''Unit'' is the second studio album by Australian rock band

Regurgitator Regurgitator are an Australian rock band from Brisbane, Queensland, formed in late 1993 by Quan Yeomans on lead vocals, guitar and keyboards; Ben Ely on bass guitar, keyboards and vocals; and Martin Lee on drums. Their debut studio album, '' ...

, released in November 1997. Its style is a mixture of 1980s style synthesised

pop music Pop music is a genre of popular music that originated in its modern form during the mid-1950s in the United States and the United Kingdom. The terms ''popular music'' and ''pop music'' are often used interchangeably, although the former descri ...

and

alternative rock Alternative rock, or alt-rock, is a category of rock music that emerged from the independent music underground of the 1970s and became widely popular in the 1990s. "Alternative" refers to the genre's distinction from mainstream or commercial ...

, with some hip hop influences. The album debuted and peaked at number 4 on the ARIA Charts. At the

ARIA Music Awards of 1998 The 12th Australian Recording Industry Association Music Awards (generally known as the ARIA Music Awards or simply The ARIAS) was held on 20 October 1998 at the Sydney Convention & Exhibition Centre. Presenters, including Democrats deputy l ...

, the album won five

ARIA Music Awards The Australian Recording Industry Association Music Awards (commonly known informally as ARIA Music Awards, ARIA Awards, or simply the ARIAs) is an annual series of awards nights celebrating the Australian music industry, put on by the Austr ...

; including

ARIA Award for Album of the Year The ARIA Music Award for Album of the Year, is an award presented at the annual ARIA Music Awards, which recognises "the many achievements of Aussie artists across all music genres", since 1987. It is handed out by the Australian Recording Indu ...

. In October 1998, the album was re-released as ''Unit Re-Booted'', which included the album's five

music videos A music video is a video of variable duration, that integrates a music song or a music album with imagery that is produced for promotional or musical artistic purposes. Modern music videos are primarily made and used as a music marketing device ...

. The album was re-issued on vinyl by Valve in October 2013.

Prior to recording

Regurgitator had just completed their eleventh extensive Australian tour (with

The Fauves Fauvism /ˈfoʊvɪzm̩/ is the style of ''les Fauves'' ( French for "the wild beasts"), a group of early 20th-century modern artists whose works emphasized painterly qualities and strong colour over the representational or realistic values reta ...

and Tomorrow People), when they planned to start recording a follow-up to their first album, ''

Tu-Plang ''Tu-Plang'' (ตู้เพลง Thai for ''Jukebox'') (1996) was the first album released by Australian rock band Regurgitator after making two EPs. The band chose to record the album in Bangkok, Thailand, to the quandary of its label, Wa ...

''. This was delayed when the band decided to make their third trip to America to do a tour with bands

Helmet A helmet is a form of protective gear worn to protect the head. More specifically, a helmet complements the skull in protecting the human brain. Ceremonial or symbolic helmets (e.g., a policeman's helmet in the United Kingdom) without protect ...

and

The Melvins ''The'' () is a grammatical article in English, denoting persons or things already mentioned, under discussion, implied or otherwise presumed familiar to listeners, readers, or speakers. It is the definite article in English. ''The'' is the m ...

. Yeomans said of the tour, "I remember being completely frightened the whole time. They were real hard-arses. Helmet were a little army unit, and their fans were fucking really intense, really aggressive guys. Yeah, really full-on. So maybe it did have an effect." In 2008, manager Paul Curtis recalled that Yeomans had also stated "thank god Grinspoon came along because they took all the male angst away from our shows".

The Dirty Room

Upon return, the group rented a condemned warehouse in

Brisbane Brisbane ( ) is the capital and most populous city of the Australian state of Queensland, and the third-most populous city in Australia and Oceania, with a population of approximately 2.6 million. Brisbane lies at the centre of the South ...

