Golden Staf Greats"

DNRC44 Format: LP (flexidisc) Released: 2005 Status: DELETED Having deluded the world with "Does", their oddball take on cold sore remedies and therapuetic alternatives to heroin, The Hippocratic Oats upped the proverbial by tranforming their line-up from a male duo to a female quartet on this stunning, though chilling. debut flexidisc. Outlining some of the worst problems facing our hospital system, the album's thirteen sprawling tracks genuinely frighten this listener, with their pairing of drill-core aesthetics and anarkie lyrics. Opener "Spills" sets the ferocious tempo with its breakbeat intro and floored out middle section, vocalist Sharon Oats a terrifying glimpse into the world of nightshifts and bed hygiene, screaming "Spill at bed two, spill at bed three - someone spilt their faeces all over me!" From here on it's a melange of odes to the soft towel bathing method ("Soft Towel"), reflections on pay increases for nurses ("Nurses - You Can't Live on Biscuits") and somewhat barmy musical interludes, including the unspeakable "Belody", on which multi-instrumentalist Harper Does plays banjo, tin whistle and washboard. Decried in their native Melbourne as a Belinda Carlisle supergroup tribute band, The Hippocratic Oats would go on, in 2006 and 2007, to refine their unique sound and effect change throughout the health sector, leading some conservative commentators to hint that all four members would eventually run for public office on a Golden Staf group ticket. Time will tell, however this album, which has of course been deleted as a matter of course, survives in the memory of the two people who listened to it as a testament to the working poor.

Secret Secret Tour: "Papillon Downs"

DNRC43 Format: LP Released: 2005 Status: DELETED In a year during which only a handful of [dnrc] releases appeared, this deliciously smudgy debut from Secret Secret Tour surely takes the rope as a masterful, iconic swagger through the history of noise pop. Taking a bullet straight out of the gun known as My Bloody Valentine's "Honey Power", this scorching disc presents a no-nonsense appraisal of every aspect of guitar-playing, sneaking in elements of noodle-bop, steak-house, granite-blister and obnox-pop alongside mournful dirges, unlisted tuning sessions and sonic incursions. First released on the moon in 1978, Papillon Downs failed to capture the imagination of the listening public there and has thus been re-released on the [dnrc] label as much for its archival significance as its technical brilliance. Verbally taut and rock-wired, lead singer Snugs achieves some phenomenal effects with her unique yodelling trombone voice, while the rest of the band works hard (albeit successfully) to keep up. By the final track, the aptly named "B-Listering", the tempo has risen to an astonishing 365 beats per second, leaving the listener in a sickening state of perpetual indulgence. How this album was ever recorded remains a mystery. It has, however, been sent, like all its predecessors, to the dustbin marked "Deleted", sadly.

The Communist Persuaders: "Persuasion Is My Shadow"

DNRC42 Format: triple LP Released: 2005 Status: DELETED This magnificently barmy release, the first for [dnrc] in 2005, picks up where the previous fourty one releases left off: that is, headed straight for that irrevocably-sad dustbin marked "Delete Me". That's not to say that the Communist Persuaders don't have their charms - they pull off a nice a capella version of "She's Like the Wind" on the first of these three bloated discs - just that a debut triple album from a group that nobody's heard of packed with miniature songs about Puffing Billy, ants and apples is not bound to feature in anybody's record books, unless that record be "Most Amount of Cruns on One Release", in which case "Persuasion In the Shadows" should perhaps be placed in the bin marked "Notoriously Stupid" before emptying that bin into the one marked "Delete Me." You can't have it all your own way - either you have all the players playing the same song at the same time or you have each player laying down his or her track out of synch with the rest of the group, leading to some agonising wails of pain from the listener (in either case). You can't lay down a track called "Shoot the Massage" and then expect anyone to understand what that title actually means. You can't release three albums of kosh and then instigate a no refunds policy at live shows you fail to turn up to. You can't expect anyone to have any patience when you release a song so woefully bad it defies dogs to even listen through its fifty seven minute entirety (cf "Sneer at my buddy and you're gonna get hit, slacker boy"). This sort of record should never even have been thought of, let alone agreed to by a supposedly professional record company, let alone recorded by a group of dodgy Rod Mckueun wannabes, let alone released by afore-mentioned supposedly professional label, let alone reviewed positively by the Launceston street press, let alone hailed as a milestone in the strange annals of Launceston pirate-rock. What can we do except apologise on behalf of Davey Dreamnation, and hope that he never makes such a shocking mistake again, knowing full well that he probably will, and within weeks, too.

The Sea Pigeons: "Hair Collapse"

DNRC41 Format: 7" single Released: 2004 Status: DELETED This, the final DNRC release for 2004, was the song that spelt out the letters of the word "death" for its makers, the somewhat divine and loopy Sea Pigeons. Long-term fans will already own their superb debut album, I Dream of Genius but for new fans, this single is also a must-have, if only for the absence of a b-side, due to the fact that the song was so ferocious it could not be recorded. The Sea Pigeons will be forever remembered as the band that put Ganmain on the musical map but of course folks living in Grong-Grong and Mattong will tell you a different story. They'll try to tell you that The Sea Pigeons were just a Mangoes tribute band; that lead singer C. Pigeon had no musical talent whatsoever, preferring to bellow his asinine vocals down the shafts of rusted orgas; that irrigation, far from increasing salinity, actually improves the quality of the water table; that there's nothing wrong with selling rice to Japan; that anyone who leaves Ganmain-Grong-Grong-Mattong for a better life in Sydney is a dickhead *and* a wanker; that boarding school makes men of boys and arseholes of men; that wool classing is a noble profession; that Khe Sahn is Australia's unofficial national anthem; that they always knew there was something suspect about INXS; that anyone who forms a band in a country town must be some kind of poofter; that ugg bots are the equivalent of formal dress; that roo shooting is not for girls; that Wagga Wagga isn't that bad a place, you know; that eating neenish tarts is a sign of blatant homosexuality; that any kid who wears braces is a tool; in short, that The Sea Pigeons were a bunch of nancy-boy try-hards who wouldn't last ten minutes in a fight in Grong-Grong or Mattong. But anyone who tried to fool you with such a load of cruns would be so far wrong their arse would come out the back end of backwards double wrong too. The Sea Pigeons shat all over any other band from the Murrumbidgee Irrigation Area. And that, sadly, was the reason why even this superb single was, just like all the others, deleted the moment it appeared, like a rabbit in the myxamatosis of our headlights.

The Small Faeces: "Small Faeces"

DNRC40 Format: 7" single Released: 2004 Status: DELETED Taking both their name and the title of this, their debut single, from a song on the one and only Sea Pigeons opus, The Small Faeces were always going to be living on borrowed time. This god-awful single, released only in Japan, features several Sea Pigeons members; however, responsibility for the song, a pathetic attempt to revive the style of early Rod Stewart) must surely rest with Davey Dreamnation himself, who appears here on lead vocals for the first time in several days. Reportedly recorded in a small shoebox outside the Camberwell markets in Melbourne, this song makes even The Tin Lids look respectable - even they have moved on to bigger and better things. Not so The Small Faeces, whose namesake and sole output to date can be found clogging up all the usual public conveniences: sad, deleted and slightly smelly.

