Vinyl Diaries XIX: Low

Low
The Famous Spiegletent
January 17, 2008

Whatever the weather was doing outside the small confines of the Spiegletent, we had long forgotten. Wherever they go Minnesota's Low carry with them their own little micro-climate, a dry, static threat of a storm that refuses to break.

The wind comes up, ruffles our hair and swirling leaves and dust and torn up receipts, forgotten shopping lists and discarded love letters, but just as we try and grasp them - dancing within our reach - they are torn from our fingers.

There's nothing especially complex about what's going on here, and therein lies the secret. Alan Sparhawk's chord clusters brush up against Mimi Parker's spacious Mo Tucker drum patterns, with bass lines that never stray too far from a song's heart. Yet with each loop of an idea, each thematic return, every subtle scrape and tic has you holding your breath, your ears pricked for the menace that lurks just beyond the door.

There's a stark sense throughout of both claustrophobia and agoraphobia - Low leave you crouching in a creaking, paint-stripped shack while your thoughts of escaping into the world outside offers no respite. The tin roof pops and buckles from the heat, the blowing sand scouring the last skerricks of colour from the warping wooden boards only just holding together with rust shaped as nails.

Once a musical base is firmly bedded in, Sparhawk's voice cuts through with an alarming menace. Parched yet powerful, it is born of clenched teeth and a concrete jaw. Fourth-grade sweetheart and now wife Parker's voice, in contrast, offers a soothing, vibrating warmth that works in perfect counter-balance. In a set that works with so much nuance and such slight changes of sandy shade, the vocals are the main points of departure and were in beautiful form throughout.

Treating us to many of the strongest moments from Guns and Drums and a spattering of older works, the rapt audience watched from seat-edge in hushed expectation. Highlights included a near wistful 'Dragonfly', a pointed 'Pissing' and a gently drawn 'Belarus', with 'Sandanista' also an evocative delight.

Nothing came close, however, to the chilling offer made in 'Murderer' for "Someone to do your dirty work", and the unhinged, violent beauty of 'Take Your Time', which left the warm taste of blood from a bit lip rolling around in the mouth. We wonder as to "what it takes to get a bad mess out of a bad dress" as we sink our nails into whatever (or whomever) is near, unable to stand the slow torture of it all.

A torture I wouldn't trade for the world.

Vinyl Diaries XVIII: Tunng

Photo by DG Jones

Tunng
The Famous Spiegeltent
14 January, 2008


Around a bend, beyond a bush, beneath a bough, he sat.

‘Goo goo g'joob’, he would say, though there was nobody there to hear.

‘Goo goo g'joob,’ the walrus added, just in case someone had recently passed.

They had not.

Upon a bough, beyond a bush, around a bend, he appeared.

‘Ha,’ said he, ‘I am here it seems, and that, I must say, is that.’

The Cheshire Cat was pleased indeed to find he had appeared just where he had, for if he had appeared anywhere else, then he wouldn’t be here, and that would be no good at all.

‘I am here and here I am and that is that as that is that,’ he added, for effect, for he liked to hear the purr of his voice.

‘And once I know where here is, then here it is that I shall certainly be.’

The walrus looked up from his restful repose to hear what all the fuss was all about, but he could see not a thing.

‘What is this that I hear, yet cannot see?’ he wondered to himself.

Yet ‘Goo goo g'joob’ is what he actually said, for that is what it is he would say, when he was to say what he said.

Beyond a bush, around a bend, beneath a bough, Eeyore did pass. Well, to be exact, he did not pass, but waited so as to pass. Alas, thought he, he could not pass, for in his way, and it was a very long way, was a walrus.

‘In my way, and it is a very long way, such a very long way for me, I seem to see what I can see is a walrus sitting right in front of me.’

Such is what Eeyore though, and such is what he said, for for Eeyore to say is to think and, indeed, to think is also to say. For one really must say what one thinks, and should most certainly think what one says, if one is to make one’s way – and it is such a very long way – through this very long life we lead.

The walrus was, indeed, sitting before Eeyore, in a way that Eeyore could not help but notice was a rather glum seeming way, that is to say, in a way that seemed as though glum was here and so was the walrus, and the two were indeed as though one. But whether as one or as two, it mattered to Eeyore not, for as two or as one something would need to be done, if he were ever to get beyond the bend and beyond the bush and beyond the bough.

