Make Believe – Goin’ to the Bone Church
(Flameshovel)

After the dissolution of fondly-regarded Chicago band Cap’n Jazz in 1995, an alternative revisionist history of the group formed as their legend grew. The Wikipedia credits them as a significant chapter in the development of the genre which shall not be named. In reality, Cap’n Jazz were a collusion between a group of high-school friends who happened to play some extraordinarily energetic and undeniably messy punk rock in the vein of their hometown heroes Gauge. The complete discography of Cap’n Jazz continues to sell thousands of copies worldwide and even with a decade of hindsight, the music they created continues to impress. After the schism, the members of Cap’n Jazz formed several bands, the most visible of which were the modestly successful Promise Ring and the eternally frustrating Joan of Arc. However, better albums have been made by different but lesser-known combinations of the same personnel. An all too brief reunion of the original Cap’n Jazz quartet re-dubbed Owls produced one astonishingly brilliant record in 2001. Former bassist Sam Zurick and guitarist Victor Villareal also formed an excellent instrumental quartet called Ghosts & Vodka. After both projects came to an end, Zurick decided to form a new band with fellow-musicians from the touring wing of Joan of Arc. Since that band had moved into electronic experimentation and studio manipulation, the quartet of Tim Kinsella (vocals), Sam Zurick (guitar), Bobby Burg (bass) and Nate Kinsella (drums & wurlitzer) decided their new group would deliberately limit themselves to the classic rock band format and maintain a traditional rehearse - record - tour schedule.

The band Make Believe was formed with this agenda in mind. Thematically, the group could also be considered a concept band of sorts. As the name implies, chief vocalist and lyricist Tim Kinsella’s words are often concerned with the disparity between the real world and what situationist thinker Guy Debord called `the spectacle’. The fantasy or `make believe’ aspect of modern human existence as experienced by the average western-society dwelling individual as coloured and informed by the self-interested mass media and bookended by a ceaseless procession of advertising. As per his previous outfits, Kinsella’s lyrics weave together disparate fragments of societal detritus, popular culture, surrealist counter-philosophy and the dichotomy between information transmitted and perceived. On the song `Amscaredica’, from debut album Shock of Being, Kinsella invokes images of the undead as a simile for the transparency and vapidity of modern life. “Browsing naked girls like used sports gear,” howled the frontman amidst the commotion. “Do you feel at home at home?” The centrepiece of the second album Of Course was `Pat Tillman, Emmitt Till’, a playful reflection of the chronic hypocrisy within the incumbent Republican administration, the refutation of Evolution by right-wing Christians and the continuity of unlawful killings. “Of course they lie and deny science,” sang Kinsella over a purposefully naive melody.

Appropriately, the musical end of Make Believe is also somewhat fantastical. The taut interplay between the three musicians develops like a fastidiously executed magic trick. Most of the time it is hard to envisage how such boisterous music can be committed to memory, let alone replicated in the live environment. Zurick’s playing is electric in the literal sense of the word. By utilising the one handed tapping technique, Zurick creates a fluent stream of legato notation which serves as the focal point for most of the band’s compositions. Likewise, Nate Kinsella is an exceptionally busy and restlessly inventive drummer, providing dense fills which on occasion sound like he is striking every surface of his kit simultaneously. Even more impressively, Kinsella often discards a stick to provide a demented one-handed counterpoint on the wurlitzer he keeps over his bass drum. The resulting sound falls somewhere between the firmly defined autonomy of Dischord heroes Lungfish and the anything-goes instrumental prowess of Don Caballero. The music is rigid in composition but frenzied by nature. Amidst the recent trend of prog-revivalists, a certain amount of restraint is to be admired. Make Believe thrives on the simple sense of exuberance in being abruptly duped by a song which refuses to continue in the direction it has been travelling for several beats. Honed by honest grass-roots touring over the last few years, the band is undeniably one of the most compelling acts currently active.

Given that the group was initially formed with simplicity in mind, the last few years have been needlessly complicated and frustrating. In 2005, the band were forced to cancel shows after Nate Kinsella broke his wrist after being knocked off his bike by a car. Months after recovering, the drummer found himself in trouble once again. While playing a show in Bartlesville, Oklahoma, Nate removed his shorts and wrung out his sweat over the audience. Unfortunately, this was a violation of the states’ obscenity laws and he was immediately arrested. Facing ten years and a possible fine of up to $20,000, Make Believe became secondary to keeping Nate out of jail. When the verdict came through, the drummer was sentenced to two months in jail and fined one thousand dollars. Whilst awaiting imprisonment, Nate and his band-mates recorded the excellent Of Course. When Kinsella had served his sentence, the band was once again thrown into disarray when Tim Kinsella decided to quit, ostensibly to concentrate on other projects such as Joan of Arc and the motion picture Orchard Vale. Friction had also arisen when the singer tried to introduce auxiliary piano parts into new Make Believe songs. The rest of the group resisted and for several months, it looked as though Make Believe would be in the market for a new frontman. Thankfully, Tim Kinsella returned for a six day recording session at Electrical Audio studios with engineer Greg Norman.

The result of these sessions is the new album, entitled Goin’ to the Bone Church. Compared to the stiff, densely packed Of Course, the new album is a much looser affair. On occasions, there is a definite sense of spontaneity, be it the occasional outbursts of hilarity between and during songs or the informal group harmonies which spring up here and there. However, despite the relatively ramshackle aesthetic, as with all Electrical Audio records the sound quality is absolutely pristine. Between this album and Of Course, it’s a wonder Greg Norman gets any sleep. By rights bands should be knocking on his door at all hours begging to work with him. Throughout Goin’ to the Bone Church, the clarity of recording is superb and the songs glow with analogue warmth. The sense of wilful primitivism remains from the previous album but the songs have been stripped back even further. Bobby Burg’s bass is definitely more prominent in the mix and the result is an album which is at times borderline danceable. While `Ooo Yum’ doesn’t deviate enormously from the trademark Make Believe template with its squealing guitar assault and Tim Kinsella’s bestial grunting, there are some deliberate stretches of sound with just enough repetition to promote some impulsive ass-shaking. The following `Just Green Enough’ sees Zurick open a roaring canopy of static beneath which his band-mates explore the sonic landscape. ‘Sam Roller-Skating Backwards’ is as brow-furrowing as its title suggests but it is also the first indication that the titular guitarist is learning that on occasion less is more. The space when Zurick isn’t playing is punctuated by bobbing bass fills and one-handed wurlitzer motifs which provide a welcome sense of relief amidst the usual confusion.

