No Say in It music video by Machinations on Nightmoves

The magic of 'No Say in It' by Sydney band Machinations lies in its precision. Every element slots into place – sharp claps, restless synths and mischievous chord changes that inject tension and surprise. It’s a track that reveals new layers with every listen and delivers on its central promise: the rapture of surrender. The song rides on an elastic bassline – a pulse that doesn’t push forward so much as expand outward, like a dry-ice spell cast across the dancefloor.

At a live gig in Paddington Town Hall, the band mimed ‘No Say in It’ over the PA, only revealing afterwards it had been filmed for the music video. The result distils Machinations' bracing alchemy: the evanescence of live performance preserved with painstaking studio polish. Singer Fred Loneragan’s outfit, suspenders over a crisp white shirt, gave him the dual air of a numbers man moonlighting as a frontman. But the energy is anything but buttoned-up.

This music video is taken from a special all-Australian artists edition of the music TV program Nightmoves, broadcast on Network Ten on 15 October 1984.

Read more in 1984: Australia finds its voice, part 2.