Fortitude Valley Fortitude Valley (often called "The Valley" by local residents) is an inner suburb of the City of Brisbane, the state capital of Queensland, Australia. In the , Fortitude Valley had a population of 9,708 people. The suburb features two pedestr ...

to write and record ''Unit''. They affectionately named this studio "The Dirty Room". Yeomans said, "Martin did a lot of the set up – Magoo as well – and they put in carpet underlay that they'd found somewhere that was just filthy. Ergh! It had this real soporific effect as soon as you walked in and you just wanted to fall asleep. One of the funny stories is

Rob Cavallo Robert Siers Cavallo (born March 21, 1963) is an American record producer, musician, and record industry executive. He is among the biggest-selling producers in history, and has produced or had creative involvement in albums that have sold over ...

coming in to have a listen to one of the tracks, and he just fell asleep on this piss-stained mattress we had lying on the ground. It was a really dingy vibe."

Writing and recording

Regurgitator had begun experimenting with drum machines and synthesizers on their first album, ''

''. Amongst the gear that Yeomans and Ely were using at the time was the Clavia Nord Lead, the

Akai S3000XL The Akai S3000XL is a sampler with 32 polyphonic voices, and 2 MB of built-in RAM. For adding sounds to the sampler, the S3000XL features a 3.5" floppy drive that reads Akai-formatted floppies, and a SCSI port which allows for connection to ...

, the Farfisa Super Bravo Organ and the newly released Roland MC-303 "Groovebox, which featured on a number of tracks including "Unit" and "

Polyester Girl "Polyester Girl" is a song by Australian rock band Regurgitator. The song was released in May 1998 as the third single from the band's second studio album ''Unit (album), Unit''. "Polyester Girl" peaked at No. 14 in Australia and No. 16 in New ...

". Ely stated that the track that ultimately helped the band decide the change in musical direction was the ironically-titled "I Like Your Old Stuff Better Than Your New Stuff", which began as a punk rock track with some keyboard but gradually "breaking it down with a more minimal keyboard heavy sound, leaving off most of the distorted guitar attack, and adding a vocoder gave the song something we were excited and terrified by at the same". After 6 weeks of recording, the album was completed on 2 August 1997.

Cover art

The cover is a large, plain yellow circle centred on a plain silver background. On the outside surface of the jewel CD case is a transparent sticker with the words "REGURGITATOR" and "UNIT" printed in black for identification in stores. This minimalist design, credited to "The Shits" (Quan Yeomans and

Janet English Janet may refer to: Names * Janet (given name) * Janet (French singer) (1939–2011) Surname * Charles Janet (1849–1932), French engineer, inventor and biologist, known for the Left Step periodic table * Jules Janet (1861–1945), French psych ...

) and Ben Ely, won the 1998

ARIA In music, an aria ( Italian: ; plural: ''arie'' , or ''arias'' in common usage, diminutive form arietta , plural ariette, or in English simply air) is a self-contained piece for one voice, with or without instrumental or orchestral accompa ...

award for best cover art. ''Unit Re-Booted'' has very similar cover art, and came in four bright colour variations – lime green, purple, royal blue and peach-orange. On the re-releases, the title text was printed directly onto the paper.

Track listing

Charts

Weekly charts

Year-end charts

Certifications

Legacy

In October 2010, the album was listed in the top 30 in the book, ''

100 Best Australian Albums 1 (one, unit, unity) is a number representing a single or the only entity. 1 is also a numerical digit and represents a single unit of counting or measurement. For example, a line segment of ''unit length'' is a line segment of length&nb ...

''. In July 2011, the album was voted 10th in

Triple J Triple J (stylised in all lowercase) is a government-funded, national Australian radio station intended to appeal to listeners of alternative music, which began broadcasting in January 1975. The station also places a greater emphasis on broad ...

's Hottest 100 Australian Albums of All Time. In December of 2021, the album was listed at no. 14 in '' Rolling Stone Australia’s'' ‘200 Greatest Albums of All Time’ countdown.Rolling Stone’s 200 Greatest Australian Albums of All Time
Rolling Stone Australia, ''Rolling Stone Australia'', 06 December 2021. Retrieved 06 December 2021.

Release history

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Unit (Album) ARIA Award-winning albums Regurgitator albums 1997 albums East West Records albums