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New Waver "The Defeated" CD - Melbourne's New Waver tell the story of evolution as they see it with samples of interviews with the mentally ill over instrumentals of keyboards and cut up drum tracks; life is divided up into Winners and Losers, as dictated by our genes. Inevitably depressing and very funny. - AU$8ppd (US$6ppd)
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Appearances on Compilations
Various artists "A land of sweeping sound" cassette
The Undertow: undercurrents of Australian experimental music CD
The Defeated CD - Take a jaunty, electronic soundtrack and mix in a variety of voice material taken from self-help tapes, medical tapes and talk radio and, presto, you've got The Defeated! On this CD, New Waver paints pictures ranging in emotional color from resignation to intense despair by exploring the fears and psychoses of mentally disturbed people. The juxtaposition of sometimes severely disheartening monologues with a perky electronic soundtrack serves to create enough irony to make the CD interesting, although it initially comes across as derivative of other acts (e.g. Negativland). Contrasting moods can be seen in tracks like the aggressive "We're Gonna Get You After School", where a driving beat accompanies phrases like "Hey, let's beat up the wimpy guy!" and "You're dead mate!", and the more somber "The Client", in which a psychiatrist describes the decline and eventual suicide of a client. I found this CD quite depressing, though eye-opening in a sense. Think of The Defeated the way you do of One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest... for example, compelling but not pleasant. - Splendid 'zine, 2000
this is one of the most unsettling and riveting listens i've had in a long time. new waver is less of a musical group than part of an ongoing audio collage/essay about the processes involved in the triggering or progression of mental illness and the proposal that low social-status is a cause, rather than a result, of mental illness. "the defeated" is filled with medical tapes, case histories of mental patients, self-help tapes, radio call-in shows, and testimonials and snippets from people who've suffered devastating failures through their entire lives. all of these samples are layered over primarily electronic music. most of the time it is inappropriately energetic or anthemic, and amatuerishly executed. the absurdity of the music almost sounds humorous, but serves to heighten, rather than detract from the album. the absolutely devastating stories and snippets of audio are a stark contrast to the ridiculous music. as a result, the seriousness of the subject matter is much clearer to the listener than if new waver had created a lush, orchestrated, dramatic, overly-preachy soundscape. at the same time, the "flawed" music mirrors the less-than-perfect lives of the unwitting vocalists. it's almost as if new waver is creating an intentional musical failure as the only appropriate way to identify with the cruel stories they tell. the most interesting idea brought out by the album (as explained in the press release, although it is evident throughout the album) is that mental-illness can be an appropriate reaction of a healthy functioning brain to dire circumstances. "the defeated" is a completely un-optimistic album, but it is extremely interesting, moving, and dare i say, educational. - Yahtzeen
Situated somewhere between old-guard techies like John Michel Jarre and the ambient excursions of the Orb's Dr. Alex Paterson, Melbourne's New Waver bring psychosis, monotony and the common man's anxiety to their debut CD. By piecing together bits of real world sound from self-help sources, talk radio and documentaries, the trio and assorted friends work at illustrating the clinically uncomfortable side of loser culture. Set to spacey, analog oscillations, "The Realist" frames the delusions of one schizophrenic calmly (and disturbingly.) explaining that he is the unwilling subject of government experiments. "Life Force" is existentialist dogma set to a classic TB-303 synth backdrop. And while the rest of the tracks herein are downcast and cleverly designed to venerate elements of fringe psychiatry, "We're Gonna Get You After School" plays as something more humorous (intentionally or not) with it's use of sampled threats from schoolyard bullies. Through dated keyboard sounds and rhythms that don't generally mirror the ultra-diced, heart attack pace of the day, New Waver's styling suits the band's refreshing agenda of canvassing grim realism à la vintage Throbbing Gristle while making the occasional nod toward Tangerine Dream. - Creative Loafing, 2000
Related projects/recordings Hi-God People, Solids