Articles

Lyndon Blue

BRIGHTBLACK MORNING LIGHT, SUNDAY APRIL 11 @ MOJO'S BAR

April 14

So I’m sitting there, minding my own beeswax-candlestick, amidst the tents-and-trees expanse of Fairbridge farm, in a sun-warmed, pollen-mottled cloud of red dust, tea-steam and pungent mystery-smoke – when all of a Sunday the disembodied face of Nathan Shineywater, ethereal founding member of Brightblack Morning Light, materializes before the now-flummoxed countenance of yours truly. Shineywater tells me to chill, he’s just practicing his astral projection, and that he’s got a gang of hep cats in tow and they’re off on an adventure. Being partial to adventures, I decide to join in.

So we’re soaring over a bottle-blue ocean when I spot a familiar vessel bobbing amidst the languid waves. Why, that’s the HMAS CRAIG MCELHINNEY – but what’s this? The usually lone ship is now flanked by two other barques – the SS Chris Hudson (typically of The Tigers fleet) and the Matt Macguire Ferry, which sails between the Adamsaidgalore armada and the Schvendes flotilla.
From the triple-threat squadron rings a dark and vigorous tune. This fresh sound is in some ways at odds with what one might have come to associate with Craig McElhinney; here it is more groove-based than textural, more tautly structured – on account of requiring synchronicity with two other individuals – than dreamily nebulous. And whereby you might normally be induced into a hazy, beatific trance, you’re now inclined to move, indeed to ‘rock out.’ All the same, it’s still detectably Craig – atmospheric, cinematic, evocative (at one point I’m instilled with a vivid image of a Cambodian marketplace at dawn), punctuated by steep dynamic swells and dives, drones and tense tremolos marking shifts in mood and intensity. What’s the opposite of emasculating? Masculating? Whatever, this set is it: the fierce and hearty post-rock, toughened by a deft rhythm section, is reminiscent in its mythic power of Grails or even Pelican – it chugs along with the virile force of a Viking longship, and makes you feel like a Viking, too.

Entirely unlike a Viking is the Jerboa-esque RIO EN MEDIO – Danielle Stech-Homsy’s pseudonym translating to ‘river in between’ and thus befitting her central position on the bill, and the gently flowing nature of her performance. Her sun-bleached blonde tresses, sat a head above a multicoloured poncho, give the impression of a golden haystack perched on a pyramid of jellybeans. The set begins with Danielle’s baritone ukelele, played minimally but intelligently, her songs clearly ‘composed’ rather than merely ‘written.’ Submerged tastefully in a beaker of slapback delay, her vocals glide like weary-eyed sparrows over a frosty creek, its reverberations forming a spectral third instrument that swirls about the musical space. Artful, earnest but never naïve folk, it’s redolent of Vashti Bunyan, particularly her 2005 effort ‘Lookaftering’ – and on the back of Rio En Medio’s stellar performance, I promptly purchase her album, ‘The Bride of Dynamite,’ the sort of impulsive luxury I afford myself with increasing rarity of late.

Now Shineywater dips from the astral plane, streaking towards a vintage organ and electric guitar located in the tangible realm. Stech-Homsy jumps behind the helm of another aged keyboard whilst drummer Cannupa sits at the ready. Carefree New-Mexicans BRIGHTBLACK MORNING LIGHT set off perhaps messier than I’d hoped, having primed myself more for the crisp, dewy Rhodes-funk chill-jams of their self-titled album than for loose bubbling mindfuck; but soon, lost in a torrent of gooey analog synth and rhythmic mantra, I lovingly embrace the semi-chaos. Canuppa seems the most lucid of the three and generally maintains a steady if unconventional beat, while Shineywater and Stech-Homsy slide by way of conjoined consciousness into sauntering psych-riffs which are repeated mesmerically before dissolving into noisy intermissions of sparkly sludge and wafting cymbal froth. The imprint of the preceding groove sits firmly in your mind, like the impression of intense light on the retina after its extinguishment; until a new jam takes its place, perhaps to be lightly splashed by the more-reverb-than-actual-vocals-vocals of Shineywater. Their set, though not especially brief, leaves us with an undeniable hankering – loudly expressed – and after an uncertain wait, they return (now with the addition of McElhinney) to perform a magical encore that proves the highlight of their performance. The music of Brightblack Morning Light (or, henceforth, Berry Shadows, a name-change/new project imminent) seems to emerge from a deeply personal, spiritual and organic place, drawn from a well of emotion and not, as one might suppose at a glance, any kind of hippy pastiche. At the same time, it spurs a feeling of connection and collectivity, a sense that we’re all one big stardust-and-carbon family under the sun, dancing fleetingly but joyously around the teepee of time, drinking deeply the potion of wonder – and toking with a twinkling grin on the luminous peace-pipe of life.