A lot of music released these days is just “product”, calculated to maximise streaming algorithms backed by social media engineering and a 24/7 PR machine. Which is why so many new albums feel contrived, manufactured and just part of a conveyor belt production. A bit like processed food on supermarket shelves.

So it was really refreshing to hear David Chesworth introduce his first solo album, “50 Synthesiser Greats” as part of the “Reverb” listening room sessions at Melbourne’s ACMI. (More on Reverb itself next week.)

Originally released in 1979, the music was mostly self-recorded at home, using just a Mini Korg 700S synthesizer, and an Akai 4000 DS reel-to-reel tape deck. By the artist’s own frank admission, there had never been any intention to release the tracks as a record. It was only when he played the recordings to a friend that Chesworth was encouraged to put out an album.

Self-releasing a record in those pre-digital, pre-internet days was not unheard of, although still relatively rare. But thanks to the proliferation of independent labels alongside punk music in the mid- to late-70s, there were enough examples for aspiring musicians to follow. Chesworth’s account of how he made an appointment with a Melbourne pressing plant (“men in white lab coats”), and then came up with the cover design, was endearing and self-effacing. Each step in the production process was just another part of the overall experiment he had begun with those somewhat naive recordings. Yet there was also a benign knowingness behind the artistic experimentation: the deliberately cheesy sleeve artwork, the slightly cryptic album title, etc.

The resulting album is as much a work of conceptual art as it is product of recorded music. A similar thought came to mind when listening to the recently re-released inaugural album by The Durutti Column, an album I have loved since its first release in 1980. Again, something of an accidental album, the music on “The Return of….” had never been intended for release – and was issued without the artist’s formal consent or knowledge. As critic Alexis Petridis wrote in his re-appraisal in late 2025:

“And perhaps the peculiar circumstances of its creation – people experimenting for their own benefit, rather than actively making an album for public consumption – helped forge its distinctly beguiling atmosphere.”

Somehow, you can’t imagine many of today’s pop singers experimenting in similar vein, such is their focus on output.

Next week: Reverb-erations