From this recording you can tell that Mekigah is a musically literate project. Part concept album, part pagan elemental allegory, this is a formidable undertaking that demands more than just a cursory background listen. The arrangements lend a great deal from metal’s classical music roots – thematic variations, melodic reprise, infectious lied-motif, operatic story telling and lots of volume.

Upon first listen I was struck by the density of this recording, the constant presence of sound. Whether it is the sustained notes of the guitar or organ, the tinkering of the keyboards or the über lush production, at times I felt as though I was drowning in the sound – craving a breath of silence. While I know this is metal, and an initiatory tale as well, a bit of space and the odd smack in the ear with the more percussive use of over driven guitars would have been the black icing on the wedding cake for me. That being said, there is little to fault the power of this album.

The accompaniment is solid and sustaining, deft in its execution, if a little too dense at times. But the real stars of this dark story telling are the vocalists, who add excitement and texture to the musical journey we undertake.

Led by the powerful and evocative strains of Sam Star, as Eve, whose gorgeous celtic warbling seduces us like a psychopomp leading us into the underworld, we are further treated by a cast of characters from Dave O’Brien’s pleading Lucifer, seeking power and redemption, to the voices of the four elements whose job it is to inflate, consume, drown and devour our heroine whilst keeping their respective vocal chops intact.

The journey each voice adds to the elemental texture is admirably cast with Unbeliever’s larynx shredding growl in Trial by Fire, and the superb elemental theme reprise and medley of Revelation two of the album’s highlights.

This is a satisfying listen and an admirable debut, and I can see Mekigah pushing the envelope in the complex genre of Metal further in the future.

Dirtbird (Dave M. Lewis and Cathy English) at the Guildford Blues & Roots Explosion 2007

Dirtbird’s music is an exploration of the interaction of sound within the silence of vast spaces. This emerges in Dave’s lyrics as well, which tend to explore meaty universal themes – alienation, freedom, love and death – the songs of disembodied characters singing love songs to nature and hymns to elemental forces. You might describe it as secular holy music, or the songs of a true pagan (pagan being used here in it’s original sense of country dweller – someone in touch with the spirit of nature).

My introduction to the recordings of Dirtbird was 2007’s White Horse Road, which became an object of musical idolatry to me at the time. The subtle weaving of guitar, cello, and male and female vocals – not to mention the almost biblical themes, haunted me for a number of months. 2008’s Cathedral didn’t grab me in the same way, but then I was just in the first throws of fatherhood, and didn’t have the time to really devote to listening to it with the attention that it properly deserved.

Enter 2010’s The Traveller, Dirtbird’s 4th and possibly most intricate recording.

The Traveller (or any of Dirtbird’s albums for that matter) is not a CD to be played idly in the car, or while vacuuming the house. I know because I tried. It was only when I sat down and payed attention that I really heard the beautiful subtle nuances of Kramer’s production. It is therefore an album to drown in, via headphones or on a hi-fidelity sound system, in the dead silence of the night, or away from the unholy clamour of the noisy city.

There is a sonic consistency in Dirtbird recorded output (at least in the 3 CD’s that I own). The sound is recognisably Dirtbird. One curious fact is that while there is a different female vocalist on each recording (Cathy English on White Horse Road, Victoria Moss on Cathedral, and Kimshar Wolfs on The Traveller) the vocal arrangement, and hence the overall sound, remains the same. Dave’s voice is distinctive and emotive, while the female backing, with its predominantly alto nuances and lovely washes of ‘Strain tends to be understated and supportive, only taking on their own idiosyncrasies in the odd song where the female voice takes the lead, such as the beautifully haunting “We Rise”.

That being said, there are other interesting departures from this formula that prick up your ears. “The Song to the Sea”, could have been plucked straight from some obscure medieval folk mass, with it’s beautiful middle-eastern modal melody and sweet close harmonies.

The addition of other instrumentation does not distract from the minimalist beauty of Dave’s songs – testament to Kramer’s skillful production. In fact on first listening (albeit in the car) I hardly noticed them at all. Now, after a number of careful listens and growing familiarity with the material, I can’t help but applaud the graceful addition that the subtle use of Richard Pleasance’s bass, Mary Thorpe’s drums and particularly Kristin Rule’s glorious cello adds to Dirtbird’s sound, without taking away from the minimalist largo ethic that is Dirtbird’s signature.

