The Time Being | Steve Kilbey

hundred per cent chance of 1AM storm

the measurer of violet night is back on the scene

the trimmer of slack black evenings him alighted alight alright

with the tinkling faery bells knelling around airy havens

down the coast amidst luxurious pines he dines for six thousand a week

oh his lovely little bunnies do it for the monies and the fun

oh his sweet sweet tooth sucking on all that complete youth

in by jiminy shadow the last mad poet of the fall

the storm talks in its faltering thunder blowing clouds asunder

black cars in the rain contain tequila and dealer of cocaine

in a dense library though he knows the answer weird and plain

the chef hired for his brain delicatessen and to lessen hunger

among the shells he tells apart the sound of the sea

and the sound of thee

he spills no blood unleashing instead a feast of tears

the stars are white and bright set into the dessert of the night

guests and pests arrive to partake of this and the strange angel fruit cake

beneath the vaulted firmament a trellis of elysian grapes

between the banquets clamour and the silence on the stage

as age after age succumbs to a dumb urge to emerge from the page

surrender rendered in red wine gone to the head

dystopian glamour i was hoping they’d hammer me down

in walks little judy with her rude mannikin acting the clown

they must have busted the budget trust her to nudge it

the lighting and lightning heightening the slight dizzy crush

a rush of cautionary proportions

but

is he even aware of us..?

SLL in Bondi

(with as much objectivity as i can muster)

it was with total surprise and delight in 2012

that i first heard say lou lous debut single the uber-haunting maybe you

of course i had always wanted my daughters (all of and any of them)

to go into the music biz although it verily is a vale of tears..

nevertheless it is now 2015 and here we have

lucid dreaming

Say Lou Lous debut album

it features some tracks you may have already heard and some brand new ones too

it may interest you to know that i cannot tell the girls voices apart

i was asking miranda about this at christmas and almost every guess i had was wrong

it seems the singing and lyric writing are equally shared and no easy rule to tell them apart

one thing they can do is get a naturally chorussing effect on their voices

i do this in the studio by double tracking my own voice with itself

it gets this sort of silvery sheen

of course SLL get this naturally without trying because their voices are ahem identical

jesus i wish i had born a twin . me and my brother would have cleaned up!

another thought strikes me:

what would the bands namesake auntie lou lou made of it all..?

the girls are the diametric opposite of every one of auntie lou lous qualities

she was always old and frumpy and such a wowser!

she was against sex and drugs and rocknroll. she hated david bowie!

she was big and quite ugly and pretty rude and always making sounds of disapproval.

although she worshipped my dad and my brother russell

i had long ago fallen foul of her indignation

my mother did not dig her that much either

although it was only years n years later she told me that

we both sighed with relief and some nostalgia that her reign of mild terror was over

auntie lou lou had made a lot of people feel disgruntled

SLL did meet ALL once

when they were just babies

i was not there

their mother karin had kindly volunteered to take the twins into hospital in canberra

where, sadly, lay ALL  in her late eighties stricken with cancer and upon her last days

so karin arrives and walks in the ward

ALL makes a huge effort to sit up in bed and gets a good long look at the twins

and then she looks at karin and with one of those noises she made (i’m sure) she announced

“They’re both Kilbeys!” in a triumphant and challenging tone ie they were totally and utterly kilbeys

and karin had merely been a vehicle to convey more of ALLs genetic imperialism

(i guess ALL considered me more of a Bennett than a Kilbey..)

anyway this is just to give ya some background to the whole damn thing

also say lou lou were called saint lou lou for a while

but had to change back to say lou lou for copyright reasons

ie an austrian c+w singer( the mind boggles at this inanity!) had a similiar handle

anyway i imagine ALL would have liked SLL better than TC (the church, ha ha)

so lets have a listen to Lucid Dreaming (great title) then

1 Everything we touch

a sorta oriental beginning leads into pretty good elektro-pop song

this one definitely contains the lou lou sound which will recur several times on this record

superior melodic the song came with a video of the girls in gold paint

the girls are incredibly photogenic too

in the flesh i always marvel at how young and sometimes almost scrawny they seem

but on camera they are magically reinvented

their angles and their weird identicality which has its paradoxic differences

strangely enough (and i never would have thought this before in rocknroll)

i think their good looks have slightly obscured things

and in sweden at least they are approaching that certain celebrity status

man there is a tempting decision right there

which path to follow the looks and celebrity..?