Beyond a bush, beneath a bough, around a bend came – of a sudden – a maid.

‘And what kind of maid could this be?’ wondered the Cheshire Cat who, from upon the bough, had watched as Eeyore came upon a walrus and wondered aloud as to the fact of the walrus being beneath the bough and barring his way.

‘And what kind of maid could this be?’ wondered the walrus to himself, noting that she was a maid most fair.

‘Goo goo g'joob?’ the walrus said, just so, with just the faintest trace of an upward inflection to match the ever-so-slightly raised eyebrow that accompanied what he considered the most appropriate question in the circumstances.

‘And what kind of maid could this be?’ wondered Eeyore aloud, for as we know, aloud is how he wondered.

And thus the maid, beneath the bow, came to answer.

‘Marian,’ said she, for that was her name.

‘I am known, hereabouts, for the most part, when known at all, by those who know who I am, or come to know who I am, by way of wondering who I am, and learning that who I am is I – Maid Marian.’

‘I see,’ said the Cheshire Cat, from above the bough, who had taken quite an interest in wondering and learning and knowing who this Maid – who was now known to him as Maid Marian – had been. And was. And, perhaps, would be.

‘I see,’ said Eeyore, for he could, of course, see, although only on occasion for he was tending, for the most part, to hang his head quite low, so low in fact that his eyes were brought level with Maid Marian’s knees, which – as far as he was aware, though he had not, it is true, actually asked – were not also called Maid Marian, by those who knew her or otherwise.

‘Goo goo g'joob’ said the walrus, to – it must be said – the consternation, bemusement, and curiosity of, respectively, Eeyore, the Cheshire Cat and Maid Marian.

‘And what brings you all here?’ asked Maid Marian of the three, despite still not being able to make eye contact with Eeyore, understand what it was the walrus was trying to say, or even see the Cheshire Cat.

‘Some kind of party perhaps? A gathering to celebrate a birthday? A meeting to decide upon exactly what type of cheese the moon is made of?’

‘I’m stuck,’ said Eeyore, ‘hopelessly stuck.’

‘I am here and here I am and that is that as that is that,’ said the Cheshire Cat, for he had so liked the sound of it earlier that he could not help but purr it again, just so.

They all turned to the walrus. He simply shrugged.

‘And what brings you here?’ asked Eeyore, not because it was the polite thing to ask, though it probably was, but because if he was going to be stuck he may as well try and find out how everyone got stuck there, just in case by tracing backwards from the answer they gave it offered a way out – though of course it would not, for nothing was that easy in life, least of all becoming unstuck once one was so very stuck.

‘Well I’m glad you asked – I was on my way to pick some berries, blackberries in fact, with which to make a pie...’

‘Pie!’ exclaimed Eeyore, for if there was one thing that could turn his mind from being stuck it was the thought of pie.

‘Yes a pie,’ smiled Maid Marian, pleased at Eeyore’s brief flirtation with mental if not physical unstuckedness.

‘I was on my way to pick some blackberries, when I heard your voices. They were mingling so beautifully, I thought you must have been performing a little impromptu concert beneath this bough.’

The Cheshire Cat looked at Eeyore, Eeyore looked at the walrus, the walrus looked at Maid Marian.

As one, they blushed. The Cheshire Cat, though ostensibly still invisible, turned a deep scarlet kind of invisible. Eeyore looked like a beetroot with very floppy ears and a strange saggy tail, while the walrus looked like a giant tomato, with tusks.

'Were they really?' asked Eeyore, who had never before heard the word 'beautifully' uttered in association with anything he had done.

'Were they really?' asked the Cheshire Cat, who loved to hear glowing praise he could associate with himself, despite having little difficulty in taking almost anything said about him in a way that he could deem glowing.

'Goo goo g'joob?' asked the tomato with tusks, reminding them that he was, after all, still the walrus.

'Why yes, they were,' said Maid Marian, a new twinkle in her emerald eye.

'You know, I have an idea. You should all join me tonight, and we shall perform songs right here beneath this bough.'

'And what will we sing about?' asked either Eeyore or the Cheshire Cat, it's not too important which.

'Why the usual of course,' answered Maid Marian, thinking briefly about what the usual would be.

'Tea and freedom, friends and your eggs getting cold, catching bullets in our teeth, raves on a riverboat and housewives who rob banks. That sort of thing.'

