Thursday, February 7, 2013
Voted Album of the Year 2012 - Tony McMahon - Inpress
***Voted Album of the Year 2012 - Tony McMahon - Inpress
Album review
Space Odyssey: Part 1
Patrick Emery (four stars)
★★★★
PREDICTIONS of science fiction authors of expatriate galactic communities and alien life forms remain, sadly, unrealised fantasy. But that hasn't rendered space travel any less romantic and inspirational. So it is with Jane Dust and the Giant Hoopoes' new record, Space Odyssey: Part 1, is a tongue-in-cheek concept album built around the story of a group (the Giant Hoopoes) sent out on a space vehicle (the Hoopoid) to destroy ''the Creature''. While the narrative eschews the spiritual pretension of concept albums of yore, the music is lush and spectacular, replete with string and horn accompaniment. Dust's voice casts a blazing light over the Giant Hoopoes' galactic-lounge sound, and there's a cinematic intensity that makes you want to continue the journey, if only to witness how Dust can transpose the volatile terrain of Venus (Tessera Terrain, Ishta Terra) or the valleys of Mars (Valles Marinelis) into spacious musical form. The album ends without closure - the Creature is still out there. Look out for the next instalment.
Inpress, 22 November 2012
album review
Space Odyssey: Part 1 Tony Mc Mahon
More novel than album, Space
Odyssey: Part 1, from local eccentrics Jane Dust and the Giant Hoopoes, is
a rip‑roaring, rollicking, all‑fun, nine track ride through the charming
vagaries of a truly unique song writing mind. It’s a concept album, telling the
err story of (apparently) The Creature, a shape shifting minion from Hell, bent
on destruction, but let’s not get stuck in detail shall we?
There’s barely been a more enjoyable record released in
Melbourne in recent memory, and Dust and her cohorts are in supreme control of
every element of the process. There’s something of a supergroup at work here, with
The Giant Hoopoes comprising Clare Moore, Stu Thomas, Will Hindmarsh and Louisa
Trewartha, their long years of experience shining through from note one. In the
arrangements - though world class - use one and storytelling in an iconoclastic
manner quite unlike anything you’ve ever heard before. There is an intoxicating
impetus to the record that begins from the opening track, grabs you truly and
well, and doesn’t let go until the epic finale.
Comparisons to Kubrick’s great work are inevitable, I
suppose, and they could conceivably go something like this: Stan the Man in a
Brunswick share house, booted ignominiously out of VCA, decides who want to
make music instead of film, or something. Despite this, Space Odyssey: Part I is alarmingly original, and deserves our
sustained attention on this basis alone. Is also summing songwriting and
storytelling, assured musicianship, and, well, something like gravitas here.
Given all this, we’ll now await Space
Odyssey: Part 2 with seriously bated breath.
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