Josh Brown

BMA Magazine Albums of 2011, PJ Harvey – Let England Shake [Island/Universal]

Perhaps it appeals to my inner history buff, but the prospect of one of my all-time favourite artists choosing to write a war-inspired concept album was always going to be an incredibly exciting proposition. Turns out, she nailed it.

Let England Shake continues its predecessor’s foray away from Harvey’s traditional instrument of choice, the guitar, this time to the autoharp. There’s also an interesting selection of samples, with the dreamy Written On The Forehead lifting its chorus from a reggae classic by Niney the Observer while The Glorious Land, one of the album’s most polarising inclusions, works in a section of The Last Post.

The album is musically quite pleasant and catchy, but it’s only when one delves deeper into the lyrical content that the true darkness of the songs is revealed. Harvey researched extensively personal accounts of war and her hard work has paid off. She manages to beautifully articulate war’s destruction and pointlessness – On Battleship Hill describes the landscape faced by unknown soldiers as “Jagged mountains jutting out / Cracked like teeth in a rotten mouth”, while The Words That Maketh Murder spouts grotesquely “I’ve seen soldiers fall like lumps of meat / Blown and shot out beyond belief / Arms and legs were in the trees.”

An outstanding album both in concept and execution, whose message is only too relevant in this era of protracted terrorism-inspired conflicts. A classic of our time.

Seeker Lover Keeper

HEAVENLY SOUNDS

I’ve never been one to divulge too many juicy details regarding my personal life, but I think it’s time to come clean about something. I don’t mean to brag, but I had a four-way with three beautiful women a few weeks ago. That’s right, you read correctly – a four-way. Well, to be fair I should clarify a little – I had a four-way group interview with three beautiful women, namely Sarah Blasko, Sally Seltmann and Holly Throsby, the three lovely ladies who comprise all-female indie pop supergroup SEEKER LOVER KEEPER. Our interview was equal parts confusing and amusing; four-way phone conversations can be tricky beasts to tame. To avoid complete and utter interview chaos, each member would announce herself before responding to a question. The format felt necessary, if a little rigid, but as time passed and the girls began to truly open up it felt like I became a wallflower in the rehearsal room being treated to a rare chance to eavesdrop on an intimate chat between old friends.

The tale of how these three good friends joined forces to form a band is a simple one, explains Blasko. “We were just talking about making music and writing and stuff like that one night after one of Sally’s gigs and the three of us just felt like it’d be a really nice thing to do together.” Given the trio are all used to being front and centre in their respective solo careers, how do they decide who gets prime position on stage when they play together live? “You’ll notice that we actually are just next to each other on stage,” chips in Throsby dryly, giggling and quashing any notion of inflated artistic egos. “It’s a bit of a combination of who’s singing the lead vocal but then how well can I hear myself through the monitors if I keep changing mic spots?” chips in Seltmann.

To date the triumvirate has released three singles from their eponymous debut – Light All My Lights, Even Though I’m A Woman and On My Own – each featuring a different member on lead vocals and each paired with a stunning video featuring male actors (Barry Otto, Aden Young and John Waters respectively) miming to, dancing and interpreting the songs. The concept was all Blasko’s, says Throsby. “We were all at a loss for something that was really exciting and Sarah had this idea – she’d worked with Barry Otto on Hamlet, she composed the music for a Bell Shakespeare production and had seen him dancing the way he does in that clip by the stage just for fun and I guess had put that image away in her mind and thought it’d be great to bring it out sometime.”

Seeker Lover Keeper are set to embark on a tour with a twist over the coming weeks – they will be performing around the country not in the usual pubs or theatres, but in churches and cathedrals. Entitled the Heavenly Sounds tour, the group will bring their angelic voices to a patch of hallowed ground near you soon. But what inspired the change in venues? “The album has been received really well and the [previous] tour went so well we just really felt like it would be silly not to do more shows,” explains Blasko. “But we want to do the shows in an environment that really supports the sound and so we thought it would be a nice idea to do a church tour, something a little bit different and in an environment that was really going to enhance what we were doing.”

I wonder out loud whether or not the fact the shows will take place in churches might affect the ticket buying decision process for non-religious fans of the band. Throsby doesn’t seem to think so. “Well I’m not religious,” she states, “but I don’t think I feel awkward. I think our fans are quite open-minded.” Blasko laughs, before adding “it might feel awkward because they don’t think they’ll be able to drink anything there. They’ll have to drink beforehand or carry a hip flask.” The other two then begin to toss around ideas as to how punters could get around the lack of alcohol at the upcoming shows, before a light turns on in Blasko’s mind. “We could do communion!” she blurts excitedly. “Let’s do communion.” Queue everyone bursting into a fit of laughter.

So the group hope their fans will be open to the idea of seeing them perform in churches, but what about the churches themselves? How receptive were they to the idea of playing host to a show of this sort? “We haven’t really had a lot of contact with it actually,” explains Blasko. “I have heard that some places were a little bit resistant to having secular music within their walls, but they seem to be okay.”

As for the group’s plans following the upcoming tour, Seeker Lover Keeper will be put on the backburner and everyone intends to return to their respective solo pursuits. “I want to have a little rest and I haven’t planned too far in advance actually. Sally, what are you doing?” Throsby asks. “I’m gonna make another solo album,” responds Seltmann, with Blasko concurring, adding that she is laying the groundwork for her fourth album at the moment in London. It appears the Heavenly Sounds tour might be the last chance in a while to see these three sirens on stage together, so say your prayers and get to a nearby church quick smart.

Seeker Lover Keeper will play an intimate sold out show at St Paul’s Anglican Church on Friday November 25. Support will be provided by Henry Wagons. You can catch them at Homebake Festival in Sydney on Saturday December 3. homebake.com.au .   

Jack Colwell

JUMPIN’ JACK COLWELL

When a musician lists his type of influences as “quite dark; people like Bridezilla, Nick Cave and early Patrick Wolf”, coupled with the fact that he’s been trained as a classical pianist at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music and can also play guitar, double bass, autoharp and pretty much anything else that you can throw at him, you know he’s on track to make something pretty special. The young man I’m referring to is JACK COLWELL, the Sydney-based frontman for indie folk act Jack Colwell & The Owls. Colwell is in the midst of promoting his new single Hopechest and will soon be putting it on display for audiences to hear in Sydney, Melbourne and Canberra.

Given his classical background, it seems a little odd that Colwell is gracing the stages of intimate pubs instead of lavish concert halls. “Well, I wasn’t that good at writing classical pieces,” he offers. “I was okay, but I knew a lot of people who were better. [From a young age] I found it really easy to write songs. I’m even named after a Rolling Stones song, Jumpin’ Jack Flash, and one of my middle names is Wolfgang, which my Mum gave me after her favourite composer Mozart. So even in my name there’s a marriage between the two genres.”

Adapting genres and making them his own seems to be a bit of a trademark for Colwell, whose new single is a reworking of a song written in the ‘60s by an obscure English folk singer. “The song is an adaptation of a Vashti Bunyan song called Diamond Day,” he explains. “These days to do a rework of a song, certainly in terms of classical music – it’s not a big deal. Classical composers use themes from other people’s music to echo an idea but then take the idea further.” A technique another of Colwell’s idols, Tori Amos, has also employed on her latest album. He continues, “The melody from Diamond Day is used in Hopechest in order to echo that traditional English folk heritage, which is what my background is – being English and Welsh – but then it takes it into a view of my own.”

Normally Colwell plays live accompanied by a talented backing band, but for his upcoming Canberra show he’ll be treating fans in the capital to a special, one of a kind solo performance. “They’ll probably hear a mix of older and new material, rather than just the stuff that’ll be coming out next year on my debut album Picture Window,” he says. “I think doing a solo show is probably one of the scariest things you can do because it’s just so much about you. For a very long time I didn’t really believe in myself as a solo player. But since having a successful run with the band shows, that gave me the power back in myself to have that presence for a solo show and to really make sure that when I was singing these songs I really believed in what I was singing.”

Jack Colwell will play a solo show at The Front in Lyneham on Saturday November 19, alongside James Fahy and Lachlan Bryan. Tickets are $5 on the door.

Nick Cave, Saint Nick

A few months ago I stumbled upon a video on YouTube that I didn’t know much about other than the title, which, for reasons you’ll soon discover, immediately caught my eye. It was called The Ship Song Project; a video promoting the Sydney Opera House. Once I clicked play it took exactly 14 seconds for the goosebumps to set in. The reason? None other than Neil Finn himself emerged from the shadows and began to caress those memorable piano chords which kick off one of NICK CAVE’s most beautiful tracks, The Ship Song. The video then goes on to feature cameos from some huge names in music and the arts – Sarah Blasko, Paul Kelly, Katie Noonan and Daniel Johns, to name just a few. All joined together in their love for the iconic venue and all paying tribute to one of Australia’s most treasured songwriters.

The stars must have recently aligned for the seasoned singer; people from all corners are suddenly rushing to recognise and pay tribute to his inimitable musical genius. triple j has also hopped on board, organising a series of concerts in November which will feature some high class local talent reinterpreting Cave’s extensive catalogue of work.

It would be fair to say that I am a devotee of Mr Cave. He is currently and will undoubtedly remain my most played Australian artist. I’ve elbowed and pushed my way to the front of moshpits just to get the chance to reach for his skinny, outstretched arm live in concert. I attended the same exhibition featuring Cave keepsakes in two different states. His striking visage adorns the wall of my apartment. I even once went as far as donning a cheap suit and slicking my then-shoulder length hair back in classic Cave style to attend a rock star-themed party. But what is it about the Warracknabeal, Victoria native that inspires such fervent adulation and loyalty from his followers? “Yeah, and why all the tributes?” I hear you chip in. Well, dear reader, to begin with, the contribution he has made to Australian culture at large (and I’m not just talking rock ‘n’ roll – he’s an acclaimed film score composer and published novelist as well) over the better part of the last four decades is unparalleled and invaluable. Let me explain.

Cave has played in a number of bands over the years. Rather than impart a tidbit about each, I’d like to focus mainly on the band that led me to him and that I hold closest to my heart: Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds. Born from the ashes of Cave’s high school post-punk band The Birthday Party in 1983, the Seeds are still going strong to this day – a whopping 28 years and 14 studio albums later.

The Bad Seeds have never really flirted with commercial success; they’ve never needed to. The closest they’ve come was on 1996’s Murder Ballads, which included a bewitching duet with pop princess Kylie Minogue entitled Where The Wild Roses Grow. It was around this time that Cave coincidentally also received a nomination from the MTV Awards for Best Male Artist. He famously wrote to thank them for but politely refuse the nomination. Here is an excerpt from that letter:

“[My muse] comes to me with the gift of song and in return I treat her with the respect I feel she deserves – in this case this means not subjecting her to the indignities of judgement and competition. My muse is not a horse and I am in no horse race and if indeed she was, still I would not harness her to this tumbrel – this bloody cart of severed heads and glittering prizes. My muse may spook! May bolt! May abandon me completely!”

He also stated “I am in competition with no one” which, taken out of context, could be interpreted as pretentious – but it’s true. Who else can do what Nick Cave does? Show me a man who in one song can embody a rabid and rampaging priest spitting fire over his cowering congregation while in the next sings a low-key and mournful ballad about love and loss. There is a Bad Seeds song for every mood, ranging in style from big band to gospel, clattering rock ‘n’ roll to sweet piano lullabies. The one thread that binds them all together is Cave’s wonderfully expressive and deep voice and his always highly intelligent and vividly descriptive lyrics.

There is something about Nick Cave that drew me in, an elusive spark that I’ve found difficult to clearly pinpoint for the purposes of this article. Everything about him I am drawn to. He exudes charisma and confidence in spades and his opinions are for the most part cheeky and anti-establishment. He has a wicked sense of humour that only seems to grow more crude and inappropriate with each passing year (his latest novel The Death of Bunny Munro features countless references to female genitalia and Worm Tamer, the second track of his latest album with Bad Seeds offshoot act Grinderman, features the charming line “My baby calls me the Loch Ness Monster / Two great big humps and then I’m gone”). But perhaps the thing I appreciate most about Nick is that he is an Australian who has built and maintained a long and internationally successful career in music whilst never deviating from his steadfast commitment to artistic integrity. His accomplishments rightly deserve to be celebrated. And with middle age showing no signs of wearying him, his best work may still be yet to come.

Straight To You: triple j’s tribute to Nick Cave features artists such as Bertie Blackman, Adalita and Tim Rogers and will take place at the Royal Theatre on Wednesday November 16. Tickets are available through Ticketek.

The Jezabels

EASY TO LOVE

It’s not every day that the pathways leading to a major stage at Splendour in the Grass festival are forcibly closed due to crowd congestion, least of all at three o’clock in the afternoon. But, lo and behold, that’s what took place earlier this year as frenzied festival-goers flocked to the GW McLennan tent, climbing over one another to get a glimpse of emerging young Sydney band The Jezabels.

