Track by Track: Inevitable Orbit

Inevitable Orbit are a Melbourne art-pop trio and the latest outlet for JULIAN WILLIAMS (Hi God People). ‘Block Dissolve’ is their new cassette.

‘Against the Grain’

Song originally on my solo album Standing Creek, given the band treatment. About a incompatible share-housing experience which ended up with me having a minor breakdown and having to move. The 1980s Casio CT-310 shines here.

‘Edison Lights’

Back in the ’90s I went through a Nikola Tesla period. When Tesla had invented alternate current, Thomas Edison rounded up stray dogs and electrocuted them to show how dangerous it was (I’m sure direct current would have done the same job). First verse is about superstitions, the second about Edison’s jealousy.

‘Door A, Door B = Door AB’

This is a philosophical song about breaking up with a lover; hey, we’re still friends. Its message is after the hurt, there’s nothing but all the good memories, so why dwell on the bad ones. Was trying to do a This Heat kind of thing in the chorus, but it ended up sounding nothing like them.

‘Dreams Tune In, Dreams Tune Out’

I love the piano playing of Francis [Plagne] in this one, and Greg [Allom]’s drumming. Another song about a viewed nature of reality: a construction. Maybe there’s the influence of some insomnia in the lyrics.

‘Airport Waiting Lounge’

On my way back to Melbourne, and waiting at Hobart airport, I wrote these words, which I put to a song I was working on. I was very early for my flight and the main reception area had lots of glass windows, and I was admiring the rain.

‘Imaginary Landscapes’

The oldest song on the album, and it’s what the title conveys: an imaginary world. There’s also a life-knocking-you-down-and-what-do-you-do vibe. You get up and learn from the bad times so you can better appreciate the good.

‘I Hope You Had a Nice Life Before You Flew Into My Eye’

Ah summer and flies’ suicide rides into your eyeballs while on bikes, or is it just me? It’s got drone, and I don’t know what it’s about, but I can make my own story to it like anyone else. That’s why I like abstraction so much. I sometimes feel like I’m just an aerial picking this stuff up.

‘American Spring’

To me, this has a Wind in the Willows-type lyrical vibe, then goes into a “Stop living in the past” chorus, which I’m sure is directed just as much at me, rather than anyone else. I love the cello and violin on this track a lot. Judith [Hamann] and Elizabeth [Welsh] were such a pleasure to work with.

‘Puppet in a Suitcase on the Way to Nowhere’

A story about a puppet ruler who I imagine to be a discarded ventriloquist’s dummy, looking for a hand to animate its world-dominating fantasy. Maybe unconsciously I’m saying something politically orientated; don’t ask me what. Love the space in this song: that’s the benefit of a three-piece.

‘In Chengdu’

Been to Chengdu twice now and I love the place, but it’s like all big Chinese cities: it’s mad, in a vital kind of way. An ode to my Chinese friends who live there and their amazing hospitality. You know people are generally good, at least to me, wherever I’ve been. Yes, there’s much more than pandas to the place.

‘Clear’

The bombastic last song, and an attempt to make an interesting racket. It’s one of the songs that has a loose structure and ends up being quite different every time we play it. Lyrics are about being happy in your skin, even though change is constant, even walking down Smith St.

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‘Block Dissolve’ is out now on tape and any-price download through Alberts Basement. Inevitable Orbit play at The Bridge Hotel in Castlemaine tomorrow (Sept 12) with The Ancients and Lehmann B Smith.