Bloody Chamber Music/Speak n Spell – June 1 2009

2007’s The Magic Position suggested that he was headed in a pop-oriented direction but, true to his unpredictable style, Patrick Wolf ditches that for a darkly explosive melancholia on The Bachelor, the first instalment of a two-part concept album (with companion The Conqueror to be released in 2010). Leaping fearlessly into a theatrical world, the kooky Londonite balances his signature strings with more heavily condensed electronic elements to craft one of the year’s most impassioned and engaging releases.

Beginning with a launchpad rumble, the album launches into the catchy ‘Hard Times’ which focuses on hardening a punchy strings-based motif, but Wolf also departs from his usual string fixation; first single ‘Vulture’ is an entirely electronic affair complete with distortion and tinkling synths and ‘Battle’ swaps Wolf’s soothing vocals for a guttural snarl. Actress Tilda Swinton speaks as ‘The Voice of Hope’ on several tracks like the despondent ‘Thickets’, adding an aura of mystic creepiness that allows the listener to feel the desperation that bleeds openly from the record.

The album starts out largely based in the minor key but, as it progresses, shifts towards the major, suggesting that buried within despair is a faint but sure sprinkle of hope – tracks like ‘Theseus’ and ‘Who Will?’ provide moments of quiet introspection, and the stunning ‘Blackdown’ evolves from a gentle soliloquy into a light-hearted Irish-infused swirl as Wolf defiantly proclaims, “you are not the maker nor the master of me”.

The cinematic theatricality of The Bachelor often pushes it towards pretension, but considering Wolf’s fan demographic that’s not such a bad thing – it’s as beautiful as it is demanding, and the best part is that there’s still another episode to look forward to.

TRACK LISTING
01. Kriegspiel
02. Hard Times
03. Oblivion
04. The Bachelor
05. Damaris
06. Thickets
07. Count of Casualty
08. Who Will?
09. Vulture
10. Blackdown
11. The Sun Is Often Out
12. Theseus
13. Battle
14. The Messenger

DOWNLOAD: Blackdown (mp3)

Photo: Sam Costello

Until this weekend just past, I had never met two of my dearest friends. They’ve been there from before I even knew how to speak. During long car rides with my family, they sang and we sang along. It was thanks to them that I learned about harmony, and I often used their voices as a lullaby. Almost every mix tape I’ve ever made for a boy has included words from them, because they know my feelings better than I could ever hope to know myself. My father took inspiration from these two friends of mine, penning songs and singing them in ways so hopeful and stirring that they have stayed with me, more than a decade after he put pen to paper. Many times I’ve stood alone at the train station waiting for a train that seems so far away, but the hums of these two friends’ voices always soothed me, told me that I was not the only one lost.

Paul Simon and Art Garfunkel have been just as close as family to me for the better part of the last twenty years, and I never thought I would be so blessed to see the day I’d finally be able to watch them, in the same room as me, singing the songs that have shaped my life. But this June, the two old friends – my two old friends – granted me a wish I’d so often dreamed about over so many years. And so it was that I would go along to two of their three Sydney concerts, the first night with the family who introduced their music to me, and the second night alone.

Opening with a montage of photographs of the pair from youth through to old age over an instrumental version of ‘America’, I knew straight away that the weekend ahead would be a trip back in time for not only Paul and Art, but also for me. I was born 18 years after the pair split up in 1970, and yet for me it always felt as though they were ageless, singing ‘Kathy’s Song’ as though it was new from the moment my ears first blossomed. And so it was that as the photographs progressed they aged, still singing together, and the lights of the stage came on and my two old friends stood on the stage, static, before opening their mouths and sighing in unison: “Old friends sat on their park bench like bookends”.

What followed on both nights was a stroll down memory lane, starting with the electric fusion of ‘A Hazy Shade of Winter’ (thanks to Paul’s still masterful guitar skills and an immensely tight seven-piece band of multi-instrumentalists) followed by an impassioned performance of ‘I Am A Rock’. At 67, the two aren’t as young as they once were and sometimes it did show – Art visibly strained to hit the high notes, and on the second night particularly there were some obvious wavers and hiccups. But I listened and watched with a sense of gratitude, especially when they sang my all-time favourite song, ‘America’, complete with the melting hummed introduction. Though I did not personally agree with the transpositional shift of Art’s “laughing on the bus” bridge (too high, too forced), the song managed to be so meaningful due to Paul’s sonorous execution – really bringing home the journey-type story it beautifully tells.