“It was pretty fun. I couldn’t really tell how many people were there, but apparently it was really packed,” says a charmingly modest Heather Shannon, the quartet’s keyboardist and synth player. “I don’t know how many people the tent holds but apparently the crowd was kind of spilling out the back, so I guess if you include all those people it probably would have been one of the biggest [gigs we’ve ever played].”

Starting off her career as a classically trained pianist in Byron Bay, it was at university in Sydney where Shannon’s musical course changed slightly, teaming up with fellow Byron local Hayley Mary (vocals) and new friends Sam Lockwood (guitars) and Nik Kaloper (drums) to form a band. For someone more accustomed to conservatoriums and Chopin, the indie rock scene Shannon now found herself a part of took some getting used to. “I found it a bit of a challenge at first to play and write pop music because it was something that I’d never really done before,” she says. “It was a pretty weird transition really, because I finished uni and I’d been playing in recitals and then straight away we were on tour around the world and playing in a band. That was very strange, actually.”

Another challenge presented itself in the band room; that of melding the eclectic influences of the collective and producing something resembling a cohesive sound. “Naturally I would, through my influences, play some particular harmonies or sounds that have got a classical sound. Hayley’s always liked pop music, Nik was in a metal band and Sam used to play a lot of country stuff, so we’ve all got our differences,” she explains. As for smoothing out any stylistic creases, compromise proved to be the key. “I think everyone ends up with a part they like. We just have to make sure that the parts work together.”

The band shot to fame after their music was featured on the triple j Unearthed website and were subsequently selected to play a spot at the Field Day festival in early 2010. But Shannon offers a possible alternative explanation for the group’s sudden far-reaching exposure. “There’s a video online that a guy called Danny MacAskill did on his BMX and he’s quite well known in that world of BMXing,” she explains. “He used one of our songs as the backing track and it’s had a million views worldwide, so wherever we go there’s always people at the gigs like ‘oh I heard that song in the Danny MacAskill video’. I think that’s been one of the biggest reasons why we’ve had a crowd overseas, just that video alone.”

BMX videos aside, the main drawcard for those clambering to get to a Jezabels show is the vibrancy, originality and sincerity of their music. The band have released three highly acclaimed EPs to date – The Man Is Dead, She’s So Hard and Dark Storm – and have enjoyed high rotation on radio with sprawling singles like Hurt Me, Easy To Love and Mace Spray. Now it’s finally come time for the release of the group’s debut album, Prisoner, and interestingly none of the previous hits make an appearance on the track listing.

“We just felt it was a bit pointless to re-release a song that’s already been released,” explains Shannon. “Mace Spray has already had lots of radio play and so have Hurt Me and Easy To Love, so we didn’t think there was any point because people had already heard it and it was kind of old news. We wanted to challenge ourselves to try and write new stuff and I think whenever we write a new song it always feels like we’re getting better, so I guess we felt we’d be able to write better stuff.”

Another talking point about the new album is that despite significant interest from a variety of major record labels, the band decided to stick to their DIY guns and release Prisoner independently. “We went through a period of a whole lot of meetings, meeting labels in Australia, but by the time that had happened we’d already established quite a big fan-base so the interest from those people came sort of late for us,” says Shannon. “We’d already toured a lot in the cities and rurally as well, so people already knew us and we felt like at the time we couldn’t get anything out of signing with anybody.”

As for what concert attendees can expect on the upcoming Prisoner tour around the country, Shannon plays her cards close to her chest. “It’s kind of a weird thing to think about because you spend all your time thinking about how you can make it sound good and then you’ve got to think about actually ‘oh my god, this stage is so big and there’s the four of us’ so you’ve got to make it look nice,” she says. “I think people can expect that there’ll be a really good show.”

The Jezabels debut album, Prisoner is out now, and available through all good record stores. Catch The Jezabels along with supports Hey Rosetta! and Alpine live at the ANU Bar on Wednesday October 19. Tickets cost $30.65 + bf and can be purchased through Ticketek.

GOTYE

MIRRORED REFLECTIONS

Were he not already an extraordinarily talented musician, I’m confident there’d be a career waiting for Wally De Backer in the circus. The man otherwise known as Gotye has displayed the traits of a seasoned all-round circus performer. With a penchant for juggling two different musical acts and recently proving he looks damn good covered head to toe in body paint, de Backer wouldn’t look out of place at a Cirque du Soleil show. Since the last time we spoke, which was way back in 2007 to discuss his breakout masterpiece Like Drawing Blood, the Victorian-based independent artist has gone on to win an ARIA Award, garner the #11 spot in triple j’s countdown of the Hottest 100 Australian Albums of All Time and, most recently, pack out a stage at Splendour in the Grass. He also somehow finds time to write and tour with his other, less well known ‘60s rock-inspired band The Basics. How on earth does he manage to squeeze talking with journalists into his busy schedule? He multi-tasks, of course.

“I’m actually still at the post office,” admits De Backer, between issuing instructions to an unwitting Australia Post employee. “I’m just trying to express post proofs to the UK to get my vinyl finished on time.” The vinyl he’s referring to contains the long-awaited third Gotye album Making Mirrors, something a sizeable portion of his ever-growing fan-base has been waiting on with bated breath for the last five years. There’s the parts you’re probably already familiar with; the Winton Musical Fence-sampling dystopian lamentations of Eyes Wide Open and the beautiful new break-up single Somebody That I Used To Know, which is currently going gangbusters on radio and online (Ashton Kutcher tweeted about it, seriously). But there’s also a slew of yet to be discovered gems, including upbeat and infectiously catchy soul song I Feel Better and State of The Art, a vocally warped love letter to an antique organ.

De Backer appears to have struck a universal nerve with Somebody That I Used To Know, which sees him share vocal duties with up and coming Kiwi singer Kimbra. “It seemed to go down really well with the audience,” he says of the reception the song received at Splendour a few weeks back. “My sound guy clocked them at 115 dBA which is like ten decibels shy of a jumbo jet flying ten metres overhead.” Talk about an enthusiastic response!

One of the reasons the song has soared in popularity is the stunning (and quite revealing) video that accompanies it. With a reputation for producing primarily animated clips, it comes as somewhat a surprise when the camera pans up on what is eventually revealed to be De Backer’s bare thigh. Over the course of the video both he and Kimbra are painstakingly painted from head to foot in a kaleidoscope of colours, a feat that took two very long days of filming to achieve. “There was a bit of deep pain there,” he reveals. “I’ve got a little bit of a bad back so that doesn’t help standing straight for six hours trying not to move. I had moments where I was like ‘okay, this is such a simple thing but man, I’m ready to scream’. But on reflection it was definitely worth it; it proved to be a great clip and it wasn’t so tough in the end. I’d do it again,” he laughs.

What of the fact that he had to stand almost naked in front of a group of people for prolonged periods – surely that must have been a confronting experience? “It felt more awkward for a few people around actually. I cut part of my underpants to gaffa tape them around the part of my leg that’s used in the first shot. Generally over the course of doing those shots the gaffa tape and my underpants would always be flapping open and I was just like ‘oh it’s not even worth bothering. I’m not embarrassed, you know. There’s nothing here we haven’t seen before.’ But the cinematographer would come up and give me some more tape and was like ‘you just take the time you need to be comfortable’ and I’m like ‘dude, don’t worry, I’m fine. It’s alright, I’ve been nude in front of people before, not that often, but it’s okay’,” he giggles.

Try as he might, De Backer’s secondary musical project The Basics have yet to rival the success of his solo work. His steadfast commitment to long-term bandmates Tim Heath and Kris Schroeder is admirable, but likely one of the main causes of the lengthy delay between Gotye albums. But, to his defence, de Backer chips in that Gotye wasn’t completely forgotten in the interim. “I only got a chance to find a way to release Like Drawing Blood in Europe and Japan two years after it came out in Australia,” he explains. “On some level I felt like I was actually still busy with it and was doing active things for Gotye even though in Australia it would have been like I was just off the scene and completely absent.”

De Backer is set to make up for any perceived absence from the Australian music scene over the coming months, as he heads out on tour to delight the nation with new material. So far he’s managed to sell out multiple shows in Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane; an impressive feat. Before we part ways I chide him into pledging that next time it won’t be as long between drinks for Gotye. “I would hope that even if this record goes crazy which, based on how things are going, it seems like it might have the chance to do, that it wouldn’t be five years before I put out another Gotye record,” he laughs. Everyone at these upcoming sold out shows is going to hold you to that, Wally. No pressure.

You can see Gotye live at the Foreshore Summer Music Festival, held in the Parliamentary Triangle on Saturday November 26. Third release tickets are available through Moshtix for $119.95 + bf.

Lamb

FIVE KINDS OF AMAZING

No, not Gwen Stefani’s fashion label. LAMB, as in the modest Mancunian drum ‘n’ bass duo who gained attention in the late ‘90s and early ‘00s with heartbreakingly beautiful tracks like Gorecki and Gabriel. Still not ringing any bells? Well, you could be forgiven for having a mental blank because as a unit the pair have largely been absent from the music scene ever since their 2004 split. It took a five year hiatus, three solo albums and a lot of soul searching for singer Lou Rhodes and programmer/beat maker Andy Barlow to reconvene and resume touring. Finally this year has seen the release of 5, the group’s fifth album and follow up to 2003’s Between Darkness and Wonder.

But before we talk about that, let’s jet back in time a little to late December 2009. This writer was in attendance at Melbourne’s Prince of Wales hotel as an enthusiastic Rhodes and Barlow took to the venue’s cramped stage for one of their first Australian shows since the split. The pair played their opening song and afterwards were met with a deafening roar that lasted at least a minute, leaving the band gobsmacked and unable to continue until the ruckus had receded. I put it to Rhodes that moments like that must have made her and Barlow think ‘why on earth did we ever stop?’.

“Gosh,” she laughs, “I think you’re lost for words at those kinds of moments. It’s just amazing when you get that kind of response. It’s like ‘wow... I’m just going to have to take this for a while.’” But, as happened at the show in question, it doesn’t take long for Rhodes to get back on point.

Despite the sort of rapturous reception they received from audiences, she continues, “We’re both glad that we did split because I think we’ve come to a really good place as a result of that time apart. We’d come to the end of a chapter for Lamb back in 2004. We’d had ten years, four albums and our relationship had become a bit frayed.” In addition to the pair’s inner tension, they also faced mounting outside pressures from their record label Mercury (a subsidiary of Universal) to release more commercial sounding music.

Rhodes admits that she had been longing for a change in musical direction, but not quite the shift their record label was after. “By that time I was really aching to make acoustic music,” she explains. “I guess I was trying to pull Lamb in that direction and in retrospect that just doesn’t work. Lamb isn’t about that. So I was able to go off and do my solo records and tour acoustically and fulfil that need. It means that [now] Lamb can be Lamb.”

During their time apart, Rhodes wasn’t the only one keeping busy. Despite the fact that he was quite devastated by the break up (“he was so used to being ‘Andy from Lamb’ that when Lamb split he didn’t know who he was, in a way”), Barlow travelled, became a father and worked on his own solo project as well as producing other records. Following a string of ‘one off’ reunion shows in 2009, Barlow offered to assist Rhodes with the recording of her latest solo album, One Good Thing, at his home studio. “It became obvious that he was quite a changed man in a lot of ways,” she says. “That was a really positive process and part of the deal was that I agreed that I would sing on one or two songs for his Lowb project. That led to us working on Strong The Root, which of course became one of the songs on 5 and the process of working on that – it was almost like Lamb came into the room without us even planning it.”

Not long after, the pair had a fateful phone conversation which Rhodes remembers was the catalyst to the band’s reformation. “He was like ‘you know Lou, I really miss Lamb. Give me one good reason why we shouldn’t make another album’,” she explains. “And I tried to think of a reason, but I couldn’t. Then we decided we’d get back into the studio and see how it went and of course we had Strong The Root anyway, because it really did feel like a Lamb song. So that was the beginning, really.”

The break from Lamb inspired a renewed vigour for working with Barlow, though not all the song writing came easy to Rhodes. The lyrics booklet for 5 details her constant struggle with writer’s block. “The whole album was overcoming that, really,” she says. “My history as a songwriter has been mostly writing love songs and I came to a point where I was so disillusioned with love that it wasn’t my muse anymore and failing that I didn’t know what to write about. A lot of the songs were me sitting there going ‘oh I don’t know what to write’ and Andy going ‘well... get on with it!’” she laughs. “He doesn’t mess around, you know. He doesn’t indulge my struggles at all. It was really interesting for me to challenge myself beyond my comfort zone and I really like the result.”

On the subject of the future, Rhodes isn’t one to peer too deep into the crystal ball. “I would like there to be more Lamb albums,” she says, “[but] I’d also like to do another solo album before too long. What I’ve learnt is that I love Lamb for what Lamb is; the amazing programmed stuff and the sub-bass and the power behind it and all of that, but I love making acoustic music as well, so it’s really good to feed both of those needs. I don’t know what the future holds – it’s all open and I think that’s the way I like it, I like to not necessarily have the next few years charted out and just let it happen.”

Lamb currently don’t have any plans to tour Oz (they were just here in February) but Rhodes says “I don’t think you can keep us away for long.” In the meantime, enjoy their excellent new release 5, which is available from all good record stores.

