Sugar Mouth

Rip It Up, Issue 201, 1 May 1994, Page 12

Sugar Mouth

The release of David Kilgour’s second solo album Sugar Mouth confirms something I’ve reckoned all along — that when it comes to creating mindmelting, bitter-sweet, lush pop the guy isn’t half bad. Inevitably, David’s hitting the tea (there’s a pile of used cups on the tray and it’s only midday) and wearing a brick orange skivvy exactly the same shade as the Sugar Mouth cover when I turn up at his North East Valley house. As it turns out the process of rerecording Sugar Mouth was fraught with unforseen problems compared to its predecessor Here Come the Cars.

"Of course it was always clone in a big rush and then when we mixed it too quickly things looked foul. But then Nick {Roughan, producer! and I discovered looking at the songs, and remixing and rerecording some songs, that we hadn't actually finished, but we got close to it second time up, David explains. "The whole process has been really long winded and it's been a struggle." Sorting out a contract with Flying Nun also caused a delay. Following that David was fervent in the studio with 60s covers group the Pop Art Toasters. His two favourites on their EP are ‘Circles’ “because that’s me” {makes Townshend-like guitar playing moves} and ‘I Won’t Hurt You’ " (originally by the West Coast Pop Art Experimental Band). More recently the Clean have been reactivated and some Great Unwashed recordings are also likely. Sugar Mouth is also David’s first ever project to feature lyrics on the packaging. A glance at the scribble on the sleeve reveals the line "I was dumb, I opened my mouth” on both ‘No No No' and ‘Recollection’.

"Aah, you noticed!" David grins; "As usual I went into the studio and half the lyrics were uncompleted, so I thought 'Fuck, that'll do'. I have no qualms at all about repeating myself as long as it's not ad infinitum. Hamish (his brother, ex-Clean/Great Unwashed drummer! pointed out another repeated line on Cars as well. But what the hell, it's continuity." There are scattered references to the seasons too. ’ ’ . "It's a recurring theme for sure, mainly because we never get a fucking summer in Dunedin." Much of Sugar Mouth was publically debuted in a crackling set at summer’s music highlight, The Big Day Out, where David rated Tall Dwarfs and the Breeders as the best things he caught. "It was great to see a garage band playing in a stadium," David says before heaping praise on the Deal-led quartet. Obviously David Kilgour’s most well known passion is music. There’s a Roy Orbison biography by his feet, volumes of videos and masses of books, singles and albums on the lounge shelves. Outside in the station wagon lies the clue to another lesser known love — a surfboard. Here is a conundrum that could be procrastinated over endlessly. Which would be better — playing a doozy of a gig or having an incredible surf?

"They're both up there really, it's hard to make a distinction between the two. Good question actually. It'd depend, where is the gig? How many people were there? How good did we play? How long

did we play? Did I sweat much? Same with the surf. Was it hollow? Was it big? Was it off-shore?" Surf talk leads to David telling the following anecdote.

"I rang up a friend (Richard Langston, a TV3 reporter! and said 'What's the surf like?' He said 'I don't know, I'm in Queenstown'." This is followed by David putting on a crazed hippy voice and exclaiming "That's all I think about man, fuck there's nothing else in life!" before we both lose it badly. Trying to recompose himself between hoots of laughter, he faces up to his surf-dementia. "I tell you what, it's a fucking worry actually. I'm really going to have to put the dampers on, especially if you've got a relationship with somebody, whether it's family or a partner. Music's okay, but music and surfing ... at the moment I'd like to be surfing three or four times a week {he breaks out laughing again) but I haven't. I've only been going about once a fortnight." Brian Donnelly, who shared drumming duties on the album with ex-Chill James Stephenson, is also a hot surfer, having been in NZ rep teams.

Another feature of the album are the lead vocals on ‘Listen to the Rain’ by Nick Roughan’s partner Jane Kemp. David had always wanted a woman to sing but had no one specific in mind until she vol—unteered. Then he diverts on to Shortland St —

"I've always been addicted to it on and off, that and Coronation SC — and the melancholic, under-rated genius of the late English folk singer Nick Drake, before considering his own vocals. His style is best captured on the frenetic ‘Crazy’. Anyone else would squawk and scream away, David is merely cruisey and languid. "Something I can't stand is when I hear my voice get all angsty . . . some people can do it really well, but when some people start wailing and screaming and yelling and getting all angst-ridden, I think 'for fucks sake'. To me it doesn't hold up to a lot of listens." The psychological effects of negative and.positive ions in the atmosphere is mentioned again. "Hamish and I were brought up in the Canterbury Plains and if you go and talk to any old farmer up there they'll tell you the north-westers drive you mad!" David also claims that Hamish is his harshest critic, but when he arrives at David’s house he’s generally enthusiastic about Sugar Mouth. David’s preferred place to reflect upon the album is while wallowing in the bath. "It's a meditative thing, the old bath, but I've probably got a huge dose of negative ions from it!" A CD by Texan bluegrass weirdo Terry Allen is then chucked on (imagine Burroughs recitations set to country) before the rushes for the ‘Reached’ video (based on the Bowie movie The Man Who Fell To Earth) get shown. "Real trashy eh?" David enthuses, “So are you interested in aliens and UFOs as well?"

Not half as much as you are David Kilgour. But for anyone interested in swirling, ringing, imaginative, unpretentious pop, Sugar Mouth should be picked up on your antennae.

GRANT MCDOUGALL