Two in a row for SCU as Nocturnal Tapes takes out national uni band competition

Experimental duo Nocturnal Tapes has won the 2015 National Campus Band Competition, making it two years in a row for Southern Cross University bands.

Nocturnal Tapes is an electronic and psychedelic rock outfit featuring SCU contemporary music student Harry Suttor on guitar and vocals and Lachie Mulligan, who’s studying sound production at SAE, on electronics.

Nocturnal Tapes’ win follows the success of three-piece band Parkside Orchestra in 2014 who also emerged from the University’s contemporary music program.

Judges voted Harry and Lachie, both from Yamba on the NSW North Coast, as the best student band from around 400 others during the two-month-long competition.

“We are stoked. So happy, I can’t believe it,” said Harry, who will perform this week at the SCU Music Showcase as part of his final-year exams.

Nocturnal Tapes is yet to clock-up its first-year anniversary but their one and only demo has been creating interest in the music scene.

“We were jamming around with friends, making up songs as we went,” said Harry.

“Then one day, about nine months ago, Lachie and I were chatting and decided we were keen to jam together and experiment with an amalgamation of our two musical worlds. A month later we were in the studio and wrote our first track.”

Lachie is also due to complete his studies, a diploma of sound production focusing on electronic dance music.

“It’s a good time for us to be finishing our studies together. Summer is a peak time for gigs. We have been building up slowly so that we could use that as stepping stone to make some headway,” Lachie said.

The National Campus Band Competition prize of $5000 worth of studio recording time will go toward Nocturnal Tapes releasing a single soon, followed by an EP later in the year or early in 2016.

Nocturnal Tapes will be performing at the Beach Hotel in Byron Bay on October 2, at the Pacific Hotel in Yamba on October 17 (as part of the Surfing the Cold Stream Festival) and at The Northern in Byron Bay on October 23.


Photo: Harry Suttor (right) and Lachie Mulligan playing at the National Campus Band Competition (credit: Kalem Horn).