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viewing 1 To 13 of 13 items
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12"
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EFFICIENT 015EP
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Architects of the Future Sound of Melbourne, FSOM reigned as their city's scene evolved from underground clubs to vast waterfront wonderlands, alternating between playing studio tracks off cassette and jamming live. "Track 6" has a sinister bassline and mind-obliterating stabs -- 1993 to eternity. Andy Rantzen's "Harmonic Eye" speaks a similar vocabulary. Running parallel to FSOM in Sydney, Rantzen united the masses with Paul Mac as Itch-E + Scratch-E, producing crystalline rave, cheeky breakbeat and techno resistance. Lifted off his downtempo 1999 solo CD The Blue Hour, Harmonic Eye is a certified warehouse burner.
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LP
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EFFICIENT 013LP
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Wilson Tanner come to shore with II, a new album of floating melodies, lightly salted. Throwing electroacoustic conventions overboard, Andrew Wilson (Andras) and John Tanner (Eleventeen Eston) recorded this new work aboard a 1950s riverboat with a resourceful array of weatherproof electronic instruments and a long extension lead. These eight compositions pull in a by-catch of maritime folklore; of siren and selkie, seagull and engine oil slick. A change of course from their debut album 69, the ambient temperature drops as II casts out to sea in uncertain weather and returns to the safe harbors of Port Phillip Bay. The seafarers head out to "My Gull"'s poised optimism -- the birds watch but do they listen? By the arrival of "Loch and Key," the shoreline has dissolved completely, the boat floating in serene infinity as the rest of the world spins. Conditions soon take a treacherous turn on "Killcord Pts I-III" -- a 12 minute odyssey that battens down the hatches as these sailors eye merciless waves and blinding ocean spray, jointly channeling Berlin-school electronics and sea legs. In the aftermath, the waterlogged bleeps of "Idle" survey the damage as our parched crew sound the distress signal and ultimately descend into delirium. Known for navigating individual courses as solo musicians, Wilson and Tanner's collective storytelling is saturated in detail, buoying between tension and harmony. II modestly stands as some of both artists' most accomplished material. Includes download.
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12"
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EFFICIENT 012EP
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Almost four decades since its domestic release, Karen Marks's 1981 single Cold Café has finally reaped it's deserved international credit to become one of Australia's most recognized minimal wave recordings. Efficient Space now showcases the Melbourne artist's brief but entire discography, including two previously unheard demos, all produced with experimental synthesist Ash Wednesday (The Metronomes, Modern Jazz, Thealonian Music). A rarity in the then male-dominated industry, Marks found her footing in music, first through rock journalism and then in band management. Formally of Adelaide, newly arrived synth-punks JAB (Johnny Crash, Ash Wednesday, Bodhan X) approached her for representation, subsequently contributing tracks to seminal 1978 snapshot Lethal Weapons and playing the Crystal Ballroom's opening night. Wednesday and Crash would soon dissolve JAB, enlisting Mark Ferry and Sean Kelly to create Models. Still under Mark's management, Models became one of the fastest rising new bands of the punk movement, playing to full houses of dedicated and frenzied fans everywhere. Sadly, internal frictions forced Wednesday and Marks to leave after two years, with Crash following three months later. Her creative relationship with Wednesday fortified with the co-production of his 1980 machine-pop prank "Love By Numbers", her swooning chorus uplifting his deadpan count to 100, before the two collaborated on Marks's own recording persona. Immortalized by the icy Oz wave of Cold Café, her Astor issued 7" also boasted the caffeinated flip "Won't Wear It For Long" -- a should be hit with guitar from future Icehouse member Robert Kretschmer. Fans know of one more recording -- "You Bring These Things", a forlorn arrangement of an otherwise unreleased Paul Kelly song, gifted to her by the revered wordsmith. The track only ever appeared on the Astor promotional LP Terra Australis (1981), sinfully alongside "Up There Cazaly" and Joe Dolce -- hard proof that the label grossly misunderstood her talent (Marks recalls their persistent requests to show midriff and cleavage). Locked in a dissatisfying label arrangement and at this stage unwilling to follow her peers to greener pastures overseas, she felt her only way out was to cease all further activities. At the 11th hour of preparing this retrospective, two tracks unexpectedly surfaced via two cassettes -- a paranoid demo version of her signature tune "Cold Café", and a long-lost fourth song "Problem Page". Both living room recordings follow Marks and Wednesday's ingenious framework of minimal lyrics, minimal chord progressions.