Iron and Wine

IRON MAN

I’m sure you’re familiar with the saying that a dog owner’s appearance can quite often reflect that of his/her pet. So too does the soothing acoustic folk music of IRON & WINEreflect the polite and unassuming personality of its creator, Sam Beam. Beam has just completed his fourth album, entitled Kiss Each Other Clean, and is about to embark on an extensive global tour to support its release. Though after speaking with the bearded troubadour for a good 15 minutes, it’s clear that for him touring is a necessity rather than a burning passion.

“I like to talk to people but I also like to work on my stuff and hang out with my kids,” Beam says, half-heartedly attempting to dismiss the charge that he’s a bit of a recluse. “I’m not a hermit,” he laughs, “but I definitely am a homebody.” A lifestyle which isn’t exactly conducive to that of a well known musician. “I just treat it like a job and go put my time in and then I go home and try to relax,” he explains. “Because I have so many responsibilities at home we end up not touring as much as most people do, but we tour pretty consistently. It just takes us a little while longer to get around to everywhere.”

The fact that Beam’s upcoming tour schedule is so extensive is due in large part to the success of Kiss Each Other Clean’s predecessor, The Shepherd’s Dog. Released in 2007, the album opened new doors for Beam as it was snapped up, track by track, by Hollywood to soundtrack TV shows (Grey’s Anatomy, amongst others) and movies (remember the prom scene in Twilight“It’s been kind of a slow, steady thing. I didn’t feel that there was a gigantic burst of notoriety,” Beam explains. “Each time you put out a record you plant a block on whatever you’re building and if you’re around long enough, people start to hear about it.”

Having his music play in the background while Bella and Edward lustily lock eyes on the dance floor undoubtedly helped spread the word about Iron & Wine, but it does raise an interesting issue – the age old quandary about ‘indie’ musicians licensing their songs for use in television, movies and advertisements. Beam doesn’t seem too fussed about the notion of ‘selling out’. “No, it doesn’t cross my mind,” he says, “because I have a bunch of children to feed. I feel like it would be different if I was writing jingles, like writing a song about vampires just to get it into a vampire movie. I write Iron & Wine songs and if someone wants to rent ‘em, that’s fine!” he chuckles.

Iron & Wine’s gorgeous new album Kiss Each Other Cleanis now available from all good record stores. Sam has no current plans to tour down under, but did add “I love Australia – I want to be there sooner rather than later.”

Grinderman

Let me start this off with a short disclaimer: I love Nick Cave. In my eyes, this deity of Australian culture can do no wrong. So if you can’t handle a bit of personal bias, it’s probably best to shuffle along now. The man is an undisputable legend, boasting an extraordinary artistic career which spans the best part of the last three decades. You may know him as the hot-headed howler who fronted post-punk pioneers The Birthday Party, though his most well known (and loved) work has come via his stalwart group Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds. When not fronting rock bands, Cave also moonlights as a published novelist and regularly collaborates with his multi-instrumentalist muse Warren Ellis to create gripping film soundtracks.

Phew! With a resume like that, the 53 year old could be forgiven for taking it easy. But age has not wearied him; if anything, Cave is more focussed and prolific than ever. The latest project he’s thrown himself into is a demented and devilishly perverse offshoot of the Bad Seeds. It’s called GRINDERMAN and the group is just about to tour the country with the Big Day Out on the back of their highly acclaimed sophomore effort, Grinderman 2. I was lucky enough to get the chance to speak with Jim Sclavunos, the American who drums for both bands and has been a part of Cave’s inner circle since the mid-‘90s.

“The origins of Grinderman were actually in this ‘Nick Cave solo’ thing that we were doing,” Sclavunos explains. “It never really had a proper name. Nick and Warren had started that at one point and it was a way of Nick being able to play live more frequently because the Bad Seeds are such a complicated operation to take on the road. Everybody was for the most part living in Australia, so he wanted a little operation that could do some of the smaller cities, some of the smaller venues, and eventually Marty [P. Casey, bass] and I got pulled into the ranks.”

One notable musical aspect that has set apart Grinderman from its predecessor is its brazen and unashamedly sleazy lyrics. No Pussy Blues was the group’s first big single; a sordid tale in which Cave, try as he might, is unable to convince the object of his affection to reciprocate his advances (and that’s putting it quite politely). The twisted humour continues on Grinderman 2. Take Worm Tamer for example: “Well my baby calls me the Loch Ness Monster / Two great big humps and then I’m gone.”

Sclavunos believes this kind of humour has always been present in Cave’s words, though it might not have always been so prominent. “[The lyrical humour has] often been so dark or subtle that people just didn’t pick up on it,” he says. “For years now there’s been sort of a sense of the Bad Seeds being a serious band, which is quite often totally belied by... take Murder Ballads for example. There’s an incredible amount of downright funny stuff on it. It’s always been there; we wear it a bit more on our sleeves because it seems appropriate to the kind of general attitude of Grinderman.”

Though humorous lyrics seem to have been one constant in Cave’s output, other aspects of his life have changed drastically over the course of his career. Long gone are the wild days of alcohol and drug abuse; Cave is a family man now and approaches songwriting with a business-like attitude. Sclavunos reckons he’s much better for it. “His life got quite a bit more stable and part of that was getting clean, raising a new family with a new wife and reaching a certain age where your attitude just sort of changes.” He continues, “he’s been madly prolific in the past few years. I have to take that as quite a positive thing and a noticeable change.”

Prolific is an understatement. In the last four years Cave has blessed us with both Grinderman albums, 2008’s stellar Bad Seeds release Dig, Lazarus, Dig!!! and has promised in recent interviews that 2011 will herald the arrival of the group’s as yet untitled fifteenth album. “We’re quite excited about the new Bad Seeds album,” Sclavunos admits. “It’s going to be quite an adventure because this’ll be the first time the Bad Seeds exist as a wholly different band than they were when they started. Nick’s the only remaining person from the original line-up; it’s been moving and evolving for years and when Mick [Harvey] left a couple of years ago, that was the last tie with the past.”

I query as to whether the current pattern of taking it in turns to release an album from each group will continue to be the norm. “Remains to be seen,” ponders Sclavunos. “That’s been the plan by default, if you could call it a plan, for the past couple of years. As long as both bands feel relevant to the people involved, then why not?” Go for it, I say. Switching gears and stepping into Grinderman mode has invigorated the Bad Seeds, with everyone – the band members and listeners alike – benefitting from the outcome.

Grinderman are headlining the upcoming Big Day Out festival. Canberra’s closest leg is either of the Sydney shows, held on Wednesday-Thursday January 26-27. Some limited tickets are still available through the BDO website.

Josh Brown's Top 10 Albums of 2010

10. Sia – We Are Born [Monkey Puzzle/Inertia]

Apparently this is the album that Sia has wanted to make for a long time, and when you listen to it, it’s easy to see why. She sounds like she’s having a blast and the fun definitely rubs off.

9. Goldfrapp – Head First [Mute]

Goldfrapp ride the divide between introverted atmospheric chamber pop and glitzy disco with ease. It’s the latter that they returned to in 2010, with a good dose of ‘80s glam swagger added to the mix.

8. Washington – I Believe You Liar [Universal]

What a year for Megan Washington, and what a record to back it up! It’s proved to be the gift that keeps on giving, packed to the brim full of quirky and intelligent pop songs. No wonder she scooped the ARIAs.

7. Sufjan Stevens – The Age of Adz [Asthmatic Kitty]

Oh Sufjan, you keep us hanging for five years in a post-Illinoise daze and finally return with a crazy mixture of glitch, bombast and autotune. Equal parts risk and ambition, the indie wunderkind manages to pull off an incredible album once again.

6. Zola Jesus – Stridulum II [Pod/Inertia]

A latecomer to this list, Zola Jesus burst out of nowhere and into my life with the brilliant Stridulum EP. Building on its forerunner’s dark energy, Stridulum II is for anyone who likes their female singers brooding and with a voice so powerful it could rattle windows.

5. Jónsi – Go [Capitol]

Steering away from the ambient (and forgettable) turn he took with other Sigur Rós side project Jónsi & Alex, Go is an uplifting and inspired new direction for the angelic Icelandic singer.

4. The Besnard Lakes – The Besnard Lakes Are The Roaring Night [Jagjaguwar/Inertia]

The shimmering guitars and cavernous vocals of And This Is What We Call Progress was my first taste of this amazing and ambitious record by Canadian indie-prog band The Besnard Lakes. Love at first listen.

3. Beach House – Teen Dream [Mistletone]

I must admit my original reaction to hearing Norway was that it sounded way out of tune and horrible. Then something clicked and now I can’t get enough of this gorgeous and dreamy record.

2. Owen Pallett – Heartland [Domino Records]

If gay marriage was legal in this country and both Owen and I didn’t already have boyfriends, I’d propose. Seriously, the guy is a genius! Heartland is soothing orchestral pop at its best.

1. The National – High Violet [4AD]

“I was carried to Ohio in a swarm of bees / I never married, but Ohio don’t remember me.” Yup, still gives me chills after the umpteenth listen. Oh, and the rest of the album is pretty outstanding too. Ahead of the pack, deservedly so.

Cloud Control

2010 has been a pretty exciting year for up and coming Blue Mountains indie band CLOUD CONTROL. The group’s bassist, Jeremy Kelshaw, sat down for a bit of a chinwag with BMA to discuss their impending move to the UK, their stunning debut LP Bliss Release and what it was like to support The Temper Trap and Tame Impala.

I hear the band is relocating to the UK next year. What prompted the move? We’ve never been a band with a five year plan. The idea to spend some time in the UK next year has only come about recently after some love from our now UK label Infectious Music (home of The Temper Trap and Local Natives). It’s always been a dream for us all to play music full time and this move is one step closer to doing that. So who knows how it’ll end up?

Bliss Release has been nominated for a swag of awards this year (and won some too!) at the ARIAs, the Air Awards and the J Awards. Is it nice to receive this sort of recognition from the industry? Along with no five year plan, we wrote the album with no expectations or thoughts towards how the album would go critically. So is it nice? Totally! Crazy, even. We worked real hard on the album and think it turned out great, so it’s inspiring when other people agree.

Your upcoming show in Canberra at Transit Bar will definitely be an intimate affair. Do you prefer smaller shows like that or bigger ones, like the sets you will perform at the Laneway Festival early next year? Big or small, I don’t care – I just like playing venues that are full. It makes people go nuts and demands you play till you’ve got nothing left. Laneway will be awesome. This will be our first travelling festival experience and it’s great that it’s with Laneway. Lots of mutual love!

You’ve played some shows in the UK recently supporting some other rising Aussie talent, specifically The Temper Trap and Tame Impala. How important were those shows in getting your name out there internationally? Any interesting tour stories you’d care to share? All the shows in the UK have been great and both of those bands are full of great people too. We also played with Local Natives who are also an amazing band. Getting your name out there is about playing as much as you can with likeminded artists, so that’s what we’re doing. Tour stories, hmmm… Briefly: Noel Gallagher, Noel Fielding, baked dinners, Stonehenge, X Files and snow fights. Good times.

What plans does Cloud Control have for 2011? Do you plan to work on the follow up to Bliss Release while in the UK? Shows, shows and more shows. We will try and write where we can but we are in unchartered waters so we’ll sort something out!

Catch Cloud Control with support from Cat Cat live at Transit Bar on Thursday December 16. Tickets are available through Moshtix.

Clare Bowditch

CLARE BOWDITCH must be some kind of superwoman. There’s no other possible explanation for how the gorgeous redhead finds the time not only to write and tour her beautifully crafted albums, but question senior political figures on a variety of important social issues in her spare time and, on top of that, raise a family of three young children. Clare squeezed me in between loads of washing to discuss politics, her stunning new album Modern Day Addiction and the three ARIA nominations she’s received because of it

Bowditch, like many of us, was swept up by the soap opera that was this year’s federal election. Some of her more casual fans might be surprised to hear that her recent pre-election appearance on popular ABC panel programme Q&A, voicing her opinion on topics including the proposed mining tax, wasn’t Clare’s first public foray into the political domain. She has somewhat of a history of hobnobbing with political leaders; pressing former Victorian Premier Steve Bracks for an increase to arts funding over afternoon tea a few years ago and, more recently, conducting an hour long interview with Prime Minister Julia Gillard for MySpace. So, did she convince the PM to really open up, one ranga to another?

“She’s a very clever communicator,” Clare reveals. “But she was tired and it was a long interview. There were a few points where she veered onto the party line [but] I got a hopeful glimpse of who she is and it was enough for me to not feel as despairing as I had going into the election.”

All of Clare’s hard work on latest album Modern Day Addiction appears to now be paying off, as she recently scored three nominations for the upcoming ARIA Awards. I begin to question her about how important such awards are, but before I can finish my sentence she jumps in, interrupting and shouting “Imperative! Imperative! I can’t live without ARIAs!” she laughs. “More, more, more! We’ve only got two in our family – I need at least 24 more before I mean anything.”

