INFORMATICS - PROXIMITY SWITCH, 1985

Informatics were an Australian new wave band from the early eighties who were known for their fascination with analog synthesizers and produced some amazing original true 8-bit sounds. All tracks from this record were recorded between January and November 1981 using 4 and 2 track recorders but found little attention among the conservative music climate outside of Australian college radio. They are still creating music, mostly remixing unreleased original material from their early sessions and have some great info on their website: ”In early performances, long before the advent of samplers, rows of synthesizers were patched together to create unique percussion and instrumentation solely generated by analogue synthesis. Informatics held a fascination for contemporary visual art and moving images and this led to several concerts where the live performance was accompanied by a large screen format video. The production elements in the videos reflected Informatics philosophy on sound composition: the footage was entirely pirated from television ads, manipulated and then collaged to create new narrative that reinforced the music.”