This stripped-back compositional approach pays massive dividends on the genuinely excellent `For Lauri Bird’. Comparatively slow in tempo, the band concentrates on servicing one satisfyingly gradual crescendo. This song amongst others revisits the post-modern funk of Talking Heads’ More Songs about Buildings and Food but stretches the instrumental interludes over several minutes. Whether the song is actually concerned with Art Garfunkel’s former muse is anyone’s guess. Or at least until we see a lyric sheet, that is. `Wearin’ Torn’ shows how the wurlitzer playing of Nate Kinsella is becoming an intrinsic part of songs rather than the occasional novelty it was early on in the band’s recording career. The best moments are when the instrument is used as a counterpoint melody to Zurick’s guitar, a technique repeated on the funky `Garden Stencil’. The percussive title track is largely instrumental until Tim Kinsella recites a brief spoken word outro and the band adds some hilariously inept free-styling for good measure. One would hope that with moments of good humour such as these that the group has reconvened permanently. Especially if the there will be more songs like the unexpectedly melodic `Taste, Touch, Smell, Deceit’. Once again, the bare-bones approach serves to heighten the underlying harmony and the result is relatively anthemic. On the closing `People Laughing’, Zurick’s playing once again dominates proceedings, his guitar spitting and convulsing as Tim Kinsella leads a choir inspiring us to “Protest the Vietnam War”. In Kinsella’s mind this is most likely a stinging rebuttal of current overseas events but to the rest of us, it provides little more than a memorable hook to sing along to as the album fades out. Whilst this isn’t the best album to serve as an introduction to Make Believe, it is another undeniably exciting episode of what has been and will hopefully continue to be one of the most invigorating rock bands out there right now.

-Tommy Dski

Lungfish – Amphibious, Apocalyptic, Occult, Yellow
An appreciation in three parts - Part I














During the eighties, Washington DC became something of a beacon of underground music, in no small way due to the efforts of the steadfastly independent Dischord Records. The label was founded by Ian Mackaye and Jeff Nelson of the seminal hardcore band Minor Threat as a way to document the burgeoning punk rock scene in DC. An early flyer for the label humorously boasting that Dischord Records was ‘Putting DC on the Map’ now seems oddly prescient; such is the widespread effect this initially tiny label has had on the independent rock community as a whole. With an emphasis on affordable records and a much-vaunted do it yourself ethic, a small caste of artists, musicians, family and friends set a template which has inspired countless bands and labels around the world. Dischord Records is inexorably linked to Washington DC. Over two decades of operation, many of the bands on the Dischord roster have played hundreds of benefit shows to raise money or awareness for local charities or support groups. Since 1987, the label’s standard bearer was Fugazi, a band formed as a collaboration between Mackaye, Joe Lally and Rites of Spring alumni Brendan Canty and Guy Picciotto. The legacy of Fugazi is one of restlessly creative music, endless grass-roots touring and a fiercely independent ethical stance which extended into the nineties and beyond. Mackaye himself is a fifth generation Washingtonian and would introduce each Fugazi show with the words “We are Fugazi from Washington DC”. It’s something of an oddity that one of Dischord Records’ longest-running and most well regarded bands was not from DC but from the neighbouring Baltimore, in the state of Maryland. Furthermore, throughout the nineties Lungfish were the most consistently evocative and thoroughly absorbing band in North America.

Like Fugazi, Lungfish were formed in 1987 as a collaboration of musicians from other Baltimore area bands Reptile House and Null Set. After the demise of Reptile House, singer Daniel Higgs decided to step away from music and dedicate himself to writing poetry. Inspired by Higgs’ readings, former Null Set man John Chriest started to make tape loops to accompany recordings of Higgs. Eventually, guitarist Asa Osborne joined on the pair’s informal jam sessions with Chriest playing bass. A revolving cast of guest musicians passed through early incarnations which saw the band playing under seemingly random names like the Immortal Living Lung of the Esoteric Patriot. After a few shows, drummer Mitchell Feldstein signed on and the line-up solidified under the name Lungfish. Even prior to their relationship with Dischord Records, Lungfish were clearly never going to play the music industry game. Their name was a veiled reference to this fact. A Lungfish can burrow in deep mud for weeks without water during droughts. The quartet of the same name would go through periods of prolonged dormancy and then emerge for tours with yet another new record in tow. For the first few years of their existence, Lungfish didn’t even record any music. Eventually friends and peers encouraged them to visit the studio, if only to document their songs. Through word of mouth, Lungfish had attracted the attention of Ian Mackaye in DC and he offered to record an album at Inner Ear Studios in 1989. The resulting record entitled Necklace of Heads was released as a split between Dischord and Arlington, VA based micro-label Simple Machines, who also issued several early singles for the group. The following year, Lungfish cut their second album Talking Songs for Walking, which was released exclusively on Dischord Records. This album would be the first in a run of ten full length albums in around fifteen years.

Lungfish are a unique band in the truest sense of the word. The music is familiar and yet quite different from all that came before or since. Although in sonic terms, they exist somewhere between hard rock and punk, they defy specific categorisation. In truth, Lungfish is closer to hymnal or tribal music set in a classic rock format. A never-ending ode to the sounds that have existed long before electricity standardised popular music. Lungfish stands on a four-cornered bedrock which provides the foundation for every song. Mitchell Feldstein’s powerful but locomotive drumming provides a solid backbeat for the steady pulse of whoever happens to be playing bass at any one time (the band have had three bass players – John Chriest, Sean Meadows and Nathan Bell). Guitarist Asa Osborne’s playing is truly organic, alternately rich and harmonically textured or downright thunderous. On occasions throughout the group’s considerable discography it is almost as if Osborne is drawing from an untapped well of bio-electricity at the very core of the Earth and distributing it in measured, hypnotic tones or crushing seas of rhythmic distortion. The final cornerstone is the lyrical poetry of Daniel Higgs. A gregarious bear of a man, Higgs is both mouthpiece and an undeniably provocative visceral element during live shows. Sporting an unkempt beard and riddled with tattoos, Higgs is part carnival barker, part ancient mariner. Soft spoken and eminently reasonable in person, onstage he seems possessed – like a futuristic transient sent back through time to warn humanity of some impending peril but also robbed of the power to communicate outside of indecipherable mantras and cryptic poetry. Lost in shamanistic reverie, Higgs would prowl the stage in layers of thick clothing, shadow boxing an unseen foe forever tugging at his collar, always behind and just out of reach. As a unit, Lungfish are absolutely remarkable both on record and onstage. Four distinct strands pulled taut into absolute cohesion. One surging, gargantuan rhythmic force in total harmonic convergence.