Jokes aside, one of the more serious aspects of the ARIAs is the red carpet fashion. Last year Clare turned up to the awards wearing a dress entirely made out of garbage bags, in an attempt to draw attention to environmental issues. “I dressed up as Lady Bowdo, my superego,” Clare smirks. “I think that went down pretty well.” I enquire as to whether she might take a leaf out of Lady Gaga’s book for this year’s event and wear something from her local deli instead. “I was going to do a sausage dress,” she responds. “But no, Gaga beat me to it. Fuckin’ Gaga – always in my way.” Though perhaps, given the balancing act she performs between being a musician, a political commentator and a mother, a more appropriate choice of attire would be the cape of a superhero.

Catch Clare Bowditch and the New Slang at Stonefest at the University of Canberra on Saturday October 30. Normal and VIP tickets through Ticketek.

Pikelet

Over the past few years Melbourne-based multi-instrumentalist and singer Evelyn Morris, better known by her adorable alias PIKELET, has been toiling away at her craft. With two captivating albums full of thoughtful indie folk gems now under her belt, it appears that Morris’ hard work is beginning to yield results. Her talent for looping instruments and weaving them together to create intricate and swirling layers within her songs has seen her become the support act of choice for many of her international peers – Dirty Projectors, Beirut and Goldfrapp to name a very select and impressive few. On the eve of a national co-headline tour with Sydney act Richard In Your Mind, Morris spoke eagerly with me regarding some of the big names she’s supported, the pros and cons of playing in a band compared to by herself, and why she would like you to refrain from bringing pikelets to her show.

With a list of support slots that would make any indie aficionado salivate uncontrollably – if the three listed above weren’t enough, try Devendra Banhart, Kaki King and Patrick Watson – there must have been some surreal ‘pinch me, I can’t believe I’m doing this!’ moments. “Every time I’ve supported someone kind of biggish I’ve had a little freak out about it,” Morris confirms. “The biggest, hardest, most scary one was probably Sufjan Stevens. That was one of the first big supports I did and I had to play to 1500 people every night. I’d been listening to his records for a while and when we played with him I was a bit of a nervous wreck! The refreshing thing was that he was extremely friendly and would come and hang out in our bandroom.”

The tour Morris is referring to took place in early 2008, back when her live setup consisted of little more than a stool surrounded by a microphone, a guitar, an accordion and other associated paraphernalia. The 2010 Pikelet line-up is somewhat different, to a degree abandoning the looping techniques that Morris is renowned for in favour of a fuller band sound. “I like playing solo because I know my own mind and I can just run with ideas and it all happens really quickly,” she explains. “But there’s heaps about playing with the band that I love too. The idea of creating things with other people is fascinating and it’s heaps more fun on stage. It’s hard to say which I like better.”

Given her band’s culinary association, it would be fair to make the assumption that some diehard fans have turned up to Pikelet shows in the past with offerings of the delicious golden mini-pancakes. Not so, says Morris. “There have been a couple of shows where the organisers have made pikelets, but there’s never been any fans turning up with them. Pikelets are [best] fresh from the pan, warm with butter on them. It’d be kinda funny to bring them to a gig.” There you have it folks – first eat some pikelets at home to warm your stomach and then come and listen to Pikelet’s music to warm your heart.

Pikelet and Richard In Your Mind’s national co-headline tour stops by the ANU Bar on Friday September 24. Tickets are $15 and can be purchased on the door.

Junip

I daresay you might be familiar with the work of José González. The soft singing Swede rose to prominence in 2005 on the back of his particular brand of sweet acoustic folk, his stunning rendition of compatriot act The Knife’s track Heartbeats and, later, a cover of the seminal trip-hop classic Teardrop by Massive Attack. What you might not know is that prior to achieving this solo success, González and two friends – Tobias Winterkorn (keys) and Elias Araya (drums) – played together in a band called JUNIP. The band’s formation dates back to the late ‘90s, yet it is only now, over a decade later, that the group have finally released their debut LP Fields and are set to tour the upcoming summer festival circuit. I was lucky enough to get a chance to quiz both González and Winterkorn about what took them so long to get organised.

“In 2000 we released one 7” and we recorded a full length that we sent out to some labels [but] didn’t get that much attention,” González explains. “Then I started my solo stuff in 2003.” Between González’s solo commitments, the trio tried on several occasions to devote more attention to Junip, with varying degrees of success. An EP titled Black Refuge was released in 2005 but the band’s momentum was again stalled by competing priorities. “Elias went to study art in Finland and Norway and you, Tobias, you were...” González says, trailing off, waiting for his partner to chip in. “I was studying and working as a teacher and raising a family,” Winterkorn concludes.

Sensing that his bandmates may have felt left behind in the wake of González’s burgeoning solo career, I probe Winterkorn about any bitterness or resentment he may have experienced while biding his time on the sideline. “I was really proud of his success and I don’t feel anger or nothing like that,” Winterkorn says, dismissing any hint of negativity. “Sometimes I almost felt a little jealous because I also wanted success, but then I could be jealous of every artist who’s made it in the world.”

Given González’s successful solo career – which has seen him contribute guest vocals alongside our own Sia Furler on UK downtempo act Zero 7’s 2006 LP The Garden, as well as on a cover of Nick Drake’s Cello Song with The Books on last year’s amazing Dark Was The Night compilation – why dust off Junip? And what differentiates the songs on Fields from those on his solo records? “I always felt like it’s nice to have this other band apart from my solo stuff because I get to do different music,” González says. “The main difference is the music, because the vocals are the same. It’s more fleshed out and the guitar is just a tiny part of the whole sound. There’s more variation with Junip compared to my own songs, a lot more things happening.”

Catch Junip at the Falls Festival at either Marion Bay (TAS) or Lorne (VIC), held concurrently between Tuesday-Saturday December 28-January 1. Tickets available from the Falls website. If you’re lucky.

Sarah Blasko

A J Award, two ARIA awards, chart success and critical acclaim; SARAH BLASKO has had it all. Well, everything except international recognition, that is. It could only have been a matter of time before the enchanting Sydney-based singer outgrew the pond that is the Australian music scene and decided to tentatively dip her big toe into untested international waters. Blasko has undergone a sea change in the last year as she attempts to conquer the European market and it is from her new home in London that she chats with me about relocating to the UK, special edition albums and our mutual love of Joanna Newsom.

Blasko reveals the move to London has been on the cards for quite some time, but the opportunity only recently presented itself when her stellar third album, As Day Follows Night, was picked up by English record label Dramatico for widespread distribution across Europe.

“It’s such a weird feeling starting over in all of these different countries,” Blasko says, on the subject of rebuilding her profile from scratch. “There’s so much ground to cover. It’s been really fun but quite a learning experience at the same time.” Rather than view the experience as a laborious task, Blasko manages to put a positive spin on the situation. “It’s quite refreshing because nobody knows who you are or anything about you. I’ve always lived in Sydney and it was just time to live somewhere different and have a different experience.”

Having said that, diehard fans fear not – the lady hasn’t skipped town for good. Come October, Blasko is set to return to our shores to play a string of dates nationwide. To coincide with the tour, a new edition of As Day Follows Night has been released; this time with a bonus live disc of songs performed over two nights at The Forum in Melbourne late last year. “We thought it would be great to have a record of one of the nights,” Blasko explains. “It was a nice thought for me because I’ve never actually released anything live before and I’ve wanted to for a while.”

Avid collectors will note this is not the first time a special edition of As Day Follows Night has been released. An earlier package contained a collection of special artwork cards that revealed an amazing assortment of vibrant colours when brushed with water. Was this innovative and charming idea a ploy to encourage the bit torrent generation to fork out for a physical copy of the album?

“I think that the record label probably feels that way,” Blasko replies matter-of-factly. “I don’t; I feel pretty happy with an album just standing on its own but then at the same time I’m always a sucker for the special edition of something. I just bought Joanna Newsom’s new album today and it was a special edition version.” I frantically try to maintain my composure as one of my favourite Australian female artists casually namedrops one of my favourite American female artists and continues, “I try to think about what I would like if I was really into someone’s music and to me, having a really limited edition thing is just an exciting concept.”

The move to London seems to have provided the perfect tonic for Blasko; to have a change of scenery which, in turn, has helped her gain a fresh perspective. When asked whether living in another country has made her nostalgic and long for home, she replies bluntly “not really, no. It just really felt like it was time for me to move and the thing is, with being able to play music in Australia, I’ve got opportunities to keep going back, so it’s not like I’m not going to be home for years or anything.” Thank god for that.

Sarah Blasko will be at The Playhouse on Saturday October 30 and Monday November 1. Tickets are still available through the Canberra Theatre for the second show.

Massive Attack

It’s not often that opportunities arise to pick the brains of a member of one of the groups that defined a musical genre. Trip-hop being said genre and Grant Marshall, aka Daddy G of seminal UK outfit MASSIVE ATTACK, being the man in question. Though he and fellow core contributor Robert ‘3D’ Del Naja led the way (along with fellow Bristolians Portishead) in the early ‘90s in the field of downtempo electronica, Marshall reveals that these days he is quick to distance himself from the term.

“We hate being grouped under that term of trip-hop because it seems like you’ve pigeonholed our activities and how we approach music,” he says. “Music’s a set of numbers – it gets redefined every now and then [but] it’s already set in stone what music really is. People sometimes come up with different definitions of sticking those numbers together and that’s what happened with us to a certain extent. We’re still up for learning lots of stuff in the studio and for a lot more experimentation.”

It was in this spirit of experimentation and innovation that the band regrouped after a seven year hiatus and released their highly anticipated album Heligoland. Named after a German archipelago in the North Sea (“It’s something that D read in books,” says Marshall. “He was drawn to it and we liked the sound of the word. There’s no real deep meaning behind it.”), the group’s fifth major studio release is a stark contrast to its predecessor, 100^th Window. “100^th Window was quite a hard album to digest, really,” he admits. “It’s an album with a lot of little sound effects all over the shop. This is more simple and stripped back and the songs hit you straight and direct.”

Heligoland continues Massive Attack’s longstanding tradition of collaborating with a string of amazing guest vocalists. Hope Sandoval (Mazzy Star), Tunde Adebimpe (TV On The Radio), Guy Garvey (Elbow) and Damon Albarn (Blur, Gorillaz) all feature in what could only be described as an all star cast. Of working with such high profile musicians, Marshall says “they’re stars in their own right. With us, it’s really simple; we just go back to when we were DJs and we were playing these people’s records – people like Sinead O’Connor and Elizabeth Fraser. Working with them has been a godsend because we’re big fans and we knocked at their door for help to make the record, to come on board with collaborations and they have.” He notes that a number of the singers the band has been friends with for years, aiding the ease of the collaboration, adding that “it’s been more of a family occasion, this time around. Intimate’s the word.”

One of the most intimate and haunting tracks from Heligoland is Hope Sandoval’s contribution, Paradise Circus. “That’s a really weird one actually, because that is the only collaboration we’ve had that wasn’t an actual face to face,” says Marshall, discussing how the track came into existence. “That was done through the powers of electronics! We originally had quite an orchestral line but trimmed it right down and sent it to Hope because we love all the stuff that she did with Mazzy Star and she’s got this amazing voice. She added a sentiment to it that we love. Turned out to be something quite beautiful, really.”

An important part of the mystique surrounding the band over the years has been the compelling visuals that accompany the music. From the iconic shot in one take Unfinished Sympathy to a singing foetus in the womb in Teardrop, Massive Attack’s videos have always been eye-catching and the most recent Heligoland productions are no exception. The very NSFW Paradise Circus clip showcases an interview with a retired porn star, interspersed with scenes from her glory days, and Splitting The Atom features an incredible journey through a computer generated city frozen in time in a moment of destruction. “We’ve made some amazing videos in the past but they’ve cost millions of pounds to make and those days are gone,” says Marshall. “It was a case of saying to certain producers, ‘listen, we’ll give you literally a tenth of that budget and can you make a video from that?’ and this [the video for Splitting The Atom] is the outcome we get. The less the budget, the more creative the videos are, it seems.”

Given that the group have now been in the public domain for close to two decades and have achieved global acclaim and recognition (Teardrop is the theme tune to TV’s House), it’s refreshing to see that fame hasn’t gone to Marshall’s head. “With tunes like Unfinished Sympathy and Teardrop, you kind of know in your mind’s eye that something special is going on,” he muses. “When you work with someone like Liz Fraser [who sings on Teardrop, in addition to a number of other Massive Attack tracks], you think there’s something special going on whatever song she’s on. So we never thought that would have such an impact, no. You put something out into the public domain and you don’t know what impact it’s going to have until you actually let it go.” Given the group’s track record and the calibre of its guest vocalists, anything they decide to “let go” into the world will almost certainly be an instant classic.

You’d be a fool not to catch Massive Attack at their show at the Royal Theatre on Friday March 19. Tickets are a bargain at $70 for BMA readers through Ticketek.