I don’t want to give a play-by-play of every single song they played, but the hits flowed constantly, ‘Kathy’s Song’ and ‘The Only Living Boy in New York’ particular highlights for their shy sincerity. I glanced often over at my father, the man who introduced this beautiful music to me, and I could see that it meant as much to him as it did to me. We have always shared a bond thanks to our common love of this music.

The two stopped to talk at times, relaying stories past and present. They told us how they met at a school production of Alice in Wonderland at age 11, when Art played the Cheshire Cat and Paul, the White Rabbit. Though scripted, their banter was light-hearted and charming – on the second night I still laughed along, even though I’d heard the same thing the night before. They played ‘Hey Schoolgirl’, the first song they ever wrote together at age 16, following it up with an upbeat cover of Gene Vincent’s ‘Be Bop a Lula’ from which they said they drew inspiration for said song. One moment that was particularly fun on the second night, but missing from the first, was the montage of scenes from The Graduate that led into ‘Mrs. Robinson’; it added a light-hearted touch to the evening and brought smiles to our faces.

In the middle of the set, both Paul and Art took to the stage on their own for three-song sets of solo material. Art’s gloopy ‘Bright Eyes’ was as placid as ever and he showcased his (somewhat lackluster) songwriting skills with a perfectly cheesy song called ‘Perfect Moment’, but it was Paul’s solo venture that really blew the roof off the stadium. The African rhythms of ‘Diamonds on the Soles of Her Shoes’, complete with ethnic harmonising thanks to the backing band, proved the crowd favourite on both nights; donning a fedora, you’d swear that Paul wasn’t a day over 40 with the incredible energy he had. The second night’s clap-happy rendition of ‘Me and Julio Down By the Schoolyard’ was also a highlight, with Paul showing proficiency not only in singing and strumming, but also in whistling.

By the time we were brought back to earth by the soothing tones of ‘Bridge over Troubled Water’ (with piano played by the incredibly gifted Warren Bernhardt), I felt my soul had already left my body. And when the duo came back onstage and performed ‘The Sound of Silence’ and ‘The Boxer’ (one of the first songs I ever remember hearing in my life, when my uncle and father sang along in harmony), I had truly reached another dimension. There aren’t words enough to talk about what it feels like to be validated by music that you’ve known your whole life; it was a rebirthing of sorts, the most significant coming-of-age I’ve ever experienced.

Returning for a second encore of a stripped-down version of ‘Leaves That Are Green’ and a tremendously explosive ‘Cecilia’ (during which almost every attendee was on their feet dancing), by the time Paul and Art left the stage I felt like I’d been completely and utterly liberated from everything that has ever shackled my heart before.

Not once, but twice this weekend I realised that everything in my life has come to mean something because of the extraordinary work of Simon & Garfunkel. Even though I didn’t hear all my favourite songs and was only one person in a crowd 22 000 strong those nights, I felt like the only person there, glowing in harmonies and love letters created by my two oldest friends – and I will never be the same.

SET LISTS

SATURDAY
01 Old Friends
02 A Hazy Shade of Winter
03 I Am A Rock
04 America
05 Kathy’s Song
06 Hey Schoolgirl
07 Be Bop a Lula
08 Scarborough Fair
09 Homeward Bound
10 Mrs Robinson
11 Slip Slidin’ Away
12 El Condor Pasa
13 Bright Eyes
14 A Heart in New York
15 Perfect Moment
16 For Emily, Wherever I May Find Her
17 The Boy in the Bubble
18 Diamonds on the Soles of Her Shoes
19 Late in the Evening
20 The Only Living Boy in New York
21 My Little Town
22 Bridge Over Troubled Water
ENCORE:
23 The Sound of Silence
24 The Boxer
ENCORE 2:
25 Leaves That Are Green
26 Cecilia

SUNDAY
01 Old Friends
02 A Hazy Shade of Winter
03 I Am A Rock
04 America
05 Kathy’s Song
06 Hey Schoolgirl
07 Be Bop a Lula
08 Scarborough Fair
09 Homeward Bound
10 Mrs Robinson
11 Slip Slidin’ Away
12 El Condor Pasa
13 Bright Eyes
14 A Heart in New York
15 Perfect Moment
16 For Emily, Wherever I May Find Her
17 Me and Julio Down By The Schoolyard
18 The Boy in the Bubble
19 Diamonds on the Soles of Her Shoes
20 The Only Living Boy in New York
21 My Little Town
22 Bridge Over Troubled Water
ENCORE:
23 The Sound of Silence
24 The Boxer
ENCORE 2:
25 Leaves That Are Green
26 Cecilia

Check out my review of Saturday’s show at MaxTV, and my review of Sunday’s show in issue 963 of the Drum Media.