Mead: "The Mists of Thyme"

DNRC39 Format: Long Player Released: 2004 Status: DELETED Dynamic, taut, feisty, and clever as ever, "The Mists of Thyme" is Mead's fourth-best album. At least, that's the word from DNRC founder Davey Dreamnation, who claims to have listened to not only its predecessor, the exquisite Yea, Finery, but also the two scheduled for release later in 2005, despite the fact that they haven't even been recorded yet, not to mention the fact that Mead and DNRC have only signed a two-album deal. Regardless of the contract nit-picking, however, Dreamnation is so far wrong he might as well call himself Wrongnation. "The Mists of Thyme" is a colossal achievement from a man who, only one year previously, was busking in the Bourke Street mall in Melbourne, greatly amusing passers-by with his Drkstixb solos and trying to flog off dodgily-recorded cassettes. On this triumphant release, Mead finally comes into his own - that is, he manages to straddle both the Middle and End Ages, carving a niche in world music it would be wise for Mr Peter Gabriel to pay attention to. Whereas the trademark Drkstixb flourishes on "Yea, Finery" were hidden deep within the mix, on this sprawling odyssey of a landmark, Mead lets it all loose, cannoning into the medieval plainsong tradition with a double-barrelled dose of pure Mead geniosity, mixed with lime. Of course, none of the breathtaking experiments that drench this album would have been possible without his backing band, the Mistaken Incas, whom he found plying their trade in the northern Croatian city of Rijeka, (pan pipes, synths, backing tracks, Native American Indian uniforms), whilst on one of his many voyages into his own moodswings. Impeccable sequencing and amazing sixteen part harmonies dominate this album, sweeping in to scoop up the listener in an enthralling example of the wisdom of that old chestnut 'show, don't tell". There are too many highlights on this album to mention any of them by name. There are also approximately twenty tracks (one can't be sure, as the complete meltdown that is album-closer and nominee for Nosebleeder Of The Year, "Trans-Drkstixb-Express" segues into so many individual components that it could in fact be a car or a peace treaty as opposed to a song). Effortless, devastating, smallpox-ridden and soaked in plague juices, "The Mists of Thyme" might well have been the album to secure DNRC's fortunes for all time had it not been deleted, stupidly, the day before it was released.

The Separation of Powers: "Church & State"

DNRC38 Format: Double Long Player* (released on cassette) Released: 2004 Status: DELETED Sometimes, in this technologically-anal age, it's tempting to think that we've never had it better; that the present moment, or at least the one about to come in just a moment, is superior to all past moments, including the one just one second ago; that we wouldn't ever wish to be alive in the past again, even for an hour or so; that we are always in that enviable position facing forward, near the exit doors, in first class, secure in the knowledge that our baggage has been sent ahead on a future plane, and that when we do arrive in that star-spangled magic moment, an attractive stewardess will be there waiting for us, holding a cocktail in one hand and a tray of Iced Vo-Vos in the other; that all life from now on will be a digital picnic, featuring various mp3 snacks, podcast sandwiches, plates of cold mash-ups and, for dessert, a fully-interactive multimedia presentation of our bandwidth-hungry souls; that all old musical technologies are laughable, though not yet old enough to place in a museum, along with other relics from the rape and pillage days we have all come to know and love; that any band who saw fit to record their debut double album straight to vinyl and then release it on a 120 minute cassette tape would be committing the worst form of faux pas, that is, the kind of faux pas you only hear about long after it has been committed, by someone else, in another century, on another analogue planet; that each copy would be dubbed to cassette individually, complete with the comforting christmas pudding sound of the needle hitting the vinyl, and the pork-fat crackling of the static and dust on the platter itself; that the band, after having named themselves The Separation of Powers, would then commit musical hari-kiri by filling the last few minutes on side two of the tape with individual songs by other, perhaps more famous, bands; that, despite this eccentric hearkening back to a dark fibre age, this record would come to be known as a classic in its time, that is, the period between recess and big lunch when your tummy grumbles loudly and the lunch box has not yet made its slow and lumbering way from the tuckshop to your classroom, and you can only dream of the salad sandwich and small sausage roll you've ordered with the $1.20 your mum gave you, because it's Friday and that means sports day and that means not having to take your own lunch; that the band, far from recording a new album by conventional means, are in fact today still occupied with dubbing copies of said album, due to the amount of time it takes to flip four sides of a double LP, cue the tape deck and run through the exhaustive track listing; in short, that this magnificently barmy statement of intent will never be deleted. Sadly, however, it has, and The Separation of Powers are no more.

The Hippocratic Oats: "Does"

DNRC37 Format: 7" single Released: 2004 Status: DELETED DNRC founder Davey Dreamnation first heard the mighty, mighty sound of the Hippocratic Oats one night in 2003 while out walking his pet llama, Scaramouche. The band, whose two members are both qualified natural therapists, had set up their instruments in front of the llama's cage; in the ensuing scuffle Dreamnation inadvertently set off a cascading synthesiser loop and the rest is their story. Pandemonium broke out in departments of integrative medicine around the world upon the release of "Does", the band's first single. Vocalist Dr. Phil Good claimed, through the band's (now-banned) website that the one minute pop song had special healing properties. The veracity of this claim was later verified in an issue of the NME, after investigators played "Does" to one group of teenagers with cold sores, while subjecting a control group to Enya's "Orinoco Flow". The results clearly proved the group that listened to "Does" fared much better than the control group, whose class action against Enya and her recording company has been held up in the court of petty recording sessions. The publicity generated by this unusual breakthrough in the treatment of herpes simplex led the band to patent its own papaya-based remedy for that unfortunately disfiguring condition, and to give away one tube of the stuff with each single released. Within days the song was at number 2 on some charts; on others, including the recognised industry charts, however, it did not appear. Unfazed, the Hipocratic Oats conducted a tour of emergency rooms across the country, the results of which would be shared with the world on their debut album, "Golden Staf Greats". Copies of the single (which has, unfortunately been deleted) may still be found in the usual places. However fans are advised to exercise caution when handling any second-hand tubes of Hippocratic Oats' Papaya Cold Sore Remedy.

The Prigs: "Some People Are Just Aksing For It"

DNRC36 Format: Long Player Released: 2004 Status: DELETED This disappointing release from Brisbane's Prigs symbolises all that is wrong with that ostensibly beautiful city in Queensland. Boorish, filled with cheap gags (check opening track "Bust a Moove") and otherwise riddled with tired 1970s cultural references, "Some People Are Just Aksing For It" manages to alienate most cultural and racial groups within seconds. Hip-hop fans will wince at the pathetic rhyme schemes utilised on the supposedly satirical title track, while anyone with an ounce of spirituality will abhor the dreadful mish mash of bile, pule and hammer time that is "I Defecate on Christ". Shortly after this album's release Prigs lead singer Prince Prig appeared in th Brisbane magistrates court on charges of inciting hate, charges which were later vamped up to include the alleged torching of the surf life saver's hut at Breaka Beach (denied), the Toowong Hotel beer garden (admitted) and the use of an Australian flag as a bum-wiping implement (forensic testing inconclusive). Despite this litany of plain old acts of stupidity, DNRC founder Davey Dreamnation managed to trump the band entirely by subsequently offering them a two album record deal. The Prigs, however, objected to the condition that at least one of those albums must be a Christmas album (to be recorded with the Guide Ponies) and so the band and label parted ways, some would say thankfully, upon the happy occasion of this woeful album's well-deserved deletion.

The Fashionistas: "Thumble"

DNRC35 Format: Long Player Released: 2004 Status: DELETED While ex-drummer Peachy Keen was busy recording her solo album, the rest of the band known to the world as The Fashionistas were busy extracting themselves from an odious record contract with Pixel Mouse's uber-grrl label Mice. Finally, in late 2004, having released three electrifying singles on the label (ostensibly devoted to fostering youth centre types with a penchant for the fringeline of Kathleen Hanna, but in actual fact a barely disguised front for a campaign to release hate songs about Mouse's former lover Stung) the writing became legible on the wall, and the words read: "Thumble". This difficult and obscure release was deemed unplayable by Pixel Mouse at the time, mostly due to the fact that it was originally recorded in picture disc format. The ensuing court battle leading to the severing of the Fasionistas' contract with Mice would provide ample fodder for later Fashionistas releases but on "Thumble" we hear, as if for the first time, four girls getting their shit together enough to switch off their Bikini Kill compilations and start tuning up. The results, especially opening track "Wha", recall the sunny, blissed out sounds of Sun Ra, and coupled with random sounds of cash registers opening (often between verses), the whole piece offers a seamless document of a day in the life of a modern day urban girl studying interior design at an unspecified polytechnic college. Moody, bitchin' and crawling with abstract ideals, "Thumble" (a reference, apparently, to an obscure Middle German masturbatory tool) delivers on the promise of those early singles, all of which are included here: "Don't Hot", "Save" and "Quick, Un-Pick!" are more than matched by the songs interspersed between them, although things do get a little dirgy on the flip-side, where the atonal grout of "Ham Fist" rubs unpleasantly against the thigh of "Don't Speak When Your Mouth's Full". Still, as far as debut albums go, this one's a rabbit killer and despite her solo success, one imagines Peachy Keen seething upon hearing the ferocity of stand-in drummer Penelope's skins work. A brave album from an even braver bunch playing Mouseketeers with the pulse of their deep-fried generation.