or the music ..because you can follow both for awhile and they will

but sometimes you start out one thing and end up another

so they instantly crashed into the spotlight as a total package-thing

there is a lot of pressure and a lot of decisions

it truly is not all dancing on clouds i of all people know that

the first song is a good start to this record

trainspotters may note

this song has a line days of ashes nights of flame

i used the ash and the flame metaphor in one of my songs too

i’m sure they never heard that song

it’s an interesting look into the kilbey lyric writing

that we both went for that

2 Glitter

look this one definitely has some abba-esque keyboards in the chorus

the twins constantly evoke abba whether its deliberate i dunno

their vocals sit together like those other 2 famous swedish chanteuses

that silvery effect i myself love

the song itself is an bit of a head tapping toe tapping number when the chorus kicks in

all that glitter all that foreign gold 

what a fantastic line..so much implied but so little said

a lovely economy of words is used throughout the record

its never flowery its never vapid

it always contains some twists and turns

and ambiguity

look the girls are shaping up to be very very fine lyricists and melodicists

Glitter  is very cool and very sexy

it could have been used as a futuristic disco number in the film barbarella

3 Games for Girls 

i told one of em this was not my favourite track

and she said ; well we dont make music for you daddy!

its not a bad track per se

but it lacks the emotional oomph that all the other songs possess

i understand there are things about it i do not appreciate

however after seeing the girls perform this very song

at some glittering swedish award thingy

must admit i enjoyed watching their enthusiastic performance

they are grokking showbiz at an alarming rate

4 Julian

this sounds like minna singing at least in the first verse

this is another pretty good pop song like the first track

half rock half elektro

the twins rescuing some geezer fallen foul of the authorities

(after an hour in the car with both of them he might turn himself back in)

a well crafted and nicely ambiguous rescue ballad that i always enjoy

5 Angels

i dont who know that is singing the first verse i am confused: elektra?

then i think yes its miranda

a beautiful exciting chorus

its intentions are unclear

i like that; my songs are mostly like that

you hear the song but you can never quite figure out whats going on in there

you keep coming back for more

dramatic!

6 Peppermint

i cannot begin to tell you how much i love this song

everything about it is just so perfect

margot smith would have devoured this song

such a smooth groovy torch song

everything placed so well

the glissing strings the elektric piano

the b vox and the echoes which linger

very romantic but never schmaltzy

excellent work

7 Beloved 

miranda told me that her sister was singing most of this song

and in the first verse you can hear the difference between their voices a bit

but of course they can and do sing like each other too

it must be a fascinating opportunity to do vocal things

this is another torch song but more dramatic

once again somehow the spectre of ABBA is invoked there

theres a swedish sound and this is part of it

a moving and lovely song

8 Hard for a man

a good pop song with pithy lyrics and some good double entendres

its very much the lou lou sound that this record defaults to

the walloping e-drums the synth washes and the stacked vocals

interesting bit in the middle where it goes all echoey

and the backwards stuff at the end is cool too

accomplished

9 Wilder than the wind

this is my downright favourite on the record

its just a bloody great song and everything combines perfectly

gorgeous melody

medium paced

bubbling sequenced synths

so romantic and so romeo and juliet or something

the song should come with a hanky it brings a tear

with its naive optimism and sweet sweet singing

great breakdown bit at the end sounds like goth

instant classic

10 Nothing but a heartbeat

the next single

and mining their usual vein of sophisticated smoothness

romance and melody

exciting and very single-y

yes lou lou can do this well

and they have shown us that on this record

maybe this will be the elusive bona fide hit single

whether it is or is not

i think they have mastered this form now

and must elucidate more on their next record

whatever that means but they will figure it out i’m sure

11 Skylights

great rocking optimistic triumphant song

some great bombastic drumming and e-horns and strings

we got to stay strong  they remind themselves at the end of each refrain

a fantastic everything-but-the-kitchen-sink ending

and a great finish to this record

you’ll wanna hear it over and over again

i have listened to this record a lot

these 2 women are purveying a total pop world

of lush melody and sweet harmony

ugly words and discordant notes do not penetrate it

if sadness comes it is dripping in a honey like melancholy

say lou lou are the prime movers in their world

they encourage and criticise the people inhabiting their songs

they save people and admonish lovers

they notice small details and then they see the big picture too

they never labour the point

and they never seem to tell the whole story

its a shame the wonderful song they did with chet faker fool of me

isnt on here

and so too their magnificent take on that tame impala song

but it couldnt have everything could it?