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2LP
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EFFICIENT 009LP
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3AM Spares is a new collection of Australian EDM compiled Andras and Instant Peterson that encompasses the darker sounds and later nights of the 1990s and beyond. Following on from forerunner compilation Midnite Spares, this release draws from local 12" releases, CD-Rs and the archives of community radio station 3RRR FM to make a diverse and pumping scene audible once more. No longer confined to beer barns and back rooms, this generation of producers, DJs, clubbers, and ravers embraced a new culture of machine-metaphor and chemical love. Future Sound Of Melbourne's "Resist The Beat" embodies a time when the country's youth united with juggernaut stamina, partying beyond the long arm of the law. Restored from the original DATs, this debut 12" incited label offers from Jeff Mills, Frank De Wulf, and Carl Cox. Released by the likes of Clan Analogue, Creative Vibes, Volition, DanceNet, Juice and Psy-Harmonics, this era's material has evaded sufficient digital documentation until now. Often these bedroom experiments existed solely for compilation inclusions, a plausible scenario for the mysterious Inner Harmony. In the case of Tetrphnm, Jeremy Dower's glacial sub-bass was digitized from the only known CD-R. Third Eye, the impressive evolution of industrial legend Ollie Olsen, finds common ground with "I Will Go", a hypnotic concoction by Adrenalentil and Jandy Rainbow. The most unique take on this new wave of dance music comes from Turrbal-Gubbi Gubbi woman Maroochy Barambah, using the sound palette of tribal house to highlight the broadening ways that identity and culture were being negotiated and manifested within club music. Artificial's Sobriquet remix bends one of the most looped samples of all time to fit a wired new generation's interrogation of that thing called disco. Her playfulness is mirrored in Blimp's frisky garage house, recalling Paul Johnson, while Ian Eccles-Smith's borrowing is comparatively more discrete on the chillout sampledelic collage "The Slaughtering Eye". Andy Rantzen returns to Efficient Space in two incarnations: as half of ambient alias Screensaver, and in collaboration with General Electrik on "Leather Lover:, a cocked and loaded glimpse at the bottom end of Oxford street, originally recorded for the Club Kooky compilation Gay In The Life: Adventures In The Queer Underground (2000). Reinventing himself as Hypnoblob, fellow Sydney Oz-Wave artist Ian Andrews also gives us his pneumatic-drill-step "Deep Down". Includes download.
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LP
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EFFICIENT 008LP
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Le Raccourci is a welcome introduction to the world of Sebastian Gandera. The impressionist landscapes of a sensitive soul self-reflecting, these miniature compositions alternate across a rudimentary set up of piano, field recorder, sampler and four-track recorder, melancholic utterings hastily captured some 100km east of Paris. Classically trained by the same teacher as his parents, Gandera first began recording in the confines of his university dorm room, inspired by a C60 from friend and future collaborator Bernard Odot (A Gethsémani). Humbly existing without sparing a thought to music industry or career, Gandera's personal efforts surfaced via the European and US cassette networks from 1988 to 1994. Impressively accomplished for the DIY scene they orbited, these tapes were issued in scant quantities, rendering his pieces as private secrets shared and duplicated in small concentric circles. Aside from a sole, avowedly traumatic performance, the material was never shared in a live context. Selected by Sky Girl co-conspirer Julien Dechery, Le Raccourci culls 15 tracks from Gandera's extensive cassette discography, discarded DAT recordings, and split CD with Lyon toy music project Klimperei. These sentiently charged compositions only hint at his larger catalog, but act as a compelling cross-section of the artist's oeuvre. The identity is further detailed by archival images, Glen Goetze-penned liner notes and original artwork from Perks and Mini's Misha Hollenbach. While Gandera's nostalgic melodies incidentally parallel with the piano key manoeuvres of Pascal Comelade, Robert Haigh and Dominique Lawalrée, Le Raccourci could only stem from the escapist desires of Eric Morin.