Peachy Keen - "Can of Ham Sandwich"

DNRC34 Format: Long Player Released: 2004 Status: DELETED Singlehandedly reviving the 'verboten' black bubblegum genre, best thought of as what would happen if Ronnie Spector fronted Einstuerzende Neubauten, ex-Fashionistas drummer Madeleine 'Peachy' Kane took advantage of a clause in her record contract and put together eleven bleak, catchy, disturbing musical meditations that launched her screaming and shoo-bee-dooing into the public arena. Deftly interweaving up-tempo backing vocals with industrial grindcore backing and varying tempo from flighty to dirge, "Can of Ham Sandwich" presented Kane as an artist unafraid to look deep into the black holes that skirt the rim of the known universe, to risk obliteration by diving into the heart of those black holes, and to come out the other side with a handful of starlight. From the opening track, "Sexier When You Say It" with its uplifting existential middle eight stripped back to a single minimalist Wurlitzer line, to the aural feast of the penultimate "Don't Make Me Repeat Myself" and the apparent wall of chainsaws, coffee-grinders and jackhammers sprinkled over with the bipping of a pedestrian crossing, COHS defies all reason by lodging itself in the memory in that subliminal way that will, even though on first listen you'd swear it was physically impossible, see you actually whistling along to it as it runs through your mind on the tram on the way to work. Hypermelodic and Uberindustrial, Kane's about-face into the world of black bubblegum is the musical equivalent of Dianne Weist in Bullets Over Broadway when she grabs John Cusack's face in one hand, wrenches his head around to stare her in the eyes and says, "Don't speak, don't speak, don't speak."

Bad Liquorice: "You Give Louvre A Bad Meme"

DNRC33 Format: Long Player Released: 2004 Status: DELETED The ridiculous title of this album, together with its fratboy geek-style cover artwork, disguises the incredible toasting talent of Bad Liquorice, the fastest word-salad artists to burst out of the service lane since Compton stopped being an encyclopedia. The three rappers in Bad Liquorice - Tasty Cheese, Mor-Man and Spiflicator - bring a barrel full of money love to the songs on this album, treating listeners to a strawberry sundae, topped with crushed nuts and just the slightest hint of Chipmunk Punk. Songs with titles like interstate flightpaths, samples from the grim psychedelic bringdown of 1983, Nicole Kidman in Days of Thunder, references to baby teeth, interludes on expressways - they're all here, together with a banshee bible undercutting the stereo simplicity of the Fisher-Price backing tracks. Opening cut "Superb Melody Bootlash" (previously only available via Japanese import) slays all in its path, Tasty Cheese bridging the gap between both sides of Chesapeake Bay with some sublime motion sickness. Spiflicator chants throughout like an Enigma Monk on Chipmunk Punk, while Mor-Man holds the tiller, steady as Rock Hudson in the grave. The next three tracks fly past like missed stations on an express train to Hooty, until we come shuddering to a devastating standstill with "Whips", this album's emotional and spiritual terminus. Rap hasn't sounded this fresh since the last time I penetrated a jar of International Roast Coffee with a hot spoon. Final track "Ferry Cross the Medley" is, as the title suggests, a tour de g force, culminating in three minuets of electric buzz saw chops, interspersed throughout with shreds of rhyme like "interstellar salt and pepper shakers/ King Tut toasted sandwich makers/ Boogie board stash replacers / better find me a new stencil tracer / abs/ ". If this website was into ratings or stars of any kind, this album would deserve a constellation. Orion perhaps. The belt at least. As it is, this killer disc, though sadly deleted, serves as a mere warm-up to Bad Liquorice's later sound experiments. Listen and learn, Fashionistas.

Kentucky Barbie: "Spellbind"

DNRC32 Format: Long Player Released: 2004 Status: DELETED On this, the follow-up to 2003's breathtaking Police Woman LP, Kentucky Barbie managed to break the two dozen or so hearts that hadn't been shattered already by her astonishingly evocative and erotic crooning. Eschewing the farmhouse setting of her debut LP, Barbara Ride chose to return to her native Kentucky for the recording of "Spellbind", setting up an impromptu recording studio on a riverbank in the Purchase area. From opening track "Cumberland Plateau" through to album closer "Along the Western Rim", Babs kicks out tha jambs singing the intricate geography of her homeland, interweaving her sad tales of acid and plantations with observations as to the climate and landscape in which she grew up. Narrow valleys and sharp ridges of the mountain region are noted for forests of giant hardwoods and scented pine and for springtime blooms of laurel, magnolia, rhododendron, and dogwood. Taking up where "Police Woman" left off, second track "To The West" heads in the obvious direction, its beautiful blending of mandolin and history lesson merging seamlessly with "Plateau Breaks" in a series of escarpments, bordering a narrow plains region interrupted by many single conical peaks called knobs. Surrounded by the knobs region on the south, west, and east and extending as far west as Louisville is album centrepiece and possibly the song of the new millenium, "Bluegrass Country", its high-pitched squeals the heart and trademark of Kentucky Barbie's unique wall of plainsong. "Northwest Kentucky" is generally rough, featuring rolling terrain, with scattered but important coal deposits. The isolated instrumental track, referred to as "The Purchase", consists of floodplains and rolling uplands, and is among the largest migratory bird flyways in the United States. Rivers are an important feature of Kentucky Barbie's geography. Many rapid creeks in the Cumberland Mountains feed the Kentucky, the Cumberland, and the Licking rivers, which, together with the Tennessee and the Ohio, are the chief rivers of the album. Kentucky's voice on this album is generally mild, with few extremes of heat and cold. Frankfort is her capital, Louisville and Lexington her largest cities. Bonus track "Fort Knox" is the U.S. Depository.

The Toilet Cleaners: "Into the Bleach"

DNRC31 Format: Long Player Released: 2004 Status: DELETED Rumoured to have met in the janitor's room of a New York City apartment block at some time during the frantic haze that was 1979, The Toilet Cleaners (composed of bassist Tinlid, guitarist/vocalist Shozzy and drummer Drun) took seventeen years to put out their first album, entitled "We Are the Toilet Cleaners". It was, in every respect, a prophetic statement of intent. On their "comeback" album "Into The Bleach", these three crazy-dos, whose trailer-igniting antics have earned the respect of culture-jammers the world over, return to the simplicity of those days when they didn't have an album out. In fact this record is brimming with nostalgia for an era when The Toilet Cleaners did not even exist. Kick-starting proceedings with a suitably maudlin "Pony Stories" (an abomination of a song, first made famous by the woefully-talentless Guide Ponies), Shozzy immediately illustrates at least one good reason for DNRC's hesitation in releasing this album: the muppet can't actually sing, and so doesn't, making this an instrumental album, except without instruments. Second, third and fourth tracks (all untitled) pass by without any fanfare; it's not until the industrial silence of majestic mid-album epic "Nose Stone" that any sound is heard at all from either Tinlid or Drun, in a musical statement that takes recording technology back to the Middle Ages, only Mead isn't there to provide his wild Drkstixb solos. The second half of this astonishingly awful album never even manages to get started, and the whole affair is over before you can exclaim "Did someone press pause on the CD player?" To which one should automatically respond: "No, they didn't - you have just heard the new Toilet Cleaners LP." And boy are you glad that upon its release it was flushed, neither sadly nor deletedly, deep into the bowels of a bin marked "Never to be allowed to record another album again".

