This Swan’s For You A Talk With The Triffids

Rip It Up, Issue 144, 1 July 1989, Page 2

This Swan’s For You A Talk With The Triffids

Like how they can’t stop mentioning sheep every time they rave about Snapper at the moment, the English music press have astandard line on Australian band the Triffids. The Triffids come from Perth, and Perth is “the world’s most

isolated city” they always tell us. Asif that means anything; bands from Westporthave itharder,and weirder.

Onthe line from Mushroom’s Sydney office is Triffids drummer Alsy MacDonald. He only mentions Perth once, and | don'tbring it up atall. After spending the four years prior t 0 1988 based in London, the Triffids have relocated back to Australia — they'respreadaroundthe sub-continent a bit, but Alsy says that Sydney is fine for him because he and his new bride, Triffids

keyboardist Jill Birt, can get back home to Perth (there you gol) ona regular basis. “There are alot of comparisons to be made between Sydney and London,” he says, “in thatthey both serveasa m_eliing pot, attracting

talentfrom the provinces. The most exciting performers always come from elsewhere — here, it's bands from Perth, Melbourne or wherever; inLondon, there are bands from places like Scotland or the north of England. London is there to putthem ondisplay.” The Triffids carved their own way to fame, doing things their way to the point where they were able o sign to amajorlabel, Island, last yearto record their fourth album, Calenture. That one sounded a bit overblown to me, all Fairlight strings and overwrought drama, buttheir new album The Black Swanis a different affair. lts shiffing moods and song styles— from hip-hop to Latin American swing— give it a more colourful feel. A sort of giddy carnival of character-filled songs that puts me morein mind of In The Pines, a light-hearted album that the band recorded in two weeks ata woolshed three years ago. “Itis a bit more colourful,” agrees Alsy, “whereas Calenture was quite deliberate, an extravagant sound. With that album, | think we achieved that almostto the point that no song apartfrom a couple is left untouched by strings or rolling drums. We recognised the potentialin these songs o be highlighted by robust arrangements, whereas these ones are more eccentric, a bit kookier even. There was no point in giving themthe Vegas treatment; it was almost instinctive to give them an eccentric treatement.”

They nicked their album title from Thomas Mann, but The Black Swanis also a movie (1942, with Tyrone

Power, a “dashing pirate in this colourful swashbuckler,” Leonard Maltin, Three stars) and there's a definite cinematic feel to this Triffids’ effort, most evident on the cover, which strongly resembles a film still. “Despite the fact that the album has alot of musical styles, each song revolves around a particular

character,” says Alsy. “It's interesting inthatthose characters can be extreme or laid back. We tried to make the songs with a slightly

theatrical presentation to present tin arelevantway. It's an almost deliberate attemptto create something more dramaticthana

song usually is, and that's what we tried to do with the cover as well: it's alitle melodrama, David is the

master of ceremonies inviting you in, Graham and | are gamblers, Robert and Martyn are musicians and Jill is playing ayoung bride.” Different songs seem like settings for different scenes, definitely. Would the Triffids preferto be soundtrack artists or actors? Maybe asarock band you can have the best of both worlds. “Weall have latent, ah ..." he continues, “not only with the record but with the shows on stage we're using quite afew props. There'sa visual aspectto it that we haven't used before. “Butthere’s nothing more boring than people inbands saying they wantto be actors. Soundtracks would be interesting though —there's basically the musical skills in the group to be able to do something quite unusual like that; we're capable of playing quite a few styles.” Lastyear linterviewed David McComb from the band and he said the next album might be a “country hip-hop” record. | thought he was joking, but that does seem to be part of The Black Swan's scope. ; “Itis a joke in away,” says Alsy, “because people are going to say

‘Gee, you're going from one sound tothe next and it sounds completely different’ so we might geta reputation as stylistic grasshoppers. Butifyou listen fo it enough times, you realise there's athread to it all and it's notjust a grab-bag of things. Of course it does beg the question of what we're capable of doing next time, and you know, | shudderto think!” '

The Triffids were augmented in the studio by friends who helped out on various fracks. Phillip Kakulas, who wasinthe band whenthey first began, wrote music for a couple of - songs, asdid Adam Peters. And

Kakulas' best friend Rita Menendez, aMexican opera singer, contributes backing vocals on ‘The Clown Prince’ and also, fo starfling effect, onthe wonderful ‘Black-Eyed Susan’. From song tosong, the line-up varies from justthree to 14 players. There's plenty of studio trickery (from Steven Street, noted for his work with the Smiths and on Morrissey's solo records) and plenty of people get credited with “programming” on various songs. “Thatsort of thing has been happening for a while now," says Alsy.“Even on the first album we did, there was arbit of rudimentary drum machine. On Calenture there were some fully electronic arrangements. Butwe're not a band s precious aboutsticking fo traditional instruments; we never have, really, and over the last three years of working with other people it has rubbed off onto us. “We didn't wantto plagiarise anything else going on with drum machines and what have you. We wanted to combine drum machines with some fairly unpredictable instruments like piano accordian, upright bass, glockenspiel and bells; thenyou can get some weird combinations.” :

The Triffids have always seemed interested in American musical forms; they started off sounding like the sort ofkids who owned every Dylan album, and now we get things like hip-hop appearing: “Insome ways, yeah,” Alsy agrees, “there’s no doubt that we've listened to alot more American musicthan say, British or Australian. It's natural really and especially when we

started, David in particular always liked people like Dylan and Leonard Cohen.Butifyoulookedatour record collections, you'd find a bit of everything there...." Oryou could take alisten to The Black Swan. 'm till listening to it and I'm still a bit bemused by its juxtapositions, but it's fun to listen to. Which s a better reason than most fo persevere with a record. Ohyeah, Perth.| had to put one somewhere.

PAUL McKESSAR