Before I knew anything about them (I still don’t know much about them), I heard The Doomed Bird Of Providence (on the excellent Collision/Detection compilation of EPs) and assumed they were Eastern European Death Marchers. They seemed a little like the mini-tradition clustered around A Hawk and a Hacksaw with, perhaps, a sideswipe of Dirty Three (yes, I know how utterly dismissive that sounds); seesawing violins, heaving accordions, breathless amateur tap-dancing like the guys in Neubauten’s “Ein Stuhl In Der Hölle.” Well, I even got the continent wrong.
The line-up is expanded on this release but the duo act like a black hole and the other players get drawn towards the centre, where no light can escape. There’s no joy even possible here and you sense that this is a historian’s anger, put onto record. Clearly, these stories need to be told but they are told here with a righteous fury that feels almost as intense as the history behind them. In fact, at times, you can hear Mark Kluzek’s voice just giving up, falling away in horror at the tales he’s telling. Sometimes he seems to just fade away, as if he’s turning away in disgust. Early Australia is all earth and dust (there’s not even a trace of Nicole Kidman and Hugh Jackman – unless that’s them, in the corner, slowly succumbing to some awful virulence, their souls sucked, their eyes imagining the civilization they’ve just left); there must have been terror in every sunrise.
If anything, this reminds me of a much darker take on The Decemberists, especially around the time of their Picaresque album; the voice will take some getting used to but there’s a literary depth and a genuine re-imagining going on here and a love for the characters, whatever their situation. There’s a need to hold hands with the almost dead and this album does it in the most beautiful/ugly way ever.-Loki-