The Weather: "Between Stations"

DNRC30 Format: Extended Player Released: 2004 Status: DELETED Back when The Weather were just Weather, their "Ragged Isobars" EP was released as a single but due to its length (both it and the b side, "Mechanical Island" clocked in at over ten minutes) was classed by anyone who cared as an overblown (albeit really exciting) EP. Then they released "Between Stations", changed their name to "The Weather" and began experimenting with even more daringly extended releases, making "Ragged Isobars" sound like a blip-vert on the arse-end of Uranus in comparison. This quite batty EP clocks in at roughly eighteen hours in length, making it the most inaccurately named DNRC release ever. Title track and brave-minded opener "Between Stations" was recorded on an express train to Belgrave that, ironically, didn't stop at any stations but, due to several tedious delays involving faulty switches, managed to take three hours to make what would normally have been a fourty minute trip. Unfortunately the second and third tracks featured here, "The Ghan" and "Indian-Pacific" took even longer to record, over several excruciating six hour takes. Closer "Indian Pacific (Slight Reprise)" was mercifully cut short at the five hour mark after it was found that none of the band members actually possessed a valid ticket for their onward journey. Their ejection from the train somewhere on the Nullabor Plains signalled the end of their career. Musically, they had been on the road to oblivion anyway. Peaking somewhere near the 1:23:35 mark of "Indian Pacific", guitarist Noodles' extraordinary guitar licks could carry on no more, and the band was left to fill in some extremely edgy silences therein with tin whistles, toot sweets and a two-hour extended Drkstixb solo. Long consigned to the dustbin marked "Sad and Deleted", this musical oddity is best left gathering dust, where it landed.

The Sea Pigeons: "I Dream of Genius"

CAT #DNRC 29 Format: Long Player Released 2004 Status: DELETED Criminally under-rated in their native Ganmain, The Sea Pigeons burst onto the Western Slopes and Plains music scene with this ferocious album of paint-stripping anthems, then promptly broke up. Like a bomb whose fuse has almost run out, their incredibly violent and incendiary live shows led one reviewer (writing in the Griffith street press) to comment that their audiences would live a safer existence as anti-drugs campaigners in that predominantly grape-growing region. Opening with squalls of suitably industrial feedback, this astonishing album (clocking in at a respectable late-1970s running time of 7 minutes 33 seconds) features twenty eight tracks, each of which has been recorded, drilled and then thrashed to within an inch of its (admittedly short) shelf-life. Highlights include "Again" "Again 2" and "Yeti Again", each of which offers its own take on pseudo-nihilism, with footnotes. Reprising their self-produced debut EP with the quivering mess that is "Nosebleeds", The Sea Pigeons manage to cram so many guitars into the one song that one eventually pops out, forming the coda that is "Scared Tissues". Impeccably produced (again, by the band themselves), the bridging instrumental "Don't Say Anything" offers a moment of sheer relief from the onslaught before kicking back into shape with a trilogy of core-hard mashers, the unspeakably triumphant "Sonical", "Appendix" and "Small Faeces". No band has rammed a sound so hard into their listeners ears, either before or since, and so it should come as no surprise that The Sea Pigeons imploded under the weight of their own collective fury, managing to release only one more single for DNRC, the utterly bad-mouthed "Hair Collapse", the b-side to which was so ferocious it could not be recorded. This album, a must for anyone with a shred of self-respect, pumps so hard it should be arrested, if only it hadn't been deleted, sadly, though fittingly, on ANZAC Day, 2004. We will never see their likes again.

Fuzz Charge: "Bargain Bin"

CAT #DNRC 28 Format: Long Player Released 2004 Status: DELETED Seemingly in spite of the unexpected success of their Ah, The Mighty Fuzz Charge! 7", Fuzz Charge fell into an advanced state of mediocrity not seen since the gradual disintegration of the listening public's respect for musical genius Chris de Burgh. This compilation album is, sadly, the only real document of the band's slow decline, given that the three albums from which the material here is culled were never actually released. Fuzz Charge made the decision to shelve their ambitious trilogy of surftronica, harmonithrash and chantrock long players based on the not-unreasonable assumption that the ideas contained therein were all class A shite. The harmonithrash project in particular has become notorious and indeed synonymous with a kind of suicidal foolishness on the part of DNRC founder and first class idiot Davey Dreamnation, who dreamt up the abominable mashing of harmonicas and three chord thrash one night in his custom-built, koala-shaped jacuzzi. Fuzz Charge, though obviously uneasy about the blending of these genres on the one album, went along with the idea in order to pocket a reported three figure advance, and happily shelved some seventy demos once it became clear that Dreamnation would never release the album. Now that DNRC is in the hands of administrators, some of these remarkable recordings have finally come to light. And so, we come to the "Bargain Bin" LP. Along with three harmonithrash recordings (the somewhat unpleasant "One, Two" melding seamlessly into "Sonic Avenue" and "Three Part Harmonica"), the album also contains one incredibly long chantrock experiment, the unspeakably painful "Chipmunks In Speedos", as well as a handful of pathetic attempts at surftronica, the wheezing "Grommets Down At Shitty's" and "Wipeoff" brightening an otherwise grim track-listing. Valuable now only as a curiosity and as a document of willful stupidity, "Bargain Bin" sold out upon its release and is now, therefore, well and truly deleted.

Asthma Attack: "Blue Lint"

CAT #DNRC 27 Format: 5 CD Box Set Released 2004 Status: DELETED One of DNRC's highest selling albums ever, "Blue Lint" spawned a whole genre dedicated to suggesting names for this delicate substance most often found in mens' navels. Powerful, moody and confronting, the music on this album begs for respect and gains it, through judicious use of four-four time beats over sparse, electrifying soundbursts with spurting bubblegum flavours. Opening nose-bleeder "Earthed" leaves no stone rose unturned, leaping from the stalls with the energy of a phetermine-laden gelding, posting co-ordinates on all four points of its own unique compass before being put out to a pasture of spangled guitar noodling. Effortless, kind and considerate, Asthma Attack then go on to break all musical rules on the sprawling odyssey that is the second and final track on this album, the prophetically-titled "Going Everywhere". Clocking in at just under three hours in length, this staggering work of emotional bleakness required the phased release of the album over a four week period. Ever the arterrorists, band founders Stacey de Burgh (no relation) and Stickly Kidd later put down the pentagonal format of this album to the fact that they had just purchased a five disc CD player, and wanted to play the album at random over the entirety of five cds. hence the abrupt mood changes on "Going Everywhere", and its spasmodic time shifts from boozehall to vauxhall to starthall. Will we ever see their likes again?

Teh: "Live At Hari's"

CAT #DNRC 26 Format: Double Album Released 2004 Status: DELETED After the relentless mood-rock of "96302", Teh seemed to flounder for a moment in their new-found popularity, before well and truly cocking it up by releasing this piece of toenail wax. Recorded live, as the name suggests, inside their friend Hari's light plane, the unspeakable ordinariness of this double album would be forgivable were it not for Teh's otherwise remarkable abilities. In the hands of any other band, a song like "Song For Hari" might have become a top ten hit; here, alas, its pitiful patter is fit only for a margarine commercial. Indeed, were it not for T and Eh's remarkable artistic integrity, each song on this album would have been destined for use as filler on Suadi FM radio stations; thankfully, even the Saudis have been spared that fate, and the entire double album's contents have been safely, though sadly deleted.

Cruns: "Bed Hair"

CAT #DNRC 25 Format: Long Player Released 2004 Status: DELETED Despite the barnstorming success of their first single "Extra Hair", Cruns made the ridiculous decision in 2004 to stop listening to their own music. This, their debut album, is the result. Composed of what could loosely be described as instructions for session musicians, "Bed Hair" was a disappointment on its first release and indeed continues to disappoint Cruns' three fans, all now living under heavy police protection in Launceston. It should be pointed out that the lacklustre nature of many of the album's tracks (note, especially "Is This Thing Switched On?" and "Where The Drum Comes In, There") was due mostly to the band's choice of producer, the now-notorious and happily-deleted On da Levelle, whose eyebrow-raising methods constituted a kiss of death for any band wishing to engage his services. The middle section of this album - a near-unlistenable litany of complaint that sounds like it was recorded in the smoker's corner behind the old DNRC studios in Tribesco - reportedly drove at leats two Cruns members to complain to war-crimes prosecutors at The Hague, with little success. Nevertheless, Cruns were also their own worst enemy, refusing to record "Bed Hair" for this release, choosing instead to insert silence where the title track should have been, deliberatly playing out of time and out of tune, turning up to recording sessions blindfolded, letting loose animals in the studios, refusing to change the band's name to Cruntastic when asked, changing the band's name to Crunny Joel when specifically ordered not to, adding extra members to the band, sacking all old members from the band, toying with the idea of becoming spoken word artists, planning a terrorist attack on their native Boston, denying they ever lived in Boston, and finally, going to the movies instead of working out the track order for the album. It's little wonder, then, that Cruns finally wore out the patience of DNRC executives, who personally tore up the cardboard cutouts left by the band in the DNRC parking lot, an act which would later inspire Cruns' so-called lead singers to form a new band, called Crunulosity and the Cardboard Crun Cruns, a barely-disguised Oasis suicide pact.

