VOLT 2023: Volition Archive

Formed in the late 80s, Now: Zero was an electro pop outfit based in Sydney, comprised of members Scot Mcphee (synths, programming, drum programming), Simm Steel (vocals, synths) and, for a period, Stewart Lawler (synths, programming).

The group’s name was taken from the title of a science fantasy short story by British author J.G. Ballard, published in 1959.

“I can’t remember the exact details of how we started out. I knew Simm (Steel) as he was in my friend group, along with (Garry) Bradbury, (Tom) Ellard, Jason Gee and others. We probably started talking about doing some music together and that’s how it started.” [Scot Mcphee]

Now: Zero had two tracks, “Falling” and “The Caution”, featured on Volition’s 1992 various artists album “High: A Dance Compilation” (VOLTCD88/VOLTC88).

“”Falling” was one of the very first songs that we wrote. I had worked at Roland, and from that I had an R-8 and an MC-500 sequencer, as well as a Matrix 6R, which I still have.

At some point I had the main synth riff and the drum part, which I played to Simm and Stewart, and we built the rest from there. That was pretty typical of our process, I think. We recorded it onto a Tascam 8 track cassette-based Portastudio if I recall correctly.

“The Caution” came a bit later, at least the recording did. We would have had a very rough live version for some time before we recorded that one. Stewart did a lot of the production on that one.

We had planned to record and release an album at some stage, but what I think diverted from that path was the growing underground rave scene. Especially once I got involved in Clan Analogue.” [Scot Mcphee]

As one of the earliest groups to be involved with Australia’s Clan Analogue collective, Now: Zero saw their music included on Clan’s “Deep Three Compilation” vinyl 12″ (CA 003, 1993) and double CD compilation album “Cog” (CA007, 1995).