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CD
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EFFICIENT 006CD
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Efficient Space share the little-heard recordings of three Yolngu songmen from Northeast Arnhem Land -- Bobby Bunnungurr, Jimmy Djamunba, and Peter Milaynga (d. 2007) -- working in collaboration with Victorian musician Peter Mumme. Yolngu are the indigenous peoples of Arnhem Land in Northern Territory, Australia; their clans are the Marangu and Malabirr, the languages Djinang and Gannalbingu. Their songs are of instruction, story and ceremony. A connection first initiated by Yolngu actor David Gulpilil, Waak Waak Djungi's mid-90s recordings were preceded by years of respectful sharing of culture. Mumme explains that "the aim was to produce something that is new, not in the sense of a breakthrough, but what emerges from the combining of existing ideas". What developed was sonically unique -- sprawling vocal/electronic soundscapes and field recordings that reimagine the traditional songs of black crows and white cockatoos, sharing, creation spirits and of leaving and returning home to country. Spacious and patiently durational, the songs resound in a big land with a big story to tell. On the 1997 Waak Waak Djungi album Crow Fire Music, these interpretations were assembled with traditional recordings and additional material from Sebastian Jörgensen and Sally Grice. Falling short of generating public interest, it became well-known in the Yolngu homeland. Nearly two decades later, a CD copy filed away in the 3RRR FM library would prompt a three-year investigation to meet the people behind the music. Waak Waak Ga Min Min ("Black Crow, White Cockatoo") combines the previously unreleased "Gandi Bawong" with five contemporary versions from the original album, with a new cover painting by Bobby Bunnungurr. Tracing 1997 back to many millennia ago, this is a captivating window into the richness of Aboriginal culture and collaboration.
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EFFICIENT 006LP
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LP version. Includes download card. Efficient Space share the little-heard recordings of three Yolngu songmen from Northeast Arnhem Land -- Bobby Bunnungurr, Jimmy Djamunba, and Peter Milaynga (d. 2007) -- working in collaboration with Victorian musician Peter Mumme. Yolngu are the indigenous peoples of Arnhem Land in Northern Territory, Australia; their clans are the Marangu and Malabirr, the languages Djinang and Gannalbingu. Their songs are of instruction, story and ceremony. A connection first initiated by Yolngu actor David Gulpilil, Waak Waak Djungi's mid-90s recordings were preceded by years of respectful sharing of culture. Mumme explains that "the aim was to produce something that is new, not in the sense of a breakthrough, but what emerges from the combining of existing ideas". What developed was sonically unique -- sprawling vocal/electronic soundscapes and field recordings that reimagine the traditional songs of black crows and white cockatoos, sharing, creation spirits and of leaving and returning home to country. Spacious and patiently durational, the songs resound in a big land with a big story to tell. On the 1997 Waak Waak Djungi album Crow Fire Music, these interpretations were assembled with traditional recordings and additional material from Sebastian Jörgensen and Sally Grice. Falling short of generating public interest, it became well-known in the Yolngu homeland. Nearly two decades later, a CD copy filed away in the 3RRR FM library would prompt a three-year investigation to meet the people behind the music. Waak Waak Ga Min Min ("Black Crow, White Cockatoo") combines the previously unreleased "Gandi Bawong" with five contemporary versions from the original album, with a new cover painting by Bobby Bunnungurr. Tracing 1997 back to many millennia ago, this is a captivating window into the richness of Aboriginal culture and collaboration.
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12"
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EFFICIENT 005EP
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Andy Rantzen returns after appearing on Efficient Space's Oz Waves (EFFICIENT 004LP) with 1/66, a collection of four dubs from his 1999-2000 archives. Home recorded, the retrospective is led by the earth shattering digi-stepper "Rock Steady". Originally intended for an abandoned dub album, "Rock Steady" and "Fantasy Dub" were saved from the cutting room floor by Australian CD-only compilations on Creative Vibes and vital collective Clan Analogue, while "Green River" was never released. The dubs finally find union with the New York hip-hop/dancehall style of "Green Man", from his second solo album The Blue Hour Vol. 3: Deep Blue (2001). Rantzen's earliest work stretches back to Pelican Daughters, an ensemble who proliferated industrial leaning ambient and tape loop experiments.
