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06 MARCH 2016
MUSIC
If you're a Jeff Buckley fan you're likely
to feel like a princess at prom with the
news there's a collection of previously
unreleased recordings about to come
out.The project has come to fruition
thanks to the legendary producer behind
Buckley's stellar album Grace, Steve
Berkowitz – look out for our interview
with him in next month's issue.
he says. “Once you realise that you can just
put ANZAC bullsh-t on the cover of your Harvey
Norman catalogue, you can get away with it, so
why not? I don’t think people realise that. People
should not suffer fools and they should not suffer
scams like that, so it’s everybody’s fault.”Liddiard
sees the weird sounds and chugging rhythms
of Feelin Kinda Free as something of a full circle
return.The myriad effects which permeate the
album are, for the most part, all created on guitar
– even ThenThey Came For Me’s high-pitched,
airy whistle (which mimics the terrifying Jericho
trumpet Liddiard mentions in the lyrics) and the
singing saw sound on Tailwind, which suggests
the creepy astral close of Radiohead’s Pyramid
Song. “The whole thing was to not have blues
guitars in it,” Liddiard explains. “I’d been listening
to really old four-track tapes from the ‘90s
that me and [formerThe Drones member] Rui
[Periera] made, and they’re all totally bizarre. It
was almost as though having two guitars playing
American-ish, country-ish, blues-ish guitars
music – that was a stretch for us. We had to learn
how to do that. But just being completely f-cking
weird is so natural. It was a relief. Everyone was
on side, everyone was cool.”
"T he creative process is sh-t,”
says Gareth Liddiard. “You’ve
got to make it seem like it just flows
out of you. But it doesn’t, it’s awful. It’s
stunted and it’s painful and it’s just sh-t. But
it’s do-able.”
What the singer-guitarist and the rest of his
five-piece have done on new album Feelin Kinda
Free is innovative as a Rube Goldberg machine
(although the consequences are anything but
pedestrian), with guitar lines that snake and
chomp at sudden, thick chords, and Liddiard’s
spat lyrics lurching away from the babylike
responses of bassist (and Liddiard’s wife),
Fiona Kitschin. Incredible lead single Taman
Shud – which Andrew Bolt has loudly scorned,
much to Liddiard’s amusement – is about a
little-known Australian murder mystery.The
randomly scrawled letters on Feelin Kinda Free’s
cover are an unsolved code found written on
GARETH LIDDIARD
THE DRONES
JEFF BUCKLEY
continued
MACKLEMORE & RYAN LEWIS
Feelin Kinda Free by The Drones
s out March 18 via Dew Process. Read
he whole interview with Gareth online
t .
This Unruly Mess I've Made by Macklemore
and Ryan Lewis is out now via Warner.
a scrap of paper – which was ripped
from a book found in a random man’s
car footwell – which ended up in the
pocket of an unidentified corpse on
Somerton beach in Adelaide in 1948.
“It’s well known,” Liddiard says of the tale.
“Everyone in America knows about the whole
f-cking thing, but no one in Australia is interested
in anything Australia.” His idea is that much of
our cultural cringe stems from the fact that if we
look into our own history, pretty soon we’re going
to get to the mistreatment of our indigenous
race, and then we feel uncomfortable; this
guilt fosters offensive behaviour towards both
Aboriginal Australians and immigrants.The clip
for Taman Shud features a whole lot of hilarious
and powerful imagery including two Ned Kellys
making out, Gina Reinhart as a toad spewing coal
and Liddiard in ANZAC fatigues singing in front of
various photoshopped ads which piggyback the
ANZAC legacy. “I just think they’re shameless,”
Q1/ In your Red Bull behind-the-scenes
video you talked about balancing
your own writing with working with
producers. Did you mind giving control
to others?
It’s actually really fun for me to
collaborate production wise, and writing with
other people as well. As much fun as it is
doing it on my own also. I was really excited
to bring people on board. But with some
other songs, I kind of thought they were quite
personal, and I wanted to keep them just for
myself to work on in my own time.
Q2/ It was clear how much you loved
doing the video forShoulda Coulda
Woulda. Did you come up with the brief,
the costumes, the dancers?
Myself and the company I created it with,
PixelFrame, we both came up with the idea.
Then they decided to go and build the actual
mirrored cube room, which was awesome. So
that was quite collaborative as well. I chose
every outfit, and I knew I wanted dancers
in it. PixelFrame are great; they also did my
video clip for The Good Life .
Q3/ How long have you been playing
DJ sets?
I started DJing probably three years ago.
I’ve been doing it for a while. I like to do that
in between while I’m touring. I really like
playing music that I am actually influenced
by, which is a lot of dance music; a lot of
house and techno.
Q4/ What was New Years in Perth like?
I DJ’d on the rooftop at Avery, it was a
ticketed event. It was really fun. I brought in
the New Year; there were confetti cannons
at midnight.
Q5/ Which song did you play when the
clock struck 12?
I played Star Guitar by The Chemical
Brothers. Yeah, it was good.
You And I
by Jeff Buckley
is out Mar 11
via Sony.
The fey vulnerability of
singer-songwriter Elizabeth
Rose belies the conviction
behind her manner. She's just
released Intra, her gorgeous
debut asked her
five questions.
Intra by Elizabeth
Rose is out now
through Inertia.
INTERVIEW
ELIZABETH
ROSE
The Seattle duo have already released a few singles,
including the Grandmaster Flash-esque Downtown
and the sociopolitically-charged White
Privilege II. Now their second LP is ready to
be set loose, and it promises to be yuge.