Ned Collette + Wirewalker
Over the Stones, Under the Stars
(Dot Dash)
“Lyrically despotic” is how Ned Collette has wryly described his songwriting on Over the Stones, Under the Stars. That’s certainly one way of putting it, albeit a little self-deprecating. There is no denying that Collette’s songs here are full of words. That words cover his compositions like paragraphs do the pages of a book. That Collette sometimes tells rather than shows, that the piling of details can sometimes find us bemused by his prolixity, our narrator veering from observation to observation, along a dark path we cannot always follow. And the paths he makes for us, needless to say, are many.
Nevertheless, if Collette has a tendency to plot out his songs in this convoluted way, we ought to be thankful that he is an adept, erudite and tasteful artist-despot. Far from some mess of opaque ideas and leaden songs, Over the Stones, Under the Stars is another excellent record from Collette. Here we find him skirting familiar territory without ever repeating any of his earlier work. The sound is tougher, darker, bleaker—but entirely accessible.
Since launching under his birth-name, with the spare and captivating Jokes & Trials album, Collette has gradually worked his way back to the full arrangements he favoured with his earlier band, City City City. That was the group that brought him to the attention of many in Melbourne's music scene; a concertina collective of five, twelve, whatever, people playing rock and “non-rock” instruments to “post-rock,” post-art-school effect. Yet it’s his penmanship and work ethic with the ex-City City City duo of Ben Bourke and Joe Talia (the unit now christened “Wirewalker”) that has cemented his place within the upper echelons of the national music scene. Collette, more than just being a reliable, dependable performer—which, after all, is something that could be claimed of any old busker (but certainly not a great many members of the Oz music scene - Ed)—is a songwriter and performer committed to expression via his music, to saying something, be it critical, heartfelt or angry.
That's a rarer virtue than it may seem. As he sings at one point here, it's the case today that someone “will probably just be ridiculed for trying to be sincere,” that real commitment is something we are taught to “fear”. This is central to the album and the weary worldview that has emerged across his solo work—a “not without a fight” approach to the modern world. The idea that we are living through a “golden age” recurs, usually in an ironic way. It's a slight at those who believe in progress at all cost; who believe in the idea that today must be better than yesterday because that’s the way we roll in the West—forwards to a brighter future. Many of the songs take the form of dialogues between characters, in which they pit ideas. They propose, conjecture, disagree. Yet they don't sound like set pieces—like parlour games of devil's advocacy—but an actual search for the right answer when we are confronted with so many wrong, misleading, hateful ones.
Over the Stones, then, is a record of searching discontent, but one that finds plenty of space for careful arrangements. Keyboards and synths blossom and bloom across the songs here, finding their way up through the crevices the trio leave in their playing. Collette's wiry voice is prominent and pushed to do new things, increasingly aided—and with subtlety—by bassist Bourke. These elements come together to excellent effect on the closer, 'One Evening, in the Middle of the Road'.
The tunes and the themes come together particularly well elsewhere too. 'All the Signs', for example, is a lilting rock-pop song whose breezy musical air belies serious lyrical intent. We find Collette on the topical subject of trouble in universities and education. The university today, as it has been in the past, is a site of antagonism, where different values struggle for priority, a broader view of education losing out—again—today to the exigencies of the economy: “They just call us clients now / and everything we learn is somehow dead,” he sings, and “learning isn’t learning at all / if it’s just to earn.” Protesters at VCA—Collette's alma mater—and other sites of student occupation this year (California, New York, Vienna, Glasgow, Zagreb, London, Nottingham, Berlin) could adopt it as a rallying call. Or at least the first verses. As with the rest of Over the Stones, it's a compressed song, both technically and thematically. Lyrically, beyond the problem of the university today, we get reflections on suffering, souls, copying ideas from books, the golden age again, the devil's skin and progress. Musically, the mix has to fit in distorted, Spanish-influenced guitar, fat '70s drums, see-saw bass, vocals and a high organ whirl. Plus a filthy guitar solo.
In the past, Collette has rarely stayed still for long, diverting down melodic sidestreets and narrative byways. Which is why a couple of straightforward, straight-driving songs surprise here. First single 'Come Clean' sounds particularly fresh for him. A blocky, chunky beast, there's a classic rock feel to it that has rarely been so explicit in his work. I hear AC/DC in it, even though it's a far more supple and welcoming thing than they would ever craft. It's practically a standard—a solid, disciplined rock song with blues at its core. These classic moves emerge again in 'Polly Angel', as fragile finger-picked chords and gossamer notes spin in the air, building the tension, until they are blown to the wind by a big guitar hook in the chorus.
Ned Collette and Wirewalker want to show you a good time, but they don't want to treat you like an idiot to get there. Hooks, guitar solos and other good things about rock'n'roll exist in the same space as searing critiques of our modern world, hope with exhaustion, angst with belief, fear with relief. In short, we are all fucked—but the best songs are saved for funerals.
Ben Gook