It’s Automatic: The Best of Young Modern, the essential collection celebrating fabled Adelaide late 70s pop revivalists Young Modern out 4^th August 2023.

Out of step with their more punk inspired late 70s contemporaries, Adelaide’s Young Modern preferred to jangle like the early Byrds, explore dynamics like the 64-66 Beatles and Stones, and to occasionally strum like Doug Yule-era Velvets. The band were named after a short-lived Adelaide teen scene zine of the mid-60s, that local songwriter and vocalist John Dowler had in mind when he arrived back home after several years in Melbourne fronting highly touted group Spare Change.

Young Modern formed in mid-1977 only to split a couple of years later after experiencing hard times on the suburban beer barn circuit. The band’s total recorded output from that period counted an 8-track demo and one warmly received radio double A-side “She’s Got The Money”/” Automatic”, which were later packaged together to form the Play Faster album, released in 1979.

In 2005 an Aztec Records re-issue of Play Faster was received warmly encouraging Young Modern back together to record their second album How Insensitive, which was released in mid-2006 on Croxton Records. The release of How Insensitive led to more gigs, and then a few years later, a stellar 2010 Adelaide show became the band’s next release, immaculately recorded, and with the band in full flight, Live at the Grace Emily released on Grown Up Wrong! was a de facto best of, until now.

It’s Automatic: The Best of Young Modern is the document of a fine band who were cut down before their prime, but brave enough to pick up where they left off later, for no other reason than the music. Half of it is the sound of a band just getting started; the other half is the sound of a band rediscovering what they’d let go. It is remarkable how those two halves mix so seamlessly to create a cohesive whole, a whole that captures the sound of youth, lost and found, and the thrill of discovery and rediscovery, as guided by impeccable taste and musical intelligence.