The Frightening Lights

The European-steeped debut album from Melbourne duo The Frightening Lights benefits from a fascinating mystique, writes BARNABY SMITH.

[Historical image is withheld pending rights review.] Anyone who has visited the expansive Pere Lachaise cemetery in Paris may know that such is the flood of tourists through the place that a few moments of contemplative repose at the grave of, say, Chopin, or indeed the notably humdrum monument to Marcel Proust, is nigh on impossible. Because of the constant flow of those who make the pilgrimage and end up feeling a bit stupid gawking at the grave of Jim Morrison (a shrine surrounded by whiskey bottles, lighters and sheets of questionable poetry) or the rather garish tomb of Oscar Wilde, Pere Lachaise is a place that has generally lost any mystique it may have once had.

‘Pere Lachaise’ is also the name of the first song on this remarkable LP from The Frightening Lights, a duo who have managed the unlikely trick of maintaining an alluring degree of mystique amid a music community governed by transparency, openness, unnecessary detail and a saturation of information.

That is not to say there is any special mystery. It’s not as if we don’t know who they are: they are Elizabeth Downey and Dan Hawkins of Melbourne. But there is no official website, no Facebook or Twitter; all that has been exposed by the pair boils down to this moody debut album, a record that in its brooding, hushed, rather surreal mania runs the gauntlet between beautiful and disturbing on nearly every track, to quite stunning effect.

‘Pere Lachaise’, opening with a heavily echoed chime of piano and continuing with a devastating and eerie sustained violin line, actually does its best to mythologise the cemetery (apparently inspired by Downey’s stroll through the illustrious dead one day whilst stricken with pneumonia) and, within the context of this moving song, succeeds. The track offers an accurate indication of what is to come: songs that at their core rely on no more than repeated down-strums on classical guitars, and most importantly, Downey’s striking vocals. Her unhurried, sultry delivery puts in mind a slightly less smoky Marianne Faithful or a slightly more depressed Melanie, while it is difficult to ignore the obvious point of comparison that is Hope Sandoval.

“Even fairly simple organ seems like a dramatic statement in these skeletal surroundings.”

‘Small Town Stardust’ is more beautiful, even more whispered by Downey and made woozy by its miasma of minor chords. That is, until Hawkins fabulously interrupts with a distorted descending guitar line. This trick is repeated even more jarringly on the record’s final track, ‘Pretty Thing’, with these noisy flourishes of energy given extra emphasis by the absence of any percussion whatsoever – even the fairly simple organ on ‘Window’ seems like a shudderingly dramatic statement in these skeletal instrumental surroundings.

The slowness of songs such as ‘All the Girls’ and ‘The Return of Genghis Khan’, in combination with their nakedness, has vague intimations of Tim Buckley on his Lorca and Starsailor albums, even if Frightening Lights are not nearly as weird. That suggests a certain jazz influence on this album, and indeed at times it does evoke Parisian cellar clubs during the Vichy period, or perhaps Edith Piaf (buried, as it happens, in Pere Lachaise).

And this exposes one possible minor issue with The Frightening Lights: the fact that two Melbourne natives have created an album that, however excellent, is pretty much 100% European, heavily indebted to the French chanson tradition as well as influenced by the folk music of Russia and Poland. Granted, both Downey and Hawkins have spent large chunks of time in both Western and Eastern Europe (they are also on a French label in Bruit Direct Disques), but there is no real shred of anything we might regard as “Australian” here – which is no impediment to enjoying such a majestic collection of songs and will be justifiably irrelevant to many, but one can’t help wonder what a marriage of this dark aesthetic with something more locally inspired would sound like. (It would, for sure, not be along the lines of Nick Cave, who may immediately spring to mind when considering such a thing.)

Also worth mentioning is that Downey’s lyrics are for the most part quite difficult to understand, her preference understandably being to prioritise drawl and inflection and thus atmosphere. Her singing, aided by some pleasantly nasal tones, is breathtaking from first second to last, yet there is surely some intriguing imagery beneath the haze. On the other hand, it is just this ambiguity and uncertain mood that gives the album its immense power, and its fascinating mystique.

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‘The Frightening Lights’ is out now on vinyl through Bruit Direct Disques.