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NeTENeTE - Greatest Non-Hits 1 LP (sham011) ()

NeTE were a industrial/gothic band active in Melbourne, Australia in the early 1990s. The collection of their best works was originally released posthumously on cassette in 2000


This audio is part of the collection: Shame File Music

Artist/Composer: NeTE
Date: 0000-00-00 00:00:00

Creative Commons license: Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs

Notes

NeTE began its life as the home recordings of one Wayne Duncan during 1992. Wayne recorded 3 tapes of material with a 4-track, drum machine, bass and guitar (from which “Killing Tradition”, “Blind Society”, “Black-Eyed Jesus” & “Massacre of the Innocents” are taken). By the third tape he had acquired a keyboard. Wayne and I were both living in the outer western suburbs of Melbourne, where at the time I was playing guitar in hardcore band Punchbag. I was interested in the more experimental and noisier stuff Wayne was doing. He wanted to do something live and I stepped in on bass in 1993. We both shared a liking for the English band Godflesh, and the Godflesh cover “Like Rats” is taken from our first rehearsal recording. NeTE in all its incarnations would always be predominatly Wayne’s baby, with him writing nearly all the music. We recorded a tape from which the songs “Reason Unfound”, “Diseased” & “The Wind Song” are taken, and you can hear the Godflesh influence here. We downtuned the guitar and bass to A to get the deep sound. At this point we played a couple of gigs under the name of Dereks Don’t Run, including one memorable show which consisted of a 20 minute hypnotic version of “Diseased”.

Wayne soon decided he wanted a less “fun”, more abstract name for the band, and we settled on NeTE. Around this time, he started getting heavily into gothic music and wanted to devote more energy to his vocals. We took the quite radical step of dropping guitar altogether, leaving just the bass (still downtuned and distorted) and drum machine. It was at this point that I think we were at our best, playing some gigs which I felt were the best I’ve ever done in any band at that point. We were getting some good reviews as well, with lots or superlatives flying around. It was very different; unlike the material we soon recorded for our first “released” cassette, it was still quite harsh and very heavy in places.

At this time Wayne purchased a sequencer with synthesiser module which allowed synth to be preprogrammed in with the drums. Some more gothic-orientated material was written, and I accordingly tuned up to B (always refusing to go to the customery E!). This material is well-represented on our first for-sale tape “NeTE”, released in early 1994. We did 100 copies, which all sold out in a few months. It is reproduced in its entirety here with the tracks “Knave”, “Two Women Kissing”, “Façade” & “An Angel’s Descent”. “Mother Cry” was from the same sessions, as was another track not included here entitled “Fleshless, Loveless” that appeared on the compilation album “A Land of Sweeping Sound”, also available on Shame File Music.

The feel of these songs was a lot more restrained than earlier heavier material, but Wayne’s songwriting talent shone through better than ever. The style was certainly gothic, but it is by no means generic. These songs have stood the test of time and stand up in their originality. We got some good reviews of this as well, with comparisons made to Japan, Suicide and Alien Sex Fiend.

As Wayne’s songwriting moved more towards the gothic side of things, the songs needed guitar more and more. We recruited a guy named Neil, who at the time was playing in a cover band called Stronger Than Dirt. We only played one gig with Neil, and unfortunately have no quality recordings of this later material. We had about half a dozen new songs, but unfortunately they don’t sound as good as they actually were on the poor quality rehearsal tapes I have. For the sake of completeness one of these recordings is included here, “An Angel’s Descent (alternative version)”.

NeTE died off as so many good bands do; sick of playing gigs to empty rooms, lack of interest, etc. The end of the band wasn’t “decided” so to speak; Wayne just sort of lost interest, and really, he was the band, so that was it.

I lost contact with Wayne and Neil, but I moved onto other things including a more traditional band called Kill, as well as my own experimental guitar project in Undecisive God. – Clinton Green 2000 (revised 2005).

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Reviewer: DopeHat - - August 22, 2007
Subject: Great!
Very good music, seldom any lyrics but when there are they are as good as the music.