RIPLEY-MARSHALL, HELEN - Green Chaos

"Australian ambient electronic album Green Chaos , reissued for the first time 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 '80s Ripley-Marshall lived a Bohemian lifestyle in inner city Sydney; "surrounded by musicians, actors and artists, there was an amazing creative 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 creative friction sometimes experienced within a group dynamic, heavily inspired by Arnold Frolows ' "Ambience" radio show on Australia's Triple J and particularly the music of Tangerine Dream , Harold Budd , and Brian Eno . Initially a solitary endeavor, once she decided to record in a studio Green Chaos morphed into a somewhat collaborative, improvisational project with other musicians invited into the studio to improvise and add their own interpretations and ideas, additional layers and dimensions, resulting in a work that combines a clear influence from the electronic repetition of the Berlin school with a meandering, futuristic lyricism. Although influenced by the long form sonic journeys of artists 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. After completing 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, timeless anomaly of Australian electronic music."