The Very Nearest and Dearest
Picks up phone. I can very definitely say the voice at the other end isn't Jodi Phillis,
even allowing for the static on the line from the Blue Mountains where most of The
Dearhunters reside.
No, this is Tim Oxley, once a Very, and now the other voice most often heard beside Ms.
Phillis' on this band's serenely lovely new album "Red Wine & Blue".
However, the questions on Ms. Phillis' "Lounge-O- Sound", her New Year's
Day [1998] arrived offspring Ivy, and graphic design are now largely up the spout. And the
tape player has caught about half the conversation.
This is not boding well. Quick re-arranging of scrap paper. But actually, Mr. Oxley was
part of the Lounge-O-Sound Phillis solo project of a while back, and can fill in some of
the details. (Sorry, Ross, seems Ms. Phillis is a little frightened of you,
according to sources close to this mob. Nice of them to give us some prior warning - Ed.)
"Some people left, some people came. We had played some little shows as a band and
then Cameron McCauley had all this new computer recording equipment, and some lovely old
valve microphones he got from working at NIDA, and so he wanted to use us as guinea pigs
to experiment with it all."
"So, we set it all up at what was then Jodi's "hippy shack" at Bundeena,
where I was playing Nanna living inn a granny flat out the back, and just recorded it in a
very relaxed setting, with no record company looking over our shoulder saying 'you know
how much studio time costs ?' And we played, and we experimented, and could go for walks
when we wanted to clear our heads."
And what has come out is an album of what some might call 'country flavoured', but what
Oxley calls 'slow pop', which "can uplift you, or bring you down, depending on what
mood - it's all part of the cunningly worked out market plan - play it at your next dinner
party or you can sit and shed a tear to it in a darkened room. We've tried it all sorts of
ways," he expounds.
There's songs from all four then members of the combo - beside Oxley and Jodi - who
includes her gorgeous paean in song to her then new organic product, baby "Ivy"
- the other two know their way around a pop song as well. Greg Hitchcock has spent time in
You Am I among other places, and drummer and accordionist Raph Whittingham was in The
Clouds with Jodi, with circumstances seeing him eventually step out of ver Hunters for his
drumstool job with Stella One Eleven.
The hitting things with sticks job has now fallen to Dave Aston, of Trout Fishing In
Quebec, Supagroop, and without exaggeration, many more. "He actually has the names of
all the bands he's played with written on a drum head - after he'd played with us a couple
of times, we got added, but he really was struggling to find a place to write us in,"
claims Oxley.
The songs are not all the acoustic strums you might expect. There's some slide guitar from
Hitchcock that adds the country flavour at times, though there's some odd tangents, like
his song "Starling", a fairly underused bird in the romantic sense in song.
"Hmm, not quite airborne rats, but they can be very naughty," suggests Tim.
"Apparently in Perth, where Greg is from, they have plagues of them. I think he more
probably just liked the word."
Or "Ballerina", where the reversed guitar makes a welcome appearance, a not oft
sighted beast from Beatle-esque times. "But even that's different," Tim now
recalls. "Rather than just doing what The Beatles did and just playing the tape
backwards, Jodi actually learnt the song backwards and put it into the computer."
Sounds weird, but it works.
There are no great expectations for the album, the people involved are just making the
music they enjoy. "Though multi-platinum success would be acceptable," he
allows. As said, suggested listening position is relaxed, in a dimly lit room, and the
title's beverage probably a good option as well. Happy imbibing.
Written by Ross Clelland
Drum Media
7th September, 1999 |