If you like music that is thoughtful, slow, sparse, emotive and open and you don’t mind waking in the middle of the night with a haunting line or lyric playing itself interminably inside your head then you will appreciate and come to love Dirtbird’s music as much as I do.

Visit Dirtbird’s myspace page to hear select tunes from this wonderful album.

So I was amusing myself with my lil’n when I happened to glance down at the graffiti scrawled on the bench, and I had to chuckle because either it was the tag of a trio of escapees from Beverly Hills 90210, or the children of some very sad individuals who take inspiration for their children’s names from soap operas. I’m not sure who this Andrew character is though? The original imprint has been erased so it could be that brainy chick Andrea post sex-change.

Yes, they were here alright.

So I crawled out of the little cocoon of my routine in the last week to see some live music of the international kind. Two artists whose talent and musicality are among the best in the contemporary music scene (lucky me ).
Firstly the red-haired chanteuse Ms Neko Case, who is always mesmerizing in her aural intensity – making death sound sexy (which of course it is). Apart from the fact that I was in an awkward position (behind the mixer at the HiFi Bar – where the main front of house is complemented by secondary speakers and the bass gets lost – or did the mixer only nail the bass half way through the set?) the performance was engaging and energising. I must also raise my hat to Jen Cloher, whose support set, ending with that superlative Grant Lee Buffalo track Fuzzy, was freakin A.
The second scene I visited was the Forum Theatre – what a gorgeous space – to see Joanna Newsom. I respect this uber-talented waif for her musicianship and her vision – opening new ground in the world of popular song with, of all things, a freakin concert harp (an instrument I always thought of as the naffest in the whole orchestra – Joanna, you have opened my eyes) and showing the breadth and depth of not only what a song can be, but what highly crafted arrangement can bring to popular music.
I was expecting to hear a lot more of her previously recorded material, though, and as lovely and trail blazing as her new material is, it was difficult to fully appreciate a set of mostly new material. Call me treacherous, or merely fussy, but I left the gig feeling it was a tad self indulgent of an artist who we payed $50 a pop to see, try out her new songs on us.
Perhaps my enjoyment of the performance was marred not so much by my lack of knowledge of the material, but by my body’s unwillingness to merely stand and watch such delicate music being performed. Those who arrived at the venue early and scored a seat were probably closer to heaven than I was. And this brings me to the point of my post – while I am happy to pay $50 and stand up for a rock performance, I don’t think I’m that chuffed about standing stone still (the bouncers were asking people to stand if they chose to sit down) for art music – however lovely and finely performed. While the ambiance of the Forum was a fit setting for Joanna to play in, the promoter let us down in choosing a rock venue for what was essentially a cross-over classical performance.
Which brings me to my next bitch. What is the story with a no-water-may-be taken-into-the-venue policy? We were searched upon entering and told to either drink or empty our water outside. I know this shit has been going on for a while in night-clubs, and you can’t bring your own piss into a sporting venue, but no full drink bottles of water – please!?! I just filled the damn thing up again in the toilets (and the chlorine probably did me some good – I drink only filtered water at home). However, this greedy stupidity back fired on the venue when Joanna stopped her performance (mulchos kudos to you Ms Newsom) because someone fainted in the front row. I don’t know the full facts, but they probably had to empty their water bottle in the street as well.
In fact the security at this gig were – while yeah, yeah, just doing their job – a little heavy handed for a harp-led performance that probably was unable to break any noise restriction policy, let alone start a freakin riot. I saw some poor guy, dreadlocked and thin as a rake, being asked to leave because he was too intoxicated. And while the bouncers were polite, the gestapo-air was a major downer on the evening. Is this another symptom of the bullshit licensing laws that killed the Tote?
Anyway, enough acrid verbiage. Had this performance happened in a concert hall, rather than a, all be it quite beautiful, renovated cinema, now rock venue I think I’d be gushing now rather than chaffing a bit and writing my first bitchy post on what I still intend to be a predominantly positive blog.

Major label paranoia circa 1982

However this same humble media allowed a vibrant alternative music culture, little known by those living in the everyday world, to thrive. The citizens of this underground community dubbed themselves ‘home-tapers’. People, whose talents ranged from the sublime to the ridiculous, yet who shared a common vision of D.I.Y. nous and a fierce will to do things their own way.

