Where Does Fear Go
Newcastle's Purplene have just released their self-titled LP on vinyl for the first time. The band asked me to pen a few liner notes about the album for the release.
Infinity on Purgatory Island is a bloody long time and five albums isn't nearly enough.
But they're the rules, and because we're all good lil' servient pods, clones of customary practices, society-deemed correct behaviour etc, we oblige, list a selection of long-players that are significant, but more substantially, in some relatively obvious way, serve as a reflection of our own personality, not just our own understanding of 'art' (or specifically, 'good art') but also our character, at least the public-listed version of which.
Then, what does it say about me, the centre of this universe, author of this paragraph, that this one - the self-titled release from Newcastle-via-Albini band, Purplene - is a locked-in, sure thing in such a list, long distances ahead of Led Zeppelin's 1, 2 and 3, 1999 and all other critic-cliqued suggestions, both numeric and non? Am I just an edgelord pig-nose saluting his Corporate Rock employee; a barstool-moulding relic of a Sydney era full of Hopetoun (and cheap speed); a self-described snob saying, all straight-faced and smug, that "it's the notes they don't play that make all the difference"?
Maybe, yes and sure, but, more significant for this course, an evaluator of the question itself, highlighting the fact there's no requirement to list a definitive collection of humankind's best efforts, those audible creations worthy of being blasted into space, rocket-strapped in the direction of far superior life-forms, less stumped on such unimportant questions.
Instead, the Q here simply calls for suggestions of the perfect soundtrack to a perfect forever in perfect isolation. Such serenity perfectly suited for an album like this then, where undershared lyrics - boldly-claimed, half-sentenced and almost exclusively delivered as pulpit proclamations of life-altering significance - hold our hand on mind-wanders far afield; where instrumentation bends time 'n' space like black-holes, such that one stretched piece is both widespanning and shrinkable to punchy aggression, galloping and settling into a near-stagnant jog, perspective-dependent; and, most significantly, everything is shiftable, an all-customisable, choose-your-own-bloody-adventure reality where how deep we dive into depression, how tightly we wrap ourselves in the joyous warmth, what we slice into those elongated pauses - that is all our own making. A mirror of our mood, or likely, given the scientifically-proven effects of solitary confinement, our own mental state.
And for such a descent into obsession-driven madness, I couldn't wish for a better companion.
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Purplene's LP launch tour heads to Sydney this Friday, May 25th.