Peter Miller

★"An engaging experience, sweeping through your consciousness like a dust storm through a ghost town. This is not an album to listen to, it’s a record to sit down and be engulfed by" ~X-Press

★"This remarkable album must be the finest and most daringly experimental piece of electronic ambience ever released in Australia ... an album of stunning instrumental beauty and exquisite soundscapes" ☆☆☆☆ ~Rolling Stone

★"The music is, quite frankly, beautiful. It is light but complex, melodic but loosely structured. A long way from pop, but pretty close to perfection" ~Sunday Times

In 1986, a bunch of enthusiastic young Sydney filmmakers headed off to the Australian outback to create a post-apocalyptic tale about a crippled inventor, his religiously-addled sister, their encounter with a stranger from the desert and their quest to build a 'flying machine'. Like the strange trio's construction of the flying machine itself, the film was an ambitious and eccentric project, but determination and commitment saw Spirits of the Air, Gremlins of the Clouds completed in 1987, and released in 1989. It had some minimal cinema exposure and some good critical response at film festivals, but sadly reached only a small audience before disappearing into the twilight zone of independent movies that never quite attract proper distribution deals.

The music from the film managed to survive a little longer, and went on to have something of a life of its own, gathering a loyal fanbase and numerous impressive critical reviews over the years, before also eventually retiring into pockets of flea-market obscurity. The original CD and vinyl editions, championed by the wonderful Philip Mortlock (then at WEA) were released only in limited numbers in Australia and Japan and have now pretty much become collector’s items.

Some 30 years on, the movie has been restored and will soon be re-released as a high resolution Blu-ray edition with an international distribution deal that means it can finally reach the audience it deserves. It seems only fitting then, that the music should get a new polish-up too.

Initially I had intended to just release the soundtrack as file downloads via the usual outlets, but a number of people indicated they would rather have a physical media version, so I thought I'd conduct a presale here. If there is enough commitment to the idea, it will allow me to have some actual disks manufactured. This will be a brand new edition of the soundtrack, and offers the best possible quality copy of the original music mixes - direct uncompressed transfers from the DAT Mix Masters. Even if you have the original 1989 soundtrack release CD, you'll want this version too, as it features two rare tracks that didn't appear on the earlier album. Plus it will be signed by moi!

The CD will come in a simple (but lovely!) cardboard slip, with new artwork. The advertised price is in Australian dollars, so it will likely be cheaper for overseas peeps, depending on where you are. The '+' that you see after the price is for postage which you'll see in the drop-down on your chosen tier (I've kept postage seperate in order not to inflate the target, Pozible is an all-or-nothing crowdfunder, so if we don't make the target, we can't proceed).

The goal amount will go to costs for the preparation of the sleeve and disk artwork, for the short production run and for the Pozible markup. All funds are assigned to getting a physical product made and shipped. There is no profit factored in.

If, by some quirk, we should exceed the target by a sufficient amount, I'll expand the production run appropriately.

Artwork is prepared, music is mastered, quotes are in. This is a zero-risk project: you don't pay a cent unless the target is reached. Once that happens I'll hit the button to commence manufacturing. If you pay for a CD, you'll get it.