The Time Being | Steve Kilbey

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1989 came around
and we meet a rather confused cynical yet naive steve kilbey
ive just had some big success in the u.s.
but the band morale is low
we’re trying to write a new record
and my personal affairs are wild and turbulent
do i slack off n take it easy….?
no no not me
i make double vinyl album
done at home
my last 8 track record
remindlessness
the title came to me one day
and said
i am the title that youre looking for
it seemed to make perfect sense
but now it means your spell check always underlines it
remindlessness…its a hard to grab commodity
its a hard to describe quality
its amorphous its inchoate its nothing in particular
a double albums worth
i wanted it to be a double before i started
i knew it had to be that
this was my biggie
this is the one that’ll make em understand, right….?
a few things had changed
i had violinda playing violin
i saw violinda in a coffee shop jamming with her delay pedal
and i knew she’d be good for this record
she smoked and drank and cranked out violin parts by the dozen
multi-layering her parts to sound like a little orchestra
she always knew the right thing to do
violinda is not to be confused with linda neil however
who was also a violinist
next thing was i had an ensoniq e.p.s.
a sampler sequencer thingy
which finally put this newish technology in the hands of geezers like me
the e.p.s. is the basis of virtually every track on the record
its a little stiff
its a little mechanical
but couldnt have done it without it
i met a guy in a music shop called pryce
he came round n gave me a quick demo on the e.p.s.
and ended up helping me write 2 songs
we had the e.p.s. synched up with another keyboard
it gave us like 16 tracks of instruments
that werent taking up tape
some tracks were actually taken to fat boy 8 track
and i’d bounce the 8 tracks i’d already used on to 2 tracks
giving me 6 more tracks to put vocals n guitars
the whole record is a huge bombastic thing
banging away on those drums like it was doomsday…
the cover was a great painting a guy did of me
i misspelled his name on the cover n he never spake with me again
so its a huge swollen sprawling mess
which is exactly how i wanted it to be
big themes
big words
big sounds
it was sposed to be my major work
it starts with neverness hoax
wherein i mention 1993 as some futuristic point
later on i sing 2000 one decade away
it seemed something was looming on the horizon for me
and this record is the harbinger of these doubts
the atmosphere of the record is oppressive and humid
sounds crawl all over the place
it seems now i left very few spaces
every song has a load of electric guitars giving atmosphere to the machines
sampled guitars n sampled basses jump around in stereo
some of the tracks have 3 bass guitar tracks
all moving around in the stereo image
and fractionally out of time with each other
there are some real balls to the walls guitar solo histrionics too
i marvel i could play some it 21 years ago
but with some judicious recording editing and effects
i’m everymans eric clapton …..nearly….
peter koppes helped write 2 of the songs
and you can hear his excellent bluesy guitar playing on danielle
and our experiments with sampled guitar on soul sample
karin jansson did some backing vox as usual
isadora telambi played some sax
and the atmosphere was laden
nothing was easy in this world except maybe random pan
random pan was an option on the sampler
it struck me it could also be used about the old goat footed god
i guess there you have this records major obsession
the reconciliation of the gone mythic world
with the bright new miraculous shiny future
which it seemed i was living in
remindlessness yeah
i did a cover of a song by the crystal set my brothers band
this one really piles on the melodrama into what used to be a breezy song
the drums pound like a migraine headache
the guitars howl like tortured beasts
and the strings loom like executioners
russell upon hearing it said something like
thats a bit much, isnt it…?
hmmm
but once walking down my street
i caught 2 church fans hanging round my door
i brought them
and played them this track off the reel to reel
full bore volume pumping outta my big speakers
they looked like theyd seen the light
but it never sounded as good to me ever again
as that particular mix i had of it that day
the amphibian was another of the several opuses on here
what the hell is that all about……?
liquid is a complex piece of music
a couple of spikes in the power supply
meant we had to re-program this stuff 3 times
pryce was invaluable in helping here
in the early days of our relationship we worked well
but eventually drugs n money arguments divided us forever
goliath is a doom laden thing
the biblical obsession
peter koppes said the end chord progression was a great cycle going round
its G , G minor, A, A minor….give it a try
the elephant god is the biggie of all the biggies….appropriately..
everything but the kitchen sink
a lot of details were lost due to bounce downs
it coulda been clearer ; it got a bit murky
usual stuff lyrically hindu gods magic future etc
another big guitar solo as well
violinda comes back skimming over the top of the sound
its inspring stuff
its ambitions definitely outweighed its abilities
but it failed gloriously and i was happy for it to do so
a weird n strange double lp
people in the future would discover it n understand it
wouldnt they?
wouldnt you?