STACK #142 Aug 2016

MUSIC FEATURE

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Gypsy fiddle and Flamenco,The Beatles andThe Kinks, quality and quantity, decision and consequence; Bernard Fanning takes us through the making of his new album, Civil Dusk . Words: Zoë Radas

band now.” Fanning takes a moment to praise Campbell’s style of musical comprehension and application: “It’s so great having people like that to work with, that have that commitment and ability as well. That combination is really important: the diligence to work really hard but also the ability to come up with great ideas.” Despite these details, which Fanning adores explaining and exploring, the fundamental simplicity to the man’s writing – which we heard throughout his previous solo records, Tea and Sympathy (2005) and Departures (2013) – is so important. It’s essential all the way down to the wire of formulating the structural spine for this album and its companion, Brutal Dawn , which is due out February 2017. “Nick [DiDia, Fanning’s producer and long-time buddy] and I [believe] there’re so many records now that are just overdone,” Fanning explains. “There’s too much information. There’s not enough editing that goes on in terms of the way that people should look through their own material and go, ‘This is absolutely the best that I have to present.’ So that was our idea: We said ten [tracks] or less, rather than ten or more.” However (“and it’s not a terrible problem”), the songs kept spilling out, and after discussion

(“I’m not very good at playing real subtleties with my hands – that’s why I’ve never been a very good guitar player or piano player,” he insists. “I can keep the groove really well, I can play them functionally and can write, but I’m absolutely a jack of all trades.”) And on stand- out L.O.L.A. , the wheeling solo of an instrument your brain wants to tell you is electric guitar reveals itself as a fantastically emotive violin, searing across the song’s chords with abandon. “The thing I love about it is the note that starts it,” Fanning enthuses. “It sounds like it’s going to be a shredding guitar but then it’s a gypsy fiddle. That’s Sally-Anna Campbell, who is in my

T he first thing you hear on Bernard Fanning’s new album sounds like a harmonium. At the beginning of opener Emerald Flame , it slides in and expands like a bellows, and then it follows Fanning’s voice, floating warmly and weirdly like heavy smoke in reverse. But it’s not a harmonium – it’s a guitar, filtered through a pedal, and played by Powderfinger guitarist Ian Haug – and it’s not the only thing that isn’t as it seems across the dynamic, rollicking instrumentation on Civil Dusk . Are those castanets in the second verse of belter What A Man Wants ? “That’s Dec – he’s playing spoons,” Fanning smiles, intimating percussionist Declan Kelly. Is that you and Dec in the syncopated clap breakdown on single Wasting Time ? Nope, it’s Bernard’s Flamenco singer and dancer mates, who came in to his Byron Bay studio to contribute. (I guess when your wife is Spanish you get to have Flamenco dancer friends?) “It was f-cking awesome! ‘Cause there’s a real skill to it: the shape of your hand, the velocity and everything, there’s this and that, up here, middle-palm, the fat part of your hand,” Fanning says, holding his own dukes out to demonstrate the manoeuvres.

MUSIC

People should look through their own material and go 'This is absolutely the best I have to offer'

THE BYRON BATCAVE After returning from Madrid (where he completed a good portion of writing for Civil Dusk ), Fanning headed to his Byron Bay studio with Nick DiDia. It’s called La Cuerva – Spanish for ‘The Cave.’ “It was kind of just a little play on that Man Cave idea,” he laughs. “This place is the complete opposite. Like, you could not imagine it! It’s got a view of the entire Cape Byron over a coastal reserve – it’s unbelievable.” DiDia and Fanning are in the process of turning it into a commercial studio right this minute – DiDia has already mixed material for Missy Higgins and Delta Goodrem in the space – so if you’re looking for somewhere to record your Strawberry Fields Forever, La Cuerva could be the golden spot.

AUGUST 2016

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