8-Bit Recordings

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The Lawnmower Man - Nostalgibot

The future sound

The Lawnmower Man - Jupiter

THE FIRST VOID AND THE FIRST EVER BREAKCORE SHOW IN PERTH WESTERN AUSTRALIA HAPPENED ON AUGUST 24TH 2001 - TWENTY YEARS AGO TODAY.

Ah s**t. I don't even know what to say.

Probably the easiest thing is that this was all something that came natural to us. it was all easy. We were young, we were hungry and we were uncompromising. We lived in a city with no interest in what we were doing and it never had a chance to stop us. All three of us on stage lived for what we did. No one was shy, no stage fright, no hesitation, it was down a beer stand on stage behind a fu***ng desktop plugged into the house PA and smash digital hardcore, breakcore, whatever loud and fu**ed up s**t we made down the throat of a bloated rock city. Adam would be intensely absorbed into his set, Michael glared at the crowd and I got drunk and stoned and yelled at everyone while slyly and totally obviously constantly edging up the mixer so distorted, slow crashing funk breaks filled the pub's band room.

F**k it was so much fun.

He didn't think about it. Adam (The Last Ninja) just turned to me in his room, sitting at his computer and said "We should start a label" and of course we did because what else were we gonna do? We'd been making our own breakcore and we wanted to be a part of what was then an exciting movement. One of the last of it's kind really. At that time. All three of us were obsessed. Every week another release, another artist, another website. It's hard to explain to breakcore kids what it was like to download a 192 mp3 of Desert Storm Breakcore Squad's "Mindcrasher" for free and know there was more s**t that good out there.

So that was June 2001 I guess. Adam and I had done a vs set at The Hyde Park Hotel. We were thinking what's next. We started discussing doing more shows.

So I told Adam using my know how from the punk scene we could do more shows. We could maybe start a regular night. Michael, Adam and I thought about it and decided to just say f**k it let's do it.

Adam came up with the name "VOID" explaining it was because "Perth had a void we needed to fill" I doubt 2001 Perth would agree but that was the idea. We had seen how DHR and Bloody Fist had just done what needed to be done and never gave two f**ks what anyone thought. We never considered risk. We just did whatever we needed to to get another show and do it all again.

So we were gonna have our first show. We were just gonna stuff what we did down the city's throat. We didn't think twice. Why not do a breakcore night? Why not at Rosemount?

We had no idea what a breakcore show even looked like. We'd only seen tiny, grainy videos on the C8 forum and photos online. Adam was before 2001 known for being a staple appearance in the crowd at indie rock shows. Michael (Deadcode) as far as I know listened predominantly to industrial before discovering digital hardcore. He went to goth nights and loved his industrial and I had been attending and organising, promoting and plugging the local punk scene since the late 90s when not also attending indie rock, noise rock and metal shows.

The truth is. I'd been blundering around analogue noise for 3 years by that point through friends and bandmates mostly. Adam before discovering FL was mostly obsessively making guitar loops, watching manga or hanging out with friends. Michael had been producing since 1999 or 1998. He also knew his way around guitar and bass if I remember. Don't shoot me if i didn't. At one stage an 8-Bit band was discussed. Me being a drummer. Adam went from deep appreciations and lengthy replays of bands like Swirl, My Bloody Valentine, Pollyanna and obscure indie kings like Swell to obsessively seeking out digital hardcore, d-jungle records and gabber.

He was the one that no one ever saw going in that direction but he was the catalyst for the Western move into breakcore. Without him there would never have been any spark. He was like the flint and I was the flame. Once we both started it wasn't gonna go out.

We weren't really musicians. Well we didn't have bands. Adam and I had attempted or graced a few but none that lasted. The three of us just worked and worked and worked on FL and traded tracks on CDR, demo tracks, ideas, samples, movies on mpeg, fu**ed up internet visual oddities. It was the early 2000s primitive internet era. It was the third year of firesharing and the floodgates were open.

Looking back 20 years ago it was almost a goof or a blunder. We just did what we thought you do. We're making breakcore, make some more, burn it to cdr, give it to friends, give it away, bore people with what we liked, bore people with this crazy s**t. I annoyed countless friends and family members and people who seemed semi interest at work or parties wherever. The three of us lived for this s**t. I couldn't stop thinking about. Guess that hardly changed.

It's a testament to how easy it is to just be young and arrogant and not question if it's possible but just do it. We were digital punks. We turned up, plugged in and obliterated the room.

"we should make a track together"
"we should make more"
"we should start a label"
"we should do a gig"
"we should do another gig"

I watched a conversation between Gabby a known scene girl and Grug a known scenester and cartoonist associate of mine. Gabby was lamenting the decline of the old Perth indie scene and saying "Like that guy Adam. Where's he these days? You never see him around anymore at gigs"

Grug: "He's making s**t music with Wayne now"

She stopped and her jaw dropped while Grug smiled like a cat caught in the cream. I nodded. It was true. It's why he's not at indie shows. We're doing s**t.

The Rosemount Hotel was not the most trusted venue in town but I knew it and had been there many times and could get it easy. I talked to the publican one afternoon over a few beers and he agreed to give us a shot. I can't remember what I said but I really sold it. Being 23 and overenthusiastic I really sold it. Probably convinced him he'd be making history.

The Rosemount was a big wood floored empty room with a bar in the centre. The stage was against the wall like a theatre stage with a small step. The stage was huge but had a giant support beam right in the centre.
Adam made the flyer. I put the show together. Michael drove us both because we didn't have cars. He and Adam used to talk on IRC a lot. I was offline and still a year from having my own computer.