as a debut it is a damn fine record

bravo!

i’m giving it four and one third stars.

on every level

it made me feel very very happy!

underwaters

a lazy actor i forget my lines

we run through the whole thing again

the action drifting from cave to cave saved in their drives

i can’t be bothered watching the playback of flaring green sea

as i swim forever or someone swimming whos supposed to be me

another whirlpool to negotiate its vortex

another isle of monkeys and spirits and voices

as i loose myself from my bounds

angered gods hurl plagues to the ground

as i stand in the prow of my black beaked trireme

and something seems to rise from the turbulence

we only see the mens faces suddenly deprived of innocence

no one could survive it but somehow i get alive out of the bed

i see they have added some shadows to my shattered ship in sanguine red

i wept for my crew prepped to be dead

i slept at the shoreline a stone at my head

i am brought into the city under the mountain in clouds

the camera zooms in on rooms of byzantine opulently reflected

in jewelled statue eyes in moving marble

intercut with a desert i am wandering through

i must be hallucinating because of a cursed thirst

we are made to understand the sea and the desert and the sun and air

these four elements hostile to man in of themselves

i seem to plunge through the dunes and walk upon the nimbus

in double exposures over lapping stills representing memories

a child in a coloured garden painted on a pencil box

with your sisters in the afterlife glowing

the windscreen smeared with rain a memory of a coast

the sun was still young and golden then

i guess thats represented in the aura filter everything will go through

there is some incident which is unclear even to me standing here

some thing is omitted from the cut but i cant tell what

a feeling of sinking or drowning will have the sailors frowning

the witches and their tricks are here rendered horrific and sick up

is it too much that i am beaten nearly eaten only fame to sweeten the deal

as the timbers of my cabin groan i hear the mermaid moan on the rocks

as the waves enter my cabin the throbbing cracking shoals rip holes in the hulls

on island afternoon superimposed over the stars and the moon i croon the theme

the loveliest words remaining unheard of until found in an undersea city

reedy dirge of priestesses in processions in the holy fog of february

the songs of an admiral gone missing a mystery

some ideas that were around for years but still nobody ever hears them

the music banged out on skinned drums with biblical trumpets and thunder

designed to kind of fill the enemy with wonder

anchored off the tropical banks owned by the potentate reinstated

moored by the shores of some ancient old hell

the cold fires of tartarus bring a brim stoner smell

in the underworlds the girls immune to any charms these dim ghosts

and here the music is a mournful horn full of b minor asia

a violin is almost detuned as it swooned out of audible range strange erasure

i am set some task i shouldnt ask it will be undoubtedly impossibe

some angry king or presidente asking something fucking stupid and improbable

i escape as usual with the help of my patron demon or saint

at this point a painted androgynous visage appears in montage

a face full of superior angles and planes recurring again and again

why his eyes are the colour of the skies and a mortals goodbyes

tears well up like a shell up to the ear containing an ocean

we are left forever hanging in a harbour

where i seem to walk through the coolest arbour

and from a distance

everything seems to shimmer

just before

the twilight will grow gradually fragilely dimmer

illumination

the beautiful forest grove that leads to a pale sea

cockle shells and looping terns the ferns and the stones

afternoons of forgetfulness still vaguely remembered

the way a woman swayed before me afraid of some shadow i saw

the day i prayed to your poseidon beside pools they say

the god often comes to cool his heels in the hot aegean sun

lovely old blue haired king ocean his tunic undone

yes frolic in the shallows with them narrow waisted nymphs

yes shake the sodden earth to its fiery centre you have this power they say

these island studded waters full of monsters and easy landings

i steered starboard in my wreckless craft after your storm blew me off course

now the birds have returned for evenings weakest worm still squirming in the light

