Eddy Current Suppression Ring

A Christmas party in Highett

The band came together in late 2003, when brothers Daniel and Michael Young started jamming at a Corduroy Records Christmas party in the south-east Melbourne suburb of Highett. Brendan Huntley joined as singer and Brad Barry came in on bass, and the four-piece took its name from a component found inside an electrical transformer — a piece of hardware rather than an image, which has suited the way the group has operated ever since.

The first single, 'Get Up Morning', backed with 'So Many Things', came out on Corduroy Records in 2004. The self-titled debut album followed in October 2006 through Dropkick and Shock Records: short songs, a rhythm section that does not deviate, Michael Young's guitar cutting across the top, and Huntley half-shouting lyrics that circle everyday frustrations rather than dressing them up.

The records that built the reputation

Primary Colours, released in May 2008 on Aarght! and Shock, is the record that moved them beyond the Melbourne underground. It was nominated for Best Rock Album at the 2008 ARIA Awards and for Australian Album of the Year at the J Awards, and in March 2009 it won the Australian Music Prize and its $30,000 cheque.

Rush to Relax arrived in February 2010, reached number 20 on the ARIA albums chart, and drew nominations for Best Rock Album and Best Independent Release at that year's ARIAs. Then the band effectively stopped. Between 2010 and 2015 the members worked on other projects and the group played almost nothing.

They reconvened in September 2015 and headlined Golden Plains in March 2016. A fourth album, All in Good Time, appeared in December 2019 on the American label Castle Face Records. Shows booked for early 2020 did not happen, and the band went quiet again for most of the first half of the decade.

Coming back without announcing it

The return in 2025 was handled the way the band handles most things. They played secret shows under other names before confirming anything publicly, and in July 2025 put out a three-song EP, Shapes and Forms — none of whose tracks would turn up on the album that followed.

The public re-entry was a free headline show at Federation Square in Melbourne on Friday 26 September 2025, on the AFL Grand Final Eve public holiday. It was their first show in nine years and the first free headline show of a career then running to twenty-two years, in a square that holds a crowd rather than a room.

In Light of Recent Events

The fifth album, In Light of Recent Events, came out on 26 May 2026, self-released, seven years after All in Good Time. There was no campaign. Huntley posted about it on Instagram and that was the announcement. Guitarist Mikey Young explained the reasoning plainly: 'Even back in the day when we were busier, I don't think we ever enjoyed the press game.' Going without a label let them put the record out, in his words, 'as freshly as possible', instead of sitting on finished music for months while a marketing plan caught up.

The method behind it was as unfussy as the release. Working out of their own permanent rehearsal space, the band recorded 2025 at Squires Loft — taping ongoing jam sessions and marking the takes that worked on a whiteboard. Fifteen songs were eventually chosen and mixed in January. Eleven made the album, running from the two-minute-thirteen opener 'Self Sabotage' to the five-minute 'Past and Future', just under forty minutes in total.

Demand was badly underestimated. Young said he had to pull the record off Bandcamp 'cos it was gonna sell out straight away and shops were freaking that they didn't have copies'. The first 1,000 Australian vinyl copies went immediately and a repress of 1,500 was ordered. The band has also said it intends to take its catalogue off Spotify and offer unlimited free streaming through Bandcamp instead, with Young pointing to the company's broader conduct rather than only its royalty rates.

Reviews took the record seriously rather than sentimentally. Stereogum's Tom Breihan credited it with 'real rock 'n' roll muscle and focus' and an 'oblique, quizzical element' that keeps it clear of the usual garage-rock furniture, making anxiety and exhilaration sound like two sides of the same coin. Writing on 14 July 2026, critic Kristan Reed put the band's whole proposition more bluntly: 'You get what you're given when it comes to Eddy Current Suppression Ring — and be bloody grateful for it.'

Where they stand in September 2026

The touring since has been sparse by design and heavily oversubscribed. In late February 2026 they played Altar Bar in Hobart across two nights, their first Tasmanian show since 2016; the Friday sold out and the Saturday matinee was heading the same way, with The Native Cats and TEENS opening.

On 12 June they played a free, all-ages set at Tumbalong Park as part of Vivid Sydney, which Young singled out as the kind of show that suits them — anyone can walk in, no age limit — and deliberately contrasted with the ticketed Factory Theatre show they played in Sydney on 3 July, followed by Marrickville Bowling Club on 4 July. Brisbane's Princess Theatre on 25 July sold out fast and was their first show in that city in sixteen years. Two nights at Max Watt's in Melbourne on 13 and 14 August followed.

Two dates are currently listed ahead: The Rechabite in Northbridge, Perth, on Friday 2 October 2026, a 500-capacity room with the band due on stage at 8pm, and Woodville Town Hall in South Australia on Sunday 15 November. In August 2026 they were also named among the acts leading the line-up for this year's Meredith Music Festival, alongside Dijon and Underscores.

The show itself

Nothing about the staging has changed to match the renewed attention. There is no production to speak of: four people, amplifiers, and Huntley working the room. At the Princess Theatre he roamed the venue throughout, climbed the side of the stage, went down into the crowd during several songs and sang part of the set straddling the balcony railing. In Hobart he prowled the stage in golf gloves. One reviewer compared his dancing to a young Peter Garrett — focused, and visibly committed rather than performing commitment.

What makes that possible is the rest of the band refusing to move with him. The Young brothers and Barry hold the songs down with what the Brisbane review called precise determination: Danny Young's drumming metronomic, Barry's basslines sinuous while he dances harder than anyone in the room, Mikey Young's guitar angular and gritty over the top. The singer is free to disappear into the audience because the floor underneath him does not shift.

Crowds have met the new material on equal terms with the old. Hobart got 'Swimming Hole' and 'Which Way to Go' from the new record alongside 'Colour Television' and 'Wrapped Up', and the reception did not dip for either. In Brisbane, 'Bop' came out with a pronounced surf-guitar lean. Huntley closed that night with a line that captures the band's relationship with touring better than any statement would: 'Hopefully it's not another 16 years, but if it is, take care!'