STACK August 2016 Issue 142

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never deliberately pretty even
though it’s beautiful. “I think it’s just
stemming from who I am inside,”
says Cerro. “I’m not a particularly
pretty person, and the music I’m
into can be quite dirty and scary.
Bjork has a vulnerability to her that
may be considered feminine, but
she’s also very vicious.” It’s part of
the propulsion which keeps Cerro's
internal cogs going – something she
sees as a state you can (and should)
choose. “Optimism, in clinical terms,
it’s just being able to see the positive
side in everything,” she explains. “I
suppose resilience is more what I
[want to embody]. You can do it and
you must do it. If that opportunity
doesn’t work out then move on to
another thing; keep your family and friends
close around you and just be a nice person.”
T he frankly astonishing story of St Kilda's lost songs has nothing to
do with getting trolleyed in the Gershwin Room. St Kilda is an island
off the west coast of Scotland – freezing, beautiful, isolated – and
was evacuated in 1930, as the population dwindled; in the end, it was
only 36 people who tearfully accepted the boat ride away from their
home. The traditional songs of the island were presumed forgotten but
recently resurfaced via the memory of an elderly pianist. These piano-
driven instrumentals are haunting, melancholic and
completely amazing.
MONTAIGNE
THE LOST SONGS OF
ST KILDA
The Lost
Songs of
St Kilda is
out August
12 via ABC/
UMA.
visit MUSIC NEWS
06 AUGUST 2016
MUSIC
T wo years before their Grammy
Award-winning album Kish Kash,
Basement Jaxx were about to break
big with Rooty – its lead single was
indubitable banger Where’s Your Head
At? . The group decided to communicate
their unique and powerful vibe with
cover art featuring Snowflake, the only
known albino gorilla. Snowflake was a
wild-born West lowland gorilla who’d
been captured in Equatorial Guinea in
the '60s, when he was just a baby. He had many of the traits of albinism
typically seen in humans, including white hair, pink skin, poor eyesight
and discomfort in bright light. Just as Rooty was released, Barcelona
Zoo announced that Snowflake had been diagnosed with a very rare skin
cancer related to his albinism. He passed away in November 2003, having
fathered 22 offspring – none albino, but all recessive carriers of the gene.
WHAT'S THE STORY?
We have a look back at the fascinating tales behind some
of our favourite album covers.
INTERVIEW
continued
Glorious Heights by
Montaigne is out August 5
via Sony.
This month: Rooty, Basement Jaxx (2001)
Jess Cerro (AKA Montaigne) is a spunky,
sparkly chick with lots of feelings about
music, but she gets especially verbally nimble
(read: pumped) when she discusses one
particular influence: Owen Pallet. “Every time
I say ‘I’m really into Owen Pallett, I’d really
like to work with him one day,’ and no one
knows what I’m talking about, I'm like 'You
have to know!'” she laughs. When listening
to Cerro’s debut Glorious Heights , the links
between her own shrewd and rather poetic
vision and Pallett’s cinematic, electronically
detailed approach are clear. “First off, I really
like his influence by video games, and how
that makes for an epic and quite unusual
lyric; I also like his chops as a string player,”
she says. “The songs are all really dark and
creepy, that quite weird orchestral thing…
I Am Not Afraid, which is the first song on
[Pallett's 2014 album In Conflict], I can listen
to for days and days. It sounds so ultimate.
It’s like you’re at the end of your life and this
is the sound of it – the way that things will
come to a head and complete themselves.”
That’s not to say Glorious Heights is
morose; it’s definitely curious, with odd vocal
harmonies on In The Dark and fat smears
of brass on Greater Than Me, but those
sit alongside unapologetic slaps of colour,
mountainous synths, bright, joyous piano
triads and the kind of vocal chutzpah she
displayed in the track that brought her to
the attention of the nation: Hilltop Hoods'
1955. All of those come together to give
the effect of unabashed energy, which is