Track by Track: Excess

MATT KENNEDY from Kitchen’s Floor tapped members of Blank Realm, Clag, Gravel Samwidge, Wonderfuls, Cured Pink, Multiple Man and Primitive Motion to sing on the new tape from his electronic guise Excess, a science-fiction-themed album called ‘Escape From Brisbane’.

[Historical image is withheld pending rights review.]

‘Instructions For Listening’ feat. Gerald Keaney

Matt: This was the first track I recorded for Escape From Brisbane before I really knew it was going to be an album. I had some vague idea of Gerry doing an introductory disclaimer/public-service-announcement. He arrived on his bike with a few ideas written out on paper and we shared a small amount of goon, recorded the track and then he cycled off into the night. It’s a perfect opening to the album and the results inspired me to keep working and building upon the concept.

Gerald: It’s about the process of listening, of which we are often unaware and uncritical. Even in socially critical music the listening process is often taken for granted, though that process might involve heavy fetishisation. So there is plenty of scope for making fun of how the process might or might not unfold. Especially given a low-fi vocal recording. Brecht’s v-effect is an influence, it makes the audience aware they are consuming something. Also influential are various efforts to sample instructional or descriptive material that is apparently peripheral to music, such as developed in acid jazz or by bands such as Cabaret Voltaire or Public Enemy.

‘Galaga’ feat. Bek Moore

Matt: ‘Galaga’ is the is the first of three tracks on Escape From Brisbane that feature live drums. I built a makeshift drum kit in the lounge room out of bits and pieces of junk I found underneath the house. Bek had been really sick for weeks and the recording kept getting delayed, so I was a bit unsure as to whether she would be able to actually sing the song, but I ended up travelling to her house and we recorded the vocals while sitting at her kitchen table. They came out very nice and I’m glad it was able to happen.

Bek: Matt asked me if I’d be interested in writing some sci-fi-inspired lyrics for his Excess project. Well, as someone who has been able to continue breathing till this point in life, I was immediately fighting six different ideas in my brain. When I listened to this track for the first time it conjured up images of playing Galaga on the table top at the local bowling alley, 20 cents a go. You were one ship – or two if you played the double shooter strategy – against what appeared to be the rest of the galaxy’s fighter squadrons. Different ships, different abilities all versus you. At the struggling times in life, it’s a half-decent analogy for how you feel. One ship with a never-ending backlog of opponents just waiting to strike. But at least you’ve got bullets and you can dodge – so it ain’t all bad. I would like to be fighting in an X-Wing though ... crazy dreamer.

‘They Have Too Much to Lose’ feat. Mark Spinks

Matt: One night I was bored alone at home and ate an entire brownie containing dubious ingredients; then an hour later I found myself extremely anxious and paranoid. Everything became a horrific nightmare that I never want to experience again. The only thing I could do to fight it off was play the keyboard, and the results are this track. It fits Mark’s paranoid UFO-conspiracy outlook way too perfectly.

Mark: Matt was working on a project he called EXCESS when he approached me to collaborate on this electronic piece. His idea was to do a sci-fi-influenced track, and given my own natural and obvious passion for all things extra-terrestrial, this project came together quickly and naturally for me. So much so that I actually had to show restraint as the stream of consciousness and thought processes regarding the lyrics took us by surprise. Overall we were both extremely pleased with the end result, as it portrays a snapshot into the UFO phenomenon which was the point from the outset.

‘Tunnel Vision’ feat. Bobby Bot

Matt: I recorded this one late at night straight after recording the music for ‘Pathology of a Walk’. It reminded me of the first “Treehouse of Horror” Simpsons episode for some reason. Bobby came over a few days later with lyrics he had quickly scrawled on an envelope while on the bus and his vocals were recorded in one take. I was in awe and then we got drunk.

Bobby: Inspired by Omega Man and a doco Matt sent me once about people living in the old tunnel network in New York called Dark Days.

‘Pathology of a Walk’ feat. Leighton Craig

Matt: A raging party was happening next door when I was recording this one and it kept throwing me off, but I persevered and it turned out alright. Damn kids. Leighton says the keyboard reminds him of Arto Lindsay/DNA so I will name-drop that.

Leighton: At the time I was reading Rudolph Wurlitzer’s novel Flats, which is a Beckett-style meditation on movement or, more specifically, stasis. The characters are almost in a state of paralysis, moving as though their feet are set in concrete. Hence “one leg in, one leg out.” It just seemed to make sense, lurching along with that rhythm. The lyric also makes reference to an amazing article by Olivia Laing about loneliness, including the idea that loneliness can be a gift that provides depth of vision. All hastily scribbled down and jammed in one take.