In my early journeys as a musician in the 90′s I was fortunate enough to stumble upon this world. I became acquainted with a number of those who were part of the machinery that made this world-wide community live and breath. I would send them tapes and then a month or so later receive a tape in return, or a lovely letter saying how much they enjoyed hearing from people in  Australia who were creating and releasing their own music. Further they promised to play a track on their radio shows – shows dedicated to a world united not so much by musical style, but by a beautifully self-indulgent creed, “art for art’s sake”.

Even though it was essentially an anarchic movement (anyone could join so long as they had a song and a tape recorder) there were a number of people who endeavoured to take the music of these home-studio hombres to the rest of the world.

People like Don Campau in California, who had the aptly titled radio programme “No Pigeonholes” and whose new project, The Living Archive, is a personal history of the home taping movement as he, and others, witnessed it through the 70s, 80s and into the 90s. It’s a fascinating archive and treasure trove of artists who were, and many who still are, making music – not to be famous or lauded for their talents – but because they love doing it.

Then there is Charles Rice Goff III in Kansas of Taped Rug Productions. Charlie 3, as I like to call him, is a prodigious and prolific creator of songs, soundscapes, dada happenings, and retina burning animated gifs. He has been part of a number of very wild and crazy musical project from Turkey Makes Me Sleepy to his current incarnation, the River Cow Orchestra. My favourite story about a Charlie 3 track involves the all night electronic jam I coordinated on Melbourne community radio station 3CR, Dreaming Electric. I was playing one of his tunes about a South American serial killer who ate his victims (eerie organ chords and Charles’ ghoulish narration) when the station phone rang and the voice at the other end said, “Why are you appearing like a pig in my dreams”. After the initial shock wore off, I got all defensive and told him if he didn’t like the music he should change the station. He however had no idea what I was talking about as he thought he was calling his friend in Queensland, who he had just dreamed about. Late night voodoo at work across the airwaves and down the phone lines.

I released a compilation of CRG III’s music on my Yippie Bean label called Bean Dip Yo Yo which you can sample here.

Other honourable mentions in my list of home-taping all stars are Berlin’s Lord Litter, a fiercely independent artist and broadcaster. Moving across the channel and one cannot forget to mention Mick Magic and his United World Underground, a tape distro project that involved Mick’s hilarious newsletter Music and Elsewhere reviewing a copious and diverse number of artists from around the world. Finally I’d like to mention Tim and Terri B of Stone Premonitions who’s prog-and-beyond releases from projects like The Rabbits Hat and Mr Quimby’s Beard I enjoyed immensely and who I, sadly, haven’t been in contact with for close to a decade.

That’s the thing with this scene though. Like true old friends, you can bet they’ll welcome you back with open arms, like you saw them just yesterday, when you were talking about the idealism of music as a form of self-expression and personal sanity. Art as the food of the soul – something that doesn’t make you materially rich, but rather, makes you more human.

I intend to write more on home taping, particularly regarding my experiences with Australian artists, in future posts.

While his analogy is tinged with masculine bravado – having witnessed child-birth I could never truly compare my song writing labour pains anywhere as near as intense as my partner’s labour was – I do agree with his premise. Song writing is a fickle game. A lot of pacing and getting up to make another cup of tea or coffee or a sandwich, multiple trips to the pisser as you push one little idea out after another. Maybe a more apt analogy would be constipation, though certainly not as edifying to the creative journey. Anyone who wrestles with a muse will testify to this.

However it’s not always piss, blood and vitriol.

There are days when the wind fills your sails and the journey to creation is a leisurely cruise across a calm bay with your fingers trailing in the water – rare days of creative bliss. A small number of my songs emerged in such times. One of my favourites is A Wide Road Called Sorrow, which is a simple minor blues progression and an even simpler story about a love affair with hard-luck that drives our poor hero down a wide road, up a steep hill, passed a truck stop and away from a home town, all called Sorrow. (To listen to this tune, and more of my music check out my Myspace page here.)

Such a simple idea needed a clever hook and that came unexpectedly, a few months after I first wrote the song. The initial idea was a chuggin’ straight ahead, four on the floor country blues tune – a pick me up that I could play after a gorgeously grotesque 5 minute ballad on love gone wrong. I have a tendency of writing slow songs and I need to force myself to pick up the pace at times so I don’t send my audience into voluntary somnambulism – out of the band room and towards the bar.