Footpath: "Spartan, Militaristic"

DNRC24
Format: Extended Player
Released: 2004
Status: DELETED Footpath continued their short spurt of releases in 1994 with the excellent and underrrated "Spartan, Militaristic" EP, during the recording of which they officially replaced former drummer Ramp Boy with the talented Jim Turkey, due to the former's excessive hiccupping. This short EP, clocking in at just three minutes in total, would be in the running for "EP of the 20th century" were it not just four years too late. There's really no point talking about the songs here, except perhaps to mention mighty opening gambit "Attitudes Can Be Measured" and closing nose-bleeder "Abstract". The recent re-release of both this EP and Footpath's debut album highlights the band's suitability to the four song format. What's interesting is the way these songs make sense in hindsight: for without "Abstract" there could have been no "Lunacy"; without "The Possibility of Measuring My Altitude" there could never, perversely, have been a stand-out track like "Nosebleeds On A Scale From One To Ten". When DNRC executives re-heard these astounding tracks, rumour has it the entire release schedule for 2004 was overriden, in order to make room for "Spartan, Militaristic" and its appalling cover artwork, which was inspired by the illegal invasion of Iraq. Jim Turkey's drumming on these songs is a revelation, so much so that instrumental track "The Validity Of the Scale" ends up sounding eerily like his former band Edinburgh Gardens Tattoo. Utterly brilliant, that is. While it's sad that Ramp Boy, whose drumming on "Gigantic and Pedantic" was nothing short of exceptional, receives no credit on this EP, and while his trademark soft shoe shuffle would be blatantly pilfered both by Jim Turkey and later his brother Don, and while doctors may well have found a cure for hiccups in the intervening ten years, and while Footpath's live performances were hampered by his legendary inability to count the band in or cease drumming at the end of songs, and while he did go on to form his own band (the unimaginatively-named Ramp Boy and the Rampmen), the fact of the matter is that the rhythm section on "Spartan Militaristic" would have sounded like two toilet cleaners if Ramp Boy had been allowed behind the kit again. As it was, the band failed to go on to bigger and greater things anyway. Their 1995 release "Broken Fingers, Busted Thumbs" (also sadly-deleted) would be their last for DNRC and the various band members are still reported to be working as fruit-pickers in their native Shepparton-Moroopna, in order to pay off their massive advances.

Footpath: "Gigantic and Pedantic"

DNRC23
Format: Long Player
Released: 2004
Status: DELETED How fitting that DNRC's first offering for 2004 should be a reissue, timed to coincide with the ten year anniversary of the release of Footpath's megalithically-themed debut, "Gigantic and Pedantic". You see kids, way back in 1994, when most of you were still in primary school, a different dinosaur ruled the earth. It straddled the Atlantic, making huge grunge waves on the left, and enormous shoegazing ripples on the right (that is, of course, assuming that the dinosaur was facing north, and that the waves did not meet in the middle and ricochet back on each other, and that dinosaurs ever straddled continents).It was the best of times, it was the most self-indulgent of times. Back in the day, when indie-dance crossover meant just that - ie, something terrible (ie, not unlike a dinosaur that - oh forget it). When preppy dweebs high on Ritalin churned out tuneless dirges while cheerfully wearing white socks and sandles. When West Coast was a cooler. When, in short, DNRC needed an antidote to the all-pervasive influence of American guitar rock over the Australian scene. Enter Footpath, stage left. Hailing from Shepparton-Maroopna, these six lads were gangly to a man, and staring down the barrell of a collective agricultural career should their music suck the big ones. Geographical disadvantages aside, Footpath were actually ideally placed to conquer the eastern seaboard, living as they did in a town small enough to tolerate their eccentric freesprawl jamming and yet large enough to feature a bus-stop and a public telephone (both pre-requisites for their eventual escape). After releasing two songs on a fanzine cassette compilation so rare it does not in fact exist, Footpath struck it lucky when a plumber mistook their unique sound for a tap dripping in a truckstop toilet. His subsequent repair attempt allowed the first member of the band (Warren Z) to steal the plumber's car and drive it to Melbourne. Soon after Spaz, Crud C, Brian, Pinge and Ramp Boy followed, albeit in different directions. Somehow, the band managed to write, rehearse, record, distribute and tour a full length album while residing in six separate states, thus providing a rare instance of the benefits of federation. But enough of politics and on to the music. Breathtaking in scope, remarkable for its genre-sneering but sadly deleted, this criminally good record makes pretenders of every other band then residing in Shepparton, while the album's lyrics (provided by Spaz and Crud C in a kind of Enigma-monks falsetto chorus) still manage to convey something of the alienating experience that is growing up in this sand-blasted, drought-stricken hernia. This special edition of "Gigantic and Pedantic" also contains the full recording of Foothpath's debut concert, held at a park in Moroopna during the summer of 2003. Fans will marvel at the elegant simplicity of the band's sound. Non-fans, undoubtedly, will hear only sprinklers.

Mead: "Yea, Finery"

DNRC22
Format: Extended Player
Released: 2003
Status: DELETED DNRC's final release for 2003 returned, fittingly, to the Middle Ages. Medieval superstar Mead, whose talents were first spotted by Davey Dreamnation whilst trolling through the Bourke St Mall in search of a new act to sign, is probably best known for his second album "The Mists of Thyme" however it's this sad and deleted release that set the stage for that astonishing tour de force. Let's face it: without "Yea, Finery" and all its faults, there could never have been a "The Mists of Thyme". And that's something for which we should all be thankful. Mead's trademark instrument, the impossibly complicated and unpronounceable Drkstixb, haunts every square yard of this melancholy affair, which hints at Clannad and Enya's "Watermark" in equal parts. Without wanting to get too specific about the qualities of the Drkstixb as an instrument, let it be said that it is eminently suitable for busking and live impromptu performances. Tracks such as "Pus 1" and "Mead's Theme", along with live favourite "Elysium", make this album a real wizard's sleeve to hear in stereo. To complement the release of the album and as an incentive to new fans, "Yea, Finery" also came with a bonus disk containing seven of Mead's early instrumental workouts, which he first made available via shoddily recorded cassette tapes. Here, in their spangling new digital context, the songs form an epic madrigal, evoking flailing skirts, handkerchiefs and harps to varying degree. However it is the final track on "Yea, Finery", the simply astonishing "Middle Aegis I-IV", that justifies the excessive cost of producing this album in the first place. Teaming up with some of the Chilean musicians with whom he once competed in the afore-mentioned Bourke St Mall, Mead pulls out all the stops on this jaw-dropper of a track, effortlessly melding mischievous pan pipes, fickle bodhran, simpering word play and tetanus-tinged harpsichord to produce an unspeakably dervish-laden ring of fire that was initially deemed unreleasable due to its sheer majesty and technical complexity. Fittingly, the Drkstixb solo that culminates in a ferocious wall of lutes produces an effect in the listener not unlike the plague itself, leaving this reviewer at least spitting in apoplexy. Bootleg copies of this album may still be purchased in the usual places, however due to a contractual dispute between DNRC and Mead, the original tracks may never be seen or heard again.

