various: 3am spares

3AM Spares is a new collection of Australian tracks compiled Andras and Instant Peterson that encompasses the darker sounds and later nights of the 1990s and beyond. Following on from forerunner compilation Midnite Spares, this release draws from local 12" releases, CD-Rs and the archives of community radio station 3RRR FM to make a diverse and pumping scene audible once more. No longer confined to beer barns and back rooms, this generation of producers, DJs, clubbers, and ravers embraced a new culture of machine-metaphor and chemical love. Future Sound Of Melbourne's "Resist The Beat" embodies a time when the country's youth united with juggernaut stamina, partying beyond the long arm of the law. Restored from the original DATs, this debut 12" incited label offers from Jeff Mills, Frank De Wulf, and Carl Cox. Released by the likes of Clan Analogue, Creative Vibes, Volition, DanceNet, Juice and Psy-Harmonics, this era's material has evaded sufficient digital documentation until now. Often these bedroom experiments existed solely for compilation inclusions, a plausible scenario for the mysterious Inner Harmony. In the case of Tetrphnm, Jeremy Dower's glacial sub-bass was digitized from the only known CD-R. Third Eye, the impressive evolution of industrial legend Ollie Olsen, finds common ground with "I Will Go", a hypnotic concoction by Adrenalentil and Jandy Rainbow. The most unique take on this new wave of dance music comes from Turrbal-Gubbi Gubbi woman Maroochy Barambah, using the sound palette of tribal house to highlight the broadening ways that identity and culture were being negotiated and manifested within club music. Artificial's Sobriquet remix bends one of the most looped samples of all time to fit a wired new generation's interrogation of that thing called disco. Her playfulness is mirrored in Blimp's frisky garage house, recalling Paul Johnson, while Ian Eccles-Smith's borrowing is comparatively more discrete on the chillout sampledelic collage "The Slaughtering Eye". Andy Rantzen returns to Efficient Space in two incarnations: as half of ambient alias Screensaver, and in collaboration with General Electrik on "Leather Lover:, a cocked and loaded glimpse at the bottom end of Oxford street, originally recorded for the Club Kooky compilation Gay In The Life: Adventures In The Queer Underground (2000). Reinventing himself as Hypnoblob, fellow Sydney Oz-Wave artist Ian Andrews also gives us his pneumatic-drill-step "Deep Down". Includes download.