One evening I was in my studio, winding down, and I started playing the song at a low, slow adagio and loved what I heard. It reminded me of that New Orleans funeral scene in the Bond flick, Live and Let Die. However the song would have gone on for 10 minutes at that pace, so I increased the tempo between each verse and what emerged struck me as pretty snazzy. It has become the signature tune which I open up my set with and always leaves me full of goose bumps after I play it. Most people love it. Though one old geezer came up to me after my last show and said, “You’re alright, but that first song was shit!” You can’t please everyone all the time.

Unfortunately our normally benign next door neighbour has other plans. It is grand final day after all, when the inner-lad in any man is given permission to emerge, and emerge it does – quite vocally. The laddish chatter comes quick and fast over the fence, as does the smell of burnt sausages and beer, as two teams of highly trained men, devoted to skilfully manipulating an inflated piece of pig-leather, take centre stage.

Once I would have been overjoyed by this day – when I was 10 years old that is. But right now I want to spend a bit of time learning Adobe CS4 in order to get my website up and running, some time before the next decade.

Of course there is house work to be done, and procrastination is an able seducer, so I leave my studio begrudgingly. Dishes need washing, the rugs need vacuuming and music needs cranking up to 11 so as to drown out the boyish laughter and the hooligan antics next door. And what more fitting trip down memory lane, than a journey to the sound track of my disenfranchised adolescence – I blast the brutal strains of Hatred from that seminal (what a fitting word) Conan-metal album, Manowar’s Into Glory Ride. This is my distorted echo to the harsh vocalisation of the excitable football fans over the fence.

ManowaR in fine fur fashion

When I was a lad of 14 or so, going to an all boys Catholic collage and lacking the wit, looks or courage to talk to girls – the obvious outlet for my throbbing hormones became music, particularly Heavy Metal. Not just any Metal – those glammy L.A. posers like Poison who hijacked the beef and marinated it with sexual lubricant didn’t rate in my world. I’m talking the sword carrying, fur wearing, tough guy strain of Metal – guitarists whose distortion settings sent parents on vacation; vocalists whose tonsils could slay dragons, or summon demons from the dankest pits of Hell – lyricists who were not afraid to pen letters of hate to no one in particular, but rather to the world in general. This was my baptism of fire into the power of music to capture the mood of one’s existence and direct it with spit, venom and a touch of the ridiculous out into the world.

I spent many a happy evening taping the Heavy Metal show on 3PBS and then heading to the city to scour the racks of LPs at Metal for Melbourne or Pipe Imported for the album that contained the tracks I gravitated towards. Albums like Queensryche’s The Warning, and bands like Fates Warning, Savatage, Celtic Frost, Rush and S.O.D. (aka Stormtroopers Of Death) an eclectic mixture I grant you. Back then Heavy Metal was a music choice of the pimply and disaffected, and an outsider pose that involved long hair, studded armbands, armless jean jackets and patches – I don’t think much has changed in that regard.

Of course those glory days had to come to an end. My farewell to the power of metal was a fitting one for a Catholic boy straying from the flock. In an act of defiant vandalism, your now older and wiser blogger decided to pen the words “Repent – turn to Satan” on a bench in the main quadrangle at his illustrious Catholic college. An event that led to a weeks suspension and a new reputation that reverberated through every year level of the school – I was marked by the sign of the goat and the moniker of devil-worshiper.

Had I the strength of my convictions I would have stood tall and borne these slanders with the spiritual fortitude of Jesus on his way to Golgotha. But my heart wasn’t truly in it and I shamefully battered a few of the more overtly satanic albums to death, namely Mercyful Fate’s Don’t Break the Oath and Bathory’s eponymous debut – an act I now look back on sadly, as those LP’s were a milestone in my growth from boy to man –  mementos of the rebellious spirit that adolescence epitomises. Whats more they would have been great to play at times like this, either for a laugh or when the defiant spirit of my boyhood wishes to thumb its nose at the sports loving Australian public. Manowar escaped unscathed though, so now I can fondly crank it loud as the first quarter siren blows and the vacuum cleaner emits its maudlin whine.