Angela Slatter, who has a rather nice short story in the running for a Ditmar (see the finalists here — only a couple of weeks till the winners are announced at Dudcon!), has kindly posted a Q&A with me as part of her ongoing drive-by series. There is talk of fetishes, Dracula and doughnuts — I’m particularly chuffed to see a picture of Thoth on the page (that’s him above!)!
Death Most Definite – a deadly debut
Death’s big business — cutthroat, too. This is brought home to Pomp (alas, the circumstance!) Steven de Selby, a minor rung in the corp’s Brisbane ladder, when everything goes to Hell. Helping spirits pass over to the great fig tree under the world is a family talent, though there are those who have spurned the calling. Not Steven, who finds the task of Pomping somewhat cushy: it pays well, and the only effort he has to make is visiting the recently departed once in a while to make sure that unruly denizens of the netherworld — Stirrers — don’t pop into the recently vacated meat and take it for a test drive. But now the old firm is suffering a shake-up and the new broom is sweeping mighty clean indeed. Steven’s on the run, his life in tatters and under considerable threat. Through south-east Queensland he flees, with a gorgeous ghost watching his back (and other bits of his anatomy as well). Steven’s gonna have to step up and set things to right, or die in the attempt, and all of Australia — if not the world — is at stake.
Death Most Definite, the first of a series, is the debut novel (with an awesome, Angel-like cover) of Brisbane’s Trent Jamieson (a man whose prose I’ve long admired and who I have had occasion to share a drink with). Here, he’s wearing his heart on his sleeve. It’s an endearing feature of his prose — the man’s a short story genius — that the emotions run high and true, more often than not. The prose is on the money — fast and self-deprecating, with touches of beauty where appropriate, and insights into the morality of modern life (and a further insight into Trent’s CD collection — but hey, if any story was befitting of London Calling for its soundtrack, this is it).
Brisbane stands up quite well to its central role as sub-tropical battleground, its smallness of city and bigness of town adding to Steven’s woes. Just goes to show, you don’t need to be in Manhattan to have an enjoyable apocalypse. The supernatural elements, particularly the rituals, are suitably visceral, and should satisfy the eye of those looking for awards shortlists.
For the most part, the pace of this crime/horror thriller skips along nicely, smoothing over the couple of logic potholes that are adequately filled by the time we reach the denouement which sets up the next leg of the arc. Steven is a cool dude, a philosophical slacker and easy mark who rises to the occasion and provides pathos, a few chuckles and plenty of slick gory moments along the way.
This is an accomplished debut. Devilish fun!
Goldfrapp rock Melbourne
All kudos to Alison Goldfrapp, but let’s also hear a cheer for her band and sound team, who all came together with nary a missed beat to provide a thrilling climax to her Australian tour at Melbourne’s Palace Theatre on Tuesday night.
Goldfrapp, soldiering on despite the death of her mother (announced on her blog in July), headed a band as tight as her body suit: a keyboardist with a Chrissy Amphlett fringe who was either busy with one hand on the keyboard and the other on the synthesiser or boogeying away at the front with a keytar; a Sheena Easton lookalike drummer presiding over a hybrid electric-acoustic kit; a cruisy bassist who might’ve been Jason Statham’s little brother; and a ringmaster who bounced around with a certain impish glee with his wild hair and beard and pyjama style body suit as he added highlights with an electronic violin thingy, guitar or keytar – the double keytar attack on some songs was truly awesome. And then there was Goldfrapp herself, raising hairs with those high notes, and otherwise enthralling with a set to seduce, all breathy and note perfect as she strutted centre stage and reeled off an hour and a half of hits, including two encores.
The lighting was striking, centred on a silver doughnut at stage rear, with lots of strobes and smoke, but it was the sound that made the night: the keyboards were working overtime, laying the foundation with a huge sound complemented by the rhythm section’s driving beat.
There was little chitchat from Ms Goldfrapp, looking resplendent in her mix-and-match black bodysuit and makeup lifted from the Alive music clip – minimalist but for the dark eyeshadow that enhanced the silvery undead gleam from the stage lights.
