Steve Kilbey - "Earthed" (1988)

A Markus 17-18 years old. A cool cover. A cheap price. The combination was irresistible. So once again I got home with a record that I had no idea what it was, didn't know the artist but with a cover that aroused both the imagination and curiosity. What a great way to broaden one's horizons.

Surprise # 1. When I took out the disc itself, I noticed it wasn't black. It was transparent. Cool.

Writing posts like these increases my wisdom. Now I know that the big mystery Steve Kelbey is an Australian who was / is the singer and bassist in the band The Church, a band that is not completely unknown. This is one of his solo albums, a creation which is rather interesting. There are quite a big number of instrumental tracks that in most cases are admirably short. It's difficult to define the music, perhaps art rock is suitable. The album could be a soundtrack or music to a somewhat heavy theatre piece. Sometimes instrumental songs like these tend to get little bit boring in the long run, therefore my opinion that they are admirably short. You never have the time to grow tired on them.

It's pretty funny and interesting little pieces of music which in many cases are quite catchy. As I understand it, Steve plays all the instruments himself, the drums are, however, played by a drum machine. The 80s and drum machines are often a bad combination, but on Earthed it's tolerable. Apparently, it initially was a book of poems with the record, poems written by Steve. These was to be read with the music. I guess the man has many talents.

Surprise # 2. When you flip the side and start playing the first track, you hear a number of voices speaking. One of these, a female one, speaks Swedish!

I was somewhat shocked the first time I heard this. I hade come home with one, in my view, extremely obscure record that was a big enigma. And on this mysterious thing someone spoke Swedish. This was completely incomprehensible. If you look closely on the cover it says that all songs are written by Steve except one, which is written by K. Jansson. This should have given me a clue.Thanks to the internet I now know that Steve's ex-wife is called Karin Jansson, you have to look for a more Swedish sounding name than that and that is surely the explanation for this mystery. What she expresses in the song may be described as a pretty profound poem which content is too subtle for me to understand. I may add that the song with her voice is not the one she has written.

In my teens I was pleased to have this record since I found it both mysterious and obscure, the kind of record that transforms you into an interesting person. I played it once in a while but the last 20 years it has been untouched in my shelf. It was fun to revisit it. Now I might become an interesting person again.

Tracklist

Side A

1. The Dawn Poems 2:57

2. Neuman 2:51

3. Dreambeings 0:41

4. The White Plague 2:41

5. A Loveletter From Sydney 2:07

6. Carthage 4:14

7. City Of Women 1:06

8. Hotel 1:06

9. The Empire Mourns Her Sun Without Tears 1:11

10. Cornucopia 1:58

Side B

1. Memory 5:24

2. Aphrodite 3:10

3. ...The Reality Generators Malfunctioned 1:45

4. Napoleon's Army, Christmas Eve, Outside Moscow 2:41

5. Sad Little Piano Piece 1:02

6. Atlantis 3:13

7. Pan 0:30

8. The Woman Who Was Married To Love 3:06

9. Agog 1:22

10. Earthed 3:51