Purity of sound is also matched by a purity of vision. One overwhelming conceptual vision unites and envelopes the band’s extensive discography. Consistent themes emerge repeatedly within Higgs’ lyrics. Evolution, biological amalgamation, astrological phenomena and the cyclical nature of time all find their way into his dense, evocative poetry. The principles of evolution are also intertwined within the very fabric of the Lungfish sound. Evolution itself is a painstakingly gradual process stretching across millions of years. On a stage by stage basis, adaptation is completely invisible. Every Lungfish song is an acknowledgment of this gentle progress, a meticulously constructed microcosm of cellular development set to music. Riff after riff, beat after beat, Lungfish honed their sound through steady, persistent improvement over ten perfect albums. Extended bodies of song dedicated to trance inducing repetition. Patterns emerge within patterns as every note is given its due and explored to a natural conclusion. Repeated listens reveal fresh territories within the revolving cascades of cadenced symmetry. Changes are consciously slight to the point of ambiguity as the music becomes a deliberate mantra. Locked grooves in endless escalating cycles of dynamic concurrence. The oft-spoken truism that Lungfish have one song is semi-accurate. In actuality they have endless variations of the same song, a perpetual tribute to all infinite.

Those looking for a starting point would be well served to find the band’s debut record Necklace of Heads and the following Talking Songs For Walking. Thankfully, Dischord have packaged both on one handy compact disc but infuriatingly reversed the chronology. The debut is only eight songs in length but remains a vital introduction to the Lungfish sound. Contrary to the development of most rock bands, Lungfish made their most approachable music early on. Necklace of Heads is downright anthemic, brimming with the sort of earnest youthful exuberance one would normally expect from stadium rockers. `Come Clean’ is an apt demonstration of the sonic power and epic scope of Lungfish at this stage of their existence. Feldstein thumps his drums with precision force as Osborne creates enormous avenues of resonance between jagged riffs and chiming melodic motifs. Across the brisk thirty minute running time, Higgs gives an enormously compelling performance. At times his vocal sincerity is so alarming that one can vividly sense the gesticulations behind the words. In the frenzy of spiritual declamations, the frontman is buoyed by near Gospel fervour. On the opening track he states his intention to tear out the night sky and it sounds entirely plausible. Early highlights such as the surging `Not Only Long Ride Too High’ showcase the skilful compositional playing of Asa Osborne. The song lurches on a deceptively simple riff which allows Higgs to air his wares with characteristic aplomb. “I obey the laws of nature,” shouts the singer with seething conviction. The following ‘Parthenogenesis’ is an ominous retelling of the nativity which sees the self-reproducing Mary “pregnant with the ultimate weapon”. The uncharacteristically forlorn ode to ennui `Nothing is Easy’ remains the most conventionally-minded song the band ever produced but also one of the most emotionally affecting. The closing `Fambly’ might well be the most revelatory statement of intent. As the music slows to a sparse but solid backbeat, Higgs begins to shriek about the coming “revitalisation sound”.

Starting with Talking Songs for Walking, Lungfish more than live up to Higgs’ closing declaration. Less rocking overall but no less intriguing than the previous effort, the second album sees the quartet stripping back their sound to a minimalistic metallic clamour. Many songs are built from a basic percussive template with loping bass accompaniment which allows Osborne to weave in and out of the mix without losing the sense of song. The choppy, playful `Friend to Friend in the End-time’ is, like several other songs present, an elegy to communication - an integral aspect of all forms of relationship. The blistering `Broadcast’ is a veritable torrent of joyous sonic affirmation which continues this theme, albeit in the form of a treatise on the nature of inherited knowledge. “The brain is gone but the idea remains”, screams an incandescent Higgs. “And when the mind is gone, the broadcast will remain”. The title of the album could serve as a fitting maxim for many of Lungfish’s songs, which are often concerned with the idea of motion and how it relates to the passage of time. Other songs such as `Descender’ and `Non Dual Bliss’ are preoccupied by the actions of an unspecified Muse. `Reveal Me’ and `One Face’ open an account for Lungfish’s typically invigorating instrumental interludes whilst `Samuel’ and ‘Put Your Hand in my Hand’ are further depictions of robust and committed friendships. The densely packed `My Fool Heart’ is a glance at things to come, anchored by a repeating rhythmic device which would come to characterise the band’s later albums.

Rainbows From Atoms is definitely a step closer to the cohesion of sound often associated with Lungfish. The minimalism of the previous album remains but a deliberately restrictive mix pushes the instrumentation even closer together into a fluid, compacted sound; almost like the report of an idling engine. The production decisions (or lack of as the case may well have been) make this record sound like a belated tribute to the mid-period albums of Minneapolis stalwarts Husker Du. The tinny, treble heavy sound isn’t particularly conductive of Lungfish music but fortunately the songs are strong enough to force the experiment through. The sinuous opener `Instrument’ is a rumination on cause and effect; a theme that also colours most of the rest of the album. The concept of origin and reproduction is expanded on the dreary `Mother Made Me’. Higgs also broaches the fundamental interconnectedness between genetics and geography. “These tracks lead to the harbour where your grandmother swam”, sings Higgs with retrospective illumination. The following `Abraham Lincoln’ makes excellent use of double-tracking to create two subtly different lead vocal lines playing against each other, a favoured trick of Higgs. More so than on previous records, these songs sound very much cut from one piece of cloth. The busy stride of the evolutionary-minded `Animal Man’ is propelled forward to a spanking pace by Jon Chriest’s efficient bass. Overall, Chriest’s playing may well be the highlight of the whole album. He dictates and stimulates the brilliant `Fresh Air Cure’ with a rubbery, cyclical bass line that allows Osborne to chip away at the edges of the song. Similarly, `Open House’ sits atop an infectious, gyratory groove woven by some irregular fret-board mastery courtesy of Chriest. The highlight of the album is once again the most ambitious effort - the reflective, relaxed instrumentation of `Creation Story’ is the perfect foil for one of Higgs’ most expansive and evocative poems taking in the entire history of human evolution. “These are secrets that the world sung to me, truer than the truth,” intones Higgs as his band-mates create a gentle instrumental stratum for his spoken-word recital. Thankfully, a recent remastering of Rainbows From Atoms has dramatically improved the rather subpar mix.