'We'll sing about singing as the sky collapses and being turned into a hare by the decree of village committees and wind-up birds and running away across the fields and buying a dog and calling him Pete,' added the Cheshire Cat, warming to the idea.

'And sleeping inside the north wind in a coracle at sea and black twisted branches that hid all the things that we did and threading wasps onto string,' murmured Eeyore, saying the first things that came into his head so as not to miss out, though in his heart of hearts he really just wanted to find out more about this blackberry pie.

'And what kind of music will it be?' asked the Cheshire Cat.

'Well what kind of music do you like?' asked Maid Marion.

'I'm somewhat partial to the Beta Band, but my heart is in folk really,' admitted the Cheshire Cat, flinching slightly lest he be deemed less than cool for admitting such a thing.

'I think The Books are onto something' threw in Eeyore, lowering his head even further in the hope that nobody saw his well-worn Smiths t-shirt. 'That Animal Collective also has a certain way of making you think, at the very least.'

The walrus said nothing, but began nodding in a very contagious way. He was thinking he quite likes the sound of several species of small furry animals gathered together in a cave and grooving with a pict.

'Well it's settled then,' said Maid Marion, in a very 'it's settled' kind of way.

'Our music will be a glitch-tinged rustic folktronica, a new primitivism if you will, drawing on all that we know about the deepest darkest reaches of this here forest, channelling ancient spirits to produce music that on first aural glance appears upbeat, yet has a lingering undertow of something just slightly unhinged and sinister.'

'That's all very well,' thought and said Eeyore, 'but let's get our priorities in order. Namely, will we be able to drink lots of tea? Will there be sweets involved?'

'Of course there will be plenty of tea, that's really the whole point - it will be the finest tea rider you have ever seen. Sweets will also play a central role. In fact, we shall have a song called Sweet William, and we shall pass out sweets to the audience and their job will be to join in the making of music through creative rustling of the cellophany wrappers.'

'And what shall we be called?' asked the Cheshire Cat, looking at Maid Marion.

Maid Marion looked at Eeyore.

Eeyore looked at the walrus, who buy now was fast asleep, his tongue lolling languorously from his mouth.

'Tunng!' he exclaimed, in a moment of inspiration (for he was not one to spell very well, especially in moments of inspiration, either in thought or in speech).

'We shall have a special sign, hanging from this very bough - "Upeering Toonite - Tunng."

And appear they did. And such was the rapture with which their performance was received, they decided that far from being stuck, the bough was exactly the kind of place to be, if one was to be anywhere, and if they were going to be in such a place they may as well make the most of it.

'And we all had a lovely time' said they, and they said it was a lovely time.

The rest, as they say, is history (and herstory too, for the Maid beneath the bough had no small part to play, as you can hopefully see).

Vinyl Diaries XVII: Sufjan Stevens

Photo by joe lencioni

Sufjan Stevens
The State Theatre
13 January, 2008

If angels have iPods, they doubtless have them chock full of JS Bach. But those in the know, those who’ve swung a little low, tasted the forbidden fruit of earthly delights – they’ve got a little Sufjan in there too, ready to get them through a long road trip, or for kicking back with a Sunday afternoon Moscow Mule.

Sufjan, the little Michigan boy scout who could, has a grand total of two songs. Fortuitously, they’re both utterly irresistible, able to be rolled out in all sorts of guises and variations, unresolvable twists and turns that lead places we’ve never quite been. He brought them both to town for his Sydney Festival shows, along with a ten-piece music making ensemble to realise his vision writ large.

My softest spot has always been for Sufjan the Fragile, the bruised, overwhelmed little choir boy lost we find cut adrift through Seven Swans. But the sweeping, brass-blast majesty of Come Feel the Illinois finally clicked into place hearing it in the flesh, witnessing the way in which the boisterous parts were wrapped around what still remains a brittle core, a delicate and bleeding heart.

The childish super hero outfits and the rambling tales of heightened nonsense proved a perfect fit, not so much for the music but for what I imagine must be its genesis. One gets the distinct impression that Sufjan is bewitched by life’s boundless possibilities, amazed on a daily basis by things many would walk past without even seeing. This eternally wistful, open-eyed wonderment is precariously child-like, but what emerges manages to side-step tweeness and a misguided elevation of naivety. It’s innocence without the jettisoning of reflection, joy without a cloying sentimentality – parable at all times before preaching.