Mage and Fowler were drum n bass DJs. I met them at Roller or Drum Club or f**k somewhere where they were drinking and got caught up in my beatsbeatsbeats conversation. They were keen. They knew I'd let them play the most dark and heavy s**t that no one else would. At least that's what they said.

Norman Boring was my then housemate. He bailed on the gig on the night. Zoo Transmissions was Jaek, Leith, Steve and Adam. I think there was 4. They were all friends, influences, electronic fiends.

This is 2001 ok. You gotta understand. People into this sort of s**t weren't a plenty in Perth. I can remember hundreds of conversations from 1997 to 2003 where electronic fiends were few and far between and we all sort of knew each other. There was lots of ravers sure. People who wanted dark and fu**ed up were limited to goths and the small then waning industrial scene. If you knew someone who had a copy of "Ambient 4: Isolationism" or "Chinese Whispers" or a Warp compilation. You tended to talk to them wherever you saw them.

Once Adam made a flyer. I put it up everywhere. I hassled friends to come. I littered gigs and the streets and poles and shop windows with it.

We got to the venue. I said hi to the publican and we started setting up. Plug this in here. test sound. Let's use Alec Empire's "Destroyer Part 2" to test the sound. It booms out into the empty pub. The bar staff stare at us with disgust. what is this s**t?

ok that works.

Did we make history? Yeah I guess. Does anyone care? Nope. We met the guys from Fragile Nine and we met Orange Dust that night. they attended I'm pretty sure.

We got staunched by an angry goth overlord. We drew maybe 25-40 people tops. I got fu**ed up drunk and was insanely nervous. I played the same track for 40 minutes and then threw in more songs much to the crowds confusion. Some drunk guy came on stage to abuse me to my face.

Before August 24th 2001 never in that city had a sound like Noistruct, The Last Ninja or Deadcode been blasted through a PA. One thing Adam and I loved about the original DHR ethos was the punk aspect of "riot sounds produce riots" the idea you could make this s**t on a computer and then just plug it into a PA and it would sound like electronic armageddon. It was something we really enjoyed. I remember I DJed (played burnt cdrs through a mixer and two discmans) before everyone played. I remember I played Panacea's VIP Torture.

I remember that night. The turnout was fair but not amazing. I bootlegged every set on my cassette recorder. I got way too drunk. I talked to everyone or tried to. I remember the table by the window. The floorboards. The big spaces between nodding curious dnb heads and gothdancers. The Fist fanatics, gabberheads and Hardliners that turned up to check it out.

In Perth in 2001 there was somewhere to hear most dark or heavy styles from goth and industrial to metal to grindcore to noise.

We were the only night in town that was going to play the s**t that was usually relegated to the section at Dadas reading "IDM glitch fu**ed up beats"

I remember a decade later standing at The Bird. Horse Macgyver had come over and one of his supports was playing drill n bass. Most of the hipsters were nodding to it or trying to ignore it. I remember hearing hyperspeed amen breaks and thinking "well we were the first to play this s**t here and if we weren't we were definitely the first to play original acts making it"

Everyone has mostly gone their own way now. 20 years is a long time. The Rosemount booted us for their 2002 renovations and now the same room we started VOID in is $1000 to hire on a Thursday Night. We're in different states mostly and some of us don't make this s**t anymore. Today is a day marked only for myself I guess. I'd like to think Rob, Cal, Adam and Michael might give it a thought.

It was worth it. It was fun. it was an experience. There's hundreds of kids in the Australian Breakcore Scene who can say they've enjoyed it or even started it in their cities. But Australia only has us three, Me, Adam and Michael who know what it was like to start a music scene from scratch in a city that didn't want it, didn't care for it and didn't understand it. It's one thing to follow in the footsteps of previously laid tracks for an underground scene. It's another to build it from nothing all by yourselves.

EDIT: Recently a sound engineer in the UK who cleaned up my Pendulum/VOID bootleg offered to clean up all the 8-Bit bootlegs of the VOID/Sub Level 3 shows. Once they're done I'll throw em up here after Youtube.

Boris Otterdam
August 24th 2021

RELEASED 11 YEARS AGO THIS WEEK

Noistruct - Popmash Is Dead 12", by 8-Bit Recordings 2 track album

(ENDE297) Noistruct - Bogan Junglist

In 2019 Noistruct recorded a junglist/darkstep mix using Dark Matter Project tracks both released and unreleased and a series of favourite industrial, goth, death industrial, darkwave, noise, post-punk and no wave tracks.

It was uploaded to the then new ENDE Records Hearthis page where to his surprise, it was the #1 jungle dj mix of the week of 9th May 2019 on the site! woah!

The original mixes are far too big to upload to Bandcamp so we have linked them here instead for streaming and free downloading from the ENDE Records Hearthis page.

(ENDE297) Noistruct - Bogan Junglist, by ENDE Records 0 track album

RELEASED 6 YEARS AGO THIS WEEK

(ENDE70) Deadcode - Back From The..., by ENDE Records 12 track album

8-Bit Recordings was mentioned in this interview on Darkstereo

The ENDE Insight - Darkstereo This week we had the pleasure of interviewing Boris Otterdam, founder of ENDE Records, an Australian independent label which focuses on abstract, dark, heavy and hardcore electronic music, among other…

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