Light and shade were provided by a range of songs (penned by the songwriting duo of Goldfrapp and Will Gregory) from the cruisy Utopia, from debut album Felt Mountain, to more wistful Black Cherry to the joyful dancefloor pop of recent singles Alive and Rocket. The band were sharp, stopping and starting in perfect sync, and the tunes arranged to provide moments of quiet for Goldfrapp’s high range to weave its magic.
It was an impressive display of slick musicianship that could only have been improved by having Tycho Brahe in support!
Concrete Blonde touring Australia in October
It’s official: Concrete Blonde are to tour Australia in October playing Brisbane (19th), Sydney (21st), Melbourne (22nd) and Perth (23rd). I am ecstatic.
The band, who broke through with the single Joey and just couldn’t sustain the chart impact, are touring to mark the 20th anniversary of their brilliant album, Bloodletting, which has recently been released in a remastered edition with extra tracks.
Madigan Mine: launched!
Madigan Mine has been officially launched! A most excellent crowd attended at Melbourne’s Carlton Library (three cheers for the brilliant staff) to see a metaphoric bottle of bubbles broken over the bow of Kirstyn McDermott’s debut novel. Lucy Sussex (who has her own launch coming up) did the honours, fitting the Melbourne-set thriller into the wider context of Australian Gothic and saying some very nice things about Kirstyn’s prose.
It was grand to see such support for a local writer, with publisher Pan Macmillan sending representatives, including the artist who designed the superb cover.
Kirstyn provides the author’s perspective of the event, and there are more pictures here.
Lucy Sussex launches Madigan Mine
John Foxx – songs for the urban condition
The good folk at Projekt recently made available a very attractive 2CD/1DVD set of John Foxx’s new collection, Metatronic.
Foxx is the founder of Ultravox, a pioneer of synthesiser music and all-round clever artist. I saw him rip up Brisbane’s venerable Tivoli theatre two years back, proving that a man and a keyboard or three of electro goodness can put on a hell of a show (having Louis Gordon bouncing around like a mad thing doesn’t hurt, either).
In an interview prior to that tour, Foxx told me about his fascination with the urban landscape. That fascination is apparent on Metatronic, a retrospective put together by Foxx that showcases what he considers his darker material spanning his 30-year career to date.
On early listenings, it’s delivering what I was looking for: a soundscape for the city, lonely and echoing in places, peak-hour and oblivious at others; at times melancholy and other times strident, but almost always evoking a sense of isolation however desperately it might be resisted. Compelling bass lines lay the foundation, with slick, crisp production adding fill and texture (see The Noise). His almost desperate, hoarse vocals complete the picture: love lies lost in the rush and buried under the cacophony, leaves burn, cars burn, “there’s no one driving”.
While disc 1 is the showcase, the second value-adds with live tracks from Foxx’s gig in Sydney in 2008 supplemented with remixes. The DVD includes several music clips and two live clips.
Synth-driven goodness: O. Children and SPECTRA*paris
Two new finds causing some synth-driven excitement at the coffee pot today are O. Children and SPECTRA*paris.
The former hail from the UK and have just released their self-titled debut album — the tracks online suggest Joy Division basslines and a Sisters of Mercy meet Nick Cave sensibility taken into even darker, synth-drenched terrain. With a name taken from a Nick Cave song (a fairly recent one, too, the clever young things!), they’re definitely an outfit to investigate further. Maybe file with the likes of Interpol, Editors and White Lies…
SPECTRA*paris offer lighter fare on their album Dead Models Society, but it’s equally compelling. Catchy synth beats are complemented with great washes of fill-sound, buzzing guitar highlights and, so very notably, the vocals of Elena Alice Fossi (whose accent adds fetching weight). I’m finding this more accessible (or less challenging) than the choppier cut’n’thrust of Coroner’s Sun, an album by her other outfit, Kirlian Camera, though it’s early days yet. Dead Models Society shows nice changes of pace from high-energy to meditative to down-right slinky, and throw a cool cover of Mad World into the mix. The pop sensibility should this see fit nicely in the background for the car or the commute, or with some track selection, thumping out at a party.