Lungfish followed a year later with the superb Pass and Stow. Whereas the previous album had been relatively mired by a difficult recording, Pass and Stow brims with a formidable clarity. For the first time, Asa Osborne’s guitar is the focal point of the mix and he seizes the opportunity with gargantuan bombast. On the tumultuous opener `Cleaner than your Surroundings’, Osborne’s guitar is a monolith of impenetrable sound in either channel. The tone is dense but reflective, creating phantom harmonics that spill out over the rest of the instrumentation. The resulting din is like an armoured behemoth marching down a mirrored corridor. Higgs bellows to be heard amidst the clamour. The song itself appears to be a warning about the pride that comes before a fall and could well be a reference to the trends within music itself, albeit in a characteristically ambiguous manner. “I need songs about the music,” demands Higgs. “How many ways can you say that you’re speaking?” What follows is Lungfish’s most consistently brilliant run of song-writing form. `Washing Away’ is a surging, rolling shanty to spiritual cleansing that finds Higgs clawing at the “invisible bugs all over your skin”. The comparatively downbeat instrumental `At Liberty to Say’ weaves beautifully into the similarly-paced `Trap Gets Set’. “Your music falls just shy of shame,” intones Higgs with an air of weariness. The temptation to connect the lyrics to the sudden pillaging of independent music by major record labels runs particularly high here but it’s impossible to be sure if Higgs was even aware of such events, let alone willing to refer directly to them. The tempo comes back up for the nimble `Computer’, the psychedelic swirling of `Highway Sweetheart’ and the Eastern-tinged inflections of `Astronaut’s Prayer’. Although the louder songs are in themselves remarkable, the slow burning numbers in the later stages of the album bite the hardest. On `One Way All the Time’ Chriest plumbs the very lowest frequencies of his bass as Osborne builds a distant wall of shrill feedback which haunts Higgs’ spoken-word recital. The poem is deliberately esoteric but the words evoke images of paranoia-induced mental distress. “So you dreamt the end of the world,” speaks Higgs as the music slows to a standstill. “A calm public hurt, a last naked swim.” The song fades into the creepy `In Praise of Amoral Phenomena’ and once again, Chriest is given an opportunity to showcase his dexterous playing. Even better is the truly exquisite `The Evidence’, a rumination on the nature of acquired knowledge and inspiration. “Here are my findings, this is the evidence,” announces Higgs over a delicate, stark guitar figure. “This song bears witness to the total science.” Once again, a sense of inescapable hubris overcomes the frontman’s words as he ponders the poignancy of his own relative insignificance compared to the almighty plains of all existence. “The covered tracks of an invisible regime,” he sings tenderly. “Perhaps they tell me what to sing”. The epic closer `Gorilla Monsoon’ is a concrete Brontosaurus of a song, bringing to a conclusion what many still believe to be the band’s finest record to date. Certainly Pass and Stow would serve as an excellent introduction to the world of Lungfish.

Part Two will follow.

- Tommy Dski

Portishead – Third *
(Island Records)

This last week I have found myself with a distinct advantage over the rest of the music blogging community for one significant reason. I have a full-time job (oh snap!), specifically one that involves a ninety mile commute five days a week. The return journey of said commute is at night across glorious rolling Scottish countryside, which is an absolutely perfect environment for listening to new music. Additionally, this job has prevented me from writing about the leaked Portishead album until tonight. Thus, I have had the opportunity to listen to the songs that will almost certainly find their way onto the literally titled Third a great number of times. Driving through rural surroundings in absolute isolation with the air conditioning deliberately low for atmospheric effect, headlights pitching silhouettes across empty fields, these songs have gradually revealed themselves as the miles evaporated beneath the wheels of my car. A lot of folks online seem to have fallen into the trap of writing about this new album without giving the songs enough time to sink in. Furthermore, I get the impression that people have forgotten that mood music exists amidst the multimedia cavalcade of the file-sharing, iPod heavy, fast food instant gratification culture we find ourselves in today. Without being unnecessarily idealistic, this really isn’t an album for broad daylight, snatched listens between lectures or through your Macbook’s tinny speakers. This album demands a certain ambience to be fully digested. A wine drunk night on the futon with good headphones and candlelight. The last train out of the city as dusk sets in. A long drive in the countryside. Use your imagination and you’ll find this album to be particularly rewarding.

Portishead were unquestionably the great British band of the previous decade by some distance. The fashionista contingency of the music press fell over themselves heaping accolades upon the group’s sample-heavy debut in 1994 but were less generous with the self-titled sequel some three years later. Over a decade later, the latter continues to intrigue and fascinate long after the debut fell out of rotation. With Portishead, the trio of Beth Gibbons, Adrian Utley and Geoff Barrow demonstrated that they weren’t interested in pandering to critical expectation by blending harsher tones with complex, layered compositions woven from original scores rather than samples. Some eleven years later, Portishead have returned once more with an album that will reward patience and penalise those unwilling to dedicate sufficient energy into deciphering the rich textures within. One might have expected Portishead to mellow somewhat during their extensive hiatus but instead, the group has returned with a far more robust and muscular effort, which is only occasionally reminiscent of their former glory. This time around, Portishead have again turned inwards as a band, working up dense bodies of song from introspective jamming. The result is an album of raucous polyrhythm and dissonant guitar fuzz in addition to the gentle, skittering jazz stylings and decaying electronica that characterised the group’s earlier work. Third is inevitably going to upset those who were expecting an approachable, borderline commercial album and a very good thing too. Instead, this is the sound of a band making music primarily for themselves, regardless of the inevitably gigantic expectations.

Opening track ‘Silence’ in an invigorating introduction to modern day Portishead. Boasting not one but two drum tracks dominating the mix throughout, the band invokes a compressed fusillade of garage rock unlike anything previously attempted. Utley’s guitar effects permeate into a thick, irresolvable haze as Gibbon’s voice hangs in the air. Whereas in the past Portishead were heavily reliant on the interplay between Gibbon’s vocals and Barrow’s turntable effects, both have been pushed into a supporting role. For the most part, Third is the sound of a band, emphasised by the extensive use of live percussion. Barrow’s role is now closer to that of Martin Swope, the original off-stage tape manipulator of Boston band Mission of Burma. On most songs he adds simple electronic crescendos, brief mid-song interludes and supportive keyboard effects. At first it is hard to adjust to Gibbon’s voice in the context of these songs but upon repeated listens, it becomes much more apparent that the singer is servicing the songs for what they are. Gone is the playful torch singer of old, replaced by an austere Nico-esque chanteuse. The exquisitely haunting ‘Hunter’ is a nod to the Baroque, quasi-Lynchian lounge jazz of old and probably the closest Third comes to the classic Portishead sound. ‘Nylon Smile’ reintroduces the percussive racket as instrumental foundation approach of the opening track provoking an unparalleled sense of tension. ‘The Rip’ and ‘Plastic’ demonstrate that Portishead are still masters of dynamic juxtaposition. The former builds from a stark acoustic ditty to an unabashed electro-juggernaut and the latter is a smouldering jazz shanty weathered and beaten by barrages of feedback.