among the pines i dine on crystal waters from a flask

as night hath dropped i crawl into my tent hellbent on a dream

as i fall asleep some baying creature beseeching solace from a moon

then in my dream i realise i am at last awake beside a still lake

eerie mist is rising rendering me a little spiritless

on deck i am in lying in bed looking at the back of a persons neck

as the ripples spread over head in a river bed

and fish turn into whales downstream

weeping willows with tears of rainy sorrow bend down around the bend

on sandy days in youths distant haze my hands graze your skin

this is where the water and the land begin

this is where the fields of heavy poppy yield their first sin

this is where we tear down some pagan idol with its vile offering

this is where we first meet the harridan enslaved by a saracen

someone said good morning so far away and yet i could hear it

fearing a sudden downpour my dream went indoor

in the light of the weak sun my greek conquests seem no fun

in the sight of the quiet creaking trees and the pebbly brook run

in the valiant fight of leviathan and plankton

the milk like horizon slightly curved merged with the sea

and the velvet curtains of oblivion fall upon the city

white flood

i’m glowing in the dark baby

i came in out the rain

the sea and the salt have rusted my metals

in weed and in foam now let me adorn you

the clinging brine has swept into my eyes and blindsided me

the rushing sand that comes with the storm

the coldness of the onset of the drop

temperature plummets out of the night sky

chemical smell of the fix on bright paper

i chart the rise and fall of civilisations within a single drop

i am only the messenger sent out who forgets the message

in a sudden flash i am revealed turquoise and grotesque

in meaningless symbols a download into your sweet head

in rambling storeys let me describe my fathers house

in trails of vapoured souls a fabulous picture emerges

in dells and dales we will walk with the beloved one

in frequent squalls the winds will reach 100 knots and undo them all

in a laneway of a street i met up with an old friend in for the long hall

in a bar where lovers drink milk of amnesia and touch each others faces

in a vacant lot a lot of strange things were going on

i come to you as before damp and bewildered

ashore for the night my uniform is lost

a miracle in the darkness has increased my appetite

the more i have the hungrier i become

goodbye to sugar goodbye to wine

goodbye to honey goodbye to awful things

the rain has a peculiar sound and it makes everything so quiet

i am so alone in my room full of odds and ends

no evens or beginnings in sight

the night is my lovely friend though i know it tho its young

drifting swirling storms i welcomed you with opened arms

the starfish in rockpools are slightly trembling as shots hit the surface

i am embraced by the tide under a wave i promise to be braver

i am drowned in the wrecked bed of devouring dreams  streaming live

the black waters hammer the land i cant say i really planned to stay

in lyonesse i knew a beautiful spell much less than yesterday

your window ever open someday maybe i will magically reappear

bringing you diamonds from the minds and life from a spear

deep summer

tonight of all nights

tonight when i should be working working working

i slip down to the piers and jetties among the fisherman

sitting in the gentlest softest rain that falls from the white night sky

in the softest touch on my face infinite droplets

my black umbrella above like a crow i go along the bridges

under wavering lights dimly humming with moths

the spray drifts to earth slower than snow

a fugitive from myself i slink into the alleyways and trees

i shrink from my shadow which almost cannot be seen

i reach in my pocket and caress the raised ridges of a credit card

the water in my shoes is warm i slosh along then pleasantly

the label in my shirt sometimes scratches my neck and distracts me

everything i see or feel or hear keeps passing through me

i love everyone i see although it is very very dark now

the loving rain coaxes the plants from the soil

the loving sun pulls the water up from the sea

the merciful clouds raining their miraculous gifts

sometimes lightning thunder and hail but not tonight

under my own authority i have skived off work

i run across vast coastal plateaus soaked through my nine lives

people stop me to say things but the lovely rain muffles the voices

i look at their faces so soft and wonderfully dim

under the arc of the clouds

under the blankets of a  hazy darkness

cars streak past in street with gurgling gutter

impression of drain moving under us swollen in flood

impression of some beautiful cat eating some bird

impression of sobbing child about to give up forever

my encyclopaedic brain with many pages missing

i abandon my boots barefoot on the pavements

walking and walking wherever i’m going

impossibly quiet in the lanes near the sea

i suddenly wish i was home

alone in my scruffy room with guitars and pastels

and the sound of my fridge purring away in the heat

i would sit at my keyboard and type type type

i would come up with something

i’d be safe and i’d be warm

i could lay down and sleep

and then

i would be free

gimme yer hands

my friends we have lived through this night over and over

aftershave and winebars

a thousand cigarettes later

you sitting down on a beach talking to some girls

when they ask you your name

you cannot remember

the evening has overwhelmed you hip and unexpected

the whorl of time unravelling slow as it does

squashed into a booth its hard to read the menu

alone under the creaming stars its vertiginous suddenly lurching

people scream over the din