Green/MGM – May 11 2009

The problem with the term ‘cerebral’ is that, from the outset, it isolates people. Defining something as a niche for the intelligentsia automatically emanates a sense of elitism and pretentiousness, in a way that perhaps pushes people away from wanting to interact with it due to a fear of not being smart enough to ‘get it’, a fear of being ridiculed by their ostentatious friends who might also lambast them for not ‘getting it’. In music, just as in film and art, this problem exists – in the 21st century, so many artists want to be recognised as profound and intellectual that they seem to forget that one of the innate joys of making music is being able to share it with people who can relate to it.

Bud Petal is a shining example of this. The Sydney-based artist is in no way a poor musician or lyricist – on this, his debut album, he weaves some beautiful sounds with an acoustic guitar, sometimes giving way to blow comically into a kazoo while his bandmates add instruments from wind to strings to glockenspiel to the mix. The folky vibe that the instrumentals spill into the atmosphere is melancholy at times, summery at others, in some ways reminiscent of a stripped down Sarah Blasko song (especially the dark sparkle of closer ‘Swan Song’).

Lyrically, Petal dares to explore strange topics that have been unchartered by his contemporaries, from animal language experiment monkey Nim Chimpsky’s perspective on life to a tale of a life saved by a blankie. Even mundane things such as rubbish bins are given a chance to sing on this record, with ‘Dust Bin Canticle’ acting as Petal’s personal ode to a poor, defenseless bin in Newtown being kicked by hooligans. Petal, also a philosophy student when he’s not making music, shows real creativity in the way he writes – it’s intelligent but not to the point of snobbery, and it’s often light hearted and funny.

The music and lyrics are endearing in their own distinct way, but it’s Petal’s singing that throws everything off. Rather than conventionally singing in a melodic manner, he opts to warp his voice into a strange limbo between singing and speaking. Given that he cites Noam Chomsky as a major influence, it’s not surprising that he chooses to vocally deliver this way – but rather than the expected atonality, his delivery is completely dissonant, clashing with the music behind it. One listen to single ‘The Ballad of the Chimp’ or science fact-fest ‘The Human Brain (A Brief History Of…)’ illustrates this point perfectly; shaking fiercely, his voice is almost grating to listen to (imagine if Borat took up singing as a career, and you’re pretty close).

It does get less disturbing with each subsequent listen of the album, and after a while one can get quite accustomed to – but not fond of – this bizarre vocal approach. Petal does manage to make it work on a few tracks – ‘I Am A Student, Not A Customer’ features the marriage of a simple guitar strum and a light flute accompanying a slightly more tonal speech-song as he ponders the state of modern education, and ‘The Scandal of Induction’ is also a toned-down number focusing more on a gorgeous shiny guitar pattern and Petal’s now slightly more melodious singing. Perhaps if more of the tracks sounded like these – keeping the quirk, but erasing the complete musical discord – it would be easier to appreciate this music.

The problem with Turtledoves & Oatstraws is not that Bud Petal can’t play his instruments or that he can’t write a song. It’s that he seems to be so caught up in proving himself to be artistically profound that in the end, he turns his musical endeavour into such a bold experiment, such a peculiar ‘art form’, that it’s virtually unlistenable.

But then again, maybe I just don’t ‘get it’.

TRACK LISTING:
01. The Tale of the Gangster & the Towel-Like Blanket
02. Dust-Bin Canticle
03. A Song for a Smile
04. The Ballad of the Chimp
05. The Human Brain (A Brief History Of…)
06. I Am A Student, Not A Customer
07. Sydney, Goodbye
08. The Scandal of Induction
09. My Home
10. Swan Song

DOWNLOAD: The Ballad of the Chimp (m4a)

My exam death means that I have been unable to report about this exciting bit of news, but now that the last essay is in I can finally scream it from the rooftops – BEN FUCKING FOLDS IS COMING BACK TO AUSTRALIA!

After a sold out slew of orchestra shows in 2006 (one of which I attended as an 18th birthday present <3), the piano funnyman is back for two special one-off shows in Melbourne and Sydney, in solo mode, just him and the piano. You can expect to hear stuff from last year's Way to Normal of course, as well as lots of old classics.

This is one of the most exciting things of this year, I reckon! Tickets are out on June 14 so don’t miss out if you want to see one of modern music’s most charismatic men in action.

TOUR DATES
Mon August 31 – Opera House Concert Hall, Sydney
Thu September 3 – Palais Theatre, Melbourne