Pachinko(o): "That Way"

DNRC21
Format: Long Player
Released: 2003
Status: DELETED Anyone who's taken a texta into a public toilet cubicle and written the name of a fictitious band on the wall knows how suggestion, exclusion, elitism and superiority become powerful tools in the hands of the ignorant. Pachinko(o) was never a real band; this record does not exist; and yet, some critics, to this day, continue to maintain its status as a classic. The fact that its track listing was only ever written in texta on a telegraph pole outside the DNRC offices may lead some readers to the obvious conclusion that this band was composed of artists. And that conclusion would be right. Now, in the spirit of talking about things we don't need to even begin to worry about, let us get down to what's truly unimportant about this band and, in fact, about most music: the music itself. The sad truth is that the musical version of "That Way" cannot easily be located. Jump in a car, drive onto a freeway, roll down the window and listen up: that is the sound of Pachinko(o). Empty the contents of your bowels, then listen carefully for your own relieved silence: that, too, is the sound of Pachinko(o). Listen to the cockroach chewing on a piece of paper in the dark: that, I'm afraid, is not Pachinko(o) after all. And yet, of course it is Pachinko(o). In the spirit of all things Orientalist, this band was composed of four artists who, in homage to Robert Smith, set out to create a fictitious Japanese band, and then see where the results led them. Well, the results are nothing less than spellbinding. The mere act of waiting for the first track on this non-existant album to begin could be said to represent the moment before God began creating the (sadly-deleted) Universe. Interestingly, some listeners then reported that this moment did really last forever. Hardly surprising, but then, that was the whole point. Again, referencing the intellectuals, "That Way" is the definitive anti-war statement: brilliantly provocative, earnestly abominable and frankly the biggest load of dead air I've ever heard in my life.

The Songs: "Booked"

DNRC20
Format: Long Player
Released: 2003
Status: DELETED As far as definite articles go, The Songs may well be The. Hailing from Canada by way of the Peace Bridge, Jess & Tuckey Song give it all, y'awl on possibly their finest album in almost sixty years. You'll know each track on this erratically recorded masterstroke, from the siren-like "Copper" right through to the hillbilly-thrash "Stoke On the Water/ Plinth/ Rockford Files" medley. Perhaps best known in their native Alberta as an instrumental due who've done the rounds of the late night all you can eat scene, The Songs come well-equipped for larceny on the break-beat "Rock In My Shoe" and the frantic, yet no less hilarious "Bubble Gun". Part moonshine-addled gypsies, part toe-jam electric barnyard, "Booked" is the sound of a band finding its way through a dark alley late at night, only to find it wasn't needed at the other end. This sad and deleted monstrosity serves only too well as a plate on which to put beans, grits and othr assorted North American fare. Eat at your peril.

Pitchfork: "We Are Now Cooler"

DNRC19
Format: Long Player
Released: 2003
Status: DELETED After abandoning both their double-barreled former name (Pitchfork Media) and their lucrative online music review business, the guys and girls of Pitchfork took, to bastardise Neil Young, a turn for the middle of the road, after finding they weren't wanted in the ditch. Which wasn't so very surprising, as the band's 2001 debut, an eponymous collection of sugar-substitutes, posited them squarely in the Frente! camp. Come 2003, however, and a couple of listens to Sugar's "Beaster" E.P., Pitchfork's fortunes were on the rise, and they were suddenly straddled with buckets of indie cred, name-checking insomnia, paranoid self-reflexiveness, insecure high-hole double hurt-food and - gees, I dont know - wankery. "We Are Now Cooler" finds the Brooklyn-area-zip-code four piece careering effortlessly between hi-funk, slap-top and martini expose, leaving a trail of West Coast bands (BRMC, anyone?) eating their dirt. This record is the sound of summer ending on one side of the world, in the full knowledge that somewhere else, it's all just beginning, again. After churning through the obligatory free festival circuit and attending a compulsory photoshoot on Waterloo Bridge, Pitchfork packed their bags and headed back to their parents' commune, where they may still be found today, pondering what went wrong after the huge success of this sad(ly) deleted album.

Kentucky Barbie: "Police Woman"

DNRC18
Format: Long Player
Released: 2003
Status: DELETED Louisville, Kentucky's Barbara Ride has lived for the last 10 years in New York City. She was one of DNRC's first overseas artists, and this, her debut album, gives ten eloquent reasons for that signing, in the form of ten sweeping and majestic songs on which she is accompanied by Ten Stunts on banjo and Kelly Le Bloc on snares. Steeped in the folklore of her native state, "Police Woman" unfolds as a kind of epic opera, set against a backdrop of continuing student riots, power failures and mid-western cuisine. A former policewoman herself, Barbara (or Barbie, as she is affectionately known in the DNRC office) attended the Goulburn Police Academy as a visiting lecturer during the summer of 2003, during which time she recorded this classic album, in a farmhouse near Gunning. Sparse, beautifully melodic and brimming with snippets of longer narratives, nutrition, chemistry and history, this staggering achievement was followed by her equally heart-breaking sophomore album, 2004's "Spellbind". It was "Police Woman", this sadly-deleted album's title track, however, that cemented Barbie's place in the lexicon of DNRC superstars, with its plaintive refrain: "I enjoy museums, parks, restaurants, galleries, camping, canoeing and the noises of nature."

Seethe: "Stung By a Bee"

DNRC17
Format: Long Player
Released: 2003
Status: DELETED Scaramouche's all time favourite band paid Stung a posthumou(rou)s compliment by name-checking him in the title of what will hopefully be remembered as their "difficult" third album. Of course, the banal industry discourse surrounding difficult third albums fails to acknowledge that for most bands, every album is difficult. In fact, the "difficult third album" syndrome only ever comes into play when the first two haven't been universally condemned as crimes against humanity. And so, we come to Seethe. On their debut, 1999's "Images of the Ocean Seething", Seethe tempted fate by assembling a long list of favourite songs, covering them, then calling the remixed results "seethe-hop". An impeccable blend of cricket-beats, animoid drones and schlock-stick, this double record was hailed upon its release as seamless art, worthy of further epithets including great, breathtaking, sublime, stunning, gorgeous, epic, spellbinding, incendiary and (of course) seething. 2001's follow-up, the commercially oriented "I Can Seethe the Sun", featured a more tripped-back sound, while also demonstrating a straight-edge restraint, as shown by the fact that rather than record "songs", the band chose instead to "song" records, creating glacial soundscapes from needles hitting various grooves. Universally misunderstood, the album's notoriety was only increased by Seethe's refusal to tour, leading to speculation that they did not actually exist, a situation further compounded by the fact that even the staff at DNRC had never seen all band members together in one room. Things came to a head with the release of their afore-mentioned difficult third industrial nose-bleeding album "Stung By a Bee" in 2003, which was itself the cobbling together of two Japanese-import only EPs, "Seethe Live At Budokan" and "Budokan Seethe at Live". Critics immediately criticised the LP for its omission of stand-out tracks "Seethe In the House" and the epic stonewaller "Dirty Dishes". Condemnation by fans duly followed, leading to a vigorous trade in illegal bootlegs of both the EPs. Commercial failure was the logical result and Seethe, while sadly deleted, still hope to follow up their "difficult" third album with a fourth rumoured to be "technically undoable".

The Guide Ponies: "Pony Stories"

DNRC16
Format: Cassingle
Released: 2003
Status: DELETED At the end of 2003, knowing full well that DNRC's finances were, like Walt Disney's head, in a state of perpetual suspended animation, and knowing also that the ability of small horses to sing and/or play instruments has never been proven or observed in the wild, Davey Dreamnation (in his usual dogmatic fashion) went ahead and signed The Guide Ponies as a rostered act, hoping to recoup some of the expenses larded out to help The Various Journals produce their basket case of an album. This appalling cassingle release failed to sell anywhere, even in the Thai market, despite the kitsch cover artwork, the song's obvious allusions to Christmas and a film clip rumoured to have been shot on a budget consisting of a magnifying glass and two packets of Tic-Tacs. Thankfully deleted the moment its panic-attack inducing vomitalia and crass exploitation of animals became the subject of an expose on Media Watch, "Pony Stories" has attained a kind of cult status recently, having been covered by The Toilet Cleaners on their abysmal comeback album, "Into The Bleach".

