Features
Track by Track: Chris Smith
By Mess+Noise
Melbourne guitarist CHRIS SMITH’s stunning 2007 album ‘Bad Orchestra’ has just gotten a vinyl reissue through Hermit Hut, a new label founded by Six Organs of Admittance’s Ben Chasny.
[Historical image is withheld pending rights review.]
‘Goose Run’
The most difficult part of sequencing a record is finding an opener. In the end, this little snippet served its purpose. Primo sound man Cal Orr set up a portable studio in Alex Jarvis’s residential warehouse, running the whole thing off a single power point. Kudos.
‘Living Dead Blues’
I’d been playing ‘rock music’, I suppose, in Alex’s band around the time, which informed this – the most conventional song on the album. Thematically, it’s a tale of a marriage to Frankenstein’s monster, and being hunted down by pitchfork-toting townspeople. Semi-autobiographical. In the warehouse again, with Alex on bass, Seth Rees on drums and duelling lead guitars by James Dixon and Warwick Brown. The Sunset Strip are one of the all-time Melbourne greats, so it was very exciting to have Warwick play on this one. Bevan Roberts (from Death Valley label) set this one up.
‘Glue Factory’
My grandmother’s piano, as recorded to cassette Walkman. Greg Wadley (Hi-God People) suggested a field recording of a table-tennis match. It’s in there! They use parts of elephants and various exotic birds in this glue factory. Greg was the production glue on this album, as he was on the two records that came before it. Eternal gratitude.
‘Grain Elevator Blues’
Somehow this sounds like a Wipers tune played at 16rpm, to me. Warwick guests on this again, this time playing staccato lead and a wind organ he borrowed from Warren Ellis without asking. This was mostly recorded in Jarrod and Ali’s timber floored house after they took me in. Following that I moved to the country.
‘The Orbit’
This is a verite guitar take, as bottled by Dean Linguey late one night at RMIT studio. It sounds like I was listening to French guitarist Noël Akchoté. From raw and unused material for a film soundtrack.
‘Bobby and the Big O’
A cheeky piece of collage juxtaposing The Germs and Roy Orbison. Love them both. The latter was a bootleg played through a television speaker, recorded by dictaphone via a stompbox. High tech!
‘Slight Problems (Intermission)’
Mr Jarvis commissioned this one. A feedback duel between Justin Fuller (ZOND) and myself. Cal recorded this at Soundpark for use in a song on one off Al’s albums.
‘Jimmy’s Theme’
My friend James Greig had given me a few Sex Pistols-related things around that time. We’d also recently watched Sergio Leone’s Once Upon a Time in the West. So, naturally, I recorded a faux Spaghetti Western tune mixed with archival commentary from an American journalist who’d just finished interviewing the Pistols. Thanks for the couch, Jimmy.
‘Step Into the Light’
A collage of various bits of clanging feedback and reverberation. Assembled and mixed by Greg Wadley.
‘Your Tunnel’
I think the raw tracking used on this tune went through a few different processes before arriving at this narcotic ode to Darby Crash. Listen to it without looking at the clock, then tell me how long you think it went for.
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