Laughing Hands had a relatively brief life as a band but continues to intrigue the global audience.They were an improvisation group using tapes, synthesisers, guitar and hand percussion much of which was then treated through the synthesisers, producing their soft, insistent and rhythmic sound.
Members of Melbourne-based seminal improvising experimental group Laughing Hands and its alter ego Invisible College have been Paul Schütze, Gordon Harvey, Ian Russell and Paul Widdicombe.Their spectrally shaded instrumental post-punk-by-way-of-post-industrial constructs were effectively post rock before the genre existed.
The group continued in several permutations until disbanding in 1982. They have released two vinyl albums on their own Adhesive Label (Ledge (1980) and Dog Photos (1981) plus one cassette which is part of this box EE-The Welder's Bible (1981) as well as two cassettes on the Australian tape-label Rash (Decisions) called Nights (1982) under the pseudonym of Invisible College titled The Luxury of Horns (1981/82), both also part of this box-set.
While the esoteric Eno-by-way-of-Dome post punk instrumental constructs doled out across their two LP's are some of the most mesmerizing examples of this sort, their work on the tape-only releases finds them exploring a decidedly more shrouded, nocturnal and formally abstract dimension of their universe.
LH member and electronic producer Paul Schütze has received most of his media attention for the dark ambient/rhythmic/quasi-isolationist music he's authored under his own name for the last 2 1/2 decade