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LP
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EFFICIENT 004LP
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2017 repress. Efficient Space continue to expose Australia's esoteric musical history with Oz Waves - a collection of '80s DIY recordings, compiled by odd wave anthropologist Steele Bonus. Definitive proof that inhabitants of the Down Underground were links in a global network of creative kooks, Oz Waves connects those who utilized mobile recording rigs and small press releases to create and disseminate misfit synth-punk, tape loop experiments, and inner city pop. Through overseas mail order exchanges, anonymous groups like Zerox Dreamflesh could find place on Belgian compilations, while Chris and Cosey lullabied their son to sleep with Irena Xero and her interdisciplinary art collective Zip. Bonus selects ten survivors from the fertile period (1982-1989), most of which were only issued on cassette in tiny editions of five to one-hundred copies. M Squared affiliates Prod join the extraterrestrial Software Seduction, He Dark Age's minimal wave neglect and the irreverent cut ups of The Horse He's Sick and MK Ultra & the Assassins of Light. The remaining tracks have been sourced from musicians' private archives and are being officially released on Oz Waves for the first time - Andy Rantzen's industrial dub Itch-E & Scratch-E precursor, the buoyant vocal-drone of Ironing Music, and Moral Fibro, Sydney's short lived answer to Weekend and Marine Girls. With detailed track-by-track notes, lines are drawn to Severed Heads, Scattered Order, and other antipodean post-punk royalty. As a DJ, Steele Bonus has gained notoriety via the exquisite selections that form his ongoing mix series Odd Waves. Sydney-born, Amsterdam-based, his graphic design has not only been responsible for sleeves on Efficient Space, but also trusted Amsterdam connoisseurs Music From Memory and Young Marco's Safe Trip. Includes a download card.
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LP
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EFFICIENT 003LP
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Repressed. The Efficient Space label follows its acclaimed 2016 Sky Girl compilation (EFFICIENT 002CD/LP) with Midnite Spares. Here, Australian music devotees András Fox and Instant Peterson hold a candle to overlooked avant-pop and electronic works by antipodean artists and outsiders working through the '80s and '90s. Through co-presenting their weekly radio show "Strange Holiday", the duo slowly upturned their locale for inspiration - archives, country bookstores, private collections and convenience stores - searching for a place to anchor their own identities in the oceans of the island continent. The ten tracks here acknowledge a minor history, passed on via a network of friends, friends of friends, the libraries of radio station 3RRR and more often than not, the artists themselves. Renowned mixed media artist Maria Kozic enters with the mysterious downbeat of "Trust Me", her partner Philip Brophy responsible for digital and analog sonic construction (as the MK Sound). A recurring character in András and Instant Peterson's investigations, Brophy reappears with a score piece from his divisive feature film Salt, Saliva, Sperm and Sweat (1988), recorded as → ↑ → (pronounced "Tch Tch Tch"). Other links are thread under the surface. Melbourne inner north experimentalist David Chesworth explores his Australiana song-craft leading Whadya Want? on "Open Spaces". The short lived project also featured Philip Jackson, whose duo The Couch is restored from Fast Forward's dance issue - a pioneering cassette fanzine published by early-80s 3RRR personality Bruce Milne. The collection binds a certain musicianship that's indifferent to fame or chart success, although some artists unwittingly experienced this before and after. Poets Of The Machine's Grace Jones techno-wave was a modest moment for Coral Island and Red Stripe, an English migrant who once celebrated a #1 UK Christmas single with an acapella cover of "Yazoo", while the morbid coming of age electronics of Foot And Mouth is a lesser known prologue to Sean Greenway and Matty Whittle's rise as legendary teen punks heroes God. Quickly becoming a modern dancefloor hit, Mumbo Jumbo's sole release "Wind It Up" is only now basking in its brilliance. The remaining figures shape the diversity further. There's Sydney dub addicts The Igniters, Mix's groovy synth song about masturbation and the Cameron Allen and Graham Bidstrup soundtrack for petrol headed "ozploitation" film, Midnite Spares (1983) -- the compilation's namesake.
