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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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