Beat&Squelch
Author: Tom Phillipson | Source: CBOnline | Date: 23-11-00
For near on forty years Amnesty International has been fighting the good fight. Trying to ensure that people the world over don't get trodden down. Of course, this takes money. A lot. And here, local label dumphuck steps in. The people who run dumphuck, specifically Tom Phillipson, wanted to get Australian electronic artists out and heard, while raising funds for Amnesty International and so he brought into being the Beat & Squelch compilations. All Artists donated their time and services for free and much of the cost of putting life into the project was carried by dumphuck.
The first Beat & Squelch - Dancing on the Clouds - was released in 1999 with a launch that also donated all money collected to Amnesty International. Dancing, which featured contributions from acts as diverse as Deepchild, Cindii, Quark Kent, Alphatown C, Funkenbubble and Sonik Professa, was a resounding success. A nomination at the last Dance Music Awards was a handy measure of its quality, but the CD received airplay and promotion from Triple J into the bargain. Now, Fire in the Bassbins, the second compilation has been released and it brings some new names to the project. But it's not that these are new faces to fans of local electronica, in fact some of these guys are stalwarts. The list for this one includes, Billy tha Kid, Mr Fink and Purdy as well as a few of the usual suspects.
Phillipson is thrilled with the progress of the CD's, "My favourite moments." He says reflecting on Dancing on the Clouds, "Probably having it nominated for best dance compilation in the DMA awards. Even though we didn't qualify, it was still pretty cool to have your first release nominated." It is Phillipson himself who initiates the CD's and then takes them, pretty much complete, to Amnesty. As you can imagine, Amnesty are happy with the deal. "Yeah," He understates, "they are pretty happy, it doesn't cost them anything and they get a lot of publicity." Amnesty's Kathy Richards agrees, "Amnesty International contributes not only to campaigns on behalf of individuals," She explains, "but also for changes to government policy, and for the establishment of international mechanisms and treaties to protect and promote human rights. Amnesty maintains its activities by funds raised from supporters and the public at large, as well as fundraising ventures such as Beat & Squelch. Tom organises all this by himself."
Basically I went to Japan last year and I wanted a compilation of some local acts to take over on CDR as a demo." Phillipson says explaining the rationale behind the collections. "It started as just Deepchild, Hbiki, Quark Kent, Aquace and myself. We were pretty happy with how it turned out and decided that it should be produced into a proper compilation. The idea of doing it for charity was just a logical step."
Why the strong connection between the two? Simply put, the people that are attracted to Amnesty are those most likely to be attracted to other volunteer work. And here radio 2SER becomes an important link in the chain. "Kaye Blackman is the main connection," Phillipson explains, "she was once the station manager at radio 2SER (where some of us volunteer), so it was relatively easy to hook it up. The main drama was reassuring Amnesty that we were not some dodgy people trying to rip them off.
There's a diverse range of acts on this compilation, What is the criteria for inclusion? Must the acts be electronic? "The only real thing we look for is that it's not overly commercial and it is not too heavy, ie: dark industrial hardcore. We want the person listening to feel good about the fact they just donated to Amnesty International. We mainly look for electronic based music, any genre and no, they don't have to be members of Amnesty.
What is the actual purpose of dumphuck? Does it exist merely as an avenue for independent CD release, or is it an organised collective in say, the way that the Clan Analogue crew are? "I would not go as far as to say we are organised," Phillipson states, "but we do have a strong link. I think most of it is because we all believe in the music we make, and that it should be used for the good of all. Basically there are the 5 main people and then there are people who we like to work with for launches and stuff. Like Alphatown C, Cindii and Aquace. The purpose," He continues, "is to just make things that people might like, so far we have been focusing on the music, but there are heaps of things we want to do. It's all about the time and resources."