The Golden Age Of Adelaide Music Is Now Yours To Hold In Your Hands

The city of Adelaide - where, as the great Paul Kelly once said, “the streets are so wide, everybody’s inside, sitting in the same chairs they were sitting in last year.”

It is not a city necessarily associated with vibrancy, or with a thriving, diverse arts community (depending on whom you ask). But perhaps it should be. Because, regardless of its reduced scale and quiet, proprietary atmosphere, Adelaide is experiencing a boom of special and complex art being made by people with limited resources and audiences who still care in spite of it all - and there are a couple of young, dedicated artists who are desperate to prove it.

Thea Martin and Louis Campbell, both renowned musicians in the local scene, have banded together to create a compilation of songs produced by Adelaide-based musicians, a unique memento of this extremely specific time in their lives. Titled (and sequenced) by musician Jachin Mee, the compilation is called Sitting In The Same Chairs.

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Martin, who curated the compilation, explains how it all came to be. “Louis supported the release of my debut EP under caps lock records in June of 2024,” they say, referring to the homegrown record label masterminded by Louis Campbell. caps lock records has additionally supported the releases of local artists such as Any Young Mechanic (formerly known as Wake in Fright), War Room, Jachin Mee, and more.

They continue, “I approached Louis with the idea of a compilation, both as a way to celebrate the music released under the caps lock records label in 2024, and to celebrate the Tarntanya/Adelaide music scene as a whole. I love the work that Benji (from the Naarm-based band Garage Sale) does in creating beautiful limited physical releases and compilations with their project sore horse, and wanted to encourage a similar attitude to archiving the scene here.” 

Sitting In The Same Chairs includes sixteen tracks from a manifold range of talented up-and-coming artists, such as Twine, Swapmeet, Koleh, and more. Sam Wilson of Any Young Mechanic (a physical media enthusiast) is responsible for the tape and CD production. 

The compilation “features released, unreleased and demo tracks to push against the notion that artistic work can only be legitimised in complete and fully produced formats, and only when distributed through the major streaming services,” Martin says.

An official statement detailing the vision behind the compilation reads, ““Our city is a slow and sputtering one. But we find ourselves in the midst of an energy burst - here is a community and a kind of creativity that feels once in a lifetime (but we’ve all only grown up just this once, so perhaps it’s too hard for us to tell). Sitting In The Same Chairs is a stamp on a moment for Tarntanya/Adelaide - a moment where venues continue to shut, when no one gets paid shit, as the city continues to turn its gears towards a lackadaisical conservatism. And amongst it, so much sound! And people who care deeply about making it. caps lock records supported the releases of many artists on this compilation in 2024. Thank you Louis for your belief in our scene, for giving our music a home that feels like a big sharehouse. Thank you to all of the artists who contributed a song to this record.”

Louis Campbell is clearly as passionate as Martin about the sounds that are being created in Adelaide, and is thankful to be able to give these songs a physical home. “I have said on the record before that we might be in a golden age here in Tarntanya/Adelaide. Ten years in the future I’ll think back about this time and cry,” he says. “I am happy that I’ve been able to exist when I do with many phenomenal young artists who share so much with each other, and whose sensitivity and encouragement bind together the pages of this compilation.”

On February 22nd, a launch show in honour of Sitting In The Same Chairs is being held at Goodwood Books (with the help of musician and prolific reader Frank Atkinson). The launch, as well as featuring music from acts such as short snarl and Resting Mind Flowers, will be a space to celebrate physical media of all kinds, including books, CDS, tapes, and vinyl.

Sitting In The Same Chairs CDs and cassettes will be available for purchases at the launch show. Until then, the CDS and cassettes can be purchased by contacting caps lock records on Instagram, at Streetlight records in the Adelaide CBD, and through Bandcamp.

Finally, the perfect opportunity has arisen to be able to hold Adelaide music in your hands.