Metalise

Bertie Blackman

Howling Bells

Juanita Stein, sultry lead singer of brooding Sydney-via-London act HOWLING BELLS, has undergone a huge transformation over the past few years. The first time I saw her perform, at the Sydney Big Day Out in 2003, she struggled to overcome the taunts of rabid Frenzal Rhomb supporters during a main stage set as part of her previous band, Waikiki. These days though, Stein would have none of it. “I’ve grown big balls,” she laughs. “So I don’t think I’d put up with it this time around.” Her attitude isn’t the only thing that’s changed – her band has a new name, home and sound, and has subsequently begun to enjoy a good deal of international success. 

So what inspired the radical change of direction? “I just didn’t really care for it anymore,” she reveals, referring to her old outfit. “I wanted to do something heavier and more meaningful because that’s what I was drawn to. I wasn’t listening to music that sounded like Waikiki at the time, so I remember thinking ‘what the fuck am I making music for that I wouldn’t go and buy?’” 

Changing musical styles went hand in hand with changing address for Stein. She and her bandmates packed up and moved to the UK to start their journey as the newly formed Howling Bells with a clean slate. But it wasn’t as easy as sitting down to a cup of tea and a few scones. “It was terrifying,” she admits. “Overwhelmingly challenging logistically. It was not an easy thing to do.” She tells me that the band contemplated throwing in the towel “every day” and they only overcame the relocation-related obstacles they encountered through “absolute pig stubbornness.” 

Thankfully it didn’t take too long for the band’s persistence to pay off. The Bells’ rise in popularity can be credited in part to hard work, but it also might just have had something to do with the bands they started to score support slots for. Some of the world’s biggest bands – Coldplay, Snow Patrol, Placebo and the Killers – came knocking on Stein’s door requesting the pleasure of her company on stage. She remains modest about the opportunities presented to her. “We’re terribly flattered that these bigger bands want us to support them and play with them and you learn a lot from watching them,” she says. “But you really need your own network within which to connect to an audience. It’s not enough to just support a big band.” 

Howling Bells will soon be in town to showcase songs from their second album, Radio Wars. Stein tells me punters might get a chance to hear new material as well, which they’ve been working hard on. “We’re taking our experiences into consideration and definitely drawing a middle point between the two records, which is somewhere in between earth and the galaxy, if that makes sense.” It certainly does, because it’s clear Stein has her sights set on the stars. 

Howling Bells play the ANU Bar on Thursday December 17. Tickets through Ticketek.

Tim Minchin

Perth-born, London-based Tim Minchin is a man of comedy, music and movement – and he’s bringing his new keyboard axe to Canberra. Yes, that’s right: the axe is coming to town! “I bought the new Roland ax-synth about a week into my last tour and have been playing it in the show ever since. It’ll be in Canberra,” Minchin says.

Minchin’s unique combination of physical theatre, comedy and music has been winning him accolades worldwide. The last five years have seen him grow from Melbourne’s 40 seat Butterfly Club, to playing the stages of the world – including critically acclaimed performances at the Edinburgh Fringe where he also took out the Perrier Award for Best Newcomer.

“The revelation that my music might be more suited to the comedy world came when I did a show at the Melbourne Fringe Festival in 2003...it’s just the coming together of my years of performing, song-writing, gigging and theatre making,” explains Minchin.

“There’s been a lot of memorable shows, as each time you take a step up (in terms of venue size and cred), it’s pretty exhilarating. My recent shows at the Hammersmith Apollo in London were pretty mind blowing. It seats 3500 people, but feels strangely intimate. It was a huge thrill to play on a stage which so many amazing acts have played.”

For those not familiar with Minchin’s quirky take on musical comedy, expect a combination of tunes delivered on and around a grand piano and exploring such important themes as the special bond between redheads, or the ‘goodness’ of the good book. There’s a nine-minute beat poem about a hippie named Storm and some seriously warped love songs. Minchin delivers his idiosyncratic ravings clad in black, bare foot and complete with dark eyeliner and some seriously teased hair. He looks more like a slightly disturbed rock & roll outcast than a performer of the world’s stages, but it’s all part of the act for Minchin.

A man of many talents, Minchin is also a writer and composer for theatre and film and dabbles in acting when the occasion arises.

“At the moment, my career is composing again, as I am concentrating on writing songs for a stage version of Roald Dahl’s ‘Matilda’ for the Royal Shakespeare Company,” says Minchin.

Now, happily settled in London with his young family, Minchin is looking forward to a return to Oz.

“London is definitely our home, but we manage to get back to Australia several months of each year since we moved. We’re very lucky… but it’s fucking hard work.” He’s also looking forward to his first Canberra performance...ever! “Very much [looking forward to Canberra]! I love being places where the majority of my audience hasn’t seen my work!”

Tim Minchin performs at the Canberra Theatre on Dec 6 and 7.

Tori Amos

In terms of acquiring interviews with musical royalty, it doesn't get much bigger than this, folks. At least not for me. If I could go back in time a few years, interrupt my teenage self - who, at the time, was busy flogging From The Choirgirl Hotel harder than a jockey does his Melbourne Cup-winning steed - and tell him that one day I'd be interviewing the one and only TORI AMOS, I think I would have freaked out. Hell, I'm freaking out now. I had the honour of meeting Amos at a meet and greet she conducted on the Canberra leg of her last Australian tour and had my heart pretty much hanging out of my mouth the entire time. I recounted to her a personal experience of loneliness and insignificance that I felt as I stood atop the Empire State Building a couple of years ago, where everything suddenly seemed to make sense to me as I listened to her compelling 9/11-inspired track, I Can't See New York. I was a blubbering mess. And that was just a conversation piece I came up with to fill up the two minutes it took for her to sign my Scarlet's Walk poster and get a photo before she had to be whisked away by a burly security guard to prepare for the show. What chance in hell did I have to maintain an intelligent discussion with the Goddess of Piano for 20 whole minutes?

Thankfully, my nerves prove to be unfounded. Despite her reputation for at times being, shall we say, an eccentric interviewee (listen to her notorious chat with triple j's Richard Kingsmill and you'll see what I mean), Amos was in fine form the night we spoke. Her responses were direct and intelligent and her enthusiasm and warmth radiated down through the phoneline, despite the fact she was calling from thousands of kilometres away.

Amos will soon be in the country to promote her latest record, her eleventh, entitled Midwinter Graces. It's a Christmas record, which at first glance seems an odd choice for an artist of her calibre - a child prodigy who began playing piano at the age of three and one who has remained in the public eye for over two decades. Call me cynical, but aren't Christmas records the domain of the over-the-hill and/or the mundane? Neither of which I would attribute to Amos. "Doug Morris, chairman of Universal Worldwide and the man who broke Little Earthquakes," Amos explains, "said to me 'look, with your background as a minister's daughter and yet your feminist viewpoint and the fact you've made all this music and travelled the world, I've always wanted to know what you would present if you were going to do a seasonal record,'" she says, elaborating on the origins of the project. "He said 'I'm hoping you're going to write your own standards, do a different read and make some of the carols your own.'"

Midwinter Graces offers up a collection of 12 songs, evenly mixed between traditional carols and Amos' own compositions. She reveals that she drew inspiration for the album from Charles Wesley, a leader of the Methodist movement who was known for his hymn-writing abilities. "He would take some of the songs from the bar room - sea shanties and drinking songs - he'd take hit folk melodies of the day and put Christology to it," she says. "So what Doug was encouraging me to do was, 'why don't you do what they did and claim it back?' And I said 'you're funny... you're funny.'" Perhaps not as funny as the concept of a White Christmas-style album to us southern hemisphere dwellers, where a typical Christmas day is spent frolicking at the beach as opposed to making snowmen in the backyard. "Yes," she laughs. "I was thinking about doing a Midsummer Graces for you guys instead."

2009 has been quite the prolific year for Amos, with the release of Midwinter Graces following hot on the heels of its predecessor, Abnormally Attracted to Sin. Following this frenzy of creative activity, I ask how she manages to continue to find new inspiration after all this time. "I think the creative force is this endless well and if you're able to tap into it and co-create, it's a wonderful thing," she says. And what happens if the creative well runs dry one day? "Well, I don't know if it will run dry but I might just become old and then I hope that I will wilt and die at a piano. I'm serious!" she enthuses. "I just hope that I say 'I need to take a little nap for a minute' and then just rest my head on the Bösey and just fall asleep and that's it."

Considering Amos' longevity in the music business, I put it to her that she must be an inspiration for the current crop of emerging left-of-centre female songwriters, including the likes of Regina Spektor, Amanda Palmer and Bat For Lashes. "It's a wonderful place to be in because you can hold a space for the ones that are up-and-coming," she says. "When I was making Under The Pink, my sophomore record, I wasn't competing with people like Kate Bush or Joni Mitchell at that time. Those women were legends, you see; they'd already carved their place in history. I think my contemporaries would be more like Polly Harvey and Björk, women who were out in the early '90s and are still touring and making music. The ones you're talking about are contemporaries for each other and we're sort of like the big sisters."

As our conversation comes to a close, I feel quite ecstatic with how it's played out. I actually managed to carry out an intelligent discussion with one of my biggest musical idols without fainting or sounding too dorky! I think I kept it together pretty well, which is definitely an improvement on the last time we spoke at the meet and greet a couple of years ago. Speaking of which, one final question I have for her is how, considering her busy schedule, does she find the time to chat with her fans before most shows? "When you say 'find the time,' that's bullshit, because I'm pretty busy," she says. "You make the time. You get your ass up and do it - it's about priorities and desire to connect with people. I have a desire to connect because it changes the whole show and my understanding of who I'm playing for. I learn a lot and it keeps me really grounded and from getting involved in that whole celebrity thing, which I think is dangerous because then you're not a good channel anymore."

Tori Amos will play at the Canberra Theatre on Sunday November 15. Tickets can be purchased from www.canberratheatre.org.au.

Empire Of The Sun

Luke Steele strikes me as the kind of man who gets bored quite easily. That might explain his penchant for seeking out new and varied musical collaborators as often as, say, Lady Gaga changes outfits. Though if you saw Steele's latest project, EMPIRE OF THE SUN, play at the Parklife Festival recently you'd be forgiven for arguing that Steele's extravagant costume changes rival that of the American pop oddity. But I digress. The point is the man likes to change things up musically, whether it be within indie, mainstream or even, gasp, hip-hop circles. 

Empire of the Sun, in case you're unaware, make music that is at times comfortably cruisey electronica and others funked up, tripped out psychedelia. The eccentric duo is comprised of Steele and that mane-haired purveyor of delectable dance we've become particularly familiar with over the past few years - Nick Littlemore of Pnau. The pairing wasn't hastily put together overnight, Steele informs me. "I first met Nick back in 2000," he confirms, and after taking a few years to devote attention to their respective primary musical interests - Littlemore with the aforementioned Pnau and Steele with his band The Sleepy Jackson - the seeds of Empire of the Sun were sown with a collaboration. Steele elaborates, telling me that Littlemore wanted him to "sing on the Pnau track, With You Forever, and from that we realised that it was a bit of a waste not capitalising on our magical chemistry. That's the way it started." 

Thankfully the duo didn't  call it quits after just the one song. The "magical chemistry" Steele describes managed to elicit an entire album's worth of material that the pair christened Walking On a Dream. With the record being released in late 2008, it was only at the recent Parklife Festival, which Empire of the Sun headlined, that patrons were lucky enough to catch the first glimpse of exactly what the group's live show would entail. It was a highly anticipated event, with rumours of the involvement of backup dancers, elaborate costumes and tigers and elephants setting the crowd abuzz with excited whispers. The stage was set for a bombastic debut performance, but there was just one problem - Nick Littlemore was nowhere to be found. 

I think I smell a scoop, so I tread carefully as I press Steele for answers, keeping in mind that this could well be sensitive territory for the singer. "It was a bit disheartening at first," he says of his partner's no-show. "I don't really know why he did it." I offer that I've heard that Littlemore left so he could concentrate his efforts on completing the next Pnau record, leaving Steele in the lurch. "Yeah, that's kind of the crux of it but it wasn't negative," he reveals. "It was more like 'I'm going' and that was that. It wasn't malicious, it was kind of bizarre. I think he just needed to disappear." 

The desertion must have dealt a hefty blow to Steele's confidence so close to the group's live debut, surely? "Well, after two weeks of doing my best job as a full on alcoholic, I'd kind of gotten over it and took my father's advice of 'you've got to keep the show on the road' and pretty much took it in my stride," he says. "I didn't really feel alone because there was a band and ten people on stage. It didn't really take too long to get over it, a little heartbreak..." He trails off, leaving me simultaneously unconvinced by the sincerity of his response but full of admiration for his determination to perform for his fans with or without his bandmate. 

Despite the absence of live animals in the Empire set at Parklife (tigers cost thousands of dollars a night to hire - who would have thought?), all reports suggest the tour was a smashing success. "It was a great tour," Steele affirms. "It took quite a few months to put it all together because it took on a theatre project kind of environment - dancers, narration with the music and visuals. [I had to work out] how the songs would be played and make sure that I didn't murder one of the dancers with my headpiece," he laughs. "They're so sharp, those things!" 

