Green Chaos

Description

Fresh Hold Releases presents Helen Ripley-Marshall’s mysterious Australian ambient
electronic album
“Green Chaos”, reissued for the first hme on vinyl LP. Originally released in 1988 on
Sydney based private press label Freefall, “Green Chaos” marks the sole release from
Ripley-Marshall.
In the late 80’s Ripley-Marshall lived a Bohemian lifestyle in inner city Sydney;
“surrounded by musicians, actors and arhsts, there was an amazing creahve
experimental vibe going on”. While playing in new
wave/art rock band “D Face” she began Green Chaos as a personal project to
counteract the creahve frichon somehmes experienced within a group dynamic,
heavily inspired by Arnold Frolows’ “Ambience” radio show on Australia’s Triple J and
parhcularly the music of Tangerine Dream, Harold Budd and Brian Eno.
Inihally a solitary endeavour, once she decided to record in a studio Green Chaos
morphed into a somewhat collaborahve, improvisahonal project with other
musicians invited into the studio to improvise and add their own interpretahons and
ideas, addihonal layers and dimensions, resulhng in a work that combines a clear
influence from the electronic repehhon of the Berlin school with a meandering,
futurishc lyricism. Although influenced by the long form sonic journeys of arhsts like
Tangerine Dream, Ripley-Marshall’s background in art rock and new wave brings a
more concise approach, each song a self-contained universe that says only what is
necessary in the arrangement.
ASer complehng a sound engineering course Ripley-Marshall recorded the album at
Sydney’s Exeter House Studio over several months alongside studio engineer Andrew
Knight, met through a fellow member of D Face. Knight ran Freefall, a private press
recording label releasing folk and bluegrass music, which had Green Chaos as its sole
ambient release. Ripley-Marshall self distributed the album to local inner city
record stores and dropped a copy to Triple J, where it became a regular staple of
Arnold Frolows’ show.
These days Ripley-Marshall has moved away from music and is predominantly
focused on visual art. “Green Chaos” stands as the only released product of her
musical years, both a personal window into the vibrant experimental art scene of late
1980s Sydney and a deep, hmeless anomaly of Australian electronic music.