The pseudo-industrial thumping of ‘We Carry On’ is a natural show-stopper, complete with an infectious kraut-rocking outro that pivots on a single trance-like indentation. The naked and folky ‘Deep Water’ is strangely reminiscent of the Velvet Underground with Maureen Tucker on vocals but the static blasts of the aptly-titled ‘Machine Gun’ quickly disperse the momentary calm with amelodic gusto. If there was any doubt that Third was written with the live arena in mind, ‘Small’ should erase such thoughts completely. Shifting from glacial hymn to undulating dub monstrosity in seven glorious minutes, it’s the kind of rollicking climactic number that will have audiences held in hypnotic reverie from start to finish. ‘Magic Doors’ would probably make for a decent enough single if not for Barrow’s deliberately shrill sonic manipulation. Exemplary closer ‘Threads’ allows Utley to showcase his most evocative guitar work, moving from tender Spanish guitar to what could be the sound of two gigantic ships passing each other in the night at high sea. From the disjointed and abrupt cuts found on this leak to the rather flat production, one is left with the distinct impression that the finished article may well be rather different. This is the perfect excuse to pre-order the album and show the band how wonderful it is to have them back. Simply because it is. It’s wonderful.

Tommy Dski

Dear Soundman,

Hi. We've talked a couple of times. You seem like a pretty alright guy, so I'll try and make this gentle. The job you do isn't bad, per se. It could just use some improvement.

Let's use tonight as an example. You did sound for A Place To Bury Strangers and Holy Fuck. Both sets were pretty good. The latter set was actually mixed really well. For some reason, though, APTBS was bass-heavy to a point where it was absurd. I had the compulsion to sit you down and have you listen to Loveless all the way through, so that you understand that an atmosphere can be created by instruments outside the rhythm section. It's really unfortunate when the guitarist has to actually go and adjust both the volume of his amp and the direction it faces in relation to the audience so that his playing can actually be heard.

This isn't the first time I've been to a show where this has happened, though it's pretty clearly the tipping point. I'd really wanted to hear the sheer sonic force I knew Oliver Ackermann could wreak upon an audience, especially since I'd kind of talked up that point in the concert preview I'd done for the student newspaper. Instead, somehow, a band notorious for destroying their own equipment through sheer volume managed to have a guitar sound almost neutered. It was way, way below the spot it needed to be in the mix. Don't get me wrong, the bass playing was pretty awesome and the drumming was brilliantly intense, but when I know a band is as capable of unbelievable guitar noise as A Place To Bury Strangers are, I kind of want to hear that noise, hey?

Certainly, they didn't put on a bad show. They were absolutely blistering in places, menacing, atmospheric, inspiring. The leaden spell they cast over the audience drew down jaws and knocked heads forwards with the rhythm. "Ocean," closing out the set, blew primal beats through squalls of noise into something ethereal and fantastic. What I'm trying to say, though, is that half of those squalls were missing until the last thirty seconds of the set.

And you're not the only one. I mentioned that earlier, and I'm mentioning it again. God, I've heard some poorly-mixed shows. Trimming the guitar out of a band with such a solid guitar foundation is a pretty major infraction, but I've been party to worse. I've heard vocals mixed so low the singer might as well have been doing something productive like knitting or workshopping lyrics, five-piece bands drowned out by washy cymbals, awfully-equalized bass farting all over an otherwise good set and much, much more. I've heard the gamut from way too tinny and piercing to way too muddy and thick and every limp-dick mid-range tone in between. All you did was forget a guitar; some soundmen commit war crimes the second they do a line check.

So, if you're reading this and you're mad, don't worry. The set came across just fine. The parts you did well, you did really well! Poor instrument balance is just a pet peeve of mine. Consider it a project. It's one that I'd really love to see some progress on.

Yours,
JC

Do You Like Rock Music?, by British Sea Power

When does style become genre? At what point can somebody such as myself, who chooses to write about music, stop saying “such-and-such band plays music that sounds like . . .” and start instead saying “such-and-such band plays music of [x] genre”?

In a perfect world this question wouldn’t matter. Hell, even in our imperfect world it doesn’t really matter a jot. But over the last few days, as I’ve been listening to Do You Like Rock Music? by British Sea Power, it’s a question that’s been on my mind a little. (Incidentally, the reason why I’ve only had the option of listening to the album over the last few days, and not over the last month like my British colleague tommydski, is something which I could go on a long rant about, taking in swipes at the music industry and tales of rigid personal morality along the way, but in the interests of a brevity which I’ve promised to many people I’ll forego the opportunity for such a tangent here, tempting though it is).

Of course, one assumes that if British Sea Power had their way there would be no genres, only “Rock” and “Not Rock”. Which is probably a pretty good approach, but it doesn’t really help me talk about the sonic transition the band has made with this, their third album. Their previous two albums were undoubtedly rock music. So’s this one. What’s the difference?

So, genres then. I guess that in order to qualify as a full-blown genre, a particular style of music has to have a few conventions. Sweeping guitar lines. Yearning vocals. Strong, indomitable beats. Sudden dramatic moments where the guitars drop out for a few bars. Equally dramatic moments where the guitars return, stronger and heavier and more insistent than ever before. Songs that steadily build to an exhilarating climax. A pace that rarely lets up across the course of the entire album.

Do You Like Rock Music? has all of these in abundance. Put them all together and you have something that, for argument’s sake, we’ll call “Anthemic Rock”. Anthemic Rock’s been around for a long time. Like any genre it has bands that cover the full spectrum, from “good” to “bad”, depending on where your personal taste lies: U2 play Anthemic Rock. So does the Arcade Fire. So, now, do British Sea Power.

Music is a pretty manipulative art-form at the best of times, but even so, Anthemic Rock is a particularly manipulative musical genre. The whole point of Anthemic Rock is to tug at the guts of the listener: to instil in him or her a peculiar sense of yearning for something that can’t quite be defined. It’s a stirring feeling, but also a slightly queasy one if you stop to think about it too much (as is my wont). But perhaps the most disturbing aspect of Anthemic Rock is the fact that, when you actually stop and listen to it, the lyrics are so often working at cross-purposes to the music: while the music of Anthemic Rock is, by definition, designed to be played loud, through speakers, and heard by large groups of people at the same time to create some kind of communal experience, the lyrics are often, in fact, about cutting off the listener from the rest of the world. Anthemic Rock typically comes with a kind of bunker mentality, which becomes all the more peculiar when experienced as part of a group: just look at any bunch of people shouting along to Rage Against the Machine’s exhortation of “Fuck you, I won’t do what you tell me”, or closing their eyes and keening as Win Butler sings about tunnelling away from your parents and from the rest of the world out the front of the Arcade Fire. Such lyrics are as much a part of Anthemic Rock as the soaring guitars or strident rhythms.

