Cyclic Defrost

Cyclic Defrost is an Australian specialist electronic music magazine. It was founded and edited by Sebastian Chan, with current editors Bob Baker Fish, Chris Downton and Peter Hollo. It covers independent electronic music, avant-rock, experimental sound art and left field hip hop.

The magazine started as a photocopied zine in 1998, as an offshoot of the weekly Sydney club night Frigid, run by Chan and co-editor/designer Dale Harrison. Chan and Harrison had met at university and edited the university newspaper together. Harrison, now the bass player for Sydney band The Herd, resigned after Issue 12 (October 2005) and was replaced by designer Bim Ricketson. Matthew Levinson joined Chan as editor.

Each issue featured local and international music feature articles. Until Issue 16, comprehensive reviews covering CDs, DVDs and vinyl were also found in the print version of the magazine. After this issue, these continued on the website. The magazine also had a record sleeve design reviews section and a guest cover designer. Past cover designers include Rinzen, Bim Ricketson and Build. The magazine also incorporated a music listening club where CDs were posted to subscribers.