‘Body Control’ feat. Lizley

Matt: I was angry at my housemate one night so I smashed away at the keyboard and that frustration became this track. Lizley was a true professional when she came in to do the vox; it was done very quickly and my $30 Aldi delay pedal was finally able to make an appearance on her backup vocals to great effect.

Lizley: Fortunately, when the concept of Escape From Brisbane was pitched to me I was on the tail end of a week fairly saturated in (amongst a Chevy Chase marathon) compulsive X-Files viewings and the purchase of a Blade Runner box set. As a result of this and several dosages of Maria Minerva and Geneva Jacuzzi, I cooked up a whiny ballad about a Blade Runner-esque future where everything felt confined, controlled, polluted, paranoid, which became a metaphor basically for all the really garbage ‘man stuff’ that was happening for me at the time (profound).

‘Home’ feat. Sean and Chris Campion

Matt: I was listening to a lot of Multiple Man and Workshop one afternoon and was inspired to record this track. It came out having a kind of sad Western outlaw feel to it, which wasn’t intended but I quite like. The instruments are also slightly out of time, which makes it pretty ragged-sounding. Sean and Chris take it to a whole new level and I was pretty psyched with the results.

Sean: We ran with the Escape From Brisbane theme by blatantly lifting (homage) some lyrics from the best song about Brisbane: ‘Security City’ by The Saints. Mess + Noise readers might like them. They are like the DZ Deathrays of the ’70s. Doing vocals for electronic music was unusual for us since we are normally alternative rock through and through. Early Chillis, Stone Temple Pilots, anything Phil Jamieson touches. The chorus stems from my recent home eviction. Matt suggested the title of the song and we both think it is very insensitive.

‘Take Another Photograph’ feat. Daniel and Sarah Spencer

Matt: I spent a lot of time recording and re-recording this one before I showed it to Daniel and Sarah. They arrived with nice beer and we had a nice time doing the vocals, yet somehow it turned out the most evil of the bunch.

Daniel: The track Matt sent us reminded us of the song ‘Polaroid/Roman/Photo’ by French minimal synth band Ruth. We set out to write a sort of tribute to that song, but it turned out very obsessive, stalker-ish and murdery-sounding.

‘Sqishma’ feat. Andrew McLellan

Matt: This was the last track I recorded for the album. By this point I was experimenting with different keyboard rhythms/settings and got carried away with the bell sounds which you can also hear on Conwae’s track. It works as a good bridging tune between the Spencer’s and Sandra’s tracks.

Andrew: I was a tiddly biddly unsure about my contribution, being on the ugly end of Kennedy’s scary carnival, coming late like a plastic horse locked in a blind stare for its life. I wanted to map out the tone to build some real lyrics upon, but only the skeleton worked.

‘Flight Through the Wave’ feat. Sandra Selig

Matt: This was another that I spent quite a long time on. Instrumentally I thought it was pretty strong by my standards, and Sandra’s vocals turned out so amazingly ethereal that I think it's one of the best on here.

Sandra: I guess I thought the track Matt sent me sounded quite epic in a kind of mechanical way. I got a strong sense of travelling through something. A mini sci-fi flick set in an outdated piece of machinery, hurtling towards the sun.

‘Progression Obsession’ feat. Conwae Burrell

Matt: This was one of the last tracks I recorded for the album. Conwae is a Brisbane music institution and I definitely wanted him on here, so I spent three hours recording this late into the night and then he came over the next day and did his vocals extremely quick and that was that.

Conwae: I was just playing with the idea of “progress” and how a lot of things are called progress and are in reality the opposite. Taking us into the dark ages and disconnecting us from true forward motion.

‘I Used to Live in Brisbane’ feat. Nicola Morton

Matt: One evening I drank quite a bit of wine and woke up in the morning with a hangover and this track. It had a Real Bad Music quality to it so I immediately thought of Nicola, who co-runs the Real Bad venue with Matt Earle. I travelled out to Real Bad in Moorooka and we recorded her vocals while people kept showing up around us to perform there that night. To me this song really embodies the Brisbane DIY community spirit; I am very happy with this one. The extended instrumental outro also makes for a nice album closer.

Nicola: It was a rainy afternoon in late winter and Matt Kennedy came over to record our song for Excess. He only brought one bottle of wine so we had to do it all in one take on his Boss pocket studio. Aliens are a form of social revolution.

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‘Escape From Brisbane’ is out now digitally and on cassette through Virtual Cool. It launches this Friday (Jan 16) at The Bearded Lady in Brisbane.