Constructed with a deft sense of balance, tonight’s set charted a course that made the most of the band and Sufjan’s orchestrative flair, yet allowed the space and silences required for his special brand of scratched intimacy. During the passages with only a piano for adornment, his voice is revealed as a thing of cracked beauty. My threshold for singer-songwriters indulging via piano is remarkably low, but as with Catpower I can make a special exception for Sufjan. Whether the haunting 'Casimir Pulaski Day' and intricately textured 'The Seer's Tower', or giddily driven 'Come On! Feel The Illinoise' and 'Chicago', he held us in the cupped palm of his hand, shaking and blowing on us gently. The highlights were when he was able to weave these different shades through a single piece, as in the flawlessly gorgeous 'The Predatory Wasp Of The Palisades Is Out To Get Us!' and a dark reworking of 'Seven Swans' that crashed and soared in equal measure.

I’ve long been intrigued by the imagery and iconography of Sufjan’s pieces. His Christianity is always there on the sleeve to be seen, but it’s not exactly a technicolour dreamcoat. It seems more as though it’s just one of the pieces of a patchwork quilt, popping up every few squares but blending in with a bigger picture; a Midwest Belle & Sebastian, where Sunday school is as good a place as any to try and score a snog.

Working through most of Come Feel the Illinois – the sprawling opus against which one feels the majority of his career will be judged – there were moments both gaudy and rapturous, essential and tangential. The brass filled many of the pieces out and gave them a sense of spectacle and bombast, trumpets heralading the opening of new doors of possibility to us all.

Whatever musical detours were taken, it all kept coming back to that voice. A husky wisp or a bell-clear chirrup, a stifled sigh or a rose petal rubbed between thumb and forefinger – it’s a gracefully contradictory gift that’s the secret to the whole affair, keeping it simultaneously grounded in earthly experience and blissfully soaring heaven-bound, with the rest of us in tow.

I’ll try and send a postcard.

Vinyl Diaries XVI: Fourplay

Fourplay String Quartet
The Famous Spiegeltent
January 10, 2008

Unsure as to what to say by way of introduction, I might simply point you to whatever it was that I said yonder in the realm of Mess + Noise...

dew

hair flares scarlet
mute edges tinged
by sandalwood's
flickering shroud

cross-hatch heavens
peer silently
warm breath nestles
knowing nape

dew drops
lightly night
falls

Skip, The Rabbit

Cleaning his paws carefully after a delicious dinner of carrots and honey, his absolute favourite, Skip heard the unmistakable rustling of someone moving through a nearby bush. Freezing to his spot, his ears twitched to full attention. Maybe it was his friend Snowy, or perhaps Patch had come back from her trip sooner than expected. But just as he was about to call out a friendly hello, Skip looked up to see the tell-tale bushy orange tail of his nemesis, Mr Fox.

"What on earth could he want at this hour?" wondered Skip.

"Surely he should be off having his own dinner..."

So that's what he was playing at - Mr Fox must be thinking he would try and pinch some of Skip's food for dinner, rather than find his own. Maybe he thought Skip had gone with Patch, and left his larder unprotected?

"That terrible sneak," Skip thought. "He certainly is lazy. If he spent as much time getting his own food as he spent skulking around, pestering everybody else, then he would be a very well fed old fox indeed."

Mr Fox's sly visage appeared around the bush, his hungry green eyes peering straight ahead towards the entrance to Skip's warren. Silently slinking across the clearing, Mr Fox's reddish coat was impossible to mistake, along with the white patch that ran from his nose and cheekbones down to his belly.

"Looking for something?"

Mr Fox jumped high in the air, Skip's measured voice giving him a fright. But he soon regathered his composure, circling to take in Skip, who stood tall with his smooth brown coat and coal-black eyes, pointed ears and slowly twitching whiskers.

"I, I have a message for you," Mr Fox slowly drew out. "Yes, that's it, a message."

And what, pray-tell, might that message be?" asked Skip, dubious to Mr Fox's ways.

"Your friend, the one with the floppy ears and big feet - she wanted me to tell you something. She said to, uh, make sure you remember to, um, water the carrots."

"I see. And she sent you to tell me this?"

"Well, I suppose it might surprise you, but I am generally well trusted around these parts."

This would indeed have surprised Skip, if he could have believed it for even a second. But in his experience, Mr Fox was without a doubt the least trustworthy character he had ever come across.