Cried: "Whatever & Ever"

DNRC14 Format: Long Player Released: 2003 Status: DELETED Cynics may cry "Amen" however, while it's certainly true that you'd be pretty hard-pressed to find anything sadder than the lead singer of The Weather undertaking a tour of Micronesia ten days after the band fizzled out like luke-warm piss floating down an alleyway behind the Tribesco Social Club, the story behind this album, from Melbourne's own Cried, must surely take the banana. Cried were the poster boys of the early twenty-first century. They emerged from the collective unconscious of our fin de siecle and painted daffodils, penguins and roses on their twenty-first century EPs. Cried looked better, sounded better and emoted better than any other band, prior or since. I recall my first experience of a Cried show, I think it was down at the TSC, way back when local bands could fill out local venues with a crowd full of locals, singing songs about local issues like the closure of the local pool, and its assumed effect upon the great (now) unwashed. The band were in top form that night, welding industrial aesthetics with a Marconi-era love of bling-bong, astounding the audience with a set that constituted not so much a cry for help as a funeral notice. Their insistence on spartan arrangements and whispered vocals endeared them to the Gothic crowd but in reality their natural audience was a future, non-existant one. Nowhere was this more apparent than on their DNRC debut, "Whatever & Ever", a collection of dirges so tragic the label forced the band to re-record the title track and first single "Lamb/Slaughter". Drawing heavily on the tired misery of Nick Cave, lead singer Tom Mutser sounds acerbicly driven on most cuts featured here, although he does find a shred of sensuality during the bleak coda of "Sydney Awe (The Bush)": "I saw a sheep kill itself against a fencepost/ then watched as the farmer dissected the carcass/after that day I never ate meat again /i never did like the word 'mutton' anyway". Sadly deleted, this album lives on in the minds of all who were there the night Mutser announced his own death on stage. His disappearance remains one of the most tragic (and unresolved) mysteries in the history of DNRC.

Weather: "Ragged Isobars"

DNRC13 Format: Extended Player Released: 2003 Status: DELETED Back in 2003, "The" Weather were still called Weather, Vanity Fair didn't have a UK tacked onto the end of them and The Lord still sucked the big one. Weather are further proof (in any was needed) of the truth of the old theory, that is: the EP was great but the album makes the listener feel like drinking paint stripper. Weather started off as a freewheeling, psychedelic, dual guitar and dub influenced sixties sounding stoner epic outfit. Then they released "Between Stations", changed their name to "The Weather" and began hitting up the middle of the road (in no particular order). Their first EPs, however (all released on DNRC but now, sadly, deleted), showcased a different band entirely. "Ragged Isobars" was released as a single but because of its length (both it and the b side, "Mechanical Island" clocked in at over ten minutes) should really be considered an EP. Their debut release, this EP was perhaps Weather's weirdest release, a spacey odyssey featuring some excellent guitar noodling, cavernous vocal echoes and a drum beat so slow it was probably on smack at the time. It captured the sound of a band that seemed to have no idea what was going on in the world around them. It's a real shame, then, that The Weather went on to become such poseurs. Don't even talk to me about the Phillip Brezhnev solo experience.

Clint Bo Dean: "Private Poet"

DNRC12 Format: Picture Disk Released: 2003 Status: DELETED One of DNRC's worst-kept secrets (not to mention its worst made-up face) is the running gag known as Clint Bo Dean. Bo Dean, whose hilarious website could do with an update or three thousand, is a real muso's muso, refusing to release recorded tracks in any format (hence this rare 1980s style picture disk, featuring an interview with Stung and a couple of shots of Clint blowing his nose), and only performing live when he is drunk enough to chuck. CBD, as he is known to his legionnaires, encapsulates all things poetic here, as he tackles the only song he's ever really understood: Tina Turner's "Private Dancer", managing to fuse the spirit of Bachman Turner Overdrive with that of Michael J Fox as he appeared in The Secret of My Success. Bold, brassy and quite posisbly bonkers, Clint Bo Dean is every hair stylist's nightmare. And that includes you, Brian.

The Lord: "S Prayer"

DNRC11 Format: 7" single Released: 2003 Status: DELETED Not to be confused with the US band of the same name, or indeed with the lead singer of Christianity, The Lord were essentially a novelty act, with two basic signature styles: the up-front, in your face, anatomically explicit style, as witnessed here on "S Prayer", a puerile song about toilet plumbing; and the other style, which they were thankfully never able to express publicly, having been dropped from DNRC soon after this release of this now-deleted piece of toejam.

Fuzz Charge: "Ah, The Mighty Fuzz Charge!"

DNRC10 Format: 7" single Released: 2003 Status: DELETED The name says it all, really, and perhaps that's just what Felix and his Fuzz Chargers intended all along. Consisting of three minutes of near-silence, this epic statement of anti-corporate experimentalism, though sadly deleted, can easily be reproduced by putting some ice in a blender and then moving to the next room. Recalling the insanity of Wire's "Drill" period, the b-side, a cover of Cruns' "We Are The Cruns" does it all over again, except this time it sounds like you're in the next building. As uncompromising as all the other DNRC bands, Fuzz Charge would go on to dabble in surftronica, harmonithrash and chantrock (move over, Enigma monks) before changing their name to Somewhere Between Eighth and Ninth. And the rest, as they say, is another story. Fuzz Charge's greatest hits album, the sardonically titled "Bargain Bin", can be found in the usual places.

Girt By Sea: "Trawler"

DNRC09 Format: Extended Player Released: 2003 Status: DELETED Post-hard outfit Girt By Sea generated huge amounts of press and industry goodwill with their first single, "Jeopardy" but sadly initial expectations would not be fulfilled, as shown by this turgid E.P. recorded in the summer of 2002/03. The drums on opening track "Catch" in particular sound as if they were recorded in 1977, on an island off the coast of Spain. Hollow guitar effects and woefully chorused vocals (witness the title track's refrain: "i am a trawler/ a crawling trawler/ treading water/ soda snorter") cap off what could, in the hands of a more able producer, have become a stepping stone to real credibility. Sadly, this deleted release was GBS's last, and knob-twiddler On da Levelle should bear at least some responsibility, for his ham-fisted efforts behind the mixing desk. The real culprits here, though, are the members of GBS themselves, who reportedly spent their whole advance from DNRC (the princely sum of $500) on photographing a trawler for the cover artwork.

Scaramouche: "Scaramouche's Theme"

DNRC08 Format: 7" single Released: 2003 Status: DELETED Scaramouche, an incorrigible llama in search of his next neenish tart, remains one of DNRC's most successful solo artists. His entire ouvre consists of this solo masterpiece, a theme song described as "Cher meets the Tin Lids", plus two home-recorded soundscapes that we hope never to release. Scaramouche originally became a recording artist in order to share his inner thoughts and meditations with the world. Sadly, his addiction to quiche lorraine and ham off the bone led him to become extremely obese, and he has since been admitted to the Betty Ford clinic for rehabilitation. Nevertheless, on this nose-bleeder, the llama's inner being really does shine through. As Stung says of his favorite animal recording artist: "When Scaramouche sings, your spirit soars ..."

Stung: "Dream of the Blue Pipe Cleaners"

DNRC07 Format: Long Player Released: 2003 Status: DELETED What little hasn't been said about this remarkable album is still best left unsaid. Stung, New Zealand's most talented flautist, pulls out all the corks on "Dream of the Blue Pipe Cleaners", an epic statement of intent. Unbelievably, this was his first and last album for DNRC and has sadly been relegated to the dustbin marked "Deleted". Nevertheless, it is worth looking back on this timid artist's sporadic career, which sputtered to a halt somewhere between Australia and New Zealand, on a flight that was meant to be the start of his aborted "Nothing Like the Sun" Australasian tour, complete with come-back album, booked out shows in the Top End and a rumoured duet with Davey Dreamnation. Tragically, a ticketing mix-up led to an altercation between the airline crew and Stung, whose seeing eye pony was refused a seat on the flight. Flying blind, and in the absence of his good friend and collaborator, Stung decided to take his own life and was found in one of the aeroplane's toilets with a Vicks inhaler jammed down his throat. Listening to this moving and emotional album now, one hears echoes of Clannad, Enya and Scaramouche's solo works. Stung, we salute you.

Maple Lanes: "Maple Lanes"

DNRC06 Format: Long Player Released: 2003 Status: DELETED During the heady summer of 2002, when DNRC was still in its infancy and Davey Dreamnation had just completed his barnestorming tour of the Northern Territory, rumours began circulating about oen of the support bands on that tour, and their reputation for incendiary live performances. Maple Lanes, as the band were fleetingly known, featured a barely-disguised Dreamnation on drums, plus an assortment of stand-in vocalists and guitarists. Their music, which remains to this day unlistenable, focussed heavily on the gas and mineral exploration industries, whose influence still towers over music produced in Australia's far-north. Astonishingly, Maple Lanes only ever recorded one studio LP, and as a showcase of the band's talents, it remains unsurpassed. Diehard fans will already possess live versions of most of these tracks, however this collection would be worth the purchase price for the inclusion of "MLF" alone, had the album not sadly been deleted upon its release.