Creative costumes and hefty headpieces are all part of the elaborate imagery that Steele has concocted to generate interest in the Empire of the Sun brand. The cover image of Walking On a Dream attempts to paint a complete story within the single picture, in a similar vein to the captivating Star Wars movie posters of decades past. "You've got the sun illuminated in the background, the goddess and the other characters," Steele says. "The vision was to get that same impression you have as a child when you see these different cartoon characters and they just don't belong anywhere except for another world. If an album is accompanied by imaginative visuals, it'll be double as powerful." 

If you didn't get a chance to see Steele and company perform live at Parklife, you'll have another chance when the band take to the stage at the ARIA awards in late November. The pair have been nominated in a whopping 11 categories (take that Gabriella Cilmi!), including Best Group, Single and Album of the Year. "I think it matters if you win something," Steele says of all the recognition and fuss. "But if I get beaten by Jessica Mauboy then the whole thing is a joke!" he laughs. "Being nominated is great and confirmation of where the band - where I'm going. But you know these competitions sometimes - like when Sleepy got beaten by Delta every time it's like 'hey, she's a babe, but how many awards does she need?!'" 

Due to the bizarre and unreliable actions of one half of the duo, the future of Empire of the Sun as an entity is certainly not set in stone. Steele tells me that in terms of future plans he may "work on new Empire Stuff, new Sleepy stuff... but I could be playing the pokies in Germany next year for all I know, really." It doesn't sound like he's too bothered by the uncertainty, but why should he be? The man has a project lined up with Daniel Johns under the moniker Hathaway/Palmer, during the interview he plays me a garbled snippet of a song he recorded with sister Katy from Little Birdy just because "she was in town" and he delights in regaling me with tales of how he came to provide guest vocals for the opening track of rapper Jay-Z's latest album ("My main man Jay called up and had a track which needed some vocals. I was going to fly to New York, but it was going to take too long. I did it at home, sent it over and he called me in the morning and loved it. It was a pretty jam-packed 24 hours." Indeed!). It really is anyone's guess as to where Steele will end up next. But whether or not his mantelpiece is soon to be lined with pointy statues, it's certain you'll be hearing from Luke Steele, in one form or another, very soon. 

Empire of the Sun will bring their elaborate live show to the Foreshore Summer Music Festival on Saturday November 28. Tickets through Ticketek, Moshtix, Qjump, Landspeed Records, Parliament Clothing and www.lexingtonmusic.com.au.

Little Birdy

Anyone who's been to more than one gig in their lifetime will know that live music has an uncanny knack for attracting an eclecticclientele. You know the types. There's the shirtless, dreadlocked stoner who's too far gone to care if he brushes you repeatedly with his sweaty arm. The screaming teenage fangirl who lined up for hours outside the venue to ensure her chances of securing a front row spot and setlist after the show are as high as possible. I could go on. Keeping such a varied audience placated must surely be a tough job for a band. Not so says Simon Leach, guitarist in Perth-via-Melbourne four-piece LITTLE BIRDY, as he discusses the punter-friendly idea behind the band's latest tour.

Theatres are the new pubs for this tour according to Leach, with the rawness of the venues the band started off in now replaced by an air of sophistication. "[We want] the building itself to become part of the  how," he explains. "People can sit down at the back, if they wish, and watch music. People who want to dance can go to the front. We're just trying to cover all kinds of fans so that they can get what they need from a live show." When pressed about what kind of fan stereotype he fits into, there are no doubts for Leach. "All my type of people will be up the back. I like to sit down and watch, rather than dance," he laughs.

A quick glance over the band's recent gig itinerary reveals that singer Katy Steele has been branching out into solo side project territory. A little alarmed, I put it to Leach - does this new venture pose any threat to the future of Little Birdy? "I guess 'threat' isn't the right word," he says, downplaying the significance of Steele's solo aspirations. "If she became successful in that way, we'd just work stuff out. We've all got hobbies and stuff that we do in our down time. It wouldn't be fair to say to her 'you can't be creative in your own time.'"

While Leach is seemingly at ease with the prospect of Steele flying solo, the question of what the future may hold post-Little Birdy does inevitably come to mind. "You have to be mindful of what's down the track," he admits, "'cause the band is day to day, month by month. You're in the hands of fans and people buying your records and people paying to see you tour."

Having already bought a house and establishing his credentials as a graphic designer prior to becoming fully involved in music, should the band go belly up tomorrow I have a feeling Leach will survive. "Next year you might not be doing it," he says warily. "You don't really know and that's the best way to be, so that you don't take it for granted. We've been really fortunate to have lasted this long and have this as our work. As long as we're all happy, we'll just keep doing it."

Little Birdy, with supports Red Riders and Hungry Kids of Hungary in tow, will play the Hellenic Club on Sunday September 13. Tickets through Ticketek.

The Grates

Chatting with Patience Hodgson – the tutu-wearing, impossibly energetic frontwoman of Brisbane rock band THE GRATES – is similar to watching her perform on stage. She’s cute, quirky and interesting, but can quite often be all over the shop. This is not necessarily a bad thing as I discover during the course of our second interview. After speaking with her for 20 minutes, I feel a bit scatterbrained. She has this uncanny ability to make you feel like you’re catching up with your best friend about nothing in particular, yet afterwards, when I go back and listen to the interview, I realise that somehow, in amongst all the random tangents and chatter, I’m able to tick off all the major subjects I wanted to speak to her about. Topics of conversation swing between culinary skills (the secret ingredient in her signature dish, spaghetti bolognaise, is grated apple… what?), how second album Teeth Lost, Hearts Won has been received by fans, playing at massive US festival South By Southwest, the band’s success at the annual triple j Hottest 100 music poll and microblogging on Twitter.

Last time I spoke with Hodgson Teeth Lost, Hearts Won was days away from release and she was fretting. I remind her that she confided in me that if the album release didn’t go well, she threatened to cry. Well, were any tears shed in the end? “No,” she responds with a laugh. “It’s been very good. We didn’t seem to lose any fans and it actually got a much more positive response than I had imagined. I really liked what we’d made and I was really hoping that I wasn’t just delusional and that a couple of other people out there would, you know, agree, [to prove that] I wasn’t just living in a fantasy world! I’m very relieved.”

If anyone, Hodgson included, needs evidence that Teeth Lost, Hearts Won has been embraced with open arms by fans all over the country, the proof is in the pudding. And by pudding I mean triple j’s 2008 Hottest 100 result. Hodgson and fellow purveyors of red-cordial-overdose-inspired stage antics, guitarist John Patterson and drummer Alana Skyring, clocked in an impressive three mentions in last year’s countdown (Carve Your Name came in at #83, Aw Yeah at #80 and massively catchy lead single Burn Bridges led the charge at #34). Other bands that scored three songs or more include Vampire Weekend, The Presets, MGMT and Kings of Leon. An impressive little club to be a part of, huh?

We’ve played out the back of a pizza parlour!”

“I was very excited about that! It felt like we were the little band playing with the big boys,” agrees Hodgson modestly. “When I looked at the bands that had gotten four and three songs – they were really big bands!” I ponder out loud whether such an outstanding result for such a ‘little’ band is testament to the devotion of said band’s loyal fanbase. “I felt like our fans had pushed us into competition with the big guys all of a sudden,” she chimes in. “I do definitely think the Hottest 100 result was directly because of the dedication of our fans and it was excellent.”

Dedicated Grates fans can now take their fandom that one obsessive step further by following the band’s every move on suddenly-all-the-rage microblogging website, Twitter. As soon as I mention the T word, Hodgson lets out a slightly bashful laugh, similar to one I imagine she would let out if I was instead quizzing her about her (hypothetical) collection of mint condition Star Wars action figures. It just has a very novel and nerdy feel to it, doesn’t it? “I don’t do it as much as John,” Hodgson is quick to state, passing the nerd baton  to her bandmate without hesitation. “There needs to be a reason why you’re following someone. Like if you’re not in a band and you follow your favourite bands, it’s really exciting. John follows Travis Barker from blink 182 and he gets a massive kick out of it because he gets these tweets from Travis that are like ‘I’m at Disneyland with my little son and he’s the man and he’s pushing his little sister around’. He writes it in hilarious Travis Barker style and John gets super pumped about it, as lame as that is.”

One thing the band used its Twitter account for recently was to post updates from South by Southwest (SXSW), an enormous annual music festival held in Austin, Texas where bands from all over the world jostle for industry and media attention. “It’s massive,” confirms Hodgson. “You cannot walk around Austin City during SXSW and not hear music. They close down all of the streets and everywhere turns into a venue –we’ve played out the back of a pizza parlour! And when you’re playing a gig, the loading in and out is nuts. We’d try to park as close as we could to the venue but because the whole city centre was shut down, you have to put all of your gear out on the road and you might have to carry it three blocks through like 100,000 people. It was just mental, but it was amazing.”

The Grates are now home from their overseas jaunt and are busily preparing for their upcoming national tour. Recent achievements such as playing at SXSW and scoring such a stellar Hottest 100 result are surely proof that The Grates’ star is on the rise. Hodgson attempts to put it into perspective with the following analogy: “We played fairly early at Big Day Out [this year] but we got to play on the main stage. Maybe that reflects how we are as a band: we played early, but we played on the main stage.” At this point in their career, that’s definitely not a bad situation for The Grates to be in.

The Grates, with support act Children Collide in tow, will play the ANU Bar on Wednesday May 6. Tickets through Ticketek.

PNAU or never

PNAU

Life is currently pretty sweet for Nick Littlemore, the shaggy-haired frontman of Sydney-based dance outfit PNAU. He is a man in extremely high demand. When not busy packing out dancefloors across the globe to the groovy tunes of his group’s hugely successful recent eponymous album, Littlemore spends his time collaborating with a diverse range of artists. Emerging Kiwi new wave sensation Ladyhawke, phenomenal Sleepy Jackson vocalist Luke Steele and the Rocket Man himself, Sir Elton John, have all crossed musical paths with Littlemore in the past year. Littlemore somehow managed to find a tiny slice of time in his busy schedule to write to BMA about lyrical meanings, touring and relocating to the UK.

Commencing triple j’s Hottest 100 this year with a bang, Wild Strawberries is a psychedelic ode to, er, well, it’s not very clear. With hard to decipher lyrics like “I’d rather go and pick some of those wild… strawberries! Come pick ’em up”, Littlemore offers an explanation behind the meaning of the song. “It’s a fun song about finding something that changes the way you see things,” Littlemore elaborates. “To enter a new space like playing on the fields of the nephilim [offspring of humans and sons of god mentioned in the Bible, according to Wikipedia. WTF?]. Most of our songs are based in reality but get twisted somewhere along the way and always with a hint of sexuality or humanity,” he continues.

One of the most popular tracks from 2007’s PNAU, Embrace teams Littlemore and partner Peter Mayes with Pip Brown, otherwise known as New Zealand’s own electropop star Ladyhawke. The result is a match made in heaven. With its booty shaking-inducing beat and soaring chorus, Littlemore tells me that Embrace is a song about love. “It’s a duplicitous song – (about) both the love for a friend and the greater love for the world outside,” he offers. “In those moments when you seek the night out and your energy levels rise from nowhere to take you on a flight beyond imagination.”

All Aussie Pnau fans will be sad to hear that Littlemore and Mayes have now relocated to the other side of the world and have set up shop in the UK. “London is our home now,” Littlemore confirms. To avoid homesickness, the pair packed “our cases full of cuddly koalas and seafood.” Who knows how they managed to slip that past Customs!

“Over here we can drive to the top of the UK and then drive to France the next morning,” Littlemore says when asked to expand on the benefits of living in the mother country. “The world over here is much closer together than what we have experienced in Australia. There are more people over here so there are greater collections of things like art and artifacts,” he says, revealing his fondness for European culture. “Also shows that won’t come to Australia are on here every other week.”

Another advantage to living in the UK for the Pnau boys is being in close proximity to one of their biggest fans, Sir Elton John. John reportedly became a fan of the band after hearing tracks from PNAU. He then proceeded to sing the album’s praises to many in the UK music industry, including the Scissor Sisters and Lily Allen. Littlemore is humbly appreciative of the support from one of the UK’s biggest recording artists. “All I have seen from Sir Elton is support and kindness,” he says gratefully. “The will to create is extremely strong within him and we have been lucky enough to learn much more about this enigmatic man,” Littlemore reveals. “Being around real artists (like John) is like going to university. ’Cause in this biz you can’t train in an institution, it’s all street knowledge.”

The future is looking bright for Littlemore. His chilled out and dreamy collaboration with Luke Steele, Empire of the Sun, is fast gaining momentum and Pnau have been playing to packed crowds the world over for most of this year. Littlemore will also perform in Canberra under the Pnau moniker as part of the insanely awesome Foreshore lineup in late November. As for the future, Littlemore and Mayes are currently working on material for their next album. “It sounds like Burt Bacharach. All lovely piano and melancholy,” he confides. “The music will reach the people when the time is right, that’s all I can say,” he adds mysteriously. If the sound of songs like Wild Strawberries and Embrace is anything to go by, Pnau’s performance at Foreshore will be anything but melancholy. Expect a dance riot!