"And it's just a coincidence you came to tell me this at dinner-time?"

"Well, I wanted to tell you before I forgot. Dinner time you say? Why it hadn't even crossed my mind. Now that you say it, I suppose it is."

A smile danced across his lips.

"Hey, I suppose you wouldn't have a little something to tide me over for the long trip home by any chance?," he simpered, a tone that Skip figured was Mr Fox's attempt at seeming likable. As it was, Skip couldn't have given Mr Fox anything if he had even wanted. He had just polished off the very last of the honey, savouring every last drop from the jar. That's why he had still been cleaning his paws, as he had run them right around the jar to make sure it really was finished.

"I'm afraid you've just missed the last of our food," Skip told Mr Fox.

"I suppose you'll have to just find something of your own."

Mr Fox peered down his nose at Skip, who realised that he must have forgotten to bring his glasses.

"Find something of my own, yes, I suppose I will," he said, licking his lips.

"A splendid idea."

Skip was glad he had kept a close eye on Mr Fox, for at that moment he pounced.

By the time Mr Fox had landed where Skip had just been standing, Skip was now on the other side of the clearing. Mr Fox pounced again, but Skip was still too quick.

"Stay still, there's nothing to be frightened about," Mr Fox panted.

"Just the small matter of you trying to eat me!" shot back Skip, thoroughly irritated at this turn of events. Mr Fox ran at him and Skip stepped off to the side at the last moment, with Mr Fox skidding to a halt. Skip began running around the edge of the bushes, just out of reach of the fox in hot pursuit. This went on for what felt like an age, with Skip making a bee line for a blackwood tree just past the entrance to his home. Just as he reached it he stepped to the left, brushing the rough bark as he went by.

Skip looked back just in time to see Mr Fox mistime his evasion and go crashing into the tree. Mr Fox gingerly picked himself up, dusted off his coat, straightened his gloves and promptly fell in a dead faint. Taking advantage of the respite to regain his breath, Skip went over and prodded Mr Fox with a toe. Nothing happened. He prodded again, but still there was no response. He saw the rise and fall of Mr Fox's chest and, confident he was out to the world, began to hatch a plan.

Skip raced into his warren, looking for a pair of floppy rabbit ears he had brought home one day after a visit to the fair.
He found them perched on the top of a bookshelf and busied himself in search of a pot of glue. He then chose two small pieces of coal from the hearth and found a couple of pieces of chalk as well.

Creeping back up to the surface, he set to work. Mr Fox was still lightly sleeping, but Skip knew he didn't have long. He pulled out the glue pot and began. Stepping back to admire his handy work, he was most pleased with himself. With coal eyes, chalk teeth and the ears, Mr Fox's tail could have been a quite cute red-haired rabbit.

Finding a spot just beyond the clearing where he could still see back in, Skip watched as Mr Fox began to stir. In the growing darkness he could still see the hungry look in Mr Fox's eyes as they opened, one after the other. Skip watched as out of the corner of his eyes, Mr Fox saw he wasn't alone in the clearing. A sudden movement to the left and a flash of teeth followed, with a baleful howl erupting into night.

Skip almost felt sorry for Mr Fox, until he realised that could have been him and not Mr Fox's own tail if he hadn't been quick.

"That should at least take his his mind of his stomach a little while," he thought, watching as Mr Fox wandered out the clearing, holding his tail and muttering darkly to himself beneath his breath.

****************

I'm pretty sure I caught a glimpse of Skip one afternoon, walking with my grandfather in the bush that began at the end of his street, at the bottom of St Ives. It was no more than a brown flash from the corner of my eye and then he was gone, but Pa assured me that it must have been the Skip I had heard so much about, coming to say hello but seeing that he had company. Pa often told me new stories about Skip as day turned to night, stories that he assured me Skip had passed on to him directly. When I would ask how a rabbit could pass on a story to a person, he assured me that if a rabbit set its mind to it, then a rabbit could do anything it pleased. This of course included telling tales to humans.

My dearly-loved grandfather passed away this week, but I know Skip is still out there, passing on his stories to other grandfathers like Pa so they can send their own grandchildren to sleep with fresh tales of Skip's exploits. I know, too, that when my time comes, I'll be able to rely on Skip to keep me up to date with his adventures so I can ease my own grandchildren safely into their dreams.