The Null Device

EMI have dropped David Bridie and My Friend The Chocolate Cake (scroll down) for not shifting enough units, some two years after releasing his album Hotel Radio, crippled with iMac-killing "copy control" mechanisms, and refusing to listen to his concerns about it pissing off his fans. (And it was quite a good album; kind of like Ian Brown's Music Of The Spheres only more interesting.) Anyway, Bridie walks out of the deal with full ownership of his music, and into deals with Shock and Liberation, so all's well that ends well.

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A fascinating piece on David Bridie, looking in depth at his recent solo album, as well as Not Drowning, Waving and My Friend The Chocolate Cake. Don't miss... (The Age)

"The Ghan railway from Port Augusta to Alice Springs," he explains, "was almost entirely built by Muslims from Afghanistan, with camels. I was standing there, in the desert near Maree, looking around, thinking of the Islams and their camels and thinking about who else was there, and what was going on late last century in the desert - the strange Europeans on the run and the Aborigines who had already suffered. This is in the heart of redneck white Australia. It's a strange meeting place. Still is. Australia is a strange meeting place. Strange things happen. That's really what I wanted to say."

But now Bridie feels he has come full circle. He says Act of Free Choice could quite easily be a Not Drowning, Waving record, albeit a decade on. At the very least it's a "logical progression" from his earlier outfit's work.

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