PNAU play at Foreshore on Saturday November 29. Joining them will be The Presets, Sasha, Above & Beyond, Dukes of Windsor, Galvatrons, 16 Bit Lolitas, Skool of Thought, Mission Control, Kazu Kimura, and many more. Final release tickets are $89.95+bf from Ticketek , moshtix, Landspeed Records, Parliament Clothing and www.inthemix.com

Cut Copy - Click Renegades

Cut Copy

Daydreaming about your ultimate music festival lineup: who hasn’t done it? Lord knows I’m guilty of such flights of fancy. I quite often find myself mentally salivating at the prospect of artists such as Jeff Buckley and PJ Harvey gracing the stage in the festival of my mind. Well, somewhere in Colombia, one lucky music fan’s improbable music festival wish will soon be granted. Come early November, Bogotá, the Colombian capital, will play host to a festival that sports a lineup combining the unlikely duo of Melbourne indie-electro party starters CUT COPY with none other than Aussie pop princess Kylie Minogue. How did this peculiar pairing come about? I demand that Dan Whitford, frontman of Cut Copy, explain himself.

“It’s kind of a strange one,” Whitford admits between chuckles. “Kylie’s on one stage and we’re playing in the dance tent.” So who is supporting who then Dan? “Technically Kylie’s supporting us as we’re playing after her in the tent,” he boasts. “Maybe that’s been written on our myspace page wrong – she’s actually supporting us.”

Bigger than Kylie. This is a bold claim from a man whose band is only two albums into their career. But one look at Cut Copy’s exhaustive touring schedule quashes any doubt that Whitford and bandmates Tim Hoey (bass) and Mitchell Scott (drums) have earned their stripes. Since the release of their sophomore album, In Ghost Colours, in March this year the band has criss-crossed the Atlantic as if it were a small puddle and played a swag of shows across North America and Europe.

When asked to discuss some of Cut Copy’s stranger touring experiences, Whitford relays a tale about a predominantly metal-based Swedish festival. “I think there was only one act that we really knew on the bill and that was Interpol. The rest were weird Swedish metal bands,” he recalls. “We were actually really scared of going on stage because we thought ‘this is going to be intense’ and ‘they’re gonna throw bottles at us’ but when we went on it was one of the most insanely positive festival crowds we’ve ever had,” he reveals. “In between songs they just started chanting ‘Cut Copy.’ Not even for the encore! In between regular songs in our set, they just started chanting and it was just absolutely nuts!”

Cut Copy’s popularity is unsurprisingly not strictly limited to obscure Scandinavian metal festivals. When I speak with Dan, he’s calling in from Seattle, at the end of a long tour across the United States co-headlining with Modular labelmates the Presets. “Doing this tour with the Presets has been great because we’re big fans of theirs and great friends as well,” Whitford muses. “When we first started, we toured for a long time with those guys so it’s cool we get the opportunity to tour again.”

Unless you’ve been hiding under an extremely large rock, you’d be aware that in addition to Cut Copy and the Presets, Modular boasts a stellar line up of the hottest indie-electro acts that Australia has to offer. Whitford expands a little on the subject of the camaraderie felt between Cut Copy and their labelmates. “What we really value about Modular is, beyond the label itself, the other acts,” he says appreciatively. “[They’re all] people that we really get along with and enjoy hanging out with. We obviously have musical admiration for them as well but just as people, we all hang out and we’re all good friends.”

The Yanks seem to be embracing the Aussie electro explosion like a long lost relative, with the majority of shows on the current Cut Copy/Presets tour selling out in quick time. “The States have been where our record’s caught on the most out of anywhere in the world,” Whitford points out. “We’ve sold a lot more records in the States than we have anywhere else and our shows here are as big as the ones in Australia.” He notes that the sheer size of America has enabled them to expand their tour to thirty odd shows, a feat not so easily achieved in their homeland.

Breaking into the overseas market can prove to be quite difficult for some Aussie bands. Whitford reflects on the factors influencing Cut Copy’s rise to international stardom. “When we first started we didn’t really think of ourselves as being totally like an Australian band,” he ponders, but is quick to add, possibly to ensure he doesn’t offend anyone back home, that “we obviously identify with our roots and starting out in Australia. But I think we always considered our music would have a fairly broad appeal internationally so it’s reassuring that it seems to be catching on so well.”

The success of an album can so often depend on the timing of its release. With a four year gap between Cut Copy’s debut, Bright Like Neon Love, and its successor, Whitford is keen to come clean about the delay. “[Our first record] came out in the States maybe six months or a year after it came out in Australia and then later again in the UK and Europe,” he explains. “It was spread out over a couple of years, so we ended up touring for probably a couple of years longer than we would have had it just come out all at once.” He notes that the delay boiled down to a scheduling issue, which is something the band is keen to avoid in future. “We hope to have our next record written next year and released as soon as possible after that. I don’t think we’re going to be waiting three or four years for the next one.”

Whitford admits the band was worried about the possibility of their name dropping out of the public eye, but ultimately felt confident in the quality of the music they’d created. “I guess if people didn’t catch onto it because of the timing of it we still would have been happy that the record itself was a really good one,” he says with pride. “But thankfully it doesn’t seem to have made a massive difference. It’s almost like it was almost too long but not that long that people don’t still appreciate what we’re doing musically.”

With outstanding album sales and sold out shows across the globe illuminating their musical résumé, Cut Copy could be forgiven for wanting to take a break. But Dan Whitford is not one to rest on his laurels. “It’s definitely not like it’s time to retire [and we don’t feel] like we’ve done everything that’s there to be done,” he tells me. “Our measure of success is more based on what we’re doing creatively rather than achieving commercial success or big crowds at our shows. We’re just excited to try and push the envelope on the next record and to continue to innovate and write great tunes and make good records. That’s what our aim is, ultimately.” With their glittering track record and passionate outlook, it wouldn’t surprise me if Cut Copy are indeed the most popular act at this upcoming festival in Colombia. Watch out Kylie…!

Cut Copy will be showing off their better-than-Kylie stylings at Trackside on Saturday November 22. Joining them will be The Living End, Gyroscope, The Panics, Bliss N Eso, British India, Something With Numbers, plus a whole swag more. Get amongst it!

theredsunband - Chasing the sun

theredsunbandtheredsunband

THEREDSUNBAND like touring. A lot. They must think Canberra’s a bit of alright too, as barely four months have elapsed since the pint-sized purveyors of broody dream pop last graced the beer-soaked stage of the ANU Bar. This time the Sydney-based trio – combining sisters Sarah (guitar/vocals) and Lizzie Kelly (keys), with recent addition drummer Jasper Fenton – are bringing they of Forever Young fame, Youth Group, along for a co-headlining tour around the nation. I spoke with Sarah straight from the heart of the action: the tour bus.

One of the first things Sarah tells me about her surroundings is the noticeable gender imbalance within the vehicle. “There are two girls and ten boys in this van,” she laments, admitting that she and Lizzie did have some minor concerns about being outnumbered by blokes on tour. “We purposefully asked to get a girl (Laura Imbruglia) to support us for the second half of the tour, just to try and even it up a little bit more,” she adds. “I’ve found that when touring, even a couple of girls can make the guys behave a whole lot better. So I think our influence will be fairly positive and hopefully the van won’t smell too much!”

If, like me, you think pairing the glittery pop songs of Youth Group with the dark and distorted tones of theredsunband seems a strange choice, well, you’d be wrong. “I think our two bands are more similar than maybe is immediately obvious,” Sarah argues. “When we’ve played shows together in the past it’s really worked because we are both very melodic bands.”

She also notes that the two bands share a history dating back to the early days of the millennium. “The first show that Lizzie played with theredsunband was a Youth Group support at the Hopetoun Hotel back in 2002,” she recalls. “And Toby has this awesome story of being given an early copy of Sleep Forever – which was our second single – and he gave it five stars in a magazine review. I wish I could find that, because I think that’s pretty nice.”

Pleasantries and praise are fine and dandy within the confines of the tour bus, but will the claws be out when it comes time to decide which of the bands will headline each night? “We staged a coin toss. We went out to Erskineville Oval one afternoon, got an old Australian penny and just flipped it a few times,” she explains. “But it was organised so it would be fairly even, even if one person won all the coin tosses which, I would like to point out, I did!” she exclaims with a cheeky sense of pride.

Coin tosses aside, Sarah assures me that the quality of the Youth Group/theredsunband bill is definitely not a gamble and neither is her passion for touring. “We like being on the road,” she admits, with the prospect of traversing hundreds of kilometres across five states and territories clearly not troubling her. “We really like touring because we like the travelling and we like going back to all the places we’ve been and visiting our friends. We really love doing it,” she reiterates. “I don’t think we’ll ever stop.” The gig-going public of the nation’s capital implore you, Miss Kelly: please don’t!

theredsunband will play with Youth Group and Laura Imbruglia on Thursday November 6 at the ANU Bar. Tickets are $23.45 from Ticketek .

Van She - Van Banshe

Van She

Remember that annoyingly talented guy from school who consistently scored near perfect grades, was the star player of most, if not all, the sports teams and was going out with the hottest girl in the year? Well, Michael Di Francesco, guitarist and synth player extraordinaire, and his bandmates from Sydney outfit VAN SHE are the musical equivalent. Damn them! Don’t you wish you shared a label with The Presets, had the privilege of remixing Feist and possessed mad DJ skillz to boot?

Di Francesco is unexpectedly philosophical when quizzed on the band’s rising profile. “It’s like looking at the flowers while you’re walking through the garden,” he muses. “You don’t really look at them, you just kind of walk past them.”

Floral analogies aside, Van She are definitely no shrinking violet. After a three year absence following the release of their eponymous debut EP, new album V sees the boys return with a bang. Or is that a lick?
Closer inspection of the album cover reveals a somewhat saucy gesture being made by a young lady. Di Francesco laughs off my innocent outrage at such suggestions of sexual innuendo. “That’s why there’s a ‘Warning: Explicit Material’ [label], but the funny thing is that it’s too late,” he chuckles. “By the time you look at the cover, you’ve already seen the explicit material.” Sneaky devils!

Though there may have been a lengthy delay between releases, Di Francesco is quick to point out that Van She have kept quite busy in the interim. “In short, we just got side-tracked doing dance music,” he admits. After impressing critics and fans alike with their remix of The Presets’ Are You The One?, the boys were offered song after song to add their own synth-pop spin to. “It got to a point where the label was like ‘hey guys, you’re a band… what are you doing? Are you an electronic act now? You’ve got to write an album. You’ve gotta get on with it, this is ridiculous’,” he recollects. “We were like ‘that’s fine, but you keep giving us all these remixes!’”

The solution to getting Di Francesco and company to knuckle down and churn out a quality album? Banish them to the countryside. “[Our record label] sent us away to Berry, on a farm,” he explains. “We went there – no distractions, no remixes, no girlfriends, no internet – and hung out for a couple of weeks and wrote a load of songs.” The result is the too cool for school indie-electro retro goodness of V which, coincidentally, the Van She boys are preparing to unleash at a venue near you in the very near future.

What they have in mind for their upcoming tour, however, is more intriguing than your average concert. “We didn’t want to do just band gigs,” Di Francesco reveals. The band will play live and then immediately follow up with a blistering DJ set, lasting until the wee hours of the morning.

Essentially you get to see Van She twice for the price of one performance. Neat! Though won’t this live/DJ party tour take its toll on Di Francesco and his colleagues? “That’s what we do,” he shrugs. “If there’s no work, you’re complaining and when there is work you should embrace it.” Talented AND modest… talk about dreamy!

Van She will be doing their band-gig-and-more thang at the ANU bar on September 24. Tickets are $25.40.

The Presets - Eve of the Apocalypso

If the indie-electronica musical genre could somehow be transformed into an event at the Olympic Games, Australia would be blitzing the field. The past few years has seen the rise of a number of outstanding local electronic acts, many of whom have gone on to enjoy huge success on the international stage. Though the amount of these groups is plentiful – and I could spend all day namedropping – at the end of the day there is only one name which stands out from the rest of the pack: THE PRESETS .

It seems as if this pair from Sydney – consisting of singer and synth wiz Julian Hamilton and his partner in crime, drummer Kim Moyes – can do no wrong. Their debut record, Beams, released in late 2005, was a commercial success and had both indie and club kids shaking their booties like there was no tomorrow. Three years and a sophomore album release later, the Presets still receive a frenzy of attention wherever they go. Only now they’re experiencing it on a much grander scale. This is largely due to the success of the first single from their second album Apocalypso, entitled My People.

Evoking many a dancefloor riot, the true subject matter of the song often goes unnoticed by oblivious fans. With lyrics such as “I’m here with all of my people/Locked up with all of my people/So let me hear you scream if you’re with me,” fans could be forgiven for thinking the song was written with them in mind. Not so, according to Hamilton. The song is written from the perspective of a refugee in a detention centre, although he concedes it is open to interpretation.

“I think that’s fine that the song is interpreted in different ways and I know most of the fans think it’s about them and that’s fine!” Hamilton enthuses. “I’m really happy for the song to work on different levels and I must admit when I’m onstage performing it in a club or at a festival, it’s hard not to think of the audience as the people you’re singing about.”

