Urban Fringe Observations
By Sam Upton
Steven Wright –
Repetition
Before we get started, just some things to note:
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I’ve been in bands with Steve since 2008.
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Normally I’d just tell him this stuff myself but
he’s overseas at the moment (although I’ve taken so long to finish writing this
that he’s probably home by now).
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I find a lot of online album reviews irritating
(if you see any paragraphs made up entirely of adjectives, please stop
reading).
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Imogen, host of Edge Radio’s Return to Oz, said
Steve has "just dropped his latest album" (Broadcast 29/8/16). I hope
he didn't scratch it!
It’s Saturday August 27 2016. I just had a dream about the
album: I was listening to the last two tracks on side two. The songs didn’t
necessarily have any resemblance to the real thing. The second last track had
backing vocals, which as I read in the liner notes featured Robert Fisher, Kim
Walls, Will Fagan and Will Mann. The last track was sung entirely by Georgia
Lucy (as if she hasn’t made enough guest appearances on local releases over the
last 18 months or so). Then I woke up.
My pre-order of Steven Wright’s
second album Repetition arrived from Brisbane (Virtual Cool) on Tuesday. But
before I even had the album in my hands, the first thing that stood out to me
was the artwork. Looking at the picture on Bandcamp, it appeared different to
anything Steve had done before. He did most of the Manchester Mourning artwork, all of Ceai
and Bi-Hour, I think some Wasted Idol, and probably Polanyi and the previous
Steven Wright album Incapacity. Now that I have the liner notes, it
turns out Kim Walls did the artwork, with Steve merely helping design the
sleeve.
A week earlier I had received the album download in an email. On my first listen through (with headphones on, sitting at the computer, not giving my full attention), the track which stood out the most was Temerity – firstly for its groovy opening bass line, then for its vintage drum tone (is that a new drum machine?). It also sounds like there are keyboard gunshot effects hidden throughout the song.
All the songs with drums up until that point had Steve’s usual range of keyboard rhythm presets – sounds I’ve been hearing since at least the 23rd of May 2010 courtesy of Manchester Mourning demos of Duffle and Oh Oh Oh She Just Wants To Feel Working Title (aka Mask). A month later on the 23rd of June, the second known recording of Steve’s keyboard drum presets occurred. Two days before recording Immediacy we wrote and recorded a demo of Loki/Low Key (aka Ink). That was the first time we had done something together without the presence of other members. So you could probably trace the downfall of Manchester Mourning to that date (closely followed by the “play it like the drum machine” speech).
Anyway, because of this history, whenever I hear those rhythm tracks I unfortunately think of demos (the only time I’ve allowed one of those presets to see the light of day was in Bi-Hour’s song Frankie on Strawberry Licorice – plus a snippet of Ceai’s song Fridge in the opening track Alentejo). Obviously I’m going to be the only person with this problem when listening to both Repetition and his debut Incapacity. And sure, Steve has manipulated and edited the rhythms to make it sound more interesting, fit better with the songs and have more or less impact at necessary times, but I’m nonetheless going to have to step in as producer if he does a third album (I want to get a Roland TR-8).
"He has this way of
examining himself which I can find quite suffocating at times, I think maybe
because it makes me think about myself, so thanks for that Steve! It's quite a
deep listen but it's definitely worth it." (Erin, host of Edge Radio’s The
Map. Broadcast 23/8/2016)
I’ve only just noticed this, and maybe it’s a coincidence, but
it seems like the Steven Wright concept has been building for a while. There’s
a song on Manchester Mourning’s Immediacy album called Pedestal. The lyrics (written
by Steve) are similar to the Steven Wright live show: “Climb a pedestal in a
crowded room, stand naked and alone. Display yourself”. The insert that
accompanies Repetition has a picture showing him up on “display” during a live
performance. On the other side is a “display” of the lyrics.
It’s good to see another lyric sheet (even if only half the songs have lyrics), complete with mandatory Courier New-ish font. Repetitive thoughts are turned into repetitive lyrics, including lines from the previous album. “Withdraw once more into circular thought” is a line from Incapacity’s final track Delusion, and is used again in Repetition’s final track Affectation. Circular-related words also appear in the tracks Circulation (“circulating”) and Reminiscence (“Circular motion”).
Another repetition is the use of samples from Bi-Hour’s An Accident EP. On the first album, Delusion featured vocal samples, most notably the line “mundane Monday” from An Accident. This time, Sofya Semyonovna sampled keyboard parts from Deliberation. The word “deliberation” was also used in the lyrics to PKD on Incapacity. These intertextual references could potentially mean some Bi-Hour songs are thematically linked to the Steven Wright concept (probably not songs like Intermission though, which is about Ben Wells taking the All-Bran Challenge). And finally, the inclusion of guitar (played by Callum Cusick) on the opening track Reminscence gives it a sound far more reminiscent of Bi-Hour than anything else on the album.
Due to my lack of knowledge in regards to Russian literature, the potential allusions being made through the use of song titles like Anna Odintsova (Fathers and Sons by Ivan Turgenev) and Sofya Semyonovna (Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoevsky) are lost on me. I had to do a quick search to work out what books the people are from. Steve’s gone over my head before with a Bi-Hour song called Natasha Rostova (War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy). It’s obviously retaliation for my failed attempt at a literary allusion in Manchester Mourning. The completely unintelligible delivery of Mining For Marner (Silas Marner by George Eliot) resulted in our audience thinking it was called Play Some Nirvana. It was also quite possibly the only time Steve has written a bass line actually using a bass guitar.
One last repetition I’ll highlight is two moments of detailed description in which every thought and movement is broken down frame by frame creating a vivid picture of a scene. On Incapacity this occurred in PKD where he made walking “along Harrington Street” far more interesting than it should be, and is achieved once more on Repetition in Coexistence where he works his way through a “shifting crowd” but is forced to “drift away” as if fighting a current.
Right, well that’s over a thousand words. I have successfully failed to explain the meaning of the album. I guess you’ll just have to buy it and work it out for yourself. I’ll just quickly add that I like the piano in Anna Odintsova, and I dislike the fact that Steve did a Treehouse by naming the album after a song by a band from Manchester. Treehouse has Interzone (Joy Division), now Steve has Repetition (The Fall). You’ll probably argue “What Difference Does It Make?” And on that bad joke, I think it’s time to end.