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2LP
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EFFICIENT 002LP
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2018 repress. Sky Girl is a mysteriously unshakeable companion, a deeply melancholic and sentimental journey through folk-pop, new wave and art music micro presses that span 1961-1991. It's a DIY collection of different genres, from different countries across different decades, that are all bound by the same longing sentiment. A concept compilation! A seemingly disparate suite of selections of forgotten fables by more or less never-knowns, Sky Girl forms a beautifully coherent and utterly sublime whole deftly compiled by French collectors DJ Sundae and Julien Dechery. From Scott Seskind's adolescent musical road movie to Karen Marks' icy Oz-wave, the charming DIY storytelling of Italian-American go-getter Joe Tossini and the ethereal slow dance themes of Parisian artists Nini Raviolette and Hugo Weris, Sky Girl resonates on a wide spectrum historically, geographically and stylistically. It unites in a singular, longing, almost intangible ambience. If the names sound wholly unfamiliar that doesn't matter, the nature of the compositions swiftly nurtures an intimacy with these lonely, poignant, openhearted wanderers. Most were available in a very limited capacity at the time of their release, some were never really released at all - Gary Davenport declined to release "Sarra" after he split with the girl for whom the track is named - years later a friend convinced Davenport to allow him to put 100 copies online to sell and DJ Sundae was quick enough to snare one. Beyond their scarcity, these tracks are bound together by a certain raw beauty that's achievable when music is made and no one is listening. Sky Girl comprises of fifteen officially licensed songs, a two year international scavenger hunt through long-folded home label operations, the depths of internet forums and traceless acetates. Both compilers are well trained record sleuths - DJ Sundae's labels Hollie and Idle Press have reissued Arthur Russell affiliate Nirosta Steel and DIY relic Pitch, while Julien Dechery previously compiled Fire Star, a retrospective on Tamil film composer Ilaiyaraaja, for Bombay Connection. Released by popular NTS show "Noise In My Head" offshoot Efficient Space, Sky Girl is enriched with artwork from Perks and Mini mutant Misha Hollenbach and appropriately elegant sleeve notes courtesy of Ivan Smagghe. Includes digital download. Also features: Linda Smith, Bruce Langhorne, The Seraphims, Some of My Best Friends Are Canadians, The Rising Storm, Warfield Spillers, Joyce Heath, Angel, Nora Guthrie and Once.
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CD
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EFFICIENT 002CD
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Sky Girl is a mysteriously unshakeable companion, a deeply melancholic and sentimental journey through folk-pop, new wave and art music micro presses that span 1961-1991. It's a DIY collection of different genres, from different countries across different decades, that are all bound by the same longing sentiment. A concept compilation! A seemingly disparate suite of selections of forgotten fables by more or less never-knowns, Sky Girl forms a beautifully coherent and utterly sublime whole deftly compiled by French collectors DJ Sundae and Julien Dechery. From Scott Seskind's adolescent musical road movie to Karen Marks' icy Oz-wave, the charming DIY storytelling of Italian-American go-getter Joe Tossini and the ethereal slow dance themes of Parisian artists Nini Raviolette and Hugo Weris, Sky Girl resonates on a wide spectrum historically, geographically and stylistically. It unites in a singular, longing, almost intangible ambience. If the names sound wholly unfamiliar that doesn't matter, the nature of the compositions swiftly nurtures an intimacy with these lonely, poignant, openhearted wanderers. Most were available in a very limited capacity at the time of their release, some were never really released at all - Gary Davenport declined to release "Sarra" after he split with the girl for whom the track is named - years later a friend convinced Davenport to allow him to put 100 copies online to sell and DJ Sundae was quick enough to snare one. Beyond their scarcity, these tracks are bound together by a certain raw beauty that's achievable when music is made and no one is listening. Sky Girl comprises of fifteen officially licensed songs, a two year international scavenger hunt through long-folded home label operations, the depths of internet forums and traceless acetates. Both compilers are well trained record sleuths - DJ Sundae's labels Hollie and Idle Press have reissued Arthur Russell affiliate Nirosta Steel and DIY relic Pitch, while Julien Dechery previously compiled Fire Star, a retrospective on Tamil film composer Ilaiyaraaja, for Bombay Connection. Released by popular NTS show "Noise In My Head" offshoot Efficient Space, Sky Girl is enriched with artwork from Perks and Mini mutant Misha Hollenbach and appropriately elegant sleeve notes courtesy of Ivan Smagghe. Includes digital download. Also features: Linda Smith, Bruce Langhorne, The Seraphims, Some of My Best Friends Are Canadians, The Rising Storm, Warfield Spillers, Joyce Heath, Angel, Nora Guthrie and Once.
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12"
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EFFICIENT 001EP
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2017 repress. Noise in My Head christens its retrospective Efficient Space imprint with the only four released works of Braden Schlager, who honed his craft as a resident at Commerce Club in the embryonic '90s Melbourne club scene. The first three tracks come from Schlager's 1990 debut On the Moon EP. The vocal-led "Morning (Du Heaume Mix)" evokes a fantasy of a Nu Groove-commissioned house track by Klaus Schulze, while the darker "Rummage Mix" gives the shufflers a second wind. An early attempt at techno, the panicked "Rummage" interlude precedes the balearic "King of Comedy," Schlager's submission to the 1991 Monash University sci-fi theater work Cyberbia.
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