So perhaps it’s telling that, for the first time in their career, British Sea Power have furnished an album with liner notes that reproduce the lyrics of that album’s songs. Because if they’re now playing Anthemic Rock, they’re subverting the genre in a quite marvellous and wonderful way. It’s obvious right from the start: the very first words on the album are “We’re all in it”. What exactly it is that we’re “all in” is open to speculation, but it’s notable that there’s no oppositional force presented here: British Sea Power aren’t railing against anything, and they’re not invited the listeners too, either – except, perhaps, their own complacency: “We’re all in it” the band chants, “and we close our eyes”.

Elsewhere the band takes time to explicitly invite outsiders to the party: “Welcome in” Yan sings on “Waving Flags”, urging Eastern European immigrants to come into Britain, “cross the Carpathians”. If the rest of the lyrics of the song don’t exactly make the band’s homeland sound like paradise on earth, at least they don’t make it sound like an exclusive club reserved for the native-born, either.

But I’d hate to give anyone the impression that Do You Like Rock Music? is just a mindless love-in. British Sea Power have always been as intellectually curious as they are emotionally generous. Still, even when the topic of evil is broached on the album, it’s never presented as black-and-white. I can’t imagine many bands today daring to write a song as ambiguous about Nazism as “No Lucifer”, which manages to separate the ideology from the humans who embraced it (or whom it embraced), and then goes on to hint at both the idealism and the downright horror of the Second World War in only a few short lines.

For the majority of the album the band’s lyrics are a good deal more cryptic than that, though, and as with all of British Sea Power’s work they’re best listened to with an encyclopaedia within easy reach. But even this is a kind of generosity: I seriously doubt that British Sea Power expect all their listeners to understand or appreciate every single reference in their songs, but all the same the mere presence of all those references suggests that maybe we should understand them. A British Sea Power album leaves the listener wanting to read up about the world as albums by few other bands do, save perhaps the Mountain Goats. I think that can only be a good thing.

This lyrical approach has been a constant throughout British Sea Power’s career. The difference between the band “then” and the band “now” lies in the music. Before they started making “Anthemic Rock”, British Sea Power were making music that while it had a similar emotional pull, felt like a much more personal affair. Even the most exciting songs on The Decline of British Sea Power or Open Season feel intensely private when you listen to them, as if their power would somehow be diminished if anyone else was in the room. But that’s not the case on Do You Like Rock Music? This is an album that demands to be turned up loud, that practically pushes the windows and doors open of its own accord so that all your neighbours can share it with you.

At the end of the day it all comes back to the album’s title. It sounds horribly jokey and gimmicky until you actually listen to the album. After that, it seems like the only title that could possibly fit. If you like rock music you’re going to love Atom, track nine here (reproduced from last year’s Krankenhaus? E.P.), which is the best rock song you’re likely to hear in a long time. If you like rock music you’re going to love the whole album. How much you get out of it is going to depend heavily on how much you’re willing to put into it, but Do You Like Rock Music? is the sound of a band reaching out. It seems only fair to meet them half-way. It could even make the world a slightly better place.

I’m Being Good with Infinite Chug

Johnny C has written briefly about Electrelane and I’m positive that at some point in the future Harry is going to gush about the new record from British Sea Power so I think it’s only right I post some words about my own favourite band from Brighton, UK. Although I haven’t lived there for going on six years, I still feel like my own musical awakening occurred when I was employed by an independent music rag on the south-east coast of England. Many of the bands I saw during these years have gone on to nationwide acclaim but some are yet to receive the attention they so richly deserve. Case in point, some incarnation of I’m Being Good has existed since 1991. Originally just comprised of guitarist and mastermind Andrew Clare with a drum machine, a rotating cast of characters has passed through the ranks over the years, taking in hundreds of shows, three incredible albums and umpteen appearances on various compilations. As well as I’m Being Good, Clare also runs the micro-label Infinite Chug and records experimental music under the name Pine Forest, as well as providing bright and imaginative artwork for all of the above.

There’s been a lot of press lately about certain British groups releasing free music online, seemingly oblivious to the fact that several other groups have been doing the same for years. Infinite Chug has half of their back catalogue available for download on their homepage. There are some excellent records available there and if you enjoy them at all, it would be appropriate to make a donation via PayPal. All of the albums hosted have full artwork to print and a high bit-rate. Personally, I think this might well be the way bands and labels will find themselves operating in the near future. Inviting donations rather than forcing people to buy from expensive online or high-street retailers looks to be an attractive alternative considering the prevalence of file-sharing. Since it is now well established that all but a handful of bands make their money from touring and merchandise sales, cutting out the middle-men (high-street megastores, major record labels) seems like a sensible solution. Rather than look at the internet as the death of commercial music, artists need to evolve their business model to accommodate the online market. One only needs to look at the popularity of free web-comics such as Achewood, Penny Arcade and indeed Questionable Content to see that there is still a viable solution for those prepared to put in the groundwork and establish a following. We should applaud Infinite Chug for having the foresight to be ahead of the curve in this area. Music is after all a labour of love, not an industry.

Available for download on the Infinite Chug site is the second album by I’m Being Good, entitled Sub Plot. The fact that this classic album is available for free is both admirable and borderline criminal. I am struggling to think of a British rock album I have enjoyed more in the past decade. For argument’s sake, let’s just go ahead and assume there isn’t one. If anyone actually went to the trouble of investigating Polvo or US Maple, Sub Plot will be a strikingly familiar and welcome addition to any playlist. Sounding more like a by-product of Kentucky or Illinois than Brighton, I’m Being Good storm through six of the creepiest, most atmospheric rock’n’roll songs these fair isles have ever produced. The laconically-paced ‘Angels on our Shoulders’ could be a long-lost outtake from Slint’s Spiderland with an emphasis on low grooves, piercing needlework riffs and some appropriately ominous vocals from Clare. “We heard a Nordic death-threat”, croons Clare from amidst the gloom. ‘Kill Him with War Savings’ is a furious blast of white heat, immediately doused by the abjectly menacing ‘Joust’. A steady pulse builds into a throbbing, bulging mess of snare fuzz, alternate tunings and frantically bipolar yelling. The olde world narrative is ultimately fixated by an unshakeable sense of hubris which seems to enrapture and dominate the whole album. The following ‘He Has Unborn Eyes on Long Tinsel Stalks’ moves from desperation to hysteria across eight unbearably tense minutes, via an unlikely Joe Jackson pastiche. ‘Silent Spring’ could well be the most paranoia inducing song ever cut to tape. After five minutes one could be forgiven for believing that not only does Clare know where you live, he’s literally going to be arriving at your door with a length of rope, a modified car battery and a vicious looking tenon saw. The epic closer ‘Solar System of Blood’ is basement-level dub punctuated by swelling tides of distortion and a clattering percussive assault for a chaser.

