Space is Ace began life as a solo
project by Jonathan Eff, who donned a sequinned suit not
unlike the Jackson 5's getup circa 1974, strapped on his pink paisley
telecaster, and crooned a series of disco and house tunes, to the
backing of a few primitive synthesisers and samplers at a "rave" style
event called "Acid Scratch" at the Australian National University in
1988.
He was soon joined by Patrick Flynn, and the pair began to glue punk
rock and absurdist humour onto the template of a synthpop duo.
After the usual series of demoes and gigs around town, Neil
Bateman joined on drums, and Nick Wilson on keyboards. Thus was
the obligatory John/Paul/Ringo/George personality mix achieved.
Abbreviating the name to the
then-fashionably monosyllabic Space, the group released the single
"Statement of Intent/Know It Now". It garnered national distribution
and a respectable round of airplay on alternative radio. A move to
Sydney and a CD mini-album "Sonic Screwdriver" followed, then a trio of
tracks on the compilation "Embryo". On each release the group continued
to merge electronic and dance music styles with pop song structures and
lyrics ranging from absurd to political.
Fusing elements of rock and pop was all the rage in that pre-grunge,
post-baggy era. Space is Ace went further than most to both ends of the
spectrum. The first single, Know it
Now saw the group lay down its first rock guitar freakout
passage, a crescendo of noise and samples which drew the Smiths and
Kraftwerk together in an unlikely stylistic nuclear fusion. On the
other side, Statement of Intent
was tailor made for 7", like an electro She Loves You, a tighly
arranged four minutes of perfect pop. The guitar onslaught provided the
most enduring moments of the subsequent Space releases, notably on the
manic You're Beautiful and the
hazy Bus to Oblivion.
Space is Ace seemed to inhabit an imaginary nightclub precinct,
where the drug-fuelled clientele were exhorted to spill onto the
streets and mount some kind of social and political revolution, without
missing a beat. The music was self funded and self-produced, the
fiercely independent streak manifesting itself with a rawness uncommon
in technology-centred music.
The group folded in 1993.
Where are they now? Patrick Flynn strums with Sydney funksploitation
band the Modernists. Nick Wilson has been contributing to several
projects in the Clan Analog scene in Melbourne, most notably as half of
Continuum. Neil Bateman is in Hoolahan; and Jonathan Eff has noodled
away inconclusively as Svetlana Filtervich and Declan Stylofone.
Disclaimer: he also made this page.
