Here's
my favourite Australian album of the year 2003, and in a way it
sums up the prevailing mood of the year, sifting through the past
in the hope of finding the way towards a future. Sleepy Jackson's
music is littered with footprints from yesterday, and it's interesting
to read international reviews of this record, the references to
Velvet Underground, Flaming Lips, Mercury Revs and the like, because
rather than those I heard echoes of Australian acts like the Triffids
and the Go-Betweens, and where the opening track 'Good Dancers'
has been universally hailed as George Harrison-like for its guitar
riff, my immediate reaction was that the arrangement reminded my
of 'Walls And Bridges' era John Lennon. Clearly, Sleepy Jackson
has synthesized a lot of our favourite music, and we're responding
to sounds that have pleased us before. They may not actually be
where Sleepy Jackson's Luke Steele actually picked them up from.
It could well be that he's never heard most of the artists we're
all calling up when we try to describe what he's come up with. His
success in the end is that Sleepy Jackson's music is wonderfully
eclectic and varied, shifting through all kinds of moods and changes.
Out goes all thought of this "Genre" thing. Why can't a child's
voice sweetly singing 'Morning Bird' exist on the same record as
the punk 'Vampire Racecourse'? In the end it's the songs that count,
and every single track on this album nails the heart of what it's
going for. Every song wins you over, and washes away whatever shadow
from the past you want to impose on it, and when you put it all
together it's a charming journey we've been taken on. And then you
want to play the record all over again. (Capitol)
Here's
my favourite Australian album of the year 2003, and in a way it
sums up the prevailing mood of the year, sifting through the past
in the hope of finding the way towards a future. Sleepy Jackson's
music is littered with footprints from yesterday, and it's interesting
to read international reviews of this record, the references to
Velvet Underground, Flaming Lips, Mercury Revs and the like, because
rather than those I heard echoes of Australian acts like the Triffids
and the Go-Betweens, and where the opening track 'Good Dancers'
has been universally hailed as George Harrison-like for its guitar
riff, my immediate reaction was that the arrangement reminded my
of 'Walls And Bridges' era John Lennon. Clearly, Sleepy Jackson
has synthesized a lot of our favourite music, and we're responding
to sounds that have pleased us before. They may not actually be
where Sleepy Jackson's Luke Steele actually picked them up from.
It could well be that he's never heard most of the artists we're
all calling up when we try to describe what he's come up with. His
success in the end is that Sleepy Jackson's music is wonderfully
eclectic and varied, shifting through all kinds of moods and changes.
Out goes all thought of this "Genre" thing. Why can't a child's
voice sweetly singing 'Morning Bird' exist on the same record as
the punk 'Vampire Racecourse'? In the end it's the songs that count,
and every single track on this album nails the heart of what it's
going for. Every song wins you over, and washes away whatever shadow
from the past you want to impose on it, and when you put it all
together it's a charming journey we've been taken on. And then you
want to play the record all over again. (Capitol) 