at the idiot inside me who nods and grins

and agrees with their multi chewed off sins

i guffaw and i shout waving money about

somewhere outside myself someone hovers watching

the streets crawling with cars black silver white

i exit through a door in the wall

we walk along through streets of memory

laughing out loud at nothing in particular

we walk through the shadows cast by towers and sphinxes

the bridge in your gardens bright with pantheon decorations

learning to embrace south east asia

i accepted these monsoons and these buddhas as my own…

in the warehouse downtown

they are watching yachts racing in emerald seas

i long to be free of these old days and their films

i sit under coloured lanterns drinking saki in the village precinct

i drive my sleek car to fantastic parties

degenerating into sordid glamourous orgies

i pull out my triple golden cards i am gained admittance to pleasurable nights

with bankless banking i summon money from the static into my pocket

i give arms to the poor who are rich in memory and in hope

in a backroom over a deal i feel real lucky i’m a singer

as someone counts out the fifties shifty eyes fall upon me

but i come with my words they have all heard

it calms them to hear the sweet music in the air

over a coffee by the ocean i over hear them plot a crime

they invite me to write the music for their knavery

life is surreal when youre a surrealist

hey its saturday night what do i care?

i let myself be driven on long seaside boulevards

in the back where i sat indulged in the view

the salty air flew past us healing and wholesome

a strike of empathy

as a plane in the sky sounds like stravinsky

there are get-togethers up and down my street

booze fuelled merriment and dissent

paddy wagons cruise laneways and alleys

in a lift we go up to a suite in the skyline

they jump out offering you the fucking moon if you want it

soon youre relaxing by a pond in a faux forest

curvaceous dakini like beings sit and chat to you

in charming accents soft and demur

can we just check your nsw driving licence ? they say

can you tell us the expiry date on your visa?

dishevelled you stumble out of the elevators

disoriented in the oriental bent of the cherry blossoms on clark street

you wander into a seven eleven and order a rissi frutti

the queue softens a little as you bid your adieu to your few friends

you can see the glittering coast at the end of the road

casinos and motels and white haciendas with metallic shutters

the drugs are kicking in all over sydney right now

as an empath to the stuff i am drowned in somebody elses rush

like it or not my heartbeat increases in the rushes own hush

i reach for a light in the dark

our hands touch for a moment

but then youre in another room

gossipping loudly with the indian major and the lady from greece

i could hear their stupid laughter after all the noise ceased

on the balcony with a cocktail with a funny name like total control

it had 8 white spirits rolled in the punch bowl

the sea fog rolls in drawn upon by the expiring heat of the day

saturday night rapidly eroded as sunday morning wilfully extrudes

in the mirror on the deck i am looking at the ruin of my face

the city in the distance one way

and out to sea a few odd lights

the air is so delicious you are drunk on your third breath

the night promises forever as it hurtles to its midnight

3 hours only remaining in your game that you play with someone elses name

in the park by the boardwalk we stopped and talked above the rain

i turned and said goodbye it was quicker than having to lie again

you stood there as if for good there

in the coolness of the sand

the sea begins to understand the land

azimuth velocities

hazy azure pool in evening garden

we dip below the surface far down there thinking

impressions of other summers

come rushing into ending

chlorine nighted cloak

power of invisibility

the slam of the wave you caught goodbye

motels courtyards with statues of the david you said

the palms are almost royal said somebody else

in a fish n chip shop standing in the queue

a former mermaid before myrrh made her see

she saw our land before we set foot on this shore

the pavilion like an colonial indian palace

history on the ocean that laps rocks into sand

the crabs run into green crevices waving their claws

the windows of houses you have never entered

amidst the debris a fortune never claimed

among all that wreckage one thing to remember

i started to say it yet then i forgot

one thing to take with you

but it fell by some wayside

in a chasm one day i’ll stumble upon it

i’m sure

dope vignette

i hang out my clothes on the line

on a still grey day

it is exactly the right temperature according to my skin

some soft summer i move in

garfish swim through the sea pool

then raspberries and banana

coffee no sugar

smoke the good bush

lovely music from somewhere

drifting through the universes

beyond all chagrin

the clouds are white and curling about

they billow above the billows below

life is quiet in the empty communal garden

the bees half asleep even as they hum through the air

the pollen guiding them everywhere

i go inside so dark and cool

i lay on a bed of dreams and wait

beautiful dreamer a wake unto me

the pleasant fall into the mind

yeah take me somewhere else for a while

i am out of ideas

and its time to take time

jaundiced singer

roses the smell of attar

statuettes of beautiful saints

a yacht appears on a painted horizon

tiny box containing heart

figurine of exalted god in pranayama

the delicate taste of the rain

the morning i will return again

the rivulet floods feeding the roots of an oak

bespoke reeds complete with a swan

a signet asleep in the cloak of the lake