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.