Teh: "93602"

DNRC05 Format: Long Player Released: 2003 Status: DELETED Teh were something of an enigma during their brief half-life. Their sound was built around the talents of two full-time members (the equally-enigmatic T and eh), whose notorious live shows were supplemented by a galaxy of groupie-like choral singers, whose keening delivery left many reviewers wondering who'd died. "93602" finds the band in devastating form, working through the dim logic of Farsi-inspired Beat poetry on the justly-renowned tracks, "IT Service" and "Scatter". Elsewhere, T boldly steps up to the Farsifa for the deadly knock-out blows of "Shoot Who?" and "Elect". Always a political band, Teh were also known as champions of womens' rights in their native Iran, and the epic closing number here, "Roots", shows just how far these two global ravers, eh in particular, had come since their first recordings for Nono in 1988. Rumoured to be alive and well in Paris, Teh have not released a full length album since the follow-up to "93602", the disappointing "Live at Hari's". Interested fans are sure to find live versions of these tracks circulating on the usual file-trading services.

Sluice: "Time, Gentlemen"

DNRC04 Format: Long Player Released: 2003 Status: DELETED Portarlington's extraordinarily prolific Sluice emerged from that fine city's Chinese-rock underground to redefine what it meant to make music. Featuring four guitarists, no vocals and one battered tape recorder, they embarked on a four year musical odyssey that took in all of their native city's extensive musical influences and that would lead them to collaborations with Dr Sick and Cruns. Their sadly-deleted sophomore album, "Time, Gentlemen", is considered by many to be the high water mark of their turbulent career. Its nine freeform improvisations challenged the musical orthodoxy of the time in which they were created, apparently withour rehearsals. A tenth track (later versions of which plied the bootleg circuit) was abandoned when the afore-mentioned tape recorder's batteries went dead. Described by one critic as "the sound of a city eating itself", the album's freewheeling title track, with its oddly prophetic mantra "time, gentlemen/ time, please" has come to be regarded as a classic of its genre. The existence of this genre, sadly, has not led to the spawning of Sluice-influenced bands in Portarlington or anywhere else.

Cruns: "Extra Hair"

CAT #DNRC 03 Format: Split 7" single Released 2003 Status: DELETED Cruns, hailing from Boston, made the extraordinary decision in 2003 to stop listening to any of their New England counterparts and start making noise. This, their first release, is the result. Equal parts barn-door whinny and shoe-gazing abandon, "Extra Hair" sees the band in top form, delivering the one-two in the from of verse, chorus, verse, instrumental and repeat verse to fade. B-side "We are the Cruns" packs no punches and pulls no favours. Nose-bleeding for the single-minded. Absolutely no compromise went into the recording and packaging of this sadly-deleted release.

Davey Dreamnation: "Live At Budokan"

CAT #DNRC 02 Format: 4 disc box set Released 2003 Status: DELETED Every once in a while, an artist comes along seemingly with the intention of blowing things apart, only to somehow end up piecing it all together instead. In this category we could place Patti Smith (who has swung full circle from rage-poet to high priestess of the nu-old-wave), the collected members of Sonic Youth (who, now about to release their 16th proper album, surely deserve some sort of pension) and Bob Dylan, whose surrealistic early 60s prophecies saw him knighted as the fifth horseman of an impending acid-driven apocalypse (if not an all out invasion by plasticene icons from space). Unfortunately - perhaps for rock and roll, more likely for listeners of avant pop, bullet-bitten shot rock - Davey Dreamnation does not fit this category. He is an artist on the verge of exploiting himself. He messes with freeforms, then strictly applies the eeriness of vocoders to what should be straight out rants or spoken word grumble jazz sketches. His recording careers - to now, shrouded in mystery but slowly coming to light by way of a series of Internet-only releases - posit him as a man with too much time, and perhaps only one idea worth following through. This live set, however, will make more than one listener stand up and say: “by gum, I think he’s onto something”. "Live at Budokan" constitutes a recording of a single concert held at the Japanese venue that has been host to some very famous musicians, including the above-mentioned Bob Dylan. Clocking in at roughly 4 hours and 34 minutes, spread over four discs and coming with a set of drinks coasters of which the barmaid from “cheers” would be proud, this album is something of a remarkable achievement. The first disc, ironically titled “Sound Check”, sees Davey d-tuning each of his seven guitars in turn, so that by the time the disc ends, at roughly the seventy minute mark, the listener is being physically assaulted by the sounds of seven hideously pitched wails, quadrophonically separated and arrayed across the listening spectrum, pulsing in and across the pain barrier. This is challenging stuff, reminiscent of Neil Young’s “weld” period, where he dipped his hat to support acts the aforementioned sonic youth, by releasing a bomus disc to append to a devastating two cd set, entitled “arc”, that contained solely feedback, and a good half hour of it too. Dreamnation goes further than this, however. Disc one clocks in at 74 minutes, poerhaps another ironic stab at the limitations of cd technology, or perhaps an unintentional cut off point or mistake. Disc two (“Sound Check/Silence”) then, continues in this vein for almost half its length. The true effect of the sound is best achieved by playing the two discs simultaneously, a la the flaming lips. At the half way point (note, we have now been subjected to over a hundred minutes of tuning), davey suddenly switches off all the mikes, amps and foldback, and leaves the stage (having been at the concert myself, I can only hint at the devastation this caused amongst Davey’s Japanese following). We are then left in silence for the remainder of disc two, which again runs its full length. By this time, you can hear the fans screaming out requests, getting more and more pissed (off). Disc three (“Lab”) is where the listener first gets the sense that there’s a real performance taking place here. From the blistering opening track “lab”, right through to the obligatory epic “lab 25”, what we are presented with is not so much a series of discrete and well-crafted tunes, as 25 elaborations (no pun intended) on the same theme, namely: the sound a drummer makes with the sticks when counting the band in, used so famously on Nirvana’s “In Utero” opener “Serve the Servants.” thus we get “lab 6”, all high-step fandango and sonic bleating, “lab 8” (a paeon to one of dreamnation’s favourite acts, gamelan orchestras of the mind) and of course, “lab 16-and-one-half”, a thirty six minute, breakneck tour through what coleridge might call “caverns measureless to man” - in other words, the interplay between a dozen Glenn Branca-trained ukelele players on speed, six percussionists with Georgia on their minds and the rock chameleon himself on vocals, mixing up razor-sharp commentaries on the current political situation (“don’t vote/try instead the white rope”, “cowards sneer where dirty dogs fear to spread”) with witty and fragile pop lyricisms (“come give me shadows/ I’ll play puppets with your ears”, “hey you/ in the third row/ what’s so funny now?”) reminiscent of the very best of Ginsberg, Kerouac and Che. By disc three’s end, then, one gets the sense that Dreamnation is finally warming to his task. What eventuates on disc four (“Death Traps”), therefore, might shock even the most die-hard avant-artist. How can I describe it, except in these words: Davey Dreamnation records the sounds of his own attempted suicide, cutting himself up into small quivering pieces to be left on the cold budokan stage, there to slowly fade out. No, that’s not enough: there is the sound of a smoking gun in the mouth of Rock Ikonics, davey’s all-suffering manager and producer. It is in the screams of the dead and their watered-down blood, trampled beneath a stampede at a soccer stadium. It is in the lever being pulled on a gigantic load of broken glass from a bull pen. It is the sinews of pain dripping down the speakers, only to be engulfed in the acid rain of feedback issuing from eight trumpets of doom, turned down to a dull shriek, and then turned off. And that’s just track one. “Death Traps” alone can be read as something of a prophetic statement, a manifesto even of the artist’s future intent. Since the recording of this album, Dreamnation has gone on to reinvent himself, coming back from the dead as it were. Let’s hope he stays not dead. Because for all intents and purposes, this four cd set should have been his funeral. That it isn’t, is credit to the man himself, and his sense of musical history. The Cobain of his generation he may not be, but at least he’s got something to show for it.