A musician is stalked through a surreal alternate of Adelaide's landscape. Paranoia? Real threat? One and the same? We should point out that, lyrically, the song has nothing to do with any of that - or does it? The video for Opposite won us an award at U-Film a while back for best FX, which was nice. Although moody and down-tempo, Opposite is a fun song to play live, with lots of tweaking of volumes and FX and heavily filtered vocals that come into their own when you hear them over a PA.
Some of our songs start with a lyric, others with an idea for a melody. Rarely do they start with a sample, but 'Judgement' is an exception to that rule. Listening to some old New Order tunes one day I had one of those moments where your mind suddenly envisages an entirely new song around a few bars of the tune. The first lyric, 'My judgement is poor' sprang to mind straight away and I started constructing the new song. An e-piano riff was next, which seemed to compliment the sample perfectly and gave the song a really jamming, slightly bluesy feel. Where to go next? The construction of lyrics was a bit like a word-association test from this point on: 'My judgement is poor.....but even though I saw......you look into her eyes....I couldn't spot your lies'. Miracuously, there seemed to be some content in that, and the themes of the song grew from there.
This song started life as a guitar loop written by a friend, Gilles, in London. It was supposed to turn into something like a rocky ballad I think. But then Simon came up with a digital image named Char 2 which you can see on this site. Looking at this picture, 'Landscapes' sprang into my mind almost in its entirety - the only time I've ever had this experience. Suddenly the balladish guitar loop turned into a quirky, moody kernel running through a glitchy electronic soundscape overlayed with a vocal part that I slapped down right then and there. The recording left a little to be desired, but grew on us so much we've stuck with the original take - vibe over quality one might say. Oh and for those who have seen us play this live, you'll know that playing this guitar part and singing at the same time definitely challenges my guitar-skills....
This is one of several Colab tracks inspired by the art of David Thorpe, an artist who caught our attention a few years ago. As we said in a blog elswhere on the site, Thorpe captures, within each work, a whole belief system; depicting isolated, idealised communities striving for....for what? Well it's hard to tell. But that's what we tried to do as well when we wrote 'Do What You Have To Do". What are the characters in the song striving for?
Another song written at an isolated location, this time a place called Ranelagh House up near Robertson between Sydney and Canberra. The place has been renovated now but a few years ago it was a pastiche of vintages, with 1920s bathrooms just down the hall from pink velvet 60s lounge rooms, all surrounded by ramshackle gardens with spectacular views. Sitting in part of those gardens, staring at part of that view, got me thinking about the nature of religion and the result was Gods of Greed.