"MINIMUM CHIPS" - by Anthony Carew
Beat Magazine 27-9-2000


There was a time tha melancholic drone-pop combo Minimum Chips hailed from Brisbane. Then there was a time its members were split between Brisbane and Melbourne, and they'd come together at sparodic times to play shows having not seen eachother for long periods of time, let alone rehearsed. As tends to be the way with such performances, they tended to be polarised, either fractured and inspired or a complete mess. Move forward several years and Minimum Chips are now established in Melbourne and are now expanded from a trio to a quartet. And their live shows have been some of the best offered this year, from supporting slots to the iconic Stereolab to variuous performances at various out-of-the way plaves, including a memorably dynamic turn in select company (alongside The Vivian Girls, Ninetynine, Trixie's Undersea Adventure, Bruna) in the strange space of the Public Office.

Over the time that MInimum Chips have been turning in such live performances, they've been sitting on their most recent record, an ep called Freckles. Originally recorded for the major-governed all-imprint Modular. Minimum Chips had to sit and wait for such a label to eventually get around to telling them that they weren't going to release it, ... that they thought acts like Sekiden and Rocket Science were more worthy of their time and effort.

Recorded over a month, the sessions for Freckles were originally mooted as being some kind of "demo" process for Modular. Used to working from home on their own equipment, Minimum Chips used the length of time to produce fertile results. "They were all songs we'd been playing," offers guitarist Julian Patterson quietly. "They were all written and rehearsed live." "In the past, because we've had our own equipment to record on," says drummer Ian Wadley, "we'd spend heaps and heaps of time working on everything." Instead, this time round the sessions were a focused period taking the band out of the comfort of home and forcing them to concentrate on the task at hand. It's less intuitive and more delineated. Mixed doen on computer, Freckles sparkles with playful tone, wandering basslines, soft drums and softer vocals. Gurgling throughout is an old Yamaha organ. "The same one that King Loser used", offers Wadley, laughing that Patterson went out and bought the keyboard a week after seeing King Loser play. There's obvious similarities between the band and the sounds put forth by Stereolab, Birmingham beatniks Broadcast, and Yankee organ droners Jessamine, but it hardly dilutes the appeal of the ep.

Freckles, since its time in limbo, has been issued by local label Trifekta. Thibault calls Trifekta boss Tom Lanarch-Jones (onetime frontman of comic performance-art rock duo Mandrille) "our white knight", someone who is polite, nice and returns phonecalls.

The members of Minimum Chips, like all those bands established in the most fertile climes of non-rock, have their fingers in many musical pies. Patterson and Thibault have sideproject, Letraset, exploring electronic sounds in a pop environs. Thibault also plays solo in varying musical guises, from solo trombone spots (she also plays trombone in a combo called Horns of Destruction and has recently offered trombone to both the recorded and live output of Ninetynine related rock band Origami) to , on one divine occasion, undertaking a solo show on electric piano, singing and playing with cautious minimalism in an absolutely captivating turn, one lonely Wednesday night at the Empress (alongside the equally fracturing Tetrphnm and Field Placement, in one of those bizarre nights that only the Empress can offer). Thibault offers that such a turn was simply, "to do something noone expected." Wadley, who has a rock lineage dating all the way back to a time in Queensland when young Turk Tex Perkins was still just Greg, also performs solo as well as playing drums in melancholic blues-rock combo, Tendrils. Guy Blackman, the band's recent addition on bass, brought in after the recording of Freckles, also plays solo shows as well as being a member of sun-shining racket-pop combo, Sleepy Township and is soon to depart on a tour of America with Oz pop icons The Cannanes.

Minimum Chips have simple hopes for their musical future. "Just to keep playing," Thibault offers, "...stay together, be friends, play shows, keep being asked to play shows." "There's talk we might go overseas," notes Wadley. "It'd be nice to play and be heard outside of Australia," Thibault thinks aloud. Which is about the most outlandish sentiment they offer. The band's collective lack of musical and personal ego is perhaps the most charming thing about them."

Anthony Carew