Night Radio

Night Radio formed in Sydney in the year 2000 and have released six albums.

Vocalist Darrell Archer’s songs are set deep in this country’s landscape, and range from a kind of Australian Gothic right through, via music informed by Folk, Americana and Methodist hymns, amongst others, to the quirky charms of the Australian vernacular.

Their first album, GHOST STORIES, was released in 2003. It is a dense, atmospheric and slow burning affair, and remains the unheralded blueprint of their methods. Songs such as ‘Rabbit Trapper’, ‘Down to the River’ and ‘Miss Pennsylvania’ told long, slow to unwind stories about individuals pinned down by their burdens in the Bush. The thoughtful engineering and production by Jack Rôbin allowed every instrumental nuance to be heard.

2006 saw the release of TELLURIC. Recorded and produced by Tony Dupe on the South Coast, and put out on his HEAVY label, it presented a set of quiet and intimate songs with a more acoustic vibe, and with an ambience evocative of the cottage it was recorded in. Dupe’s calm touch allowed the images in the songs to shine through…a car crash, a boy learning to climb a tree, Christmas bikes, a drunken all-­‐ nighter, a man and his thoughts as he drives from Sydney to the Snowy mountains. Tracks such as ‘Black Clouds Appear’, ‘Timber Town’, ‘Hardwood’, ‘Since We Parted’ and ‘Lilly’ may well have led Bernard Zuel to giving this album 3.5 stars in his SMH review.

 BACKROADS was launched in 2008. It was recorded in a rented house in the Hunter Valley. While undeniably a logical progression for the band it is an album that throws it’s net far and wide. No two songs are alike but repeated listening rewards the listener with a plethora of tales, images and musical possibilities. Stand out tracks include ‘The Ballad of Holly Katzu’, ‘Maps in the Sky’, ‘Outside the Boundary’, and ‘O Bloody Dream’.

DOWN THE COAST was released in May 2013.

Their fifth, QUEEN OF THE BEES, was released in July 2017.

Album number six, LATE HARVEST, was released in July 2021.

VOCALS, GUITAR     Darrell Archer

GUITAR    David Rae

DRUMS    Michael Ward

BASS    Jerome McClintock, Jack Rôbin

PIANO, ORGAN   John Sandow

CELLO, DOUBLE BASS, BANJO etc    Robin Dixon.

Plus an assortment of talented guests.