BACKGROUND
ON ARTIST/ALBUM:
“Keep
Your Friends Close” is the 3rd long-playing
release from Australian band The Basics. Composed
in Australia’s Western Desert, and recorded
between Melbourne and London (at Abbey Road
Studios), the album demonstrates a further
evolution of the band from retro-rockers to
one of Australia’s best-loved outfits
in the tradition of Crowded House, Hunters
and Collectors and The Triffids.
October 2008, and The Basics were travelling along just nicely, thank
you for asking – halfway through recording the follow-up album to 2007’s
crowd-pleasing ‘Stand Out/Fit In’, they were feeling positive about
the significant increase in production values and the more energetic capturing
of their “live” sound.‘Keep Your Friends Close’ – the
title of said follow-up – was going to be a musical tour de force, cementing
their reputation as one of Australia’s most eclectic and intriguing bands,
and sending them into that elusive stratosphere whereby professional satisfaction
and inter-band relationships melded into a perfectly harmonious recipe for success.
The future was theirs for the plucking. They were wild-eyed troubadours poised
for action and the fates were finally smiling in their direction. Until, of course,
everything went to shit. It just has to sometimes, doesn’t it? |
As personal
upheaval and simmering emotional tumult began erupting
from their home base in Melbourne, it was a strong
commitment to – and certain amount of blind
faith in – the unifying force of their band “The
Basics” that saw Wally, Kris and Tim rally
under the banner on a Government-sponsored tour
of the Australian outback – there to entertain
and mentor at remote High Schools and even remoter
Indigenous Communities. It was a noble undertaking,
reaching out to those lacking in adequate mental
health care by promoting and raising awareness
of the Lifeline telephone support service, and
it might have strengthened them any other time – but
trouble in their collective heads simply amplified
the fact they were alone and without a clue. The
Basics’ carefully constructed musical and
personal dynamic fell to pieces – and they
decided to throw everything out and start again.
Now many people have said that music can be a sort-of
healing salve, a device for turning your insides
out and making sense of the mess you’re in.
Necessity – in this case for an outlet amidst
physically and emotionally brutal touring conditions – was
also the mother of invention, and in this instance
the re-invention of ‘Keep Your Friends Close’. |
|
So much of the album was reconsidered
while sitting aimlessly in 40+ degree heat – the
vast emptiness and long hours of procrastination
becoming part of the soundscape, as experiences gave
birth to lyrics and sounds were borrowed from the
aural inspiration of outback life. There was the
curious prevalence of reggae and country music, the
two-faced gift of rain, the trying corrugated roads,
the occasional animal, the never-ending horizon,
the questions that lay just beneath the surface.
The path of recording suddenly seemed far less clear
than it had been a mere eight weeks ago, and as personal
experiences drove individual members down dangerous
and dark internal roads so too did the once rock-solid
musical foundations of ‘Keep Your Friends Close’ splinter.
Suddenly, a question mark hovered over its very existence.
The desert tour may have felt like an endless struggle
for mental survival, like a long-haul flight into
hell, but then – as with all things – it
was suddenly over. The band now had their songs,
conceived via new and honest inspiration, ready to
be completed. It seemed obvious that their next step
was to return to the studio and pick up where they
left off. Yet they fumbled around in the dark for
some time, still in a half-malaise, doubting their
own ability to continue not just as a band, but in
the world of music altogether. In a fug of alcohol
and wild nights they faced their demons and turned
everything they’d previously known upside down.
And somehow, through a taxing period of trial and
error, they managed to find a way.
Like Nick Cave and The Bad Seeds back in 1999,
The Basics found themselves on a pilgrimage to the
Old World to make sense of what they had seen and
heard. It was at the iconic Abbey Road Studios that
they were to fully realise the work they had begun;
as it happened, it was antipodean Peter Cobbin who
was to carry the vision through to completion, his
extensive work on film scores (Harry Potter, Lord
of the Rings), classics (The Beatles, John Lennon)
and contemporary material (Air, Panic! At The Disco,
Björk), contributing a unique translation
of the sounds into finished songs. The broodingly
defiant first single ‘With This Ship’ thematically
personifies just how fractured the world of The Basics
became during the making of the record – a
morass of broken down communication, heartbreak and
bitterness in a time of creatively challenging circumstances. ‘Fear
of Failure’ and ‘What Do You See In Me?’ voice
insecurities personal and otherwise; ‘Trouble
In His Head’ and ‘All Or Nothing’ delve
into the struggle of mental desolation; ‘The
Day Mairéad Goes Away’ and ‘The
Executioner’ are
relationship stories, one in denial and one with
no turning back. On the flipside, ‘Keep The
Door Open’ reaches
out to the listener with the promise of an open heart, ‘Home
Again’ is a bittersweet journey song for any
with a longing heart, and ‘The No.1 Cause of
Death Amongst Youth Today’ is the redemption
song of the record. The Basics have emerged, eventually,
a stronger and wiser unit. Bruised and battered,
but unified in a musical vision and ready to search
and destroy.
ADVERTISING: Posters
of the stunning front cover available to retail
PROMOTION: Please contact
Orla Breslin or Aileen Galvin at Entertainment Architects
for details.
publicity@ealtd.ie or
aileen@ealtd.ie
LIVE DATES:
October 8th – Academy
2, Dublin 2, IE
October 31st – The
Academy, Dublin 2, IE |