The eventual sequel to Sub Plot entitled Family Snaps is available for purchase on the Johnson Family website. You can also hear some of the demos I’m Being Good made in between these two records on the catch-all Spares and Repairs series available on the Infinite Chug site. If you are even remotely interested in ambient or avant garde music, you could do a lot worse than taking advantage of the other free downloads available there. If you’ve ever found yourself wondering what astonishingly minimalist free jazz would sound like played by a standard rock trio (and who hasn’t?!) then look into Small Things’ Pregnant Longer than Humans. Spoiler – It sounds pretty much like Sun City Girls but as any sane person will tell you there’s absolutely nothing wrong with that. Andrew Clare has also recorded some beautiful music with a host of collaborators under the name Pine Forest. Some highlights from the Infinite Chug website include Rendered Oysterless, a sublime guitar duet set to boiling water and rainfall. In fairness it only sounds ridiculous until you actually hear it, whereupon it is literally impossible not to feel moved by the gentle splendour of the piece. Equally inspiring is Faceless Nativity, a brooding and hypnotic composition performed solely on xylophone and grand piano. Andrew Clare’s Crap Hologram is a mind-melting barrage of clashing instrumentation, which occasionally sounds like a guitar hitting every single note simultaneously over several minutes. You can also print full size CD trays to accompany these downloads so you can give the complete article away to loved ones. That’s everyone’s birthday presents sorted for the foreseeable future then.

Tommy Dski

Too Much Music

The other day I bought . . . And All the Pieces Matter, a compilation of music from all five seasons of the H.B.O. drama series the Wire. I’m a fanatic about the Wire. I’ll take any opportunity to recommend it to anybody I meet – even if it’s not situationally appropriate, as is the case here. It’s probably the best drama series that’s ever been on television, anywhere.

Among many other fascinating aspects of the show, one that stands out is its use of music. With rare and very strictly delineated exceptions, the Wire eschews the use of a “soundtrack”, per se. Rather, almost all of the music in the show – and there’s a lot of it – is “source” music: a character sits drinking in a bar, and the music that’s blaring out from the bar’s sound-system is the music that soundtracks the scene; another character pulls up outside in a car, and he or she is listening to the radio – a snippet of music, heard over a tinny car stereo, and that’s it. It’s all very carefully and very cleverly done.

And it serves to remind us of just how important and ubiquitous music is in our lives. I don’t just mean in the lives of music nerds such as myself or the other contributors to this blog, I mean in the lives of everyone: I think in my entire life I’ve met only one person who claimed to have no real interest in music. Even she probably turned the radio on when she was bored.

The radio’s the thing, of course. Before the advent of sound recording, music was something you had to go out of your way to listen to: you had to go to the concert hall, or to a dance. It wasn’t something that was just there, at least not in the way it is for us now. Things changed a little when the mass-produced upright piano became the television of its day, and families would gather around it of an evening and sings songs to each other – but even that required a level of effort and dedication that’s above and beyond the simple flicking of a switch we have these days. Music-on-demand is a relatively new phenomenon.

A couple of years ago I read a short piece in the Observer newspaper (online, that is) by Bill Drummond, formerly of the K.L.F. In the article, Drummond was talking about his idea for “No Music Day”. On one day of the year, the 21^st of November – the day before St. Cecilia’s Day, said saint being apparently the patron saint of music – Drummond would listen to no music at all. (The article, if you want to read it, is here: http://observer.guardian.co.uk/omm/story/0,,1892833,00.html). When I read the article, I didn’t really understand what he was on about. Why cut yourself off from music for one day? What was the point? Why such a radical act from someone who obviously has a deep and abiding love for music? It seemed utterly nonsensical to me.

I understood when I bought an iPod. I’d never had much interest in one before, in part because I’m a steadfast believer in listening to the world around you (especially if you want to avoid being run over by a bus), and in part because as far as taking music with me went, I had a portable C.D. player and a couple of small pouches in which I could, at a stretch, house around fifty or sixty C.D.s. This set-up had served me well for almost ten years, and I saw no compelling reason to change it.

The reason came when I went overseas to visit family in the U.K. at the end of 2006. Australia is a long way from anywhere, so leaving the country necessitates a lot of travelling time. Although aeroplanes have more and more entertainment options these days, sometimes you just want to listen to that obscure jazz album from the fifties, or that new release you bought just last week, or whatever else you might use to identify your own personal music collection. Knowing this, I packed my carry-on bag with everything I thought I needed, and right at the top was my portable C.D. player and fifty or sixty C.D.s in two pouches.

I don’t know if you’ve ever been on a long-haul international flight. Space is not a commodity that is in great abundance. A few cubic centimetres of baggage under the seat in front of you can be the difference between being able to stretch your legs beyond ninety degrees at the knee, and intolerable leg cramping for ten hours or more. It quickly became apparent to me that the C.D.-player-plus-fifty-or-sixty-C.D.s was no longer a viable arrangement. So half-way to the U.K., in the duty-free zone, I bought myself a thirty gigabyte iPod.

M.P.3 players are wonderful devices. You can store the equivalent of much more than fifty or sixty C.D.s in a little box that will sit comfortably in your pocket. I instantly became pretty smitten with my iPod, and I could see straight away why they were such popular devices (even if I can’t fathom why there isn’t any “stop” button). And, of course, apart from the practical reason for getting one, I wanted one because everyone else had one.

It’s amazing how quickly M.P.3 players in general, and iPods in particular, have become near-ubiquitous. I remember only a few years ago hearing stories of people being mugged for their iPods, of the tell-tale white earphones marking you out as a target if you were walking down the street. Nowadays nobody bats an eyelid at those thin white threads worming their way from hip pocket to ear: nowadays if somebody doesn’t have an ear or two plugged in, it’s almost more surprising.

