New Centre Of The Universe Volume 3 is the latest installation from Anti-Fade Records featuring a stack of local artists. Being five years since the release of Volume 2, Forte thought it might be a perfect time to touch base with Billy Gardner, the man behind all things Anti-Fade.
This is the third instalment of ‘New Centre Of The Universe and the first to appear on vinyl, congratulations you must be stoked on that!
Thanks bud – yeah I’m super stoked about it. The record aspect of it (as opposed to a cassette) makes it a bit more exciting and accessible for everybody I think.
Every band on this comp hasn’t appeared on either of the previous two compilations, why did you decide to showcase new artists?
It has always been the plan with the comps to not cross over on any. It also has been five years since the last comp so naturally a lot of the bands and artists I asked were new, you know? Might do a punk one next so that should be pretty easy to keep bands fresh.
How do you curate the release/how do you choose which bands will get a feature?
I just asked the folks on there if they had a song they could spare – not necessarily an exclusive song but maybe an exclusive version of a song – like a demo etc. Went about that slowly over about a year and spent a few months trialling out different tracklist orders – that bit took a while but I’m happy with the order it ended up in.
What is the aim of the comp? Is it more so to continue to facilitate a live music culture within the local scene or is it more so to highlight the local scene to a broader community?
Mostly the latter – a bunch of tunes on there have never been performed live and I’m not sure if they ever will be.
What labels other than Anti-Fade are associated with this comp?
There’s a few Hobbies Galore related artists, Aarght records ones, few mixed international labels and also a couple of artists who’ve never released anything under a solo title before. Very stoked to include them.
I notice that Volume 3 features a lot of musicians who are quite established in other acts doing solo or side projects, was there a particular focus on that for this Volume?
I guess somewhat – but not really. It’s happening a lot these days (people making their own songs) and I’m into that. I guess it’s also a way of making it easy to not reuse the same bands as earlier comps.
Was it intentional to slightly back off the punk vibe for this volume or was it more so the direction the bands where headed in anyway?
Yep. For sure. I actually started compiling a different NC3 about two years ago with mixed genres and gave up. I culled it all (except one or two bands) and started the chilled one. I think it works much better keeping the genre somewhat themed.
Are there many Victorian acts you may have wanted on this comp that you have your eye on for Volume 4?
There are some that I wish I included on Volume 3 for sure!!! But I won’t put them on vol. 4 as that one will hopefully include all the punk bands that I didn’t ask for this round ha!
Are there any talks of a possible event launch featuring all of the acts on the comp?
Yep – it won’t feature ALL acts – but anybody interested keep September 15 free!
Release: New Centre Of The Universe Volume 3 is out now.
Written by Alex Callan
Five minutes with Anti-Fade Records’ Billy Gardner
