H&C Raw Material – The Desk Tapes

In early 1989, Hunters and Collectors set to work on what would become Ghost Nation by the end of the year. Unusually, the band chose to flesh out significant new material live – over a few (mainly) Tuesday nights in March and April at Melbourne’s Middle Park Hotel.

Early versions of the Ghost Nation hits – When The River Runs Dry, Blind Eye and The Way You Live – are all here. A rare live performance of Running Water also features. Then there are tracks that never made it onto a record! The gig is rounded out with some choice fan favourites.

The band were kind enough to record this one onto an early digital format involving PCM data being stored on VHS tape. Cheers to John for holding on to this – and for still having a working Sony PCM-501ES machine that could read it!

Our desk tape selections complement the official professional recordings already available – The Way To Go Out (The Venue, Melbourne, 1984), Living in Large Rooms and Lounges (The Continental and others, 1995), Under One Roof (Selinas, Sydney, 1998) and Live 2014 (The Palais, Melbourne). All can be found on streaming audio, including Spotify, Deezer, Amazon Music and Apple Music.