The Vessels

The legend of The Makers Of The Dead Travel Fast, one of the most curious of Sydney’s post-punk groups, rests largely on their debut single, 1980’s “Tael Of A Saeghors”, an enchanted aquatic dream of a song. But the following year’s The Vessels yields great rewards, too. There’s a touch of systems ambience and library music in the drifting instrumentals and plangent piano of pieces like “Illuminated Bay, Illuminated Buoy” and “Rowboat”, and the sextet’s embrace of elliptical miniatures reminds of French composers like Pascal Comelade and Pierre Bastien, mottled with a sun-baked DIY psychedelia that’s uniquely Australian.