He’s quick to point out that despite delving into deep issues such as the plight of asylum seekers, not all of the tracks on Apocalypso pack such a heavy punch. “Some of the songs on the record are about some of the weightier issues, like My People, and some of them are really quite light-hearted and flippant,” he reveals. “Some of the other songs on the record are about hand jobs or dancing at a techno party.”

When they’re not busy packing political punches with their lyrics, the Presets also like to cause the occasional stir with their video clips. The clip for second single, This Boy’s In Love, features stunning slow motion imagery of Hamilton and Moyes banging away at their instruments in a blizzard of glitter, interspersed with shots of two scantily-clad, attractive young males duking it out in what appears to be a giant pool of milk. Homoerotic much?

The clip has inspired a myriad of responses on popular video-sharing website youtube, with punters leaving such comments as “i love the presets.. they wouldnt loose me as a fan or anything just was hoping they wernt gay…. kinda like u hope ur kids arnt born with defects.. LOL!…” – and that’s the poster’s actual spelling, folks.

Homophobic comments such as this are like water off a duck’s back for Hamilton. “The kind of people that leave messages on youtube are usually a small percentage of people, you know? I think if you leave a comment on youtube you’ve gotta be pretty fired up and angry or really, totally in love with something,” he shrugs.

“When we read the treatment that the director sent us, his ideas, it sounded like a really classical thing. A really beautiful thing. Like an old painting… a Rembrandt or something. When you see cherubs and angels in these beautiful Renaissance paintings, you don’t think gay. You think just… beautiful,” he gushes. “With the video, it’s sort of the same thing. I want you to think of ancient Greek statues.” He pauses thoughtfully and then adds, “I think it’s a classical thing before it’s a gay thing. But then it’s not as if we shy away from the gay imagery either. A lot of our favourite artists are from that sort of scene.”

Hamilton points out that the video shouldn’t really be that big of a deal, considering the type of fanbase he feels The Presets attract. “Perhaps back in the day things were a bit more rock ‘n’ roll and guys didn’t care what their hair looked like and everyone just wore black. But people are a bit more open to new things these days and that’s the world in which we operate,” he explains. “If Cold Chisel came out with a new song and it was the This Boy’s In Love video, I think that would be really weird. That would be controversial!”

Ultimately, hit singles and polarising video clips aside, The Presets’ real strength lies in their dynamic and exciting live shows. Their ability to turn a shy audience into a mass of sweaty bodies yearning for the next thrilling climax or thumping chorus is second to none. “It is a good feeling when you see everyone jumping around to it and getting into it,” Hamilton admits. “It’s like ‘Fuck yeah! We made this thing and everyone loves us.’” Indeed we do, Julian. Indeed we do.

The Presets headline the Foreshore summer music festival on Saturday November 29 in Commonwealth Place alongside Nick Warren (UK), The Galvatrons, Mission Control, 16 Bit Lolitas (Hol), Gus Da Hoodrat and Jamie Doom, plus many more. Second release tickets $89.95 + BF on sale from Ticketek, Moshtix, Landspeed, Parliament Clothing and www.inthemix.com . Second round of acts announced on September 1, hit www.lexingtonmusic.com.au come the glorious day. Apocalypso is out now on Modular.

The Grates - Back for Seconds

The Grates

The dreaded sophomore release. There are few things that strike fear into the hearts of musicians as much as the phrase ‘second album syndrome.’ Patience Hodgson, singer from Brisbane outfit THE GRATES , laughs nervously as I probe deep to uncover the difficulties the band encountered on their way to completing recently released second album Teeth Lost, Hearts Won.

“I definitely had a bit of second album syndrome myself,” she admits. “I found it hard at times to be able to write lyrics and do something that I was really happy with. There were definitely periods like that,” she agrees. “There were also times that we just got sick of each other and had to be like ‘You know what? Let’s just have a month off.’”
Fear not, Grates fans, for tensions were always short-lived. “The good thing is that all the arguments we had were born out of passion or frustration for not being able to write a song,” Hodgson clarifies. “I wasn’t fighting with John [Patterson, guitars]or Alana [Skyring, drums] because I didn’t like them – it was all purely based around the music.”

Teeth Lost, Hearts Won has been described in some critical circles as ‘angsty, but fun,’ which is a sentiment Hodgson agrees with. She is quick to point out, however, that the angst level on the finished product is nowhere near that of the album’s early incarnations. “When I listen back to the demos we had for this album it was possibly even more angsty before we went and recorded it,” she recollects.

Better known for her onstage hyperactivity and quirky attire rather than for her serious side, it wasn’t long before the fun started creeping back into the recording process for Hodgson. “When we went into the studio we had a chance to take a step back and put in little bits of flare here and there that were more fun. We were able to add in little bits of instruments, like we stuck in a bit of glock, and it’s so funny that even having a small amount of glockenspiel in a song can all of a sudden change some bits that may be heading towards something a little bit angsty into something that’s a little bit sentimental,” she reveals. “It’s about that balance of putting these two separate types of sound or two different types of emotions and letting them play with each other.”

Though traditionally a formidable obstacle for most bands to overcome, the Grates’ second album seems only to have empowered the band. Teeth Lost, Hearts Won walks a fine line between old and new. It maintains the same light-hearted fun and catchiness that the band has made their name on, while at the same time maturing and exploring new territory. But at the end of the day, it all comes down to personal satisfaction for Hodgson.

“Everyone wanted to make something that they could be proud of. I’m very proud of it because I’ve invested that emotional interest,” she beams. “I just hope that it goes well so that I don’t have a cry!” Somehow, I don’t think Ms Hodgson or her bandmates will need to reach for the tissue box anytime soon.

The Grates play alongside Grinspoon, The Dandy Warhols, Faker, Regurgitator, The Drones and many more at Stonefest, October 31 and November 1 at the University of Canberra. General admission tickets are $80.30, available from all Ticketek outlets, ticketek.com.au, and Landspeed Records.

UC Alumni and UCU Life Member tickets are $60 plus booking fee, available only from the UCU Print Shop. UC/ANU/CIT student tickets are $52.80 plus booking fee, also available from the UCU Print Shop. Teeth Lost, Hearts Won is out now through Dew Process/UMA.

theredsunband /Sianna Lee @ ANU Bar, Wednesday June 25

Once upon a time, on an icy winter’s night in a magical land far, far away (okay, so the ANU Bar isn’t that far from Garran, I lie), a small but devoted throng of youngsters assembled to get their booze on and witness some stellar interstate musical talent.

First up was the lovely Ms Sianna Lee, frontwoman of the now on indefinite hiatus Melbourne band Love Outside Andromeda. Playing sans band on the first show of this nationwide tour clearly didn’t faze Lee, as she strummed her way through a number of tender ballads that had more than one audience member comparing her to the great English songstress PJ Harvey.

After a brief but intimate set, Ms Lee made way for the pint-sized powerhouse that is theredsunband (and no, that’s not a spelling mistake). Fronted by the sisters Kelly - with Sarah on guitar/vocals and Lizzie on keys - and assisted on drums by an aesthetically pleasing young lad named Jasper (for those unaware of their history, theredsunband seem to go through drummers as often as Amy Winehouse goes through lines of cocaine), the band launched into a set that was a non-stop assault on eardrums and nearby windows alike.

It’d be fair to say that theredsunband like a bit of distortion. It’d be even more accurate to say that they can’t get enough of the stuff! Their chunky riffs, droning synth-bass and crashing drums all combined to create a massive wall of sound that would have made even the most diehard Sonic Youth fan proud. And atop it all floated Sarah’s enchanting yet slightly deranged vocals. Though she may be small in stature, on some songs (such as the cover of Bill Callahan’s Bathysphere and epic closer Lonely Children from new album The Shiralee) it sounded as if she was channelling the raw emotion and tortured wailing not heard since Cat Power’s early material.

All comparisons aside, theredsunband are a truly talented group in their own right and thoroughly impressed all in attendance. A couple of happy snaps and a poster signing later, this reviewer went home and lived happily ever after.

Isobel Campbell and Mark Lanegan - The Odd Couple

Digesting Coke and chocolate simultaneously. Drinking orange juice straight after you’ve brushed your teeth. W

earing a fluoro shirt to a metal show. All things that don’t go well with one another, no? Well, on first observation, that’s how one might categorise the pairing of ISOBEL CAMPBELL AND MARK LANEGAN . Before hearing the duo sing in sweet harmony tog

ether on their new album, Sunday At Devil Dirt, I would have agreed. On paper, Campbell’s winsome, soothing higher tones seem like they would be an awful match for the low, gravely edge of Lanegan’s world-weary voice. Yet somehow it works.

When prompted, Campbell herself is at a loss to explain the strange combination. “It’s really weird, our voices blend really well. I didn’t really realise how much until I was mixing the record, and I just realised we have this really good blend when we’re singing.”

Campbell, a former member of indie twee-pop group Belle and Sebastian, explains how exactly she and former Screaming Trees/occasional Queens of the Stone Age frontman Lanegan came together in the first place.

“To be honest, looking back, it was really quite random,” she laughs. “I’ve always been such a fan of Lee Hazlewood and Nancy Sinatra and I knew that I had a light voice. In the back of my mind I was always on the lookout for someone with a low, dark voice and in about 2002-03 I said to my boyfriend at the time, ‘I need a low voice,’ and he said ‘check out this guy.’ He played me something and I was all ‘oooh, yeahhh…’ so I just completely blindly sent Mark a half-written song. Then two months later he called me up and he’s like ‘I’ve written the melody’ and he’d written lyrics as well. I spoke to him on the phone and he’d finished this song and sang it down the phone to me. Then a couple of months later he was in town with Queens of the Stone Age and I went along to meet him then.” The rest is history.

Lanegan is not the nicest bloke in rock, so the story goes. He has a reputation for being the dark, brooding, formidable type that you don’t want to mess with. Campbell assures me that that portrayal is not always one hundred percent accurate. “He’s always been a gentleman to me,” she confirms. “I know he has that side to him, but he can be very charming when he wants to be. I can vouch for that!” she enthuses. She adds that the pair are on the same page musically and that “I’m quite honest, you know, and I think he’s a bit like that too. So if something we write sounds pretentious and shit we’ll just go ‘oh my god, that’s shit.’”

Sunday At Devil Dirt is not the first time Campbell and Lanegan have met to make beautiful music together. (Oi! Mind out of the gutter, thank you.) This new release follows on the back of the success of their first collaborative effort, Ballad of the Broken Seas, which contained a pleasant mix of acoustic indie folk duets and was released in 2006. The album received critical acclaim and earned the pair a controversial Mercury prize nomination (controversial because Lanegan is American and the award is for British artists only). Not that it should have been that big a deal, considering Campbell is without a doubt the dominant force behind the music.

“It’s totally my baby,” asserts Campbell. “On the last record, Mark wrote one song and I wrote the rest of them on my own. And then with this record I wrote most of them on my own as well.”

Campbell is no stranger to making music on her lonesome. Since her departure from Belle and Sebastian, she has released two full length solo albums and a number of EPs. She decides to sit on the fence over the issue of which setup she likes best - being in a band or being by herself. “At first, [after leaving Belle and Sebastian], it was like ‘oh, will I ever work again?’ But it was really liberating,” she confesses. “With the liberation comes a lot of pros and cons, you know. It is really liberating, especially making the records with Mark. The new one was really hard work for me but to be able to realise a creative vision is just wonderful. I couldn’t hope for any more really. But it’s not always easy. It can be quite tough and sometimes when it’s tough - when there’s no money, when Mark can’t tour for a long time - sometimes when it’s tough I think ‘oh, I wish I was in a band,’ but it does have good points too.”

It’s interesting to note that, despite the fact that Campbell is the one who wears the pants in their musical relationship, so to speak, it is Lanegan who handles most of the lead vocal duties. “I like writing,” she muses. “It’s one of my favourite parts of the process because I get to go off into my imagination and just explore stories and sculpt away at things. It’s complete escapism. It seems really magical to me, I really like that.”
The creative side of the process, as opposed to the technical side, seems to be Campbell’s forte. “When I’m writing, I’m in my own house and I’m comfortable, it’s private… if you’re in the studio, you’re in the studio with some sweaty engineer who wants to talk about rock bands or you know, the latest… who’s number one. I mean, what do I give a shit about that?” Indeed!

Spending weeks on end cooped up inside a recording studio with chart-obsessed sound engineers isn’t exactly Campbell’s idea of fun. “I’ve figured out that engineers that work in studios are all pretty mad. They’re all just locked away all the time, so… it’s quite tough, you know.” Thankfully, the album is now complete and a number of tour dates, sadly so far not including Australia, await Campbell. “I’m so glad my record’s finished and I don’t need to be in the studio for a very long time,” she laughs.

After chatting with Campbell for a good fifteen minutes, it becomes clear that she is an extremely sweet and charming woman. It comes as no surprise that someone like Lanegan would be keen to work with her once again. After all, though they may come from two seemingly very different backgrounds, the formula works. Perhaps next time Slipknot are in town I’ll bust out my bright pink polo shirt… With the collar up, of course.
Sunday at Devil Dirt is out now on V2 through Shock Records.