It would be easy to dismiss the outfit as a gimmick band, given their catwalk-ready all-girl line-up, but that would be shortsighted. Here’s a taste, the cracking opening track from the album performed live (the studio version has lots more oomph through headphones!):
Reject hate
Caught this bunch of tossers on the news this morning — the usual hate and vitriol that does no one any good. You might notice this particularly ugly little branch of ‘Christian’ zealots have venom to spare for gays as well as Muslims. You can almost see them in your mind’s eye, these pathetically scared little people, grasping at their vile belief in some attempt at making themselves feel better. Dictators know very well the power to be gained by getting your flock to hate someone else — we all like to feel that we’re a wee better than someone else, don’t we? That little superiority complex to prop up our inferiority complex. Feeling left out? Economy not so good? Life’s a bit shite? Here, follow me, son, and I’ll make you feel better about yourself by hurting someone else. Jackboots or a crucifix, it’s all the same. I can imagine how they’re relishing the attention, too; lovin’ the self-inflicted martyrdom that comes with uttering such vile inanities. I don’t trust zealots, no matter their creed. I wonder if there’s a way to get them to break out of their little boxes of myopic belief and see the true wonder of everything the world has to offer.
Tycho Brahe – Delos
Brisbane synth-driven legends Tycho Brahe recently, um, discovered this sterling piece of cut’n’splice that marries their rockin’ instrumental track, Delos, with its inspiration: Westworld. Great stuff!
Recent reading: Ellis and Marsden
BRET Easton Ellis is on his way to Melbourne so I thought I’d better swot up, starting with Lunar Park (2005; his only book since then, Imperial Ballrooms, came out last month and is a sequel to his debut, 1985’s Less Than Zero).
Lunar Park is a very clever book, all about a writer called Bret Easton Ellis whose career path seems to mirror the drug-snorting, much-screwing celeb career path of the real life character (there’s a fascinating interview with Ellis in the Guardian about his new, drier, quieter life, and his public persona). It also offers some of the spookiest scenes I’ve read in ages, as fictional Ellis realises the mansion he shares with his wife, their son and her daughter is, shall we say, under a cloud. And it’s not just the fact that the wild child is grasping on to what passes as a normal life when you’re famous and your missus is an actress. Mixed in with acerbic observations about a certain well-to-do class of society is a plot of vanishing teenagers and some even stranger goings on at chez Ellis; there’s a son’s difficult relationship with his deceased father and the whole issue of fitting into this strange, new family; there’s drugs and booze and a certain girl at the university where he teaches who he’d really like to screw; there’s the dog, a truly delightful character.
The climax left me a little underwhelmed, but the writing was so smart and, despite some long (very long) sentences here and there (that for the most part worked), accessible, the characters so engaging (if the narrator is a tad, well, useless (he’s an addict so, d’uh)), that I really didn’t mind the letdown. The denouement was fetching, so maybe that helped.
FAMILY is also central to Tomorrow, When the War Began, but the focus is different and the comparison ends there. While Ellis and co are snogging and snorting in McMansions, Ellie and her small band of high school pals are sweating it out in the Australian scrub in the aftermath of an invasion by an unnamed and unidentified foreign power. All we know is that the soldiers probably hail from Asia or the Pacific — you do the math. John Marsden doesn’t say, at least not in the first three books. Given Australia’s traditional xenophobia, it’s probably wise to keep it obscure, but I can’t help feeling that wanting to know where the invaders were from would be on the minds of the invaded. It’s a small thing, and it’ll be interesting to see how the makers of a movie based on his series (opening in August), first released in 1993, tackle the subject of just who launches this comprehensive strike with an eye to colonisation.
Ellie’s from the bush, a rural town where most of her friends are farmers’ kids, so they know there way around machinery, animals and the scrub. They’re resourceful and plucky, and altogether human. Watching the characters rise to the occasion, mature under the pressure, grow and change, is part of the joy.
One of the most compelling features of the story is the way Marsden balances the action with the insight — this war is not patriotic, it’s survival, and questions of hate, morality, love and the future under foreign rule are handled with such care it’s a pleasure to read. There are some explosions — Ellie’s mates work out that they have a compulsion to fight for their land and their way of life against those who would take it by force. But the kids don’t turn into commandos overnight. They don’t use karate and explosives and guns with an innate Hollywood sensibility. Rather, they use their nous, they learn from their mistakes, and they pay a physical and moral price for making some hard decisions. Thoroughly enjoyable.