So now I know what Drummond was on about – what he’s still on about: No Music Day (http://www.nomusicday.com/home.html) seems to be picking up more and more interest. We live in a world now where, more and more, people can soundtrack their own lives. It’s got to the stage where a lack of music is indeed a radical idea: I read a review last year of Panda Bear’s fabulous album Person Pitch, a quintessential “earphone” album, which concluded with the reviewer having the epiphany that, rather than follow up listening to the album on his iPod with listening to more music, it would be better to take the earphones out and listen to the larger world instead, to let the music settle in the mind. At this point the tone of the review becomes strange: as if the writer is sharing some kind of religious secret with his readers. How has an absence of music become such an unusual idea?

I confused the hell out of a salesman at Dick Smith Electronics a while ago when, in idle conversation while buying some piece of something-or-other, I confided that my iPod almost never leaves my bedroom. I don’t actually go on that many long-haul flights, so practically the only time I use my iPod is to listen to music quietly late at night, when putting a C.D. through the loud-speakers might run the risk of waking my housemates. And yet for all my self-righteousness, for all my iPod abstinence, I’m not immune from the music glut: I’m twenty-eight years old and earning more money now than I ever have in my life before, and I don’t have a car and I don’t drink much and I eat at home most nights, so I manage to have a pretty good disposable income. Mostly I dispose it on C.D.s. In the last month I’ve bought ten C.D.s. That’s not even above average.

Yet of those ten C.D.s, I’ve only listened to one of them more than twice. Most of them I haven’t even listened to more than once. I’ve already got hundreds of other C.D.s vying for my time – but I don’t listen to those much, either. I’m obsessed with getting new music – newly released or new to me – the people at my local record store know me by name and some time ago spontaneously started giving me a discount on purchases, I’m constantly looking for the rush that comes from listening to music the first time around. Music is a constant in my life.

But I’m uneasy about it. I worry that I’m not fully appreciating the music that I buy. I worry that I’m buying music just for the buying’s sake, just because I can. I feel sometimes that all the music on all the C.D.s on my shelves is as much a burden as it is a blessing. This is not the music’s fault: with a very few exceptions, the music is wonderful. But what value am I getting out of something that I only listen to once before forgetting about it for months on end? Is that what the artist had in mind for his or her endeavour?

Of course, even with my rapacious spending habits, there’s no way I’m ever going to even scratch the surface of all the music that’s out there. I’m frequently envious of musicians – no art form in the world connects so directly and so effortlessly with people as music – but it must be incredibly daunting, too, being a musician these days, when every note you record can be instantly compared to millions and millions of notes, thousands and thousands of musicians, who’ve gone before you. I suppose that’s one way of testing your commitment to your chosen art form: whether the competition inspires you or hinders you.

It’s high summer in Australia at the moment. This is the time of year when every week brings another music festival, when all the big bands are out touring. About a year ago I went to a festival called the Laneway Festival. For one day they cordon off one of the myriad back-alleys in Melbourne’s city centre, clear out the rubbish, put a stage at one end and sell tickets. The festival’s built up a good reputation in the few years it’s been going, and manages to attract a more impressive line-up each time. When I went it was solely on the promise if seeing Camera Obscura, one of my favourite bands currently doing the rounds. They were on early in the day, so the festival peaked pretty early as far as I was concerned. Nonetheless I stuck around, in large part because I’d forked out around one-hundred and thirty dollars for the ticket and that was a bit too much just for the sake of one band. Plus Peter, Bjorn, and John were playing at the tail-end of the day, and I was curious about them because 2006-2007 was the year when everyone was talking about them, so I thought I owed it to my inner indie-kid to stick around and check them out. But by the end of the day, after about ten hours of the festival, I was ready to pack it in. It wasn’t so much the crowdedness of the festival site, it wasn’t so much the lingering odour of recently-removed rubbish bins, it wasn’t so much the blazing sunshine and relative lack of shade, it wasn’t so much the fact that for ten hours almost everybody at the festival had been drinking – what really did me in was the music. Each band in the line-up played for between forty minutes and an hour, and there was about twenty minutes between each band on the main stage. But those twenty minutes weren’t empty: no, in those twenty minutes, while each band was packing up and the next band was setting up, the organisers of the festival relayed music from the D.J. booth over the stage’s speakers. When the band was ready to play, the music was faded out and the stage mics were turned up. For ten hours there was constant music. For ten hours there was no respite, no shelter.

In 2003 I was fortunate enough to visit the Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg. The art – both the collection and the building itself – was absolutely incredible. But it was also overwhelming. After about four or five hours I found that my brain could no longer take it in. I could no longer remember what I’d just seen. I was artistically exhausted.

It was a similar sensation I felt at the Laneway Festival last year. But in St. Petersburg, I could leave the museum and come back whenever I wanted. When I’d had enough I could go back to the hostel and lie down and shut my eyes. But you can’t shut your ears. At the Laneway, apart from the fact that there were no pass-outs so you either left or stayed, there was no escape from the constant music, the constant noise, because you can’t turn your hearing off. At the Laneway, I felt by the end of the day not so much that I was listening to music, than that I was being assaulted by it. Maybe it’s just me, but I don’t think a music festival should leave the punter begging for less. At the Laneway Festival, when I went last year, there was too much music.

But that’s the case everywhere you go these days. Everybody has their own taste in music, and nobody enjoys being subjected for too long to somebody else’s taste. The temptation to cocoon yourself in a musical world of your own moulding is very great. But when music becomes a soundtrack to life, when it becomes just a way to fill in the gaps, it’s diminished. I love music. I adore it. I can’t imagine my life without it. In times of sadness it keeps me company, and in times of joy it celebrates with me. But sometimes I need time by myself. I’m not as good at taking that time as I should be. I don’t think anyone is. Even when we’re trying to take time out, chances are we’ve still got a song in our head, or we’re humming to ourself, or tapping out a rhythm on our desk. We program our mobile phones to ring with our favourite tunes. But how much do we actually value music? As I sit at my computer writing this I can see rows and rows of my C.D.s that are yesterday’s favourites: the complete Decca recordings of Count Basie, Lonely People of the World, Unite! by Devin Davis, Forbidden Songs of the Dying West by Jackie Leven . . .etcetera, etcetera. I know I should dig them out and listen to them again. Sometimes I remember to, and it’s been so long since I last listened to them that it’s almost like hearing them for the first time all over again. But all the same, I’m not half as excited about them as I am about grabbing the new Mountain Goats album when it first comes out later this month, or putting on the C.D. I bought just two days ago. And so all these C.D.s take up space on my shelves on a promise, a thought that one day I’m going to take them down and listen to them again. And each new C.D. I buy so eagerly means just a little bit less to me. I love music, but sometimes I wish there was a bit less of it.