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Information about Severed Heads

:For the 1961 novel by Iris Murdoch, see A Severed Head.


Severed Heads is an Australian electronic music group based and founded in Sydney in 1979 (see 1979 in music) as Mr. and Mrs. No Smoking Sign. The original members were Richard Fielding and Andrew Wright, and were soon joined by Tom Ellard. Fielding and Wright eventually left the group, leaving Ellard as the sole continuing member of the group. A variety of people have played in Severed Heads, including Garry Bradbury, Paul Deering, and Stephen Jones, but over time the group has devolved to Tom Ellard.

History

Early Severed Heads music was characterised by the use of tape loops, noisy arrangements of synthesizers, and other dissonant sound sources, putting Severed Heads in the general category of industrial music. After several releases in that vein, Severed Heads began incorporating various popular music tropes, such as a consistent 4/4 rhythm, strong melodic lines, and resolving chord arrangements. This move was underscored by the incorporation of mimetic devices, such as drum machines and bass synthesizers. The result was a striking hybrid of the avant-garde industrial and pop.

Combined with Ellard's thin but gently eerie vocals and elliptical poetic lyrics, Severed Heads were signed to Nettwerk records in North America, and Volition Records in Australia, and charted in 1984 with the song "Dead Eyes Opened". This deal led to a world tour, which was as much a multimedia event, thanks to the video synthesizers of Stephen Jones. They also charted in the United States in the late 1980s with a 12-inch single of "Greater Reward" (from the album Rotund For Success) assisted by several remixes by Sydney-based producer Robert Racic. Racic, who produced album tracks and various singles on and off through the late 1980s and early 1990s and became integral to the Severed Heads sound of that period.

Nettwerk severed its relations with Ellard in the early 1990s, leaving the band adrift in the marketplace. Ellard sought out another label for his next release, Gigapus, in 1995, which was released on Volition in Australia and Decibel Records elsewhere. Around this time, the band had a major Australian hit with a remixed version of "Dead Eyes Opened". Both Volition and Decibel soon folded, and once again, Severed Heads were unaligned with the traditional music industry, and didn't fully own the rights to their music. This changed in 1998, when Sony Music sold Ellard the rights back for a nominal fee.

With his music back in his hands and fully independent, Ellard took this on as a challenge and began developing an independent music system, which is entirely Internet based, at sevcom.com (the link is below). During the early 2000s, Tom Ellard blazed an independent path for his art and developed several innovative products, such as the Sevcom Music Server, a subscription based ambient music distribution system.

Ellard has worked on a side project, Coklacoma, which released a few CDs in the late 1990s. As of 2004, he is working on new music and is heavily involved with developing video. Ellard has also worked extensively during the 1990s with other Sydney based electronic musicians and groups such as Paul Mac (of Itch-E and Scratch-E) and Boxcar, former alumni of the now-defunct Volition label, as well as The Lab.

Selected discography

Main article: Severed Heads discography
  • Ear Bitten (1980)
  • Clean (1981)
  • Blubberknife (1983)
  • Since the Accident (1983)
  • "Dead Eyes Opened" (1984)
  • City Slab Horror (1985)
  • Clifford Darling, Please Don't Live In The Past (1985)
  • Come Visit the Big Bigot (1986)
  • Bad Mood Guy (1987)
  • "Greater Reward" (1988)
  • Bulkhead (1988)
  • Rotund For Success (1989)
  • Retread (1991)
  • Cuisine (1991)
  • Gigapus (1994)
  • "Dead Eyes Opened 94" (1994) (remix)
  • Severything V. 1 (1996) (CD-ROM)
  • Haul Ass (1998)
  • Op1.0 (2002)
  • Op2.0 (2004)
  • The Illustrated Family Doctor (2005) (Soundtrack)
  • ''Op2.5 - Millennium Cheesecake (2005)
  • ''Under Gail Succubus (2006)
  • ''Viva! Heads! (2006)

External links

-1961- 1962 1963 1964  1965 .  1966 .  1967 .  1968  . 1969  . 1970  . 1971 

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Iris Murdoch
Born: July 15, 1919
Dublin, Ireland
Died: February 8, 1999 (aged 81)
Oxfordshire, England
Occupation: Novelist, Philosopher
Writing period: 1954-1997
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A Severed Head

