- 12inch
- Recommended
Tester Housing
OVER YOU
Left Ear
- Cat No: LER 1026
- updated:2020-12-18
That jacket, and this laid-back groove. "Over You." The dub version is exquisite too.
12" comp collecting four impossible-to-find Tester Housing tracks from 1983, the sum total of the Melbourne duos recorded output. Originally released via Rampant, the short-lived but prolific label also responsible for a few Drowning Not Waving and David Chesworth records, what we've got here is a prime example of the international language of minimal synthpop, beautifully youthful expressions that trade their guitars for synthesisers, filtered through the briefly utopic ideal of new emergent technologies. There's a big early Mute feel here, a clear pop sensibility sharing space with DIY enthusiasm and a little punk spirit. All gold, but the closing near-acapella of 'Oh' is the standout, brushed with that same lonely planet sound as Solid Space's hermetical masterpiece, Space Museum. That one track is worth the entry fee alone.

This all went down in Melbourne, Australia, in 1983. The jacket photo posted on Facebook had a blur over it — censorship, I guess. The ● floating in the middle, the racket, or maybe the head, the private parts. Symmetry and contrast, the offset, and a triangle linking the three. (Original Japanese text by Saito)