In 1994 that doyen of Australian music commentators, Andrew Ford, in Limelight’s precursor 24hours reviewed an ELISION CD release on the Dutch label Etcetera.

“But it is the disc of the Welsh composer Richard Barrett’s music which so astonishes me. This is visceral stuff in the extreme, not music one would want – or be able – to listen to every day of the week, but important, original, personal, harrowing work, which simply demands a response. You may hate this music very much – as, indeed, I sometimes do but you could never ignore it. The performances are miraculous in their commitment: you picture the studio floor awash with sweat and blood at the end of the sessions; you imagine percussionist Peter Neville being led away to a month-long silent retreat after his performance of EARTH, even as trombonist Brett Kelly is booked in for facial reconstruction; you wonder what kinds of drugs Daryl Buckley had to take in order to grow the extra arm necessary to play colloid from the negatives series.”

It’s now been twenty years since those observations of Andrew’s. Twenty years in which ELISION made a move from Melbourne to a Brisbane-base for 12 years and then...