Severed Head cover
Author Iris Murdoch
Country United Kingdom
Language English
Genre(s) Novel
Publisher
Publication date 1961
Media type Print (Hardback & Paperback)
ISBN NA
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Anthem
Advance Australia Fair [1]


Capital Canberra

Largest city Sydney
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Electronic music refers to music that emphasizes the use of electronic musical instruments or electronic music technology as a central aspect of the sound of the music. [1]
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Location of Sydney within Australia

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• Density: 4,280,190 (2006 Census) (1st)
345.
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Andrew Wright (born September 4, 1971) is a Canadian multimedia artist from Waterloo, Ontario. He is best known for his work with video and large-scale photography.

Life and Work

Andrew Wright was born in Cambridge, UK in 1971 and grew up in Kingston, Ontario, Canada.
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Thomas (Tom) Ellard (born 1962), is an Australian electronic musician most well known as the founding member of the electronic and industrial music group Severed Heads. Ellard's first music contributions began in the late 1970s as a teenager, he was influenced by groups that
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Gary Bradbury is an Australian musician. Bradbury has been active in Sydney's experimental music scene since 1979, specialising in manipulation of reel to reel and tape decks, as well as customising pianola rolls. From 1981 to 1985 he was a member of Severed Heads.
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Stephen Jones (born January 23, 1951) is an Australian electronic musician and video artist. Born in Sydney, Australia, Jones, together with Tom Ellard, was a principal member of Severed Heads from 1983 to 1992.
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Tape loops are loops of prerecorded magnetic tape used to create repetitive, rhythmic musical patterns. A measure of recorded magnetic tape is cut and spliced end to end, creating a circle or loop which can be played continuously, usually on a reel to reel machine.
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Industrial music is a loose term for a number of different styles of experimental music, especially but not necessarily electronic music. The term was first used in the mid-1970s to describe the then-unique sound of Industrial Records artists.
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A drum machine is an electronic musical instrument designed to imitate the sound of drums and/or other percussion instruments. Drum machines are very useful instruments for a wide variety of musical genres, not just purely electronic music.
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Avant-garde (pronounced /ɑvɑ̃ gɑʁd/) in French means "front guard", "advance guard", or "vanguard".
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Nettwerk is a large Vancouver, British Columbia based record label and music management firm. The label was founded in 1984 by Terry McBride, Mark Jowett, and Brad Saltzberg in McBride's small Vancouver apartment, initially to release albums by Jowett's band Moev.
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Volition Records was an Sydney, Australia based record label specialising in electronic music styles such as house, techno, synthpop and trance. It was founded by Andrew Penhallow in the late 1980s, but folded in the late 1990s.
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20th century - 21st century
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1981 1982 1983 - 1984 - 1985 1986 1987

Year 1984 (MCMLXXXIV
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A Video Synthesizer is a device that electronically creates a video signal.

A video synthesizer is able to generate a variety of visual material without camera input through the use of internal video pattern generators, as seen in the stillframes of motion sequences shown
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Motto
"In God We Trust"   (since 1956)
"E Pluribus Unum"   ("From Many, One"; Latin, traditional)
Anthem
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worldwide view of the subject.
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12-inch [30 cm] single gramophone record came into existence with the advent of disco music in the 1970s. The first 12" single was actually a 10" acetate used by a mix engineer (Jose Rodriquez) in need of a Friday night test copy for famed disco mixer Tom Moulton.
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Sydney
New South Wales

Location of Sydney within Australia

Population:
• Density: 4,280,190 (2006 Census) (1st)
345.
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Robert Racic (January 8, 1964 - October 25, 1996) was an Australian DJ and record producer. Born in Melbourne and highly influential within electronic and house music circles he was largely unknown outside Australia.
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Sony Music Entertainment is a major global record label controlled by the Sony Corporation. In 1988, Sony Corporation acquired CBS Records, Inc. for $2 billion. CBS Inc., now CBS Corporation, retained the rights to the CBS name, and Sony renamed the label
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