VA - Post-Punk Excavations, Australia 1977-1985 (A Butterboy Compilation) (4 x CDs)

POST PUNK AUSTRALIA

VA - Post-Punk Excavations, Australia 1977-1985 (A Butterboy Compilation) (4 x CDs)

Post-punk refers to a diverse and experimental wave of music that emerged in the late 1970s, immediately following the initial burst of punk rock. While punk was raw, fast, and rebellious, post-punk kept the spirit of defiance but expanded the sonic palette, embracing art-school sensibilities, dub, funk, electronic textures, and avant-garde influences.

At its core, post-punk is defined less by a strict sound and more by an attitude, a willingness to deconstruct rock norms and rebuild them with irony, abstraction, and emotional complexity. Post-punk also laid the groundwork for genres like goth, industrial, new wave, and indie rock. It’s not a genre that ends, it mutates.

The post-punk era in Australia, spanning roughly from the late 1970s to the mid-1980s, was a fiercely independent and creatively explosive period. Emerging from the ashes of punk’s raw immediacy, Australian post-punk artists embraced experimentation, abstraction, and a deep sense of place. Unlike the UK or US scenes, which often revolved around major urban centers and labels, Australia’s post-punk movement thrived in isolation, fueled by DIY ethics, community radio, and small-run independent labels like M-Squared, Missing Link, and Aberrant.

Importantly, the Australian post-punk scene was not just a mirror of overseas trends, it was a response to local conditions: geographic isolation, cultural conservatism, and a hunger for new forms of expression. Though many bands remained underground, their influence rippled outward, shaping indie rock, electronic experimentation, and even mainstream pop in decades to come. Today, this era stands as a testament to creative defiance, where limitations bred innovation, and where Australia carved its own jagged path through the post-punk landscape.

Post-Punk Excavations, Australia 1977-1985 is a deep archival dive into the sonic resistance that flourished across Australia’s underground during a turbulent cultural shift. This isn’t a greatest hits package, it’s a field recording of a nation’s creative unrest, where isolation bred invention and the post-punk ethos took root in garages, squats, and DIY studios from Brisbane to Adelaide.

The compilation spans well-known agitators like The Saints, X, and Severed Heads, but its true value lies in the rarities, tracks that slipped through the cracks of commercial distribution and now survive mostly in collector circles. Take Electric Fans’ “Say Anything”: a female-fronted new wave band, with no streaming presence, and no known reissue. It’s a ghost track, likely cassette-only, and emblematic of the ephemeral nature of Australia’s early synth-pop experiments.

Equally elusive is Yclept Dinmakers’ “Kapu Or Higgins” [1981], a cryptic fragment from the tape underground. With no label attribution, it’s a sonic artifact that defies easy categorization possibly a one-off or part of a short-run compilation. Then there’s Purple Vulture Shit’s “Do A Shit” [1982], a track infamous for its title but nearly impossible to source. Released via micro-label or private press, it’s a raw document of punk absurdism, unfiltered and unrepeatable.

Labels like M-Squared, Missing Link, and Innocent Records thread through the compilation, each a lifeline for artists operating outside the mainstream. Systematics’ “International Voltage” (1980, M-Squared) and Primitive Calculators’ “I Can’t Stop It” (1979, Innocent) showcase the synth-punk edge that defined Sydney’s warehouse scene. Meanwhile, People With Chairs Up Their Noses’ “Road to Egg” (1980, M-Squared) offers theatrical absurdity and remains long out of print.

This collection isn’t just about music, it’s about context. These tracks were forged in cultural isolation, often recorded on four-track machines, pressed in low number runs, and distributed hand-to-hand. They represent a moment when Australian artists weren’t just reacting to global trends, they were reshaping them with grit, humor, and a fierce sense of place. Each track is a signal from the edge, preserved here not for nostalgia, but for historical clarity. (B)

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Track lists

CD1

01 Saints - Wild About You 2:35 1977

02 Brats - Be A Man 2:53 1977

03 X - Suck Suck 1:57 1977

04 Aints - The Church of Simultaneous Existence 3:08 1978

05 Go-Betweens - Karen 4:05 1978

06 Thought Criminals - Hilton Bomber 1:59 1978

07 Aints - Like an Oil Spill 3:41 1979

08 Go-Betweens - People Say 2:36 1979

09 Lipstick Killers - Hindu Gods (Of Love) 3:18 1979

10 Numbers - Government Boy 2:11 1979

11 Primitive Calculators - I Can't Stop It 2:23 1979

12 Scientists - Frantic Romantic 2:46 1979

13 Slugfuckers - Schizo Revolution 4:03 1979

14 Thought Criminals - More Suicides Please 2:29 1979

15 Whirlywirld - Red River 4:16 1979

16 X - I Don't Wanna Go Out 2:02 1979

17 XL Capris - My City of Sydney 2:37 1979

18 Flying Calvittos - Lucky to Be Australian 4:12 1979

19 Dagoes - We Sell Soul 4:17 1980

20 Essendon Airport - Talking to Cleopatra 3:43 1980

21 Frank Savage & The Citizens - Little Boy Lost 2:20 1980

CD2

22 Fun Things - Savage 2:44 1980

23 Fun Things - When The Birdmen Fly 3:16 1980

24 Leftovers - Killing Time 3:17 1980

25 Makers of the Dead Travel Fast - Taels of the Saeghors 4:48 1980

26 Marching Girls - True Love 2:58 1980

27 Metronomes - A Circuit Like Me 3:52 1980

28 Particles - Apricot's Dream 2:36 1980

29 People With Chairs Up Their Noses - Road to Egg 1:56 1980

30 Systematics - International Voltage 1:57 1980

31 Tsk Tsk Tsk - Nice Noise Theme 3:26 1980

32 Visitors - Brother John 4:29 1980

33 Shy Impostors - Seein' Double 3:29 1980

34 Swell Guys - Sidetracking 1:55 1980

35 Birthday Party - Nick The Stripper 4:22 1981

36 Birthday Party - Release The Bats 2:31 1981

37 Dagoes - Ten Years On 4:39 1981

38 Electric Fans - Say Anything 2:32 1981

39 End - My Confession 2:56 1981

40 Justinstinkt - Drainpipe 3:17 1981

41 Limp - Pony Club 2:49 1981

42 Negative Reaction - The Hollow Men 8:31 1981

CD3

43 Pel Mel - No Word From China 3:34 1981

44 Poles - Over & Beyond & Through 4:52 1981

45 Saints - Brisbane (Security City) 4:22 1981

46 Sardine - Stuck on You 4:14 1981

47 Spliffs - You Know What They'll Say 2:48 1981

48 The Makers of the Dead Travel Fast - The Dumbwaiters 4:12 1981

49 Wild West - Calling the House 2:28 1981

50 Yclept Dinmakers - Kapu Or Higgins 1:41 1981

51 Particles - I Luv Trumpet 4:52 1981

52 Go-Betweens - By Chance 2:29 1982

53 Go-Betweens - Hammer The Hammer 2:47 1982

54 Kevins - Romeo, Romeo 3:16 1982

55 Moodists - Gone Dead 3:34 1982

56 Purple Vulture Shit - Do A Shit 2:04 1982

57 Sacred Cowboys - Hell Sucks 3:37 1982

58 Super-K - Recurring Nightmare 4:48 1982

59 Tablewaiters - Confrontation With A Mountain 2:06 1982

60 Fabulous Marquises - Honeymoons 3:54 1982

61 Triffids - Spanish Blue 2:07 1982

62 Eleven Eleven (Australia 1983) - Devastate Me 3:49 1983

63 Moodists - The Disciples Know 3:33 1983

CD4

64 Screaming Tribesmen - Igloo 4:00 1983

65 Severed Heads - Dead Eyes Opened 3:21 1983

66 Tactics - Buried Country 3:12 1983

67 Bodysnatchers - Mystery 2:28 1983

68 Horse He’s Sick - Terminal Rebound 3:47 1983

69 Popular Mechanics - Fatal Slip 2:10 1983

70 Hunters & Collectors - The Slab 3:58 1984

71 Kelpies - Dead Meat 2:18 1984

72 Laughing Clowns - Holy Joe 3:57 1984

73 Sekret Sekret - Girl with a White Stick 3:30 1984

74 Triffids - Family Name 3:34 1984

75 He Dark Age - Holding out for Eden 4:32 1984

76 Wet Taxis - Nun Strike 2:52 1984

77 Ed Kuepper - Electrical Storm 4:19 1985

78 Laughing Clowns - Ghost of an Ideal Wife 4:15 1985

79 Lighthouse Keepers - Springtime 4:10 1985

80 Moffs - Another Day in The Sun 4:50 1985

81 Sekret Sekret - New King Jack 3:32 1985

82 Slaughtermen - God's Not Dead 2:36 1985

83 Wreckery - Everlasting Sleep 4:44 1985

84 Deadly Hume - I Hate You 2:54 1985

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Music weaves itself into the fabric of our emotions, dances through the corridors of memory, and whispers to the soul of who we are. Sharing these stories deepens